//------------------------------// // Weird time // Story: My last shadow // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// "What do you think would work best here?" Spike asked. "I don't know. I'm still trying to watch my weight," Rarity responded while patting her stomach. Rarity and Spike had travelled together to the Crystal Kingdom as part of the celebrations and simply because Spike was a necessity for said celebration. Spike and Rarity had gone into a relationship after Spike's body entered a strange growth spurt and his age became appropriate for it. In fact, he and Rarity seemed to fit perfectly, if only because Spike acted like a servant to a 'queen', albeit a pregnant queen. "Where is Crystal Clarity?" Rarity asked. The mare began looking around everywhere for her off-spring, looking between any crevice she could. To her relief, the tiny filly came galloping towards, but with some giant pretzels in her mouth and being chased by a stallion wearing a white gown and a chef's hat. Well, 'filly' wouldn't be the proper term. Crystal Clarity was, in fact, a cross-breed of pony and dragon. As such, she presented features of both. For her pony side, she had the typical skeletal build and fur of a pony as well as ears. Her fur was pink with several small, purple colored freckles over her muzzle and at the base of its connection to the skull. The rest took on draconic features, such as her having a very long tail ending in a pseudo-blade of purple colored fur ending at the base of her tail. Instead of hooves, she had claws bunched together to still look like hooves with creases when not outstretched. Her eyes were an iridescent of blue when looked at directly and purple when looked at from other angles, and her pupils were vertical, reptilian slits. On her head, instead of a unicorn horn, Clarity possessed two draconic horns right next to her horns which extended backwards and at an upwards angle. Her purple mane was stylized in a tomboyish fashion; The crane upon the next being roughly combed and the length on her head combed in a round shape but with a progressive downwards dive that ended in a thickly curved end pointing outwards. "Hey! Get back here!" the chef shouted. The filly was caught by Spike and lifted into the air, much to Crystal's surprise. "Ah! The hero of the Crystal Kingdom. A-thank you for-a catching this-a thief. She stole-a my pretzels and-a ran away with them!" the chef said as he leaned to the filly and pointed at her. "I-a hope you are-a spanked and-a paddled for this behavior you-a filthy thief. Your parents certainly-a have no education to let-a their...strange fillies do what you do. Hmph. I-a would like to tell them a thing-a or two if I meet-a them," the stallion pouted. "I'm her father and she's her mother," Spike said in a bemused tone. "So what was it that you wanted to tell us exactly?" The chef's composure immediately crumbled and he began to stutter, look everywhere nervously, and sweat a lot. He even took his hat in his two front hooves and began to twiddle with it. "I will pay you when the celebration is over, but if you threaten my daughter or any other child again with paddling, you'll have to deal with me AND MY FLAMES!" Spike's mouth erupted in flames during his yelling, causing the chef to run away screaming "IMSORRYILLNEVERDOITAGAINIPROMISEGOODBYEFOREVER". His eyes ripe with certainty an pride in his actions, the dragon turned around to face the tiny filly sternly and said: "I don't want to see you doing these sort of things ever again. Am I understood? Now give me that pretzel," Spike said as he put his hand out. The tiny filly whimpered and hid behind her mother's legs, hoping that her mother would defend her actions. Spike sighed and let his arms drop to his sides. "Crystal Clarity. Come out from behind your mother's legs this instant." "You best listen to him, darling. You wouldn't want him to use his roar again," Rarity spoke impassively. The little filly was starting to have bouts of anger and whimpering, sounding like someone was choking in a thick cloud of smoke. Grudgingly, the tiny filly walked towards her father, her head hung in shame. Spike took the pretzel from her mouth and stuck a finger out to scold her more directly until he saw a group of cloaked foals galloping away with a giant silver clock on their backs. The dragon was nearly knocked off his feet when another, supposedly a filly, smashed into his leg then tumbled into Crystal. Crystal shouted in anger and her assailant apologized and tried to run away, but her cloak was caught by Rarity. "Excuse me, but I think you should apologize correctly to this filly." "Lemme go!" The little filly tried desperately to get the hoof off her cloak, but such struggles were met with stronger