//------------------------------// // When the Stars Disappear // Story: Broken Feathers: Desert Storm // by That Avi Nerd //------------------------------// Why are you just standing there? Fear gave way to reaction as Phantom's wings snapped open, allowing him to shoot straight up, leaving behind a cloud of sand that streaked up after him. Phantom flared his wings to bring his rapid ascent to a hover. he turned around, fully prepared to fight in any way against the black wall cloud that was waiting behind him. Only there wasn't one. The skies were perfectly clear; not even a white, puffy, pegasus made cloud was to be seen. A series of noises caught the attention of his hears. Recognizing it as laughter, he looked down. Both Lyra and Minuette were rolling on their backs in the sand, completely unable to control themselves. Bearing a deadpan look, Phantom made the slow descent towards them. "You should have seen your face!" Lyra managed to sputter out. "Oh Celestia that was priceless!" "Care to explain the joke?" Phantom was fuming. The two mares managed to control themselves just long enough to tell him. "That wasn't the storm you felt wrapping around your leg," Lyra wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "It was a snake!" Minuette pointed at the sand next to the stallion before she and Lyra broke down into another fit of laughter. Phantom glanced over to where she had indicated. There, a long, black snake slithered up to his left hoof, rubbing against it as it it were an affectionate cat. The snake lifted its head at him, and appeared to smile. Phantom squinted his eyes, growling, baring his teeth. With a flick of his hoof, the snake was sent flying over the opposite side of the dune. His action only seemed to exasperated the mares' laughter. "I'll leave you two behind..." Phantom grumbled. "Okay, okay," Minuette stood up, trying to calm herself down, "we'll stop." She went over to Lyra and extended a hoof to help her friend stand up. Both mares shook the sand off of their coats. "I'm sorry," Lyra apologized as the trio continued onwards back to Dodge Junction. "It's just that this big bad guard who's supposed to be protecting the desert was scared senseless by a tiny little snake." "You would have reacted the same way," Phantom countered. "In fact, isn't that how you did react?" Lyra physically recoiled at his words. Seeing the pained look in her eyes, he tried to set things straight. "Sorry... That was too far. I—" "It's alright. You didn't mean it like that. Let's... Let's just go." Phantom nodded and continued to lead the two other ponies out of the desert, following their original tracks. An hour and several rest stops passed in silence before somepony broke down with boredom. "I spy with my little eye..." Minuette led on, restarting the same game she had attempted to get the others to play along with on the first trio, "something... tan." "Sand," Phantom and Lyra replied in unison. "Dang! You two are too good at this. Umm... I spy with my little eye... something... blue!" "The sky." "Dang. How'd you know?" "You've been picking the same colors the entire time: Tan, sand; blue, the sky. On top of that, you haven't been picking anypony specifically," Lyra explained. "Oh..." Minuette lowered her head for a moment. Then, an idea came to mind that made it perk right back up. "I spy with my little eye... something... green!" "Me." "What? Ju-How?" "I'm the only thing that's green... We're in a desert..." "Grr. I spy with my little eye, something dark blue!" Phantom craned his neck around to look at her, continuing to walk forward. Her goofy smile didn't falter, waiting for him to guess. "Seriously? he asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Do I really have to?" She nodded furiously. "Ugh... Me." Minuette's smile disappeared, her face turning to an expression of annoyance. "I don't like you anymore..." Phantom rolled his eyes, turning his attention forward. Several minutes of peaceful silenced past before... "I spy with my little eye, something blue!" "Minuette..." The other two sighed. "Hey! How'd you know?" Lyra opened her mouth to explain, but gave up almost instantly. "Nevermind." Several hours later, the ponies arrived back in Appleloosa, feeling as though their trip had been an utter waste. Bon Bon was still missing, along with everypony else, and Phantom was no closer to understanding the Caligo phenomenon. "I'm beginning to think that it was a mistake coming back here..." Phantom lamented as he and the two other mares stepped inside the clock tower office. He set his hat on the hanger by the door, unzipped the front of his vest and threw himself into a chair while letting out a relieved sigh. Lyra merely sat down at a nearby desk, burying her head in her hooves. Minuette whispered what Phantom assumed was a comforting series of words to her