//------------------------------// // The Great Escapes, One good, One Bad // Story: Lily Mare Do Well // by Hyper44 //------------------------------// One the roof of Rich's Barnyard Bargains foals crowded along the edge. They nervously peered over the edge, anxiously shifting on the feet and chewing on hoofs. The monsters below kept watch on them in turn and frequently trying to stack up again in order to reach the roof. Buttons and Pip stayed at the edge every ready fire marbles and send them crashing down again. Their ammo supply was getting dangerously low. Everypony tensed at the faint sound of something scraping near the door below. "Here we go," Twist whispered anxiously. Buttons and Pip stretched back the cords of their slingshots, making ready to fire in case something went wrong. All eyes watched as an object scooted out from the storefront below. It was a large, open cardboard box that was flipped upside down. A toy spyglass had been stabbed into the front. Inside Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon walked cautiously forward, pushing the box along with them. "This does seem really stupid," Silver Spoon commented. "But it seems to be working," Diamond Tiara replied squinting through the spyglass. "They’re not even looking at us." The foals on the roof watched nervously until the box scooted past the monsters into the center of the road. They let out a cheer which was lost on the beasts. "Their alright. It worked," Featherweight told Twist patting her on the back. Twist uncovered her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright everypony," Pip called out, "Single file to the hatch. You remember what to do. Only a few at a time. We don't want to risk somepony alerting the monsters. Me, Buttons and a few others will keep the monsters distracted until you leave." Fillies and colts began slipping down the hatch. Instinctively they moved silently, momentarily forgetting that the creatures could not hear them. Just under the hatch, between the broken shelves were various items that the pegasus foals had collected either from the store or around town. The foals began slipping out of the store in whatever numbers their mobile hiding place would allow. A plastic mini playhouse with the shutters covered slipped out with four foals inside. It was followed by an industrial sized bucket with a single filly crouching inside. Next was another box with two foals scooting it along. Thus, one by one the strange little procession paraded its way between the beasts. Some of the foals, such as those in the bucket had to follow the rest by sound. One of them even bumped into one of the monsters. The colt and the onlookers had frozen in fear for a moment. The monster though, simply snorted, stared in confusion at cold object then walked away. Everypony breathed a sigh of relief and the escape continued. They followed Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon who had scooted their box behind a building across the street. Many of the foals now couldn’t help shouting insults at the monsters who were still focused on the store roof as they passed by. Pip and Buttons along with the volunteers, Snips and Snails watched and waited until the rest of their classmates had made it out of the store. Buttons and the class president remained in full view of the monsters the entire time, ever ready with their slingshots. The two other colts lay crouched below the rim of the roof. They had volunteered more out of being scared of creeping past the monsters than wanting to be brave. Featherweight and Dinky had taken charge of the Cake twins who were wide awake now. Not understanding the situation, they were interested in play. The pair had to keep shushing them and pretending that it was a game of keeping quiet. "Alright, it's our turn," Pip said walking over to the hatch. "Can't we just stay here?" Snips asked. "Yeah. If we stay down, they won’t know that we're here." Snails added. "They already think that the whole class is up here," Pip replied. "It won’t matter if you stay down or not. They will keep trying to get up here and sooner or later they will succeeded." "Well maybe if we stay real quiet they will think no pony is up here and go away," Said Snips. "Yeah," Snails agreed. "Their deaf!" Buttons yelled and started pushing the reluctant pair towards the hatch. Once they had guided/pushed the two colts into the store Pip and Buttons followed after them. They directed Snips and Snails towards the remaining items that the pegasus had gathered. Pip chose a bucket and flipped it over his head and Buttons hid under a cardboard box. Carful to keep the tops of the items to the ground they crept out confident that the two other colts were right behind them. Nearly across the street Dinky and Featherweight were still distracting the Cake twins who were getting more and more lively. "Shhh. It's a hiding game," They kept whispering as they tried to hurry their cardboard box out of sight. Before anypony could stop her Pumpkin Cake seized the cardboard box in her magic and threw it off while yelling our "Peek-a-boo!" Every foal still making their way across the street and those had made their way behind the buildings froze in horror. The heads of every monster snapped in their direction and let out a shriek. Just as the lead monster started to charge a light grey bolt shot down in front of it and without slowing it slammed into the monster’s legs. It tripped over Rumble and fell face first into the