//------------------------------//
// Monster in the Night 
// Story: The Crusaders of Justice 
// by WezzaHD 
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"I am running, I don't care where I was or how I got here, I just ran. My feet splashing on the ground, I could hear myself breathing. They won't be far behind, and I can't control myself, it's happening again..."



Two ponies in hooded jumpers walked down the street, not doing anything in particular. One was messing around with a knife with his magic, while the other was focusing on what was in front of him.

"Sure is chilly tonight." the first one said.

"I know." the other replied, not wanting to make conversation, and preferred focusing on making sure they didn't run into anypony dangerous.

"Hey, wanna go find somepony to scare? I bet they'd be terrified of us." the unicorn asked, his knife dancing around in his magic.

"No, we're only meant to use those if we come across a pony who isn't joking about mugging us."

"Mum's just being paranoid, nothing's gonna happen, everypony is too scared of each other to come out, anyway. But hey, I'm not complaining." He grinned, and jokingly pointed his knife in front of his sibling "Stop, your money or your pitiful life." he said in a pretend threatening voice. The other couldn't help but chuckle lightly. It lightened the mood, until they heard something.

"Stop." The earth pony alerted his brother.

"What?"

"I can hear something. It sounds like roaring" he inferred. The two slowly backed away from where the noise was coming from. Soon, it died down, and they calmed down.

The unicorn was about to return to playing with his knife, when they heard growling, coming from right behind them. The unicorn was thrown into the air and his body slammed into the wall, dropping his knife. The Earth pony saw the creature advance towards his brother, and he bucked it's leg. All that did was get its attention as it turned around, and he saw it's angry green eyes.





Scootaloo was just about to deliver, she had all the mail in her saddlebags, she was just like her mother, except for her eyes. She didn't have as much skill with this sort of thing with her mother, as well. She was about to fly high up above the town, she had been practising her skydive a lot And wanted to try it out. She may have a schedule to keep, but she would catch up later. She readied her wings when...

"I saw it! I swear, it was right there!" She stopped in her tracks as she looked below. It was an orange unicorn in a jacket and a red earth pony. The unicorn was standing on a box.

"The monster attacked us in the night! It was huge. It threw me into this very wall!" he pointed at the wall behind him.

"Not another one." Scootaloo rolled her eyes. Ponies like him had been yelling about a monster that had been roaming the streets at night. These ponies were either crazy, or attention- hungry, or both.

"This is what it did to me!" Just then, the unicorn undid his jacket. The small crowd looked at it. There were bandages on his torso, which he slowly removed. There was a large purple mark on his side. "Two broken ribs from that thing!" Scootaloo could see that he was experiencing a mild pain from shouting.

A blue- green unicorn stallion stepped forward. He was wearing a jacket of his own, but it looked thicker. He had a coldness to him that made Scootaloo look at him curiously.

"What did this monster look like?" he inquired

"We didn't see it up close, it was too dark. But we did see two large emerald- green eyes. It was roughly bigger than a Minotaur." the Earth Pony spoke, this time.

"I see." he replied. "And that's all you saw?"

"Yes, it is." the red one answered, and the blue- green unicorn simply walked off. Scootaloo suddenly realized that she was behind schedule, and flew off.





(Later that day)

"Alright, everypony, that's enough for today. See you all again soon." Sweetie said as her choir Got their belongings together and got ready to leave.

"Bye, miss Belle." a light beige pegasus waved to her.

"Goodbye, Pound Cake." she smiled sincerely. He left, as well. As soon as everypony had left. As soon as they were all gone, she went to make sure everything was put away, she went. On her way home, she saw Scootaloo, who was waving.

"Hey, Sweetie Belle. How was choir?"

"Hi, Scoots. It was great. Pound's voice is really coming along and he's starting to not be so quiet. How were the deliveries? Did you give anything to Zecora?

"No..." Scootaloo was disappointed to not get to go into the Everfree on work hours. "But something else happened today. There was a guy talking about that monster that everypony's worried about."

"Monster? Oh yeah, I think I heard some of my students mention that. What's it about?"

"You don't know?" Scootaloo questioned "Some ponies have been saying there's a monster in the sewers. It's meant to be huge, with glowing green eyes."