before slowly pacing across the room. "She was probably bluffing in order to get us to leave," Minuette surmised. Phantom nodded. On the train ride back, his eyes had been glued to the skies. Nothing had appeared out of place. There were no changes in air pressure that he could sense. For being an unfamiliar desert, everything seemed to be normal as far as he could tell. "Or throwing us off the train because she's in on it," Lyra prompted with a muffled voice. "Now we can't just go suspecting everypony, Lyra. It's not reasonable." "But still wise," Phantom chimed in. "Once you stop suspecting somepony, then you'll start missing evidence that they leave behind. "So you think we did this?" Lyra asked, picking her head up, looking as though she had been offended. Which she had. "No," Phantom stood up, "but I leave it as a possibility." "What if we think you are behind this?" "Then that is your choice. However, you will find no evidence to support your suspicion." "What do we do now?" Minuette spoke up after a brief silence. Wait for a storm that isn't coming?" To this, Phantom shrugged. "I won't ask you two to turn around and make another train ride out there, so I guess we'll stay here fore the night." "Okay. That'll give us, well probably you, time to come up with a plan." "I already have one. Two, actually." "And..." the two mares drew out. "Head out tomorrow and find the Buffalo tribe. If they really do know more about Caligo than any pony, then they'll be of great help." "Assuming they're even willing to help," Lyra said. "Correct. Secondly, I want to put myself in the path of this storm. When it strikes, I'll follow it back to where ever it goes as far and long as I can." "Assuming you're not one of the ponies it takes." "Also correct. Then again, if it does take me, I guess my plan worked better than I expect." The bells high in the tower rang out across the desert, signalling the arrival of six pm. With it being supper time, the ponies were ready for some food. Phantom sat at the table with a stack of documents that he had had retrieved from his bags. They were incident reports that had been filed by local law officials. Witness statements. Missing pony reports. Photographs of the scenes. Anything that was available to him to get his hooves on when he got the assignment. Lyra sat across from him, watching what he did intently. When Phantom opened up a new file, the first thing that was visible was the cut out front page of a news paper story detailing what had happened at Dodge Junction. Seeing this, Lyra perked up. Phantom watched her in the field of his vision. he closed the cover on the folder and moved onto the next, one that was a report taken by a fellow Royal Guard about a month ago detailing the disappearance of a rancher and his family out in the desert. Not too long after, Minuette came back from the kitchen with their supper. Quickly, it was devoured by the ponies. What followed was Minuette and Lyra sitting idly by as Phantom continued through the rest of the files. To quell their interest, he allowed them to look through what he had already read. As time went on, and darkness fell, Phantom read the last one, alone, under the only shining light in the building. Everypony in town had gone to bed. Minuette disappeared while Lyra had passed out on the couch in the main lobby. With the file finally shut and stacked with the rest, Phantom stood up, shutting off the light. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Once they did, he proceeded to head for the clock tower stairs. Instead of flying up the shaft to the loft at the top, Phantom stopped to face a door that was about halfway up. Curious as to what was on the other side, the pegasus warily approached, landing on a small platform just before it. To his surprise, it was unlocked. Despite this, cob webs were surrounding the lock. It took a few tries and some power, but he managed to push the door open on its stiff hinges with his shoulder. Phantom was greeted by the cold desert air on the other side. One thing that he could never understand was how someplace that was so hot during the day, seemed so cold during the night. Though there was one thing, and one thing only, that he enjoyed deserts for: the night skies. Millions, perhaps billions of stars were open to his gaze. Stars that he couldn't see in the cities because of light pollution. Even Cloudsdale offered a sub-par view of them. In the forests, trees got in the way. In the grassy plains, there was always some settlement in the distance it seemed that put off light. The mountains were an okay alternative, but usually you're so high that instead of seeing the lights from one town, you'd see them from multiple towns. The only place that Phantom enjoyed star gazing from more than the desert was the northern tundras beyond Vanhoover. Someponies would argue