They thought I was powerful, but even I didn't imagine the extent...
-Light
Chapter 4
Dangerous Pursuits
Celestia
"Bah, we let the thing get away! And we were so close too!"
Luna was muttering under her breath. The two Princesses were making their way back to Fluttershy's cottage from the edge of the Everfree, choosing not to chase the dangerous creature that had nearly beaten them any further. The sun had just dipped below the horizon as Celestia, and the bright moon shone brightly on Luna's coat, making her seem larger and more imposing.
Eventually Celestia had had enough of her Sister's rambling, which at this moment had something to do with socks.
"Luna!" Her Sister looked at her curiously. "Please stop talking to yourself! I don't need to know any more on these particular subjects." Luna blushed furiously and stopped dead in her tracks, mortified, while Celestia just left her behind and continued her journey.
Luna ran after Celestia. Together, the two ponies approached the house and stepped through the already open door to assess the carnage, closing the door after them.
Applejack and Pinkie had already woken and were trying to untangle themselves, while Rainbow Dash lay groaning on the couch with a large red lump on her head and an icepack resting on that. Spike had carried rarity and placed her on the couch next to Dash, while Twilight was in shock sitting against the wall shaking. Fluttershy was still out for the count, along with Rarity.
All of the ponies (Well, most of them) jumped at the sight of the Princesses and hurriedly made small movements that approximated bowing which, in the case of Applejack and Pinkie, didn't work out so well. A small dark blue glow surrounded Applejack and Pinkie, and the two were quickly separated and levitated softly to the ground.
Spike took no notice of any of this, having eyes only for Rarity.
Celestia stepped towards the 'casualties'. "My little ponies, are any of you badly hurt?" All of the ponies shook their heads, "Good, good..., Tell me, was that strange creature the cause of all this?" Celestia continued, motioning towards the rest of the room. The ponies all nodded. A flicker of dismay crossed Celestia's features, but vanished almost instantly, to be replaced with a calm and soothing look. "I know that all of you have been through much recently, but I have need of you once more. We must gather the Elements and pursue this thing as soon as possible."
As she said this Rainbow Dash leaped up from her place on the couch and snapped to a hasty attention in the air. "Aye aye Captai- I mean, Princess... Heh heh..." She let out a nervous chuckle and sat back down on the couch.
Applejack walked over to Dash and rescued the conversation. "What Rainbow was tryin' ta say here is tha', well, we will do anythin' to help Princess." She made a small bow, front hooves crossing. Pinkie bounced in front of Applejack.
"Yeppers miss Princess lady! Ima gonna get everypony to help and-" She let out an incredibly large gasp. "MAYBE WE CAN HAVE A LET'S GO FIND A DANGEROUS MONSTER PARTY AND WE CAN INVITE EVERYPONY AND THERE'S GONNA BA CAKE AN-" Pinkie let out small mumbling noises that couldn't be heard through the hoof that had just been placed in her mouth.
The owner of the hoof, Applejack, looked at Celestia evenly. "Just ignore her, she'll tire out eventually." She snuck a quick glance behind her at the ball of pink energy. "Hopefully..."
At this point, a large scream shot from the couch. Everypony turned to find... Rarity, who was at this point hysterical. Applejack ran over to comfort her and noticed Rainbow already hovering beside the fashionista.
"What the hay is haaaappening?!" Rarity promptly burst into tears. "There's dirt on my beautiful beautiful coat."
The others just rolled their eyes, waiting for their overreacting friend to stop. Eventually, when she realised that she wasn't getting any attention, Rarity stopped bawling and instead glared at her friends. She slithered off the couch and walked leisurely over to stand next to Twilight.
Fluttershy was still unconscious.
After recovering from Rarity's outburst, Twilight turned and, shaking her head slightly, faced the limp form of her yellow pegasus friend. A small violet glow surrounded both Twilight's horn and Fluttershy as the animal lover was levitated off the floor and placed down gently, fully awake and alert.
Celestia watched as Fluttershy looked around and noticed first her friends, and then the Princesses. She vanished in a small yellow blur behind the couch hiding from the new arrivals.
All of the ponies in the room sat down and waited for Fluttershy to poke her head out from behind the couch.
For forty minutes.
Eventually, Fluttershy appeared from behind the couch to a collective sigh of relief from the impatient audience.
A small noise could be heard from the direction of the animal lover. The other leaned forward expectantly. "I said, what are the Princesses doing here."
