What must be done
By Foxgear
--break
“Big Mac you’re going to be late for school! Hurry up with them chores!” Granny Smith yelled from the porch already dressed in her lunch lady uniform with her two granddaughters, Applejack and Applebloom waiting beside her. Both girls bore worried frowns as they watch their older brother march through pig slop, cursing and flinging buckets of feed with controlled rage.
“Does Big Mac seem… angrier to you lately sis?” Applebloom asked huddling close to her sister’s thigh.
Applejack smiled softly as she patted her little sister’s hair, “He’s just stressed is all. He’s been having a tough time in school since taking over the farm, it's stretching him thin and it’s probably what’s go him in such a huff. I’d wish he’d let me help him.”
“Damn boy’s stubborn, but then so are you. Come on let’s get you two so school, he can take that damn death machine of his.” Granny grumbled referring to the motorcycle Big Mac had brought home after his birthday. She hadn’t liked it when their dad had taken their mother on rides years back when they were young. Seeing her barely legal grandson driving one wasn’t any better for her, but she none the less let him ride it as he was a legal adult now.
“We’re leaving Mac. Make sure you get to school on time!” She hollered out the truck window. He waved as they left, signaling he heard her.
It took another twenty minutes for Mac to finish the chores. He walked into the house covered in slop. He peeled the wet clothes from his skin with a digest. He hated the rainy season. Everything turned to mud and manure turned to literal liquid shit.
Grumbly he walked into the mudroom shower and turned on the water, which was cold of course. The heater was slow and he didn’t have time to wait, so he grabbed the bar of soap and scrubbed the important parts and got out. Shivering he dried the wetness from his body and tossed on some old spice and dressed in whatever he could find. It took a total of five minutes for him to clean up and get his stuff and he was out the door and on his bike, roaring down the road to school.
Arriving at school had become a pain of sorts since he’d gotten the bike from the shack repaired. The damn thing was loud and drew attention, attention Mac didn’t really want, but he liked the benefit of not having to car pool with his sisters.
It’s not that he didn’t want to ride with them or anything. He just needed to be more mobile and independent now. Besides he was graduating this year, he would have stopped riding with them anyway, but… he did miss their morning drives to school. Singing along to country songs on the radio, chatting about school, and chores and whatever was going on with everybody.
Rolling into the first open parking spot, which happened to be in front, Mac removed his helmet to discover the school’s only other motorcycle rider smiling and waving awkwardly at him. The rider was none other than the school’s reformed pariah, Sunset Shimmer.
“Um… hi Mac… How are you today?” She asked fidgeting in place.
She might be hanging around Fluttershy too much because Sunset Shimmer was never nervous. Mac supposed that might be a bit far. Sunset was probably just being careful, it’s only been about three months since the battle of the band and she’s just gotten into everyone’s good graces. Wouldn’t want to screw up and be back at square one.
Course there was another reason she might be nervous around him specifically and the cause of that would be she only has a roof overhead because he allows her to stay at the shack in the south orchard. She was placed there out of kindness or maybe a sense of duty, by his dad, Nico Vega, who he recently found out had been from the same world as her.
“I’m fine. How are you doing? Nobody had been giving you grief lately have they?”
“No, no, no,” She replied quickly, crossing her arms in a big X. “Everyone that still has a grudge against me for what I did at the fall formal hasn’t come out too… pay me a visit, since that one time.”
Sometime between the fall formal and the battle of the bands, a group of students with a bone to pick with Sunset followed her home and sprayed graffiti on the shack she was living in. Well it wasn’t so much as a shack as single room house like the one in the west orchard, but the fact remained the same, some assholes came onto his property without permission and did some damage.
Damage he made them pay for in both cash and blood.
“Hey Clover, how’s the leg?” Mac asked casually as the former football star limped into the school building. He froze up when he saw Mac and hurried into the school. Mac would’ve laughed if it didn’t make him so sad, seeing the fear in the other boy’s eyes.
“He’ll get over it,” Sunset said warmly, placing a soft hand on his arm, it was almost enough to make him blush, if… well, he’d rather not think about it.
“Maybe,” Was all he said getting off his bike and heading into the school. Sunset trailed behind him. In the glass of the door, he saw her smile, a wide happy smile that made his stomach dance. He hoped she wasn’t starting to have feelings for him or vice versa.
--break
The school day went by with little to speak off. Mac did his best to stay awake in his classes, fighting the doziness that came with his new… occupation as he would call it. That required him to be out late at night, very late. All he had to do was get through math and he’d be free to take a damn nap!
“Big Mac, are you paying attention?” Ms. Cheerilee asked him.
He rubbed his eye, crap; he had fallen asleep at some point. He didn’t know when he blacked out, so he wasn’t certain what she was teaching right now. He’d have to wing it.
“Yelp.”
“Good, why don’t you come up and solve this problem?”
