Scootaloo was finally starting to get worried. She was wishing she had headed into town to practice her scooter tricks instead of towards Ghastly Gorge. At least she was getting her practice in.
She jumped her scooter to one side and ran up the side of a tree vertically before flipping over the head of the mare trying to catch her. The earth pony clipped the tree and tumbled, and Scootaloo took advantage of her delay to gain some distance. She couldn’t see the mare’s cutie mark, but she was sure it had something to do with running.
The other thing she was regretting was their trip into the Everfree the other day. They had used all their distress beacons when the timberwolves attacked. Rainbow Dash and the others had made it in time, but that meant that Scootaloo’s pendant was currently sitting in the clubhouse recharging.
She swerved again, the mare shooting past her. Scootaloo smirked. She might not be able to fly, but she could still feel changes in the wind.
The filly’s eyes narrowed as she realized she had gotten where she was originally going. Ghastly Gorge. Maybe she could lose the mare in there?
Applebloom wasn’t too worried. Yes, she was galloping full tilt towards her home, but this wasn’t even half as scary as… the last time she’d been running from shadowy ponies. She came over a hill and suppressed a groan.
The market cart was gone. She remembered now, Applejack and Big Mac were both selling today. Well, she couldn’t turn around now, or the stallion chasing her would catch her. Luckily it sounded like he was getting tired, which surprised her, as she was just getting warmed up.
Maybe her crusades had something to do with it?
…Nah, this guy’s just old.
She kept running towards her house, maybe if she made it inside, she wouldn’t have to run all the way back to town.
Sweetie Bell was holding her breath. She didn’t know where Rarity was, but her hopes to get her sister’s help had been foiled by the mare’s absence. She knew who the stallion chasing her was, she recognized his voice.
And apparently he knew a lock picking spell, because the shadowy stallion from the bridge was slowly making his way through the downstairs of the Carousel Boutique. She was worried, but not panicking.
The crusade where she and her friends had tried this had been months ago, but the scars still felt fresh. The adults had banned medieval siege weaponry after that, but Sweetie figured that this was probably an exception. She heard hoofsteps starting up the stairs and slowed her breathing to steady herself.
Meanwhile Opal slept peacefully in her basket, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.
The stallion hit the tetherball pole hard.
The trio had each had something they said they needed to take care of, so Nyx had been left in charge of the day’s crusade. Nopony had gotten a cutie mark in beating up foalnappers yet (Nyx’s cutie mark debatably covered that, but her role in the club now was to help other ponies find their marks, so she didn’t count), but that wasn’t for lack of trying.
The door to the schoolhouse opened and Diamond Tiara galloped out, Miss Cheerilee hot on her heels. Nyx saw something change in Miss Cheerilee’s eyes as the mare looked over the scene. “Children,” She was using that teacher tone that allowed no argument, “Run into town and get help. I’ll take care of our visitor until you get back with some other adults.”
Cheerilee kept the students in her peripheral vision until they rounded the bend. She knew she had to be careful, or things could wind up going very badly. She had worked so hard too…
Oh well, all things considered, it might be time for her past to come to light anyway. Maybe she could use it to scare off Midnight Star…
She closed in on the stallion as he stood up, shaking his head to clear it.
Applebloom was chuckling lightly as she made her way to the orchard’s fence. She had waited until the stallion came in the front door of the house and then snuck out the back. He had been easier to ditch than either of her siblings.
She was just opening the gate when she heard something that made her freeze. It was a familiar sound from her alchemy work, a small explosion, partially contained from the sounds of it. The shrill, high pitched scream that came with it though made her blood run cold.
Ah fergot about Granny!
Nyx and Dinky fired off a pair of blasts as the pegasus came in for another pass. The stallion was forced to pull up, but he had gotten closer than before. That wasn’t good, it meant he was learning.
Nyx made a decision. “Crusaders! Break into three groups; he can’t chase all of us!”
They hit the crossroads a few yards later and peeled away from each other. Nyx did a quick head count, Diamond, Pip, and Dinky had followed her. Well, at least most of her friends were out of the crossfire now.
The pegasus had paused for a moment, as if he was trying to figure out which group of foals to chase. Then he dove after Nyx’s group. She smiled, hers was the only group not headed towards town.
Now she just had to buy enough time for help to arrive.
There were some words that came to mind. Not words she’d heard from Sweetie Bell this time, but from her parents. She still didn’t know why her parents had told her to never use them, but she felt like saying them right now.
The earth pony mare who had been chasing her was battered and bruised, and had an obvious limp. Scootaloo had definitely done better running through the gorge. The problem was that the filly obviously couldn’t just swing around and do it again.
So she had tried to find a loop trail. Which was how she wound up with her back to a cliff and the mare blocking her only way out. As Scootaloo’s eyes flitted back and forth, she saw a blur out of the corner of her eye.
The daredevil filly smirked. “You know, I can do a lot of things on my scooter that other foals can’t.”