resistance, and the filly found herself on her back with her cloak hanging loosely on her neck. "Come here. No! You aren't getting away. Now let me see your face so I can-AHHHHH!' Rarity's grasp suddenly broke, and the filly was capable of covering herself back up and fleeing the scene. As for the white unicorn, she was left there to breathe heavily. and put a hoof to her stomach. She was starting to hyperventilate, and Spike was taken by an immediate streak of panic. He quickly rushed to his beloved and held her up in his arms. "S-s-s-s--" Rarity hissed. "What? What is it? Calm down. I don't want you or the baby to get into any complications." "A baby?" A hand began to rub across Rarity's swollen stomach, bringing a soothing sensation of calming warmth. Crystal stuck her tongue out and made a conspicuous sound of disgust. The filly's mother closed her eyes and made a painful swallow, then nodded to Spike. "Okay. I think I'm okay now," Rarity replied with a shaky voice. "Really now?" "So why did you just have that...episode?" "The filly that knocked you over and galloped into Crystal...she...When I grabbed her and turned her towards me, she looked exactly like Sombra!" Spike became confused suddenly and blinked a few times in reaction. "Oh, it's certainly just make-up for the celebrations here. You don't need to worry about that." "Are you...sure?" "Oh yeah. Sombra must have become something of a fairy tale, so everypony is starting to dress like him just for fun." "I...Well, that does make sense." Rarity was being helped up by Spike while she forced out some more speech. "I still haven't seen anypony dressing up like him, though." "It's probably a new thing. You'll see. In a few more years, all the foals will be dressing like that. Now, let's go find that chef and pay him back for these pretzels. But first; Crystal, are you okay?" "He is having one here? In the Crystal Kingdom? No. The fat one is only five months pregnant...This won't impede anything. Good. An unexpected element, but torturing that dragon will be more than an extra treat." Twilight was standing in the enormous bedroom of Cadance and Shining Armor, a pile of books somehow stacked perfectly right behind her. The alicorn answered Cadence's pleas to come inspect the castle for anything suspicious and unusual much to the protests of Shining Armor. In fact, the stallion was still pouting about his sister's coming. There was certainly no threat. The ponies would have told them. "Thank you so much for coming!" Cadence said. Cadence and Twilight did their butterfly dance just for their reunion, prompting Shining to sigh and say: "Aren't you a bit 'out of tune' for that? I mean, now, you're an alicorn! It doesn't befit you to do such a thing." "Awww. Poor wittle Shining Armor wants to do one too. He feels left out," Cadence teased. The pink alicorn pinched her husband's cheek and was making kissy faces at him. Shining was little more than bemused at the situation. "As much as I like to see you tease my brother, I have a bunch of paper work to do back in Ponyville concerning the Everfree. It's been getting crystalline growth lately." Twilight tapped her chin pensively. "Oh! Yes. Of course. Sorry, Twilight. I've just been...swarmed and in panic." "She's complaining about nightmares she's been having with Sombra." "Oh. I'm pretty sure I have a book somewhere in here about dream analysis," Twilight said as she fumbled through her book towers. "No. I don't want my dreams analyzed. I would like you to try and scan the castle to see if his powers have somehow come out of a secret 'storage' or something spooky like that." "Well...I suppose. It wouldn't be the first time I had to deal with a 'strange' happening. Okay. I will check. Just let me concentrate for a moment." Cadence nodded, her face covered with worry and stress. Shining kept his stoic appearance and was assured that this was all just a waste of time. With great immobility, the lavender princess closed her eyes and did naught but breathe regularly. Then her horn began to spark like a torn electrical cable. It continued to do so until it was slowly enveloped by a cape of magical energies descending from the tip of the horn. With another spark, and Twilight tilting her head left, an enormous wave of magical energies blasted through the walls and throughout the castle. She then did the same by readjusting her head straight and tilting it forward, enveloping Cadence and Shining in the magic while it traversed in that direction. "Is she trying to search for us?" After spinning around once, Twilight reopened her eyes and said: "Wow. That would have exhausted me before." "Those are the benefits of becoming an alicorn, Twilight." Cadence smiled smugly. "So, what did you sense?" "Nothing." "Maybe