that the aurora borealis would get in the way, but Phantom thought that they only added to the beauty. The northern lights, as they were more commonly called, would shine brightly in his vision, lighting the snowy canvass below them with their blues, greens, and purples. Backlit by the brightest stars he had ever seen, constellations and galaxies whose names he had long since forgotten, only added to the display. They were something that captivated him ever since he first saw them as a young foal in Cloudsdale one night on a rare occurance that their colorful arms reached that far south. If that night sky wasn't an option to him, then the one he was looking at now would be an immediate second. A tight-knit cluster of dim stars stretched across the sky above. Even though it wasn't as bright as it would have been up north, it still awed him to think that this was the galaxy he lived in. If he paid attention to only the crisp air and the stars, then he could easily imagine he was in a snowy tundra. Except he wasn't. He was in the middle of a desert. On a mission with unknown danger. A threat that lurked beyond every horizon. And there was sand in his feathers. Gah! I hate sand! Phantom fell back onto his haunches, awkwardly containing himself so that his head was able to reach his extended left wing. Grains of sand had mate its way deep into his feathers and were now causing an incredibly annoying itch. He gnawed at the affected spots. Small groups of sand fell him his dark feathers onto the roof. This is what I get for having feathers, eh? Relief was finally brought to his left wing as the final bits of sand fell from his left wing. Now all that was left was the tedious process of reorganizing his feathers so that they retained aerodynamic efficiency. During the process, Phantom bent as far over as he could with his neck and head so that he could reach a water-proof chemical producing gland at the base of his wing. Trying to get to the gland put him at such an awkward angle that he nearly fell over several times. It took several minutes for the process to be completed. Once it was, Phantom sat back up right, wiping the excess water-proofing chemical off of his mouth onto his arm. Then his right wing started to itch. Phantom outstretched his right wing in order to repeat the previous process. Midway through preening his feathers after finally digging the sand out of them, a noise caused his ears to perk up. Phantom froze in his awkward position, waiting to hear the sound again. After a few seconds he happened to look up. Minuette stood in the doorway with her head tilted to the side and quirked an eyebrow. With his head still practically buried in his wing, Phantom remained motionless as he stared back at her. "Hey?" Minuette hesitantly said, shifting her stance. "Uh," Phantom wasn't quite sure on what to do. He hadn't expected anypony to follow him up there. And how long has she even been there before he noticed her? "Hey..." "So... what's up?" "Oh you know. Just... Just preening my feathers. Sand got in them." "I can see. What now?" Phantom could tell that this was just as awkward for her as it was for him. "This is the part were you leave for a moment." "Maybe I could—" "Now." "Okay, okay." Minuette quickly retreated back into the clock tower. Phantom put his feathers back into place, making sure that they were aerodynamically correct. Then he applied a small layer of water-proofing to them. Not like there's much of a need for this here anyway. Wiping away the excess, Phantom called for Minuette, who he could hear shuffling around behind the door. "You're good now," he said. Straightening himself up and putting his wings flush against his body, Phantom watched as the door knob turned, preceding Minuette's emergence. "Sorry you saw that," he continued. "It's my fault for sneaking up on you in the first place," she replied, walking up beside him. "I take it that that wasn't something for my eyes then, huh?" "Nothing against you, but no. For the most part pegasi don't like having other ponies around them when they preen. Unless it's someone close to them. Preening leaves us vulnerable to predators, or at least it did when we had predators. Normally I would have done it on a cloud, but..." the two ponies looked around the cloudless sky, "yeah..." "Well again, I'm sorry. Haven't really been around pegasi much." "It's understandable. We don't like discussing our preening or molting cycles much." "You molt, too?" "We have feathers, so yeah." "What's it like?" "A word of advise: Don't be around a pegasus when they're molting. They can't fly, so odds are they'll be in a terrible mood." "Ah. So when's the next time you'll—" "I don't want to talk about this anymore." "Okay, okay!" The pair sat on the roof for a few silent moments, both with their eyes on the sky. "I would watch them all the