Mac grumbled under his breath, math was one of his best subjects, but he couldn’t do it when he was tired and oh boy what was that? The damn problem took up half the board! Who uses this junk? He wouldn’t that’s for sure. All he needed was basic math, accounting, and trig.
Regardless Mac bruised himself on trying to do the problem, unsurprisingly he didn’t get it right and Sunset Shimmer was called to solve it. As he sat back in his chair, waiting for the bell, Ms. Cheerilee said something about the Friendship Games coming up. He wanted to snort at the mention of it.
He had competed in the games four years ago, the games had been held at Crystal Prep that year. He had competed against some Crystal Prep senior named Shining armor in a martial arts contest. He remembered the match very well. Shiny boy had been trained in some fancy Tai Kwon do or something and he’d gone against him with what Dad had taught him. He lost due to too many penalties and being too brutal and unsportsmanlike.
He left Shiny boy with a lot of bruises and a broken arm. The referee had to drag him off the mat. Mac felt bad for what he did, it was pretty stupid to hurt a guy like that over something as silly as the Friendship Games. Mom and Dad had still been alive at the time and they had very different reactions.
Mom had been upset by how he acted. Seeing her quiet baby boy beat the living tar out of someone had to be quite a shock. Then there was Dad… he had been proud, it had been strange to feel shame and pride at the same time. Course Mom hadn’t been happy when she found out Dad had been the one to tell him to not stop punching till his opponent either gives up or dies.
Dad had been in the doghouse for a while after that. Course he must have made it up to her at some time because he heard… yeah, he was done thinking about this.
The final bell rang and the students filed out. Mac quickly stopped by his locker, avoiding anyone he could and made a beeline for the exit when…
“Hey Mac wait up!” Applejack called from the somewhere. She ran up to him as he walked outside to get away from the noise of the hallway. “Mac!”
“Ah know, Ah heard ya, just wanted to be someplace quiet is all.” He said, hoping to quell her anger. He had a busy day ahead of him and it was just starting.
“Alright, sorry for yelling, but Ah’m getting worried, you’ve been acting… strange. Even Applebloom is starting to notice, so you know it’s gotta be bad.” Mac grimaced; this was exactly why he wanted to leave quickly. “What’s going on Mac? Is something the matter?”
Protect her son
Mac shook his head and put his best smile, “No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired is all, you know working at the farm, doing chores, and school, it’s all just getting to be a bit much maybe. All I need to do is last the rest of the year and it’ll be just me and the Apple trees.”
“Oh, I see…”
Mac frowned at AJ’s tone; she was obviously upset about something. She probably wouldn’t tell her unless he prodded her about it. “Ok, what’s the matter with you? Why are you looking so blue?”
“Well… it’s just… hard thinking you’ll be gone and on your own soon.”
“Aj, I’m just moving back home. You and Applebloom can come with me if you really wanted too you know?”
“And leave Granny all by herself?”
Mac hesitated; he really didn’t know what to say to her. Maybe that he didn’t want to leave Granny, but he also wanted to start his own life too? Or maybe he should tell her the truth, about what he learned out in the shack?
He didn’t know and he didn’t want to deal with this, not right now. Call it running away, but he didn’t it care.
“Ah’ll be home later. Call my cell if you need anything.” He said walking away to his bike.
Applejack stayed where she stood and watched him roar off. Behind her, her friends emerged from the bushes, all of them with varying looks of concern.
“So do we follow him?” Fluttershy suggested quietly.
“No, leave him be for now,” Applejack told them as she slumped away to her truck.
--break
Canterlot square market was located on Main Street, the market was a spot reserved for local farmers to sell their wares directly without having to pay stores commission to sell their products on their shelves, thus making their products cheaper and easier to sell.
As Big Mac rode up to the dealer’s parking lot he wondered how his new “employees” were fairing. Hopefully, they weren’t causing trouble today. After last week he was starting wonder if they were worth keeping around, but he couldn’t hire anyone else for less than what he was paying them, which was basically nothing.
“How are you three doing today?” He asked walking up behind the three. “Make a good profit today?”
Three cashiers turned revealing them to be the sirens, Adagio Dazzle, Sonata Dusk, and Aria Blaze.
“Oh just swell, at this rate, we might have enough to buy some real clothes in about four months,” Adagio said with mocking sweetness. Mac could only raise an eyebrow as he looked over the clothes he provided them with, which were Applejack’s old clothes that she didn’t wear or wasn’t allowed to wear. Such as cutoff jeans and short shorts, Granny really got Applejack out of that phase quick.
None of them, except Sonata, had been really enthusiastic about their choice of clothing when he dropped the pile off at the shack for them, but it was all he had to give them. No way was he was going out and buying or giving them money to buy the clothes they wanted, which all were in the three digits for just a single article of clothing. Seriously who pays a hundred dollars for a shirt?
He did give them money to go buy their own bras and panties. That resulted in a mall trip he was forced to attend for reasons he didn’t know why. For a solid three hours, they teased him with varies linguine, he sat there red-faced from embarrassment till they had their fill.