"Sounds kind of odd, do you think a manticore or Timberwolf got out of the Everfree, or something?"

"No, a manticore doesn't really have green eyes, and a Timberwolf isn't big enough. Maybe we should investigate it."

"You think it's true?" Sweetie Belle questioned

"No, I'm just curious as to what's causing all this fear."

"You think we should check it out?"

"Yeah, we should."





(nighttime)

The three jumped from building to building. Looking around, for anything that might be close to a monster. After getting a brief look around, they found a hole which lead directly into the sewers, and jumped down on it. They looked around and Applebloom picked it up the threw it to the side, making some noise but not attracting any attention, and jumped in.

They stepped silently carefully through the dark, the only sound being the water running through the oversized pipe they were walking in. Light was non- existent.

"Y'all see anything?" Applebloom whispered

"What do you think?" Scootaloo replied annoyingly.

"It's not mah fault we're in a sewer. It's yours! You wanted to check out this whole 'monster' thing"

"Can we just look?" Scootaloo changed the subject and they continued to focus on the search.

"Ah'll just use these" She got out a small jar. It was filled with fireflies. She hung the jar around her neck, so she had some light source. Since she couldn't find enough, she was the only one with light.

They searched for a while, looking through the smelly underground maze for signs of life. Going in all sorts of directions, looking for something, but not finding it.

"Well, we should probably go back up, this 'monster' turned out to be nothing at all!" She shot a small glare at Scootaloo, who didn't notice, since the light was rather dim. They nearly walked past another tunnel, until Applebloom suddenly stopped them.

"Ah think ah saw something." She went to the entrance of the tunnel and shone the light around the walls. There were marks on the wall, as if something had hit them. There were even scratch marks.

"Something was strong enough to make scratches on solid stone" Sweetie Belle observed, with a hint of fear in her voice.

"We should keep going" Scootaloo said. "We're obviously getting close" They crept through, trying to make themselves quieter. They looked through the paths, seeing more and more of the marks all over the walls. They eventually lead to an unused part of the sewer where the water didn't flow. They went forward, but stopped once again. What they saw, was two glowing green orbs in the distance, and they could almost make out a body, as well. They slowly moved closer, causing the creature to quickly retreat into the blackness.

"Follow that monster!" Scootaloo called out and they attempted to catch up to it. Running quickly, they took the same turn the creature had but saw it had gone. They went further into the abandoned tunnels, and saw frequent marks on the walls, even more than before. They looked and saw a dim light in one of the tunnels, and immediately started to tun towards it. What they found, appeared to be some sort of room.

The room appeared to be lit with a single torch. There was an old dirty carpet in the centre that was old and torn and looked like it was found in a dustbin. Very plain, but Sweetie Belle was looking at the torch.

"What kind of fire is green?" she thought to herself. She would've continued thinking, had she not heard a growl, that was too close by. They all looked around, not seeing anything. It appeared to be coming from all directions. They suddenly all got slammed into one of the walls.

They all quickly got up and saw what hit them. It stood on two legs, it also appeared to be taller than a minotaur. It was covered in black fabric, and it had those green eyes staring down at them.

Scootaloo was the first to get up, and jumped for a kick to the creature, who seemed unaffected and simply tossed her back, again. The other two got up and made sure they were alright, before Applebloom threw smoke bombs at the creature, allowing Sweetie Belle to run under it and shoot a beam in the back of it's head with her magic. The creature stumbled slightly forward, then hit Sweetie Belle with it's tail, and Applebloom with it's arm. They all tried to rush it, giving it an array of blows while moving around. The creature was able to block most and even dodge some, despite its size.

"We're in that things domain now" Scootaloo said, just before the torch was blown out. Applebloom got out her makeshift lantern and saw that the creature was gone. They each ran out of it's lair and back to where the dirty water was flowing. They briefly saw a silhouette take a turn for the left and quickly followed. They took the turn, and it was nowhere to be seen. Each looked around and Scootaloo turned. There appeared to be a light circle in the distance.

"There better not be more of these" she grumbled, as she, Bloom and Sweetie ran towards it. Once they got there, they all saw a fairly large open marehole.