time as a foal too, you know," Minuette said. Phantom tilted his head towards her, giving her a questioning look. "That look in your eye is the same I had," she explained. Phantom nodded, clearly lost in memory. Leaving it at that, Minuette redirected her focus at the night sky. A sudden cold chill raised the hairs on her back and she started to shiver. Phantom noticed through the corner of his eye. Home come I always end up doing this? He extended his right wing, draping it over Minuette's back. "Thanks," she said as he pulled her in closer. Warmth surrounded her as she was nearly engulfed in feathers. Her felt heavy as a result of an increase in melatonin. Feeling as if her arms were about to give out from under her, she leaded against Phantom for support. An action she didn't realize caused him a fair amount of discomfort. "So, you do this for all the mares?" She's making it worse... he sighed to himself. "Just the ones that get cold." That was so lame... "Why aren't you cold?" "I have feathers, remember?" "Oh yeah..." "Believe me, it can get pretty cold at high altitudes." "I'll bet." Minuette waited a bit before her next question. "So is there another mare?" "It's sort-of complicated, so I'll leave it at that." "Fair enough." Feeling as though she overstepped her boundaries, Minuette immediately backed off. Her attention quickly went back to the stars. Some of which had apparently disappeared while her focus was elsewhere. Interestingly enough, they were all in the same part of the sky, along the edges of the clock tower. If she hadn't looked that far backwards, then she wouldn't have noticed it at all. Slowly, more stars began to fade away. "You seeing that?" "Seeing what?" "The stars blacking out." "What?" "Look!" She broke out of the feather-y cocoon and grabbed onto Phantom's head with both hooves, directing his gaze at the anomaly. "Well I guess they could be clouds..." Phantom reasoned. As if the gods themselves were trying to prove him wrong, a streak of blue lightning zipped along the belly of the darkness, illuminating the blackest clouds Phantom had ever seen. The hearts of both ponies dropped simultaneously. A small crackle of thunder reverberated throughout the desert. Electricity permeated through the air, raising the hairs on the backs of everypony's neck. "Everypony's inside," Phantom reassured Minuette. "They'll be safe there." On cue, a second bolt of electricity reached from the clouds and struck between the two ponies and the clock tower, creating a pony-sized hole of chard wood that led to the lobby. "Or maybe not as safe as I had hoped." Black tendrils of cloud wrapped themselves around the clock tower, covering the door and blocking their primary means of escape. The tendrils buzzed like the electrical power lines of bigger cities, slithering slowly towards Phantom and Minuette. "Now where do we go?" Minuette asked, taking a few steps back so that Phantom was in front of her. Phantom looked around. Aided by the moon light, he could see that more tendrils were slithering there way along adjacent streets and buildings. Not going that way, then, he cursed to himself. Blue sparks leaping across the tendrils in front of him reminded him that he needed to hurry. "This way!" "Which way—AAY!" before her question was completed, Phantom reached back and grabbed hold of her, pushing her forward and down the recently created hole in the roof, following quickly behind her. The tendrils reacted to the rapid movement, striking fast. The missed by only a few inches, leaving behind black scortch marks on the roofing. Minuette and Phantom landed on top of one another in a pile of blue on top of the kitched table, breaking it in half. "I think there are splinters in my back," Minuette groaned, having taken the brung of the impact. "We need to keep moving," Phantom urged, scrambling to get off of the unicorn. Above them, the tendrils were ripping away at the roof so that even more tendrils could fit into the building. "What the hay is going on in here?" Lyra stepped into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Once her vision was cleared, she saw what was breaking into the building. "Horse apples..." Phantom helped Minuette onto her hooves, pulling her beside him as he ran over to Lyra. "I thought that they couldn't get inside," Minuette said. "Apparently it's evolving," Phantom replied. "Come on, we need to get the buck out of here." He ran towards the door, not bothering to take the time to unlock, or to even check to see if the door was already unlocked, and broke through it with his shoulder. Minuette and Lyra were following close behind him. The trio found themselves standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by tendrils. "Grab on!" Phantom ordered the two mares. He flared his wings and held out his arms for them to grab onto. Giving several