Rainbow flew directly at Fluttershy, stopping just short and making small circles around her friend's head. "They saved you after that evil monster thing attacked you and knocked you out! We tried to take it down and I was this close to getting the massive thing single-hoofedly, but it took me down in 1 vs 1 combat! I mean I was so awesome and all you should have seen me I was all li-" Dash stopped when she saw everypony else looking at her and coughed. She quickly hopped to the ground and walked to the back of the room.
A small dust ball bounced down the stairs, across the room, and out of the door, but nopony payed it any attention.
Fluttershy looked confused. "What monster?"
Applejack removed her hoof from Pinkie's mouth and walked over to Fluttershy, concern obvious on her features. "Shy, are you sure tha' you can remember everythin' that you did today?"
"Umm, yeah."
"Then tell us, what happened?"
Fluttershy thought momentarily. "Well, first I went to feed the animals like usual. And then I-" She gasped. "Oh dear! my poor angel bunny is still a statue! We need to go and find that naughty Cockatrice at once!" As she said this, a loud thumping could be heard from the door. Rainbow opened it and was flattened against the doorframe. An angry, and very hungry, bunny stood there stamping it's foot impatiently. Fluttershy blinked. "Well, I guess that's Angel taken care of... Anyway, I found Angel's statue, so I went to find the Cockatrice-"
As Fluttershy told her story, Angel threw a small tantrum, but stopped after getting no notice whatsoever and decided to instead destroy the kitchen.
"-and then I saw Light fighting the Cockatrice and he was about to kill it so I gave him the Stare and he fainted. So I took him back here and we had a small conversation and-"
Rainbow had had enough. "Shy, that is obviously something the monster made you believe. If it was so nice then how come it knocked you out and attacked all of us?"
"Well, I actually fainted when Light told me that he was made out of, well, light..." She trailed off and looked down at her hooves. The other ponies gaped. A small fly struggled to avoid the new dangers.
Twilight recovered first. "What do you mean, made out of light. That just isn't possible, is it Princess? Is it? Could it be a construct of some sort? No, it couldn't be... could it?"
Celestia snapped out of her reverie. "No, of course not. This is bound to be some new sort of threat. it might even be Discord himself trying to trick us. Nonetheless, we must all capture this new creature, and for that we will need the elements. One moment please." She furrowed her brow, horn glowing, and a small box appeared on the ground before the Princess. Applejack walked over and flipped the lid open, revealing the Elements of Harmony.
Fluttershy tried to say something. "Uhhh, girls? What are we going to do to Light if we find him?"
Rarity turned to console her friend. "Don't worry, this Light thing will be taken into custody and be analysed."
Twilight's ears perked up.
"OhmygoshIcouldanalyseandcatagorizeanewcreatureandIcouldwriteabookaboutitYESYESYESYES-" She caught herself, practically drooling. "I mean, that would be very good... heh. Well, off we go then." At this Twilight dashed out of the door, leaving a group of very confused ponies behind. Pinkie, who had been surprisingly silent throughout the whole exchange suddenly leaped up and flew upside-down out of the door in a cloud of pink dust. The others followed, Fluttershy hesitantly allowing herself to be shepherded out of the door.
Celestia followed last with Luna, and joined the others at the edge of the Everfree.
Twilight turned to face the group. "Okay everypony, let's go find Light!" Before she had even finished Rainbow Dash had flown in.
Light
I walked leisurely through the forest, my hair dimly illuminating my surroundings enough for me to see by. Small rustling sounds could be heard from all around and pairs of yellow eyes hung in the darkness, staring. At one point it even seemed as if a tree tried to grab me.
But still I walked deeper and deeper, getting more and more lost.
"Well crap, now I'm totally screwed..." I muttered to himself, tripping over another tree root.
At this moment, I stumbled onto a small game track, so having nothing better to do I followed it. It looked to have been made by some large thing, maybe a bear. A large cave could be seen in the distance, so I hurried towards it, thoughts of warmth and shelter urging me on.
A few minutes later, I reached the edge of the cave and stumbled inside, almost slamming my head into the wall. The cave made a sound that approximated a large breathing animal, but I somehow knew that this sound was only the result of pressure differences between the cave and the outside world, so I walked further inside.
Big mistake.
I settled down near the entrance and, after a cursory glance around, settled down and fell asleep.
I ran.
I ran as fast as he possibly could down the alley, away from my pursuers.
The sounds of Peacekeepers could be heard echoing down the alley, multiplied by the small confines.