"He must've gone outside" Scootaloo said

"Ya figure that by yourself?" Applebloom remarked. Swweite Belle rolled her eyes, and jumped up.

"Just be glad we don't have to be in here, anymore." Sweetie Belle added

They were in an alleyway, a small one with brick walls. Scootaloo remembered when Ponyville didn't have alleyways.

"Look! It's up there!" Sweetie pointed to one of the buildings and they saw it running on one of them. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle both got their grappling hooks out and shot them at the structure, while Scootaloo flew up. Once up, they jumped from building to building, trying to catch up with it.

"Where is it even going, anyway?" Applebloom questioned

"We found out where it lived. It's moving" Sweetie Belle inferred. They still couldn't see its features, it was covered in some sort of black fabric. They picked up the pace, and were getting nearer. They were closing in on it, when it suddenly stopped. They didn't pay much mind, but then they saw what it was looking at.

There were eleven ponies in light blue cloaks. Each wore the same mask, of a sapphire pony. Each was wielding a weapon, which were mostly crossbows and spears.

One which they guessed was the leader stepped forward, staring at the creature and spoke

"Time to come home. Don't make this difficult." He was holding what looked like some sort of collar with a gem on it. The creature growled and the other ten looked ready to fire. They began to make a circle around it.

"Who are they?" Applebloom asked. Scootaloo was simply in shock, standing still. Nothing was moving except for her eyes. She was looking over their cloaks, searching, searching for it, it had to be there, it had to be on the cloaks! There it was; three light blue ponies in a hurricane. Sweetie Belle began to whisper

"Alright, we need to come up with a plan to-" she was interrupted as Scootaloo flew right into them, knocking one over. Sweetie and Applebloom had no choice but to follow. Two came up and fired their crossbows at Sweetie, who was able to dodge one and catch the other with her magic, despite its speed.

"How did you do that?" One wasn't trying to hide his surprise, which gave her an opportunity to jump up and kick that one in the face and punching the other in the gut.

Applebloom threw her smoke bombs at three, and they were fired in random places, allowing the applebucking crusader to jump in and deliver individual punches.

Scootaloo was flying through the remaining four, not including the leader. She dodged everything they had, and she dealt blows with everything she had. Once she had made sure everypony that she faces was unconscious, she turned around and flew straight up to their leader.

"WHERE IS RAINBOW?" She snarled at him.

"Why, where is who?"

"Rainbow Dash! Where is she?" Applebloom and Sweetie Belle stood back, looking at her in confusion.

"Uh, Scoots?" This was a side of her that they had never seen before. Sure, she was prone to anger, but this was something else. The leader laughed, and Scootaloo hit him in the face.

"You really have no idea what you're dealing with, do you?" he let out another laugh. Scootaloo suddenly felt cold in her hooves. She looked down, ice was forming. She quickly let go.

"Who are you?" she asked. He brushed himself off.

"We are, The Wind" he said, and he was suddenly gone in a breeze, along with the others. It was now just them, and the creature. They were slowly stepping towards it, but stopped when the green flames were building up in its mouth. It jumped over to them, bringing its hand down to the ground where they were, causing them to jump out of the way. It opened its mouth fully, and the fire was not aimed at any of the Crusaders, but itself. It engulfed itself in its own fire, and suddenly it was gone. They stood silently, as they were the only ones left there now.





They were all in Scootaloo's house, thinking over what just happened. She was so close, so close to finding out where Rainbow Dash was. And it was ruined. But she knew what she was looking for, now, but she also knew it was another problem to take care of besides Diamond. Then there was that monster on the loose, which Sweetie Belle was pondering on.

"Somehow I don't think that'll be the last we'll see of whatever that was."

"No, it wasn't." Scootaloo replied.

"Uh, Scoots?" Applebloom spoke up

"What?"

"Y'all were pretty brutal out there." she sighed

"I know, I just thought I'd finally find her, after all these years."

"Ah know she was like a sister, and maybe even a second mother to ya, but we barely know anything about these guys. Ya can't just rush into it otherwise y'all will never find her." Scootaloo smiled

"Thanks, Bloom."

"No problem, Scoots. Now we need to get these suits off."



Next chapter:

The Shining Eclipse