Why had he gone through the trouble of not pulling the trigger that night? Well, to be honest, he wasn’t completely sure he could have gone through with it either way. Despite them actually being monstrous fish ponies from another world, they looked and for the most part acted human.
So he took them in, built an addition on to the shack in the west orchard for them to bunk in and gave them a job. Not as apple sellers, that was just a bonus for him and a way to keep them busy till he needed them for their real job, which was to help track down other monsters from Equestria.
Something they have proven to be a great help in. They had a knack for sensing dark magic after eating it for years and they worked very well as information gatherers. Between the three of them, they were able to run the cart and run around town and investigate anything that might be magic related. There were a lot more magical disturbances than anyone would have guessed. Most of them just weren’t on a very large scale like with the Sunset and the Dazzlings incidents.
That didn’t mean they weren’t any less dangerous and in some cases, they were worse because no one knew enough to put a stop to them. When he first arrived at the shack his dad had collected a lot of missing person’s reports and unexplainable deaths, which the Dazzlings confirmed as monster attacks. For three months since he took them in and the Dazzlings have been investigating each spot the attacks had accrued and every new one that cropped up and then eliminated the problem.
“Got any info today or will I finally get a night off?” He asked them as they loaded the remaining products into the back of the truck, which wasn’t much, the girls did seem to have a knack for getting stuff sold.
Adagio had on her usual smirk, a look he’s come to relate to, as no, he wasn’t getting the night off.
“Where is it this time?” He asked slamming the tailgate of the blue truck shut. At some point Dad had bought a second truck, a blue 1997 Chevy, Mac had completely forgotten about it till it came apparent the Dazzlings would need some kind of transportation. Thus he dug the old girl out of the trees and fixed her up for them. He hoped to God they never got stopped or got into a car accident. They didn’t have licenses and the truck wasn’t insured.
“In Hop’s valley park,” Adagio answered moving the driver’s side of the truck, “Several campers have disappeared without a trace. Police have finally released a statement saying that this has been going on for a while. I would guess it’s been happening even longer than they think, and they’ve just now noticed it.”
Mac sighed, Hop’s valley was a forty mile drive away and the valley was over two hundred acres of hilly forest with multiple campgrounds.
“I see,” He said as the Dazzlings piled into the truck, Adagio in the driver’s seat. “What do you think it is more timber wolves that somehow got through the cracks?”
The portal in front of the school wasn’t the only way to get from Equestria to Earth as his dad’s own arrival in this world involved some sort of faulty teleportation device and the Dazzlings via banishment spell. Most creatures that come through via what the Dazzling described as a natural temporal portal.
The plain version of their hour long lecture on the subject was that cracks in reality form and any random thing falls through. They can be from any world from any point in time, and from anywhere, most of them were simple beasts. The portals usually only occur in areas with large amounts of chaos magic, which according to the Dazzlings, Equestria had an entire forest of the stuff.
Adagio tapped her finger on the steering wheel, humming a little tune as she did so. It was an action she did quite often when she was deep in thought.
“I don’t think so,” She answered after about a minute, “No timber wolf, no matter how smart could keep this many attacks this quiet for so long. As a timber wolves territory grows they grow bolder and attack more often. Whatever is in that valley, it has some intelligence.”
“I see, let’s go back to the farm for now.” He said mounting his motorcycle.
As it turns out there was a secondary road to the west shack, it was off the road just a bit further down from the main driveway and it leads directly to the shack. Mac wondered how he never found it before.
The Dazzlings parked the truck and took the extra produce inside to make into their supper, while they were doing that he was going through what he would need for tonight’s mission when Adagio sat beside him with one of dad’s pistols in her hand.
“I’m coming with you tonight,” She stated leaving no room for argument.
“And why do want to do that?” Mac asked as he cleaned out the cylinders of his .44 revolver, he decided he wanted more stopping power tonight.
“Because it seems like fun,” She smirked seductively.
This wasn’t the first time one of the Dazzlings has come with him on a monster hunt, sometimes it was only one, sometimes two, and on a few occasions all three of them came with. Every time they proved helpful. They seemed to take some kind of… pleasure in hunting monsters. Perhaps it was the fact they were predators back in their world and what to show they were at the top of the food chain in this world.
“Fine, we’ll take the bike and park in one of the parking lots near the attacks and search on foot from there. The 12 gauge sawed offs will fit in the saddle bags.” Mac walked to the gun cabinet, a newly purchased metal one that replaced Dad’s old wooden one, and retrieved the firearms from their resting place inside, along with two shotgun bandoliers loaded with slug and buckshot ammo. Red for slug and green for buckshot, with a few nonlethal blue shell here and there.
“Which one do you want?” He asked Adagio holding up the two guns. One was a double barrel break top and the other a pump action. The double barrel allowed you to load longer more powerful shells, making up for its lack of ammo, while the pump action could only be loaded with standard shells but held double the ammo. Adagio took the pump action.