dust. The young colt found himself now staring down the beaks of the other monsters but that heroic act triggered something inside the other foals. With yells ranging from enraged to terrified the foals slung off their cover and charged. The stunned monsters shrieked in confusion as the colorful wave of young ponies flooded over them. The streets became filled with pandemonium. Monsters would constantly sling off fillies and colts only to tackled by more. Pound Cake zipped out above the chaos laughing and pointing. Pumpkin Cake sat on the sidelines waiving at her brother and the ponies in the fray. A wide shot from a monster hit its mark and trapped her inside of a bubble. Pumpkin just looked up at the bubble, laughed while waiving to Pound Cake again, lit up her and walked right through the bubble. Without Malice of Tar Flanks to give them commands and their targets now attacking them head on the monsters could not work out what to do. They began to scatter in the street with crowds of foals after them. Diamond Tiara was hot pursuit of one monster who was still trying to run after Pound Cake despite having Silver Spoon and Pip hanging on to a leg each and Buttons hanging on to its beak. Hearing whimpers coming out of an alley way she quickly darted down it expecting to find some foal hurt. Instead she found Snips and Snails cowering against a wall. Diamond Tiara groaned. "What are you two doing down here? Are you just going to hide here while everypony else fights?" She stated stomping her hoof. "Y-yeessss!" Snails cried. "It's not like we can do anything anyway." Snips added. "We're noting but screw-ups." The young mare snorted back. "Do you know what got Lily captured?" She asked. "Ponies acting just like you. Ponies who wanted to sit back and hope she took care of everything and who more than proved themselves when they actually tried. Don't you remember what Lily said?" They shook their heads. "A pony is always more than one thing but if you want to just accept just being screw-ups that fine but I'm got work to do." With that she turned around and started to walk back into the street. Behind her the two colts looked at one another, swallowed hard, hoof bumped and then charged screaming past Diamond Tiara. They shot out into the street and into the fray. Their horns lit up at the same time and a monster was swept off its feet. Not knowing what to do next the pair just kept running and screaming down the street taking the monster with them as it kicked uselessly at the sky. The remaining monsters were starting to recover from the shock of the foal attack and shook off their assailants to regroup. Before they could go back to spitting magic blasts at the foals Dinky suddenly yelled, "I have an idea!" Her horn lit up at the same time and a flash of light bathed the entire area monetarily blinding everypony. When they blinked the spots out of their eyes they saw that the monsters had stopped too. They stood frozen for a few moments and then started stumbling about and bumping into things as the foals scattred out of the way of their feet. "What did you do?" Pip asked. Dinky shrugged. "Twist said that they see heat and cold and stuff so I made everything the same temperature. Now they can't see anything." "How did you do that?" Another unicorn asked. Dinky just shrugged again. "I just thought about doing it and did it." Rumble who was hovering above building level laughed but it was quickly cut short as he caught something out of the corner of his eye. It looked like a huge mound of dirt traveling from the Everfree towards Ponyville. He swallowed hard. That could only be one thing. Before he could announce the bad news though something else happened. A huge rumble shook the ground and even the tatzelwurm stopped to raise its head and look around. Over the hills to where the adults had gone a huge black mass that was darker than midnight began to rise into the air. * * * For Lily it was like a dream. One that started out pleasant but then suddenly turned dark. She was riding on her father's back as he stepped into sunlight, the warmth brought even more joy to add to that of her rescue. She spotted Granny Crumpet standing with the elders across the hole dotted field that had once belonged to the diamond dogs. Lily waived to her and it was instantly returned as the ponies of Ponyville gave a joyous shout to celebrate their job well done. Then an intense rumble sounded from below. The ground shook so hard that even surefooted ponies stumbled. A crack appeared in the middle of the field sending ponies scrambling away while desperately trying to keep their balance. With a sound of rock splitting open the black mass poured out from earth. It had grown to huge proportions and seemed to flow endlessly from the widening gap in the earth. Ponies cried out as they scrambled to keep it from touching them. The Longsock parents scrambled to protect their children. Lily forgot her super strength as she stared at that hideous thing and felt it's waves of sickness tenfold. The black mass swirled upwards to hover above them and continued to grow larger as it cast a shadow over the crowd below. Lily staggered back and fell against the chest that the stallions had dropped. She lay there and stared helplessly up at the thing. The only defense that her mind could give was to demand that this really was not happening. Then, from somewhere Lily heard a whisper. A whisper so faint that she hardly noticed it over the black swirling mass.