These noises reached me, and I ran even harder, trying to escape them, but I had to stop. I had to rest. A high speed chase wasn't easy on small children. As I bent over to regain breath, the alley flickered wildly as light was sent everywhere as though there was a disco-ball in the middle of the small alley. I forced myself on, but struggled to run again as the sounds of the Peacekeepers became louder. But I pushed, and I ran again.
I even thought that I was getting away, but then I saw them.
Incredible large people in complete riot armour ran around the corner. From what I could make out, they had large cudgels in their hands, the standard Peacekeeper issue weapon, capable of delivering lethal amounts of electricity.
And the Peacekeepers weren't afraid to use them. Generously.
I ran faster and faster, the alley flickering as my form started to do the same. I started to feel a strange feeling, as if I were breaking up from the speed and losing my shape. But it felt good, so I ran ever faster. I started to phase for the first time, the back edge of my body dripping as though made of candlewax, clinging to the back of my body, thrown in that direction by the speed. My whole body followed suit soon after, breaking up like it had just hit a wall and flowing forward at tremendous speed. I flitted in an unimaginable, physics bending way, making the rocky relationship with said entity even harsher.
And then I collapsed, snapping back to a finite point in space.
Unused to dealing with a phased form, I had panicked and snapped back to my physical form, only to collapse into a quivering ball of flickering light with a small blob of darkness shimmering alongside.
Then the Peacekeepers arrived. They started to attack My with their cudgels, not showing any reluctance as they smashed me senseless. They had been trained and brainwashed, they never showed mercy. Ever.
I writhed in pain as the electricity made it's way through my system. And this was when they were told to retrieve, not even to kill. I prepared himself for death anyway, or something as good as death.
Then the Peacekeepers stopped.
One, who was straddling me and beating me with his club, was thrown to the side carelessly and incinerated, leaving only a small scorch mark on the wall of the alley. Another, who had moved to replace the first, was destroyed on the spot. Flames reached out like whips and disposed of all of the guards in similar fashions.
I braced myself on an elbow to get a look at my saviour. Slumped on the ground was a small boy, about my age, if not slightly older, who was wreathed in flames. As I watched, the flames were extinguished and the boy staggered to his feet, exhausted, and walked over to me, offering a hand, which I gladly accepted.
The two of us stood and assessed each other. The boy took in my shifting white and black body, while I saw the boy. His hair was a dull red and heat waves emanated from his body. His clothes were a patchwork assortment of rags, and all of it seemed slightly singed, while mine, which were in a similar condition of disrepair, were all a pure white and shimmered.
The boy reached out a hand.
"Name's Fire."
I awoke, covered in sweat and panting furiously. I unsteadily rose to my feet and shook my head, trying to dispel the memories of my childhood, and my best friend. I looked outside, but it was still dark, shortly after midnight. I let off a small burst and illuminated my surroundings. A small pool could be seen further in the cave.
It was a curious affair and by all rights shouldn't have existed in this dreary cave, but droplets of water were falling from the ceiling, so I could only assume that it was due to condensation. I knelt down next to the pool and took a sip.
And jumped up, disgusted.
I realised all too late that this wasn't a pool, it was a puddle of drool. And it tasted horrible. My turned his head up to get a look at the thing that created this puddle and immediately froze. Inside the cave, high above my own head, was a tremendous bear, sleeping peacefully. It was breathing heavily, making the noise that I had mistaken for the cave equalising.
I stepped back cautiously. I began to turn and walk away to-
I stepped right on the thing's tail. How I hadn't noticed this before I wasn't sure, but there it was. A short, plump, fluffy tail. And I just stepped on it.
The beast woke up.
Twilight
"So, Twi. How are we gurna find this thin' again? It's got the whole Everfree to hide in."
Applejack was nervous.
"Don't worry Applejack, We'll find this Light soon enough... A thing like him shouldn't be too hard to find."
The Elements and the Princesses had been walking (Or flying in Rainbow Dash's case) for about 3 hours, and the others were starting to lose faith. Rainbow confronted the Purple Librarian.
"Twilight, can we just give up already and go back to Ponyville? We're not going to find it."
Twilight looked evenly at the hovering pegasus. "Rainbow, just keep searching. I get this funny feeling that we've almost found him. We can't be too far away no-"
A flash of light lit up the forest, emanating from a large cave not too far away. All of the ponies galloped towards the cave and were almost at it when they heard an earth shattering roar. A familiar, yet different, shape came flitting out of the cave and flew around the entrance, flying around the head of something...
Applejack voiced what the group was thinking.
"Now how the hay did that thing manage to tick off an Ursa Major that quickly...?"