“Hey there baby, mama missed you,” She cooed, rubbing the gleaming black barrel. She cocked the gun, cycling through the action to ensure it was working properly. “Perfect.”
“Supper is ready!” Sonata adorned in AJ’s old apron, dropped a pile of freshly baked cinnamon filled apples and tacos on the table.
“Taco’s again?” Aria groaned as she flopped down in her chair, regardless she took the food and it ate it with no further complaints.
“It’s all we can afford besides apples,” Sonata said while chewing her food.
Mac chuckled as he took his portion of the meal. He would probably never get over the fact that despite living in this world for so long the sirens had never bothered to keep a stash of money at any point since their arrival. The reason was simple, if not a little foolish, why save money when they could just hypnotize people?
Their tricks worked well for them, until about the late thirties when cameras became easier use and could take pictures on demand. He didn’t believe them when they said they ran with John Dillinger and the other gangsters of the time before they showed him their mug shots from the Chicago police. Still, back then they could get away with a lot of things, despite people knowing their faces, and then came along the video camera and the internet. Which put an end to their bank robbing careers, they could fool the people in the room, but they couldn’t fool video cameras.
That was why before the Battle of the Bands they were laying low and had changed to their looks from their last mug shot, which had been in the eighties. Mac couldn’t control himself when he saw them all rocking the Afro in their photo album; he must have laughed for a solid minute, all the while the three glared with varying blushes.
So other than their hoodies, the clothes they wore to school, and the clothes from the Battle of the Bands, they had nothing else, which was probably the driving factor behind them staying here on the farm.
He did tell them about the portal in front of the school and the fact that it was passable at almost any time now (Per Sunset’s request). Why he told them about it was unknown to him, he probably figured they were home sick or something, and wanted to help them out. Either way, it proved to be crueler than kind. The portal wouldn’t allow them through, a spell, probably done by the one who banished them prohibited them from ever returning to Equestria.
“Ready to go?” Adagio asked him. She was dressed in biker gear, the best protection they could afford right now. He wore his father’s old combat uniform. The Dazzlings said it was probably this world’s version of Night Patrol armor. It looked like standard special ops stuff to him, but he supposed it was better than wearing a literal suit of metal armor.
“Yelp.”
The mounted the bike and took off for Hop’s valley.
--break
Hop’s valley was named after Hops Hopkins, the explorer who discovered the valley back in the eighteen hundred, since that time the valley has been named a national park and has been the main bread winner for the towns scattered throughout the valley. There was a total of twelve campgrounds scattered throughout the valley. The campground with the most victims was campground nine.
Mac and Adagio rolled into camp nine’s parking lot, parking away from the lamp lights they geared up. Right now the number of campers in this area was low due to the attacks, but there were still some more stubborn campers about. They managed to “acquire” the camp’s map of occupied lots from the ranger’s station. Hopefully, no one was out for a late night hike.
“You see anything?”
Adagio nodded, “Yeah, I see magic, dark magic to be exact; I’m surprised the girls and I never came here to feed. There’s so much of it, it’s going to be hard to pinpoint the source.”
“Do you think we’re dealing with more than one creature then?” Mac asked, squinting into the darkness of the forest. There was defiantly something off about this place. Something that made chills run down his spine.
“Possible or it’s something really powerful, but that leaves the question as to why something so strong would hide?”
“You said it yourself, that the creature might have some intelligence. It’s safe to assume it was afraid of being discovered when it was weaker, but now that’s it stronger it’s probably not afraid of discovery anymore.” Mac hypothesized.
Adagio nodded in agreement. That would make sense. Creatures of darkness tend to be cowardly and crafty when weak, but the moment they gain power they become bolder and more careless about their actions. The question now was what was it?
“Let’s go, it’s already eleven, I would like to be home before morning this time.” Mac flicked on his flashlight and walked onto the trail, Adagio following behind him, neither of them knew that what they were searching for was lurking much closer than they would ever guess. For in the darkness of their shadows danger awaited them with glowing green eyes.
--break
For the next hour, they walked in darkness guided only by the light of their flashlights. They thought they might have to turn around and call it a night, maybe come back in the day time so they could find clues easier. However, things changed when they stumbled across an RV, torn to shreds and covered in blood stains. Inside was a family of five, the mother, the father and their three children, all under the age of 10 were dead inside.
They had been disemboweled. On the floor pieces of their intestines and livers showed signs of being chewed on. The sight had the two monster hunters relieving their stomachs of their supper.
“What the hell would do this?” Mac gasped, wiping the bile from his lips. He’s seen a lot of things since he started this gig, but nothing, nothing compared to the massacre that happened inside that camper. Adagio was looking any better, in fact, she looked like she’s seen a ghost.
“Adagio, are you alright?” She was muttering something under her breath; he leaned down next to her to hear what it was.
“No, it can’t be they were wiped out! They can’t be here!”
Mac grabbed her by the shoulders, “What is it? What did this?”