powerful flaps, a cloud of dust was kicked up around them. It took all his effort, but Phantom was finally able to gain some altitude, rising above the slithering black tendrils. Phantom strained to lift the pair to the same height as the roofs around them. "Behind you!" Minuette warned. Phantom looked over his shoulder just in time to see the main cloud approaching him. It lashed out with another streak of blue lightning, seeming to try to knock him out of the sky. He banked to the left, tucking his right wing in so that the bolt would miss it. With only his left wing providing lift, he nearly rolled completely to the right before he managed to extend his other wing and stabilize himself. Though he inadvertently sent himself on a collision course with the nearby saloon. Phantom turned as hard to the left as he could, practically throwing the two mares to the side. Where they landed in the sand between the saloon and another building, Phantom clipped the side of the saloon with his wing. He spiraled out of control, creating a trench in the sand where he landed next to the mares. "Phantom!" Lyra sat, watching the crash. She picked herself up from the sand and ran over towards his limp form on the ground. With Minuette arriving shortly after she did, the two mares worked to help him up. "I'm okay," Phantom mumbled in his daze. "I swear that I'm okay." He took one glance at the wing that struck the building. His right one, covered in splinters that dribbled blood at their puncture points. The same one that I broke last time, too, he sighed. "That's gonna hurt later on." A scream captured the attention of the three ponies in the alley. They each turned to look in the street. The storm had pushed further into the town, its tendrils breaking past doors and windows to gain entry into shops and homes where ponies had been hiding. One of the tendrils had found its mark, a brown earth pony mare being dragged across the sand, clawing at anything she could in order to keep from being dragged further back. She was only feet away from the cloud's edge. Phantom leapt into action, planting his hooves in the ground and flaring his wings. He flapped them once after leaning back and pushing himself forward, giving himself a powerful takeoff. A trail of sand followed him in the air as his hooves skimmed along the ground, not bothering to waste any of his momentum on gaining altitude. The short distance was covered in hardly any time at all. He turned his wings so that they were perpendicular to the ground, bringing him to an almost immediate halt behind the mare. Phantom landed on top of the black tendril, bucking it furiously. A high pitched screech accompanied the tendril letting go of the mare's leg, with it apparently writhing in pain back and forth. Not allowing the tendril a chance to grab onto the mare again, or him, Phantom picked her up, flying her over to the other end of the street. Ignoring her thanks he set back out for the alley where he left Minuette and Lyra behind. Arriving, both of them where gone. A series of drag marks started midway down the alley and trailed out to the center of the street where the storm had now advanced over. Its black walls blocked off the alley's entrance, leaving him with only two directions of escape. Turning around to run out the back exit to the alley, Phantom discovered that it too was blocked by a cloud. He looked up in the hopes that he wasn't completely surrounded in the trap. To his luck, the skies were clear for now. He took advantage of the opening and quickly flew up and out of the alley, rolling onto his back and pulling himself towards the train station on the opposite side of town as the storm. It seemed like other ponies had the same idea and were taking cover there as well. They were huddling in the offices, boarding up the windows with anything they could find. Phantom was nearly dragged inside by them when he landed in front of the door. He looked around them room. Most mares were together, holding the foals, as far from the windows as they could get; while the stallions took up arms with what ever make-shift weapons that they could get their hooves on. Most of them had an expression of fear, while others were too shocked to show any emotion. The foals trembled in their parents' arms. If he were to guess, Phantom would say that this was less than half of the town's population. "How many are missing so far?" Phantom dared to ask, not necessarily wanting to hear the answer. "This is everypony..." one of the stallions said with a steady voice. A sheriff's deputy, if his badge was anything to tell by. "The town has been nearly covered by now," another stallion said. "I don't know how anypony else will escape." "And how will we escape?" a mare asked nervously. "We've cornered ourselves in here." "We'll figure something out," Phantom reassured