“I’m sure that’s very impressive,” The mare remarked dryly, “You’ve certainly shown me a lot of that. Now why don’t you be a good little filly and stop showing me. Come quietly and I won’t have to hurt you.”
“Not just yet. I’ve still got one trick I need to show you after all. There’s one thing left that not many ponies know I can do on this baby.”
“Is there a point to this?”
“Yes, aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“You’re not very good at this whole villain thing are you? Come on now, this is Ponyville. We literally get lessons on how to deal with bad guys every Thursday. You’re supposed to ask me what my last trick is, it’s part of the way this is supposed to work.”
“…Will it get you to shut up?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Fine then, what’s this trick you haven’t shown me yet?”
“Reverse.” Scootaloo loved seeing that look of dawning comprehension on adults’ faces. “YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!” The filly’s wings buzzed as she shot backwards over the cliff. As she left the edge, she pulled herself into a backflip and tumble, twisting her body and swinging her scooter like a scythe. She let go of the handles, her ride of choice flying forward to catch the mare across the face and knock her back.
Scootaloo closed her eyes as the wind whipped around her. She still couldn’t fly well enough to save herself from this. She was living her mother’s worst nightmare. Oh well, if this was her last stunt, at least she went out doing something totally epic.
She had braced herself for the impact, but not well enough. She felt the air leave her lungs as the world exploded into lights and colors.
Diamond and the others ignored the sounds of explosions in the distance. They had all been through enough emergency evacuations and drills to know that they needed to focus on the immediate threats first.
In this case, the pegasus dive-bombing them. Frankly, Diamond was getting sick of it. She couldn’t change into Black Diamond with her friends around, but she couldn’t leave them either. She had a little control over her shadow when she wasn’t wearing the armor, but not much. She probably couldn’t life much more than a feather…
The first lesson all Shadow Rangers receive ran through her head. Midnight hadn’t gone over it with her, she had read it in Nyx’s library.
Fastest ways to disable without doing permanent damage:
For unicorns, take off the horn. The bone will grow back in a few years, but they won’t be able to use magic until it does.
For pegasi, clip their wings. Feathers grow back, and faster than horns, but not fast enough to get them back during a fight.
For earth ponies, hope they’re stallions and exploit that weakness.
Clip their wings.
The pegasus came in for another pass, Dinky and Pipsqueak diving aside as he reached for them. He never saw Diamond coming.
To be fair, the last thing a would-be foalnapper expects is for their intended prey to come running to them.
Diamond jumped over his head, landing on his back and sliding. She bit down on one of his wings, trying to get her teeth to drag as much as possible.
The stallion flapped, trying to gain altitude and shake off the filly. Yes he wanted to catch her, but he couldn’t exactly fly like this. He would curse his distraction in that moment for a long time to come.
Twin bolts of energy lanced across his other wing, leaving two lines of scorched feathers. His balance was thrown off again as the filly slid off his wing, falling a yard to the ground. He righted himself only to take another pair of bolts. They weren’t doing much damage, but they definitely hurt.
He dove at the horned fillies, only to stop with a cry of pain as something hit his wing. He turned to see the colt, useless earth pony that he was, standing there with a stick. He held it out like a sword.
The stallion snarled. The colt wasn’t part of the mission, but he might as well teach him a lesson. He lunged forward, yanking the stick away from the colt. He brought it up to beat the wretch…
Diamond spat out the last of the greasy feathers, scraping her tongue with her hooves. Whoever this stallion was, he clearly needed to take a bath. She turned around to see him lifting a stick to hit Pipsqueak and reacted on instinct.
She had seen Applebloom and her siblings do it with varying degrees of effect. Her parents didn’t use it as much, but they had made sure she at least knew how to as soon as she started walking to school on her own. She wasn’t very strong, but she still knew the motions, all earth ponies did. It was the equivalent of levitation for unicorns or flight for pegasi. It was also the final move in most ponies’ arsenals.
Diamond got just over a body length away from the stallion as the stick came down towards Pipsqueak. She planted one forehoof and spun around it, the way Midnight had shown her to turn around quickly. She barely waited for her other forehoof to touch back down as she scrunched her body as tightly as it would go.
And then she bucked.
There was a squish. And a crack. And a scream.
And then the foals were running again. They didn’t really need to run anymore, it wasn’t like he could chase them right now. Maybe once he got back on his hooves, but…
The sight of that bone sticking out of the stallion’s wing like that would haunt them each for a while. They wouldn’t really get over it until they saw something that was even more shocking. That was what they were really running from: What they had just done.
Come on Diamond, she told herself, Focus. You’re a soldier now. A Shadow Ranger. Move past it.
The foals came around the last bend. The road they had chosen when they broke away from the others led to another crossroads. One of those branches looped back here to the school.
They stopped short at what they saw.
Cheerilee was unconscious, lying in a pool of blood. Although that second part wasn’t saying much, the entire playground was covered in blood. The earth pony from before had been joined by a unicorn, and the pair of them were standing over the teacher, panting.
They were never sure who it was that made the noise. They weren’t even sure what the noise was, a cry, a scream, a gasp… None of them were paying enough attention.