Adagio gulped her face paler than the moon as she whispered the name of the creature, “Shadow ponies.”
A loud long whiny filled the air! The sound came from every direction, it sounded like a herd of horses was galloping around them. Then Mac heard it, he heard the sound of their hooves come to a stop. He looked down at his shadow cast in the light of the dead family’s campfire. From his own shadow a black horse emerged, its body a cluster of shifting shadows, its eyes glowing like green fire and its teeth razor sharp glistened in the moonlight.
Mac raised the sawed off and fired both buckshot rounds into the shadowy equine. The shadow reared back like hit had actually been hit, blots of black blood sprayed onto the tree behind it.
“RUN!”
Mac grabbed Adagio’s hand as the shadow pony withered in agony. More and more whinnies could be heard as they ran into the darkness. As they looked back they saw the other shadow ponies eat the one Mac shot alive.
“Why aren’t they chasing us?” Mac panted as they took cover behind a tree. He didn’t know how far they ran, but hopefully, they were heading back towards the bike.
“They need light to enter this domain, without it they stay trapped in the darkness. They hunt using the only weapon ponies can use to fight off the darkness and that is light. Ponies that hid in the dark would go mad waiting for dawn to come; most of them never make it before foolishly lighting up a candle or campfire out of fear of the dark.”
“Sounds like you know them well,” Mac pointed out, “You’ve run into shadow ponies before?”
Adagio chuckled humorlessly, “Kind of hard not to. I was raised with them, we all were. Aria, Sonata and I were born in the port town of Songsalsa in Maredor. A country ruled by the dark unicorn King Sombra. He allowed all manner of creatures into his country; so long you served him he didn’t care what you were. The shadow ponies were his favorite, though, whatever they wanted he granted and in return they served him without question. I thought they had been wiped out in the Crystal War against Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. At least that’s what my mother told me after she fled from the battle.”
From how Sunset always spoke of Equestria, it sounded like it was all sunshine and rainbows, but Mac supposed that was a foolish notion to assume. A land filled with monsters and magic couldn’t be that peaceful.
“Alright, so how do we kill them?”
“Well after the fall of the Crystal Empire, the remaining shadow ponies were hunted down by Luna’s Night Patrol and killed. Though I’m not sure how they did it.” Adagio admitted. “Shadow ponies, well not invincible are hard to kill and how you kill them has been kept secret. I assume the Night Patrollers that hunted them down figured it out somehow and didn’t bother to tell everypony thinking they wiped them out.”
Night Patrol, the group Dad belonged to before being transported to this world. Maybe he left a clue in a journal or something. He fished out his cell phone and dialed the number of the phone in the shack.
“This is Aria.”
“Aria, it’s Mac, I need you to look at my Dad’s notes and see if he wrote anything about shadow ponies down somewhere.”
“Shadow ponies? Celestia’s teets! That’s bad!” The sound of paper being moved come over the phone and then suddenly stopped. “MAC TURN OF YOUR PHONE LIGHT! THEY CAN FIND YOU!”
“Oh shit…” Mac and Adagio rolled just as the snapping jaws of a shadow pony reached out from the tree behind them. Crushing Mac’s phone between its teeth, with its light source gone the shadow pony vanished into thin air.
The two shared a sigh of relief as they continued their way down to the bike. They still had Adagio’s cell phone, which they managed to shut off the lights off, so Aria could at least call them when she (hopefully) found the information they needed.
In the distance, they spotted the gleam of the lamp posts and made a mad dash for the bike, only for Mac to stop them at the last second before they got the pavement.
“Wait, something not right, the bike it’s been moved.” Mac pointed out. The bike which had been hidden away from the lamp posts was now directly below one. “They moved it, but how?”
“That’s how ” Adagio pointed to a dead squirrel on the ground by the bike’s tire. “They jumped from the squirrel’s shadow and moved the bike. There’s no way we can hop on and get it started in time to get away.”
“Then we won’t run,” Mac said walking towards the street light. He leveled his shotgun at the lamp light; carefully he counted the steps till his shadow would be cast. “We’ll fight!”
Mac leaped into the light, aiming his gun at the ground and fired, blasting the emerging shadow pony with a full buckshot. The creature whinnied in pain, he fired again, and the shadow pony fell onto its side in a big black mass. Already his friends were devouring it, just like before. He took his chance to reload and fired into the feeding frenzy, hitting more, but they didn’t react, they just kept eating!
“Is there a reason they’re doing that?” He asked as he ran away, two more shadow ponies emerged from his shadow, they were quickly blasted away by Adagio. Getting an idea he ran in a circle, letting the shadow ponies chase after him as Adagio fired. Her shotgun ran empty, so she switched to her pistol, taking down two more. Mac ran out of the light and rolled, drawing his pistol as a final shadow pony leap at him! He fired blowing its head off!