them. "This storm has to have a weakness. Every storm does. Has anypony here made it through one of these attacks before?" Everypony hesitantly looked around, shifting about. Well there goes that chance for help... Phantom resigned to himself, bowing his head. It perked back up when he heard a mare's voice say, "I have." From within the crowd of mares, a white unicorn stepped out, pushing her red mane to the side to reveal her face better. "I made it through the one in Dodge Junction." "Doctor Heartstrong?" Phantom walked towards her. "What... what are you doing here? Never mind. The storm. Do you remember what triggered it to leave?" "Sorry... I wish I could be of more help. It just kind-of... left." "On its own accord?" "It looked that way to me. I watched it from a dune outside of town. One moment it was going through town, taking anypony who was unfortunate enough to be out in the open, the next it stopped and turned back the way it came. Dunno why... it just did." "Hm. As morbid as it sounds, maybe it had consumed as many ponies as it could..." "Sorry to break your train of thought," the sheriff's deputy said, "but somepony's still out there. A filly, too." All the stallions, and Doctor Heartstrong, rushed to the window to look. Out in the center of the street, nearly surrounded on all sides by approaching tendrils, an orange coated filly with a brown mane stood. Both Heartstrong's and Phantom's eyes went wide as they looked at one another, mouthing the same name, "Quill..." Phantom bolted out the still open door of the lobby, turning so sharply that the tip of his left wing drew lines in the sand. He propelled himself towards the filly at a great speed. Within seconds he was upon her, skidding to a halt by her side. "Quill!" he yelled over the thunder emanating from the approaching clouds. She had curled up in the fetal position, covering her head with her hooves to try to keep herself safe. "Phantom?" she gasped, peaking through her arms. "Why are you here?" "I should be asking you the same question," he scooped Quill up in his own arms, carrying her with him into the sky. "Doctor Heartstrong was taking me to some family of hers in Ponyville so I'd be safe," Quill paused her explanation so that she could focus on hanging onto the pegasus as he roller-coastered his way around the enclosing clouds. Miraculously they weren't hit by any bolts of lightning or lunging tendrils, despite several close calls. She dared not open her eyes, and Phantom didn't blame her; they were flying through a horizontal vortex that was spinning around them, lighting arcing from one side to another. Phantom had to bob and weave to avoid being hit. "The train broke down so we were stuck at the platform. I wanted to walk around a bit, but the storm came... You said that the storm wouldn't hurt me; that you'd protect me. You promised!" "And I keep my promises." Phantom held the filly as close to his chest as possible. He banked to the side, managing to escape the cloud mass through a crack in its surface. Phantom found himself high above Appleloosa, disorientated by the storm. A low growling-like sound emanated from behind him. He turned to see several large tendrils hovering behind him. Phantom and the tendrils seemed to stare at one another for a moment before either side moved. He tucked his wings in and let gravity take over. The invisible force pulled him downwards as he fell onto his back. Phantom watched as a cyclone formed above him. He held Quill's head close to his chest so she wouldn't be able to see the black clouds that were surrounding them. Craning his neck around so that he could see where he was falling, Phantom saw a large cloud column rising up to him, reaching out of the primary cloud mass. A bowl began to form in the top of the pillar, as if a mouth were opening up to swallow him. He could feel Quill grabbing onto him with even more force. Despite his efforts to prevent it, she had apparently seen the same thing that he was looking at. "Phantom," Quill's voice was shaking, "I'm scared." "I am too, kid," he said. There was no where for the pegasus to go; they were completely surrounded now. "I am too..." "What do we do?" "We wait..." Phantom curled himself into as tight of a ball as he could manage, with Quill in the middle, shoring up any gaps with his wings to create a cocoon of feathers around the foal. In moments the cloud pillar was upon them. Phantom felt his coat becoming extremely cold the moment he was engulfed by the blackness. So much so that small icicles were forming on his hairs. All went silent in an instant. Phantom had originally closed his eyes, but when he opened them again it seemed like he was looking through a dense fog. Inside the fog, he could make out other ponies who were floating around. He recognized most of them as being local Appleloosans that he had seen