But the stallions were. The pair looked up at them, a glow coming from the unicorn’s horn. “Well, well, well. What have we here? Just the pony we’re looking for.”
They turned to run, only to have him appear in front of them in a flash of yellow light. “Now, now, none of that.” It was only when he started laughing that Diamond and Nyx realized it was the same stallion from the bridge. “Come along now Night Warrior, all we want is your life energy.”
“Go to Tartarus.”
More laughter. “That’s the idea!”
Diamond was aiming for his kneecaps as she spun again. Her buck actually hit his shins, but it was enough to stop his laughter. The quartet sprinted for the only safe haven around:
The schoolhouse.
Nyx slammed the door behind them with her magic, turning the lock as she did so. They all knew the drill for this situation; they had run it dozens of times. Somepony shouted out the command phrase, “Lockdown mode!” They crammed into the closet, slipping through the small panel in the back. There was a narrow passage that no adult would ever be able to get through leading down into a crawl space.
It was cave-like, with a dirt floor and walls they’d never tried finding. It was the last defense of Ponyville Elementary.
There was silence for a moment. The first sound that broke it was Nyx whispering, “I think the trio mentioned finding a tunnel that led out of here once. Dinky, Pipsqueak, why don’t you see if you can find it?”
“O-okay… but what about you and Diamond?” The filly’s voice came back through the darkness.
“We’ll just stay here to make sure they can’t get through. And to watch and see when they leave.”
“Got it Nyx. Consider it done Ma’am.”
“Pip, I know you’re planning on going as a guard for Nightmare Night this year, but for the moment, we could really use the pirate more.”
“Then Pipsqueak the Pirate is at your service.”
Diamond heard the pair shuffle away, searching for a wall. Nyx’s eyes were dimly glowing, the only source of light either of them had. After Pip and Dinky were far enough away that neither of the older fillies could hear them, Nyx turned to Diamond.
“Diamond, I need you to promise me you’ll take care of them if something happens.”
“What? Nyx, what are you–”
“We have no time for these games Black Diamond!” The volume was low, but the tone still conveyed power.
“I’m not–”
“Diamond, I can sense the night in you. It’s been there since the fight with the timberwolves.”
Diamond’s eyes widened. “What? But then–”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell anypony. You’re safe around my mom, but you need to avoid the other princesses. They’re all day or night, and they’ll know you’re of the night. Mom’s twilight. Not day, not night, somewhere in between. Almost both, but not really one or the other. She won’t be able to sense the night in you, but any other alicorn will.”
“Understood. I’m still not leaving you behind or anything stupid like that.”
“We might not have a choice. They’re after me specifically. I’ll be honest, it’ll be really bad if they get me, but it’ll be worse if they get Dinky.”
“What? But you’re–”
“An alicorn princess who keeps interrupting you, I know. But Dinky’s special too. These guys are grabbing us to harvest our life energy, and Dinky has more of that than I ever will.”
“Why? How?”
“This town is full of secrets Diamond. That one’s not mine to tell. And I wouldn’t recommend you ask about it either. You’ll find out if you need to know.”
Diamond’s next question would never be asked. They both went silent when they heard the school’s door open.
“Good work foals, I’m honestly impressed with how well you’ve run. But it’s over now. Your school might have kept out somepony else, but my special talent is getting past security systems. Plus, all of these spells are old anyway. Disabling them was easy, it just took a while.”
Throughout Ponyville, lights flashed and sirens blared as the fourteen silent alarms he had failed to disable tripped.
“I know you can hear me. You might even be thinking of fighting. Impressive as that is, I wouldn’t suggest it. You see, we still have your teacher. Surrender, and we’ll let her live.” He paused for a moment, that laughter echoing around the school. “Come on out foals, Night Warrior. Come out little Nyx.”
“I’m right here.”
Diamond spun to face her friend. Nyx had slipped away, for crying out loud, why did that filly have to be so stealthy?
“Where are your friends?”
“Gone. Secret passage out of the school. You have to close it from both sides though, so I had to stay behind. Told them I’d teleport in after it was shut.”
“And let me guess, you can’t teleport?”
“Not into there. Magic dampening field. Nopony can teleport into there.”
Diamond gritted her teeth. There was nothing she could do. She had to stay with Dinky and Pipsqueak. Plus, if she went out there, she’d prove Nyx a liar, and they’d get the younger pair.
“Why give yourself up?”
“You said it yourself, you’ve got Miss Cheerilee. Besides, once you’ve got me, my friends are safe. Coming back for them would be too dangerous to be worth it.”
“You foals are smart, you know that? Not many of you would know when to give up.”
“Oh make no mistake sir, I’m not giving up. I’m just making room.”
“Making room for what?”
“For the pony who’ll be the hero that stops you. That’s the way it works you know.”
The laughter increased. “Well then, let me tell you this, you’ve failed. You were the only pony who could have stopped us. The legendary Warrior of the Night. Big long prophecy and everything. You were the only hope. And now we’ve got you.”