Adagio helped him up and they both quickly jammed more shells into their guns, all the while keeping an eye on the mass of shadow ponies. They were still eating one another, blobs of shadows piled on top of another and then they stopped and disappeared.
“That can’t be good.”
“It never is,” Adagio said as she cocked her gun. She noticed something shifting beneath the bike, slowly a long black tendril of shadow slithered along the ground. She fired, but only hit stone as her bullets passed right through the shadow; she backpedaled as the thing touched the edge of the lamp’s light range and then slipped past it. From the shadow emerged a black humanoid figure, devoid of any features except for two pony ears atop its head.
“Did that thing just do what AJ and her friends do?” Mac asked looking the shadow being. Did that make it a shadow human now? He wondered.
“Do not say they “human up” or something nonsensical like that,” Adagio warned him.
Mac rolled his eyes and got back on track. Wondering what this new form would bring, he doubts it saw the errors of its ways and was ready turn over a new leaf on life. And from the way it was smirking with those big pointy teeth he would say he was correct in his assumption.
“Shoot it!” He yelled they both opened fire, blasting the shadow being into pieces with buckshot, the thing splattered all over the ground in puddles, but they didn’t celebrate. That was too easy. Nothing was ever that easy when it came to monster hunting.
Murphy’s Law came into full effect as shadow ponies or humans, whatever they were now. Emerged from the blood splatter and took shape. What was once one was now over three dozen! Things weren’t looking good for them as the shadow monsters began to slowly enclose around them.
Mac dropped the shotgun and switched to his pistol, hoping it would be more effective, he fired hitting one in the chest. The round made a big hole in the monster chest that quickly regenerated, while the spatter from the wound became more shadow monsters.
“This defiantly not good!” He whacked one of the shadow monsters with the butt of his gun, if he couldn’t shoot them, maybe he could hit them to death!
“Stop being stupid and come on!” Adagio grabbed Mac by the arm and tried to pull him away to the woods, but the big guy was too engrossed in his fighting to notice her and brushed her off. She watched helplessly as the shadow monsters dog piled on top him. She fell on her butt and scooted away as the occasion shadow monster was tossed over her head by Mac. He was putting up a fight, but he wouldn’t last long against these numbers.
“I gotta…(RINGRINGRINR)” Her cell phone rang, quickly she answered hoping it was Aria with a way to beat these things.
“Aria?”
“USE MAGIC!” The purple haired Siren screamed in Adagio’s ear.
“What?”
“Shadow ponies are beings of pure magic, so only magic can defeat them! You have to use magic!”
“But…”
“Adagio!”
“Alright fine!” Adagio screamed ending the call. The shadow ponies weren’t paying much attention to her; they were putting all their efforts into going after Mac. It seems they were still getting used to their new forms. A good thing for Mac, otherwise they would have eaten him alive a long time ago.
Running with all her might Adagio jumped on top of the shadow pony dog pile and fought her way down to Mac, who was already getting his arms and legs chewed on by the hungry beasts. He was surprised to see her; well he would be even more surprised after she did this!
Without hesitation, Adagio grabbed Mac by the collar and pulled him into a deep kiss!
Mac’s eyes popped wide open, surprised that she would be doing such a thing and at such a time, yet there was something strange about the kiss. He could feel something leaving his body and into Adagio. She broke the kiss and straddled his waist with her custom seductive smirk. Opening her mouth she sang in the most beautiful voice he had ever heard.
She sang softly without words, her voice blasting the shadow monsters away! Standing up she moved her arms majestically, her voice rising in volume, her body glowing bright gold and then right before Mac’s eyes Adagio transformed, growing pony ears and transparent wings like she had during the Battle of the Bands.
“I got this Mac,” She said, her voice alive with power, “Time for the curtain call!”
Adagio inhaled and then released a high-pitched blast of magic that vaporized the shadow ponies in a single instant!
“Ah, feels good to have magic again, though positive energy is kind of makes me ticklish.” She said as she floated back down to the ground, her wings and ears disappearing. “Ready to… Oh… I guess I have some explaining to do?”
Mac frowned down at her, looking pretty angry with her. “Yes, yes you do.”
--break
Mac and Adagio rode back to the farm as quickly as they could. As much as Mac wanted to question Adagio about the return of her magic, they didn’t want to be around in case someone actually heard all the commotion from the fight.
At least they didn’t have to pick up the empty shells, which had been blown away from Adagio’s attack. That saved them some time to get home and get rid of any evidence of them being there. Still, it was about one thirty in the morning when they made it back to the shack. Waiting for them inside was Sonata and Aria, both looking nervous and guilty as he and Adagio sat down with them.
“Alright, tell me,” Mac said after a few minutes of silence. The three looked between themselves, playing rock paper scissors to decide who would do the talking, Adagio lost.
“As you know we used the gems to gather the negative energy created during the conflict. However, the gems, well important, are not necessary for us to gather magic. We sirens naturally steal energy. However the more power we have the faster we burn it up, so we need a constant source of power. The gems provided that. After the gems were destroyed we found… another source to feed off of.”