you should scan the city itself. One is never too certain." "Cadence! You're getting paranoid. Your mane is even becoming loose and tangled," Shining scolded. "But--" "And besides. To scan the whole empire would require a TREMENDOUS amount of magic. Twilight just 'recently' became an alicorn," Shining gestured. "She hasn't amassed enough magic yet." "But if we combine our magics, we could make a large enough area to scan!" Cadence realized. "THEN will you calm down?" "Yes!" the pink pony shouted with joy. "Ugh. Fine. Let's do it, then." Crunchy and a group of foals was waiting for Stellar to arrive. They had placed the clock on the floor, atop as clean a cloth as they could find. It was perplexing that she would be late when she was just behind them. To Crunchy's relief, he saw a tiny cowled figure hopping along the junk outside the sewer entrance. "What happened to you? Where were you?" "I bumped into somepony and one of them grabbed me." "Did she see your face?" Crunchy asked with worry. "N...no," Stellar hesitated. "SHE SAW YOUR FACE?! Oh no!" The stallion turned around and had a walk of frustration and fear ending in a head bashing into the wall. "Did she chase you?" "Not that I know." "Still, we have to be on high alert now. The guards are probably going to come looking for y--" Apple was interrupted by the floor trembling and screams of panic resonating from the distance. Some of the foals from the scavenging group were still going through what they collected when they turned to see a rather strange but terrifying event; Hundreds of foals were running in terror from around the sewers. They were intent on escaping. "There's a barrier of evil magic come to get us!" one of the colts roared. "It's 'er fault! She's da one who led 'im ta us. Take 'er 'n string 'er by the packards when we leave!" Sour shouted. "Hey! What's going on?" Crunchy shouted with authority. The stampede slid to a halt the second it heard the thundering stomp of Crunchy Apple, many of the participants crashing into each other and flying above the crowd just to land, painfully, on somepony else. The grumpy colt walked out of the tumbleweed with great difficulty and cursing as only a foal could do. "The princess knows we're 'ere in da sewers 'n she wants to grab us 'n make part of our selves in this world," Sour said. "...What?" "He's trying to say that the princesses erected some sort of magical barrier that's spanning across the Crystal Kingdom," a filly crushed under two other foals said. Crunchy looked impassively behind the foals to see an enormous, moving wall of mixing pink and purple magic. The moving and mixing magic was reminiscent of a bubble, although the low humming and slow approach gave a lesser impression of such things. "Time to go!" Crunchy shouted. "We can't! We're stuck!" a colt shouted. Crunchy and the other foals galloped to them and tried to pull several of their friends out, but this was met with naught but leg stretching and tumbling over, and the bubble was fast approaching. Stellar looked at the clock, her eyes enamored towards it more so than helping her friends. It enamored her to such an extent mainly due to the bizarre ticking sounds it was making and the erratic and sudden movements of the hands. "Stellar! Help us out!" "It's too late!" The bubble was just about to touch the back of the foal blockade when the clock began chiming very very loudly. It was a deafening sound only heard from the giant bells in towers and religious monuments. Although many clamped their hooves on their ears, they kept their eyes open. In fact, they were stunned to see that the silver clock was glowing brighter and brighter and, with one more chime, a white bubble erupted it and engulfed everypony in the chamber. The scanning bubble did not pass through it, but around it. Over it. Under it. Everypony could see the bubble continuing its path further outside the city until slowly dissipating into a fizzle. There wasn't much more than silence at this point, mainly from everypony except Stellar. In fact, they had all decided to stare at her instead of the clock, making her uncomfortable. Even Crunchy was staring at her strangely, making her feel uncomfortable. Click Clock sat against her counter with fatigue and took another swig, only to discover that her beer mug was empty. Much to her disappointment, even flipping it upside down and shaking it didn't help. "Ugh. Who knew vacation was so boring." Annoyed, the mare hopped off her stool and proceeded to the back of her store, intent on getting more of the delicious brew. "Still, it's fun to help these silly creatures with their ailments. Maybe I should be a griffin next time. Hmmm. I'm also wondering if they figured out how that clock works. Never managed to myself."