//------------------------------// // Back to Ponyville // Story: Lily Mare Do Well // by Hyper44 //------------------------------// Like a mighty army the residents of Ponyville strode down the corridors with steady purpose. If the tunnels were unstable a mass rush would not be a good idea. Sometimes the corridors were fairly spacious allowing them to move in a thick line and in other places they were so tight that they had to file though two by two. Unicorns were spaced throughout the crowd and each one had their horn lit up so that no matter the tunnel space all of them always had light. Near the outskirts of the crowd were earth ponies ready to react to any attack. This wasn’t often since the monsters were starting to filter out of the vast tunnel system on their own. The earth ponies were also the most at ease underground so they acted as pathfinders. Pegasus hovered above the group when the ceiling would allow. Whenever the Ponyville army passed through vast corridors they flew upwards so that they could keep an eye out for anything lurking around in the wall shadows. They were also very useful when the Ponyville army had to go straight up a tunnel. Many pegasus carried coils of ropes and would fly up the vertical tunnels to let the ropes down. Lily was near the back of the crowd and watched all this teamwork with interest. She was still sitting on her father's back with her mother close beside her. Up ahead she could see her brother and sister glancing back at her from time to time. Both of them still looked amused. Behind her two stout looking stallions carried the chest with its unnamed contents. Nearby was Mayor Mare and Filthy Rich with Spoiled Rich right behind lily’s dad. "And then I told that beast, 'that is not the face of a winner but then there's a reason for that isn’t there," She said. "I never knew that rescuing somepony would be so much fun even though you get your hoofs dirty." Filthy Rich smiled. "Yes there is more to life than money and status." "Something on your mind?" Mayor Mare asked Lily who was watching everypony with a pensive expression. Nothing had tried to attack for a while so there was some time for conversation. "Well, yes," Lily stated. "About a comment that that unicorn made about the black thing. He said that it could let non-unicorns use magic and that made it better than...well the ways things are I guess. I think that he has it wrong though, especially looking at Ponyville working together. I think that ponies are born with talents and lack of certain talents so that we will always need each other. Back when the tribes hated one another they still needed each other. I think that that was the only reason one tribe didn't end up being the only survivor but it's not just the three types of ponies either. If everypony could have every talent, then we would not need each other and nopony would have something to make them special. "We did need different talents to defeat those two evil ponies and those monsters," Mayor Mare said. "How did you?" Lily asked. "It was guilt namely that drove us to act," She replied. "After all you had done for us we were responsible for you getting captured. What we did was very simple, we tried with all our might. We used whatever talents we had and talents we didn't know we had. To our amazement we found out that there was something that we could do to help ourselves instead of just waiting for help. After all a pony is more than one thing." Mayor Mare winked with the last sentence. "It didn't take long for use to realize that, while there were a lot of the monsters we outnumbered them," Her father added. "Mayor Mare rounded up a few ponies to gather all the foals and hide them away in Filthy Riches store while we contended with the monsters." "If we had been among them we would have known that you were missing," Her mom snorted. "How could they have not noticed that a filly was missing?!" "It was a little chaotic dear," Her father said before continuing. "Lemon Hearts and a few others learned to undo the magic capture spells and taught the rest of the unicorns in Ponyville. That's when we really gained the upper hand. We made the unicorn use so much magic that he finally passed out and Nurse Redheart gave him enough sleeping medicine took keep him dreaming for quite a while. Bolt Biceps and Sunny Days finally captured the pegasus, he's named Tar Flanks by the way. Sunny Days took him by surprise and knocked him out of the sky. Before he could recover Bolt Biceps sat on him." Lily couldn’t help but laugh along with her dad. "We made Tar Flanks listen to Rose Luck and her friends screaming about the horror until he finally told us where you were at." "So all of Ponyville is down here, minus my classmates?" Lily asked standing up between her father's shoulder to look for Granny crumpet. She was young at heart but too old to keep up. "Well, not all. Those too old to move fast are keeping watch above ground. Your friend Granny crumpet will send us messages if anything changes up there." Her father replied as if reading her mind. "Other than that we all came for you," He said sweeping her off his back and hugging her. "Because your more than worth it. We're no expert commandos but we made it and your classmates are safe back in Ponyville waiting for you." * * * Barnyard Bargains stood among the buildings of the now quite Ponyville while evening drew near. It had seemed the perfect place. It was in the middle of town so every foal could run to it quickly. It was big enough to accommodate all of them with food for snacks and had doors that locked. Among the aisles that ranged from produce to tools to toys foals roamed. The ponies who had gathered the foals didn't do a good head count leaving them not to notice one missing filly. The foals did but they knew why. "Do you think that Lily will be alright?" Buttons whispered as he tried on different hats. "Well, all the adults and teens in Ponyville went after her and if they can take defend the town then they can probably handle the layer," Silver Spoon replied. "Probably," Buttons intoned. "I don't like probably." "I'm sure our patents can handle it," Diamond Tiara called in a loud whisper from the front desk. "Everypony down!" Pip hissed from his position at one of the windows as he ducked below it. Everypony laid flat making sure that they were out of sight of the windows as a monster walked past. Before the foals could relax deep rumble sounded beneath the ground and barely anypony dared to breath as the large beast tunneled beneath the building. The vibrations soon faded but everypony still remained motionless. Finally Dinky peaked out the window watching the dust trail puff up above the buildings. "I think that it's heading back into the Everfree and away from town," She said and everypony breathed a sigh of relief. "I wish that they would hurry," Rumble was the first to whisper after the all clear. "Why did more monsters have to show up after the adults left?" "Who knows? They're a species that nopony has never seen before." Twist commented. "Where do they come from?" Snails asked. "Yeah, you’re the smart one so aren't you supposed to have a theory or something?" Snips added. "These creatures are absolutely unprecedented," Twist replied. "Yeah, but where do they come from?" Snips asked again. Twist just groaned and rubbed her forehead. "It doesn’t matter where they come from," Pip stated. "What matters is what are we going to do about it. There's no guarantee that those things won't discover us before the adults get back." "But what do we do?" Silver Spoon asked. "I'll tell you what we do," Buttons stated as he switched to a baseball cap, picked up a shovel and stood in a military stance. "We arm ourselves, we set perimeters, we stand guard. If any of those things try to come in here, then we give them something to chew on. We stand and fight just like Lily would!" "This isn’t one your games," Twist pointed out. "This is real life and real danger." As if to punctuate her point a large face that was little more than a huge mouth rose up above the window sill. It announced its presence with an ear splitting screech!