“Another source,” Mac questioned curiously.
“Yeah,” Adagio tapped her fingers against the table nervously before pointing at him, “namely you Mac.”
“Explain.”
Adagio sighed, “You listen to Nico’s tapes right? You know what he said about you and your sisters?” Mac nodded and then his eyes widened with realization. “That’s right. The magic you and your sisters were naturally born with makes you the perfect power source for us. All we need to do is be near you to absorb the magic coming off your body. Doing this is what allowed us to see dark magic and perform very weak suggestive spells. How do you think we sell all those apples? Don’t worry the amount of energy we get isn’t enough to do anything more than that unless we do what I did tonight and take it directly. Course that involves… direct contact and even then the magic we get from you is positive energy, not negative. That stuff doesn’t really encourage you to do bad things.”
“Is that why you three have more… cheery lately?” Mac asked thinking back to how the sirens when he first started working with them. They were selfish, bickered a lot and very rude. Now they were kinder, more courteous, and even kind of nice in their own way, strange how he never noticed the change in their behavior till now.
“But I’m always cheery!” Sonata said, speaking for the first time since they started talking. They shared a laugh at her expense.
Once they settled down they sat in silence waiting for Mac to speak his mind. He let them sweat a little bit before speaking. A little revenge to get them back for deceiving him, but ultimately he smiled.
“It was a surprise, but it saved our lives tonight, so thank you for that. Don’t worry about me kicking you out either. I’ve trusted you three with my life for the past three months and you haven’t given me a reason to doubt you yet.” Mac gathered his coat and left for the door, stopping just outside he turned and smiled, “Next time though be upfront about things like this and Adagio, nice kiss.”
“Yeah,” Adagio waved, her cheeks burning bright red as the other two Sirens glared at her. Mac chuckled as he shut the door behind him. The sound of Sonata and Aria chewing out their leader was rather amusing to listen too.
To be honest, if you would have told him the Dazzlings might have some feelings for him three months ago, he would have laughed and gone on his way, but now? Well, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what their feelings about him were, but he could safely say he felt the similarly.
In some ways, they felt like family, yet more.
--break
Mac rode into Granny Smith’s yard as quietly as he could, killing the bike’s engine and silently rolling up to the front porch and came to a stop. He was tired, dog tired, and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. It was three A.M. He probably should have just stayed at the farm and gone to sleep there, but he had promised Aj he’d be home and it was far too late to call and tell them he was gonna stay at the farm.
Dismounting he made his way up the creaky steps as quietly as he could, wincing at every groaning step that he was sure would wake someone up. He reached for the door handle and froze as the porch’s light come on. There sitting on the swing bench was Applejack with her arms crossed and looking very angry. She probably wanted to give him an earful, but he was too tired to want to hear it now.
“Where were you?” She asked sternly as she walked over to him.
“I was working, got a bit late,” Mac replied, his tone equally hostile.
Applejack growled, “Stop lying! Nothing at the farm is that important that you have to stay up till three in the morning to do! Nothing couldn’t have waited until tomorrow, now tell me what’s going on MAC!” Applejack yelled, poking him in the chest, right where he’d been hit by the shadow pony. Mac hissed the pain was too much for him to hide. “What the… your hurt!”
“I’m fine!” He yelled back, brushing her prodding hand away, “Now I want to get some sleep, so if you would kindly…”
“No! Tell me what’s going on, right now MAC!”
Mac ran his hand through his hair in frustration, he was close to snapping! “It’s none of your business AJ.” That probably wasn’t the best thing to say, because she slapped him!
“You’re my brother! Of course, it’s my business!
“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME AJ!” Mac roared angrily.
That did it. He made his sister cry. He let out a tired sigh as he saw the tears stream down her face, she slapped his hand away when he tried to reach out to her.
“I want my brother back,” She sob going inside the house.
Mac tiredly sat down on the steps of the porch. Granny and Applebloom were probably awake now. He heard a sound from around the corner of the porch; he leaned over and saw Applebloom peeking around the corner. She walked over and sat down next to him. He pulled her into a shoulder hug and kissed her cheek.
“Go to sleep Applebloom,” He told her, “You got school in a few hours.”
“So do you,” She replied with a whisper.
Mac smiled at her as he mounted his bike. “I’ll be skipping today, tell Principle Celestia I’m sick or something. I’ll be back after both me and Aj cool down.”
“You gonna tell us what’s going on then?” She asked.
“Maybe, it’s not something I really want to talk about.”
“But we’re family Mac.”
Mac sighed as he makes his way over the bike and turned it around, “I know,” he said starting the engine, “And that’s why I can’t tell you. Trust me when I say it’s for your own good.”
Applebloom sat there and watched him drive off, she looked worriedly between the house and glowing tail lights of Mac’s bike as he drew further and further away.