around town. but while he continued to fall, however at a slower speed, the others remained still. Tendrils wrapped around their bodies, tethering their unconscious forms to the clouds. It seemed as though they were slowly being moved to the back of the storm, but Phantom couldn't have been sure. His ears perked up. Slowly the sound of rushing wind was returning. His near-numb body was beginning to heat up. The ice turned to droplets of water that flew up past him. The fog thinned out, allowing him to see more of the environment around him. He tried to get his bearings, but that was hampered by the sheer blackness of the storm, amplified by it being night. Below, he could just barely make out the moonlit desert that was rapidly approaching. Phantom kept his ball-like hold around Quill intact while he spread his wings in an attempt to slow their rapidly accelerating fall. Realizing that that plan had failed, he reformed the feather cocoon, hoping that it would be enough to protect her from the impact. Though that mean that Phantom would take the brunt of it. Luckily for him, it happened quickly enough that he didn't feel a thing. From his perspective, it was as though he had instantly been put to sleep. The next time Phantom opened his eyes, his vision was blinded by the sun. Sand burned at his back and wings. Pain struck at his nerves. He merely laid there for a few minutes to gather his strength. A round object filled his view, blotting out the sun. Several brown hairs reached down from the object, tickling his nose. He moved his head out of the way of the nusance, simultaneously gaining a new perspective on the object. Phantom cocked his head, recognizing it as the face of another pony. "Quill?" he asked. "Yay!" Quill cheered, wrapping her arms around his neck. "He's back!" She stood back up and looked off to the side. "See? I told you he wasn't dead." Phantom squinted his eyes. "Wha...?" Another pony entered his vision. "And I believed you the entire time." He recognized the mare's voice as Doctor Heartstrong's. "What happened?" Phantom grumbled, attempting to pick himself up. Doctor Heartstrong pushed the pegasus back onto the ground, saying, "Don't move. You disappeared inside of the storm. The next thing I knew, you were falling uncontrolably out the bottom of it at a high rate of speed. Honestly, I'm amazed you survbived." "I'm not!" Quill said. "Of course he lived. Heroes always live!" Phantom managed a week smile, despite his belief on the matter being the exact opposite. Again, he tried to pick himself up, but again, Doctor Heartstrong kept him down. "You need to stay still," she said. "I don't know what kinds of effects being inside of the storm had on you or Quill. You're not going anywhere until I can determine you're fine." "The storm..." Phantom suddenly remembered everything that had transpired. "Where is it?" "Calm down. It's gone. It just moved away earlier this morning. All of us inside the train station thought that we were gonners, but it never did anything." "How many ponies are missing?" "Most of them... the only ones left were the ones in the station. I haven't seen anypony else..." "Minuette and Lyra?" She shook her head. "Phantom... I'm sorry..." Phantom felt something building inside of him. This time when he tried to stand up, Doctor Heartstrong wasn't able to push him back down. "Which way did it go?" he practically growled. If he had been paying anymore attention, he would have noticed Quill taking a step behind the unicorn. "What, the storm? Phantom, you're not going to be able to—" "Which. Way. Doctor?" Realizing that she wasn't going to be able to stop him, she pointed towards the south west. Phantom opened his wings and took off towards the clock tower. He entered through the previously broken door, making his way up to the top of the tower. Opening the hatch, he entered the loft. He put on his vest, threw his saddlebags onto his back, and zipped back down stairs to put on his hat. In all, he was in and out in less than a minute. He took to the skies, climbing higher and higher. Had there been clouds around, he would have easily been above them. At this altitude, his breath was becoming visible. Phantom looked in the direction that Doctor Heartstrong had pointed. On the south-west horizon, he could just barely see something that didn't belong. Several long trails of black clouds seemingly connected to the horizon. Slowly they were moving away from him. That must be the back of it... Pulling out a pair of goggles from one of his vest pockets, he put them on to protect his eyes, mainly from the cold rather than actual debris. A sudden gust of wind put him on track. Phantom caught the breeze beneath his wings, using it to help propel himself forward at an even greater speed. The storm was on the horizon, and closing. Soon, he'd have his friends back.