--break
The next day or really three hours later Applejack woke up early for the morning chores. She knew Mac had ridden off last night after their little spat, making it her job to do the chores. Throwing on her overalls she went out to the barns and got to work. School started in only a few hours, Applejack was kind of wishing she had just stayed up and done the chores after Mac left. At least then she would have gotten a better night’s sleep that way.
That was hindsight she guessed as she waded through pig slop, tossing the feed into the troughs with unnecessary force. Corn flew over the sides of the bunk, falling into the brown sea beneath the pigs’ feet. Much to her displeasure more than half of the feed wound up on the ground, meaning she’d have to get more. This was not a good way to start the day.
“Come on Applejack, we’re waiting on ya!” Granny Smith yelled from the porch, her own temper rising with every second her blond granddaughter failed to leave the house. Applejack came running the door, her hair a mess and her clothes wrinkled. Normally Granny wouldn’t allow any of them to leave the house in such a state of dress, but they were pressed for time, so she made an exception.
Applejack and Applebloom piled into the old red truck and took off for school, while Granny followed in her little red station wagon. The drive to school was tense between the two sisters, Applebloom knew her sister’s temper was short this morning and thus kept quiet, not even bothering to turn on the radio and simply let Applejack drive.
At school Applejack stormed into the building, taking note that Mac’s motorcycle wasn’t parked in its usual spot. She decided she didn’t care and didn’t even bother to answer Sunset’s question as she entered the school.
“Applejack wheres…” The door slammed in the bacon haired girl’s face as she stared at the retreating back of the farm girl. “Ok then.”
The day seemed to move slower than usual, fueling Applejack’s anger, by the third period she was ready to just say she was sick and go home. She didn’t care if Granny found out and grounded her (Which she would) she just wanted to go home and work out some stress.
Applejack was so deep in her anger she didn’t hear the classroom door open or the hurried footsteps that walked right up to her, she did, however, take notice when vice principle Luna tapped her shoulder.
“Applejack,” She said quietly and tensely, “I need you to come with me.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just come with me please, it's important.” Luna insisted nearly dragging her by the hand. Applejack yield and followed her. “Sorry to interrupt your class, Mr. Doodle, please inform the other staff, Applejack will not be attending the rest of her classes today.”
“Ok,” Mr. Doodle replied with an offhanded wave.
Now Applejack was really wondering what was going as they stepped out, but she didn’t have a chance to ask as the moment the door to the classroom closed Luna took off running, dragging her with her. They arrived at Celestia’s office in record time and Luna ushered Applejack inside and seated her next to Applebloom, who was looking as confused as she was.
“What’s going? Did we do something wrong?” Applejack asked, shifting in her seat. Luna and Celestia were acting strangely. Both of them were hesitant and looked worried about something. The only other time she saw them like this is when their… no.
“What happened to Mac?” She asked suddenly catching the two by surprise. They looked between another, each second escalating Applejack’s fears. “Tell me!”
Luna sighed and kneels in front of Applejack and held her hands, which were shaking.
“We just got a call; there had been an incident at your family’s farm. The barn started on fire.”
Applejack’s blood ran cold. “Mac, what about Mac?”
Luna shook her head, “We don’t know yet.”
Before anyone could react Applejack ran out of the office with Luna hot on her tail, but the farm girl outpaced her, adrenaline pushing her beyond her limits as the made for her truck. By the time Luna made it the edge of the parking lot Applejack was burning rubber down the road to home.
“Be alright, please be alright!” She chanted, gravel slid as she drifted down the old dirt roads. Up ahead she saw the cloud of black smoke rising over the trees. She stomped her foot on the pedal, the old truck groaning as it accelerated.
Applejack came a tearing into the yard. Firetrucks, ambulances, and cop cars were all there already. In the crowd, she could see their neighbors and Ms. Cherry Jubilee back behind the police line, but no Mac. She got out and ran towards the blazing barn. The horses were outside safe and sound, which only meant one thing, Mac had gotten them out.
“MAC! MAC! WHERE ARE YOU!” She screamed over the roaring flames. There was no reply. A few in the crowd turned to look at her and then looked away. She followed their gaze back to the barn and saw him, inside the inferno trapped beneath a fallen beam. The north side of the structure had collapsed, the barn entrance was warped and on the verge of falling down. Two teams of firefighter’s sprayed water, trying to get inside, but the flames refused to be dosed. Without even realizing it she was running.
“Applejack NO!” Jubilee yelled as Applejack broke past police and firefighters, brushing by with her unnatural strength. She ran at full sprint ready to leap inside and save her brother when something blindsided her and tackled her to the ground.
“Get off me!”
“Shut up and stay down! You’ll only get in the way.” A voice said a familiar voice at that. The ones holding her down were Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk!
She tried to get free, but their grip was stronger than she thought it would be. She was about to curse them out, when a purple and orange blur sped by, it was Adagio Dazzle.
The Dazzling’s leader leap through the narrow opening, jumping right into the fire just as the entire barn collapsed on top of her and Mac.
“MAC!”