Harmony's Wrath

by hahatimeforponies


For The Price of One

"Hey, they took my Sonic Rainboom!"

"It's a story, Rainbow, people wrote about the Sonic Rainboom long before you were born. It is a very old legend, after all." Dash continued to huff, despite Twilight's consolation.

"Look on the bright side, sugarcube, looks like ya won the bet." Applejack chuckled, thumping her hoof on the pegasus' foreleg.

"I still don't see how this is how Equestria was made!" Pinkie Pie whimpered, lying on her back with her hooves in the air. Twilight sighed.

"I'm sure we're getting to that part, Pinkie..."


Spectra continued to fly for Ponyville throughout the night. Her exhaustion meant she was way off her normal pace; the return trip took four more hours than the journey out. She landed in the town square around sunrise, either forgetting or not caring about the possibility of apprehension. She was sleep-deprived, hungry, physically spent and still covered in untreated scrapes and cuts from her scuffling with the gryphons. The pegasus blearily tottered around, the spear tied to her belt and dragging along the ground - she had already dropped it once, and didn't want to lose it again. With a great groan of satisfaction, she found a bench and sat down. Ohh, this is good... it's no cloud, but it sure... beats... zzzzz... Within moments, she was falling asleep on the bench.

This didn't last, however; she began to drift on to her side, and in just a few moments, she rolled off the bench and on to the hard, stone ground.

"Okay, get a hold of yourself, Bolt..." she began to mutter to herself. "Gotta... stay awake and find... friends..." She yawned and stumbled to her hooves, and began to stagger in no direction in particular. It's a small enough town... she thought. I'll run into them sooner or later...

The first door she tried didn't budge. The second one gave way to her haphazard shove, and she tumbled inside. A bell rang when the door opened, and it swept shut behind her. Before her was a range of counters, one with a till on it, the others made of glass, with what appeared to be cakes under them. At the sound of the bell, a big pile of pink fluff next to the counter sprang to life; the pink fluff wasn't just fluff lying on the counter, but the mane of an earth pony, who appeared to have been sleeping there. Regardless of the impression the glass left on her face, she didn't miss a beat.

"Good morning, welcome to Sugarcube corner! I'm Diana Cake, what can I get for you?"

"Sug... whaa?" Bolt mumbled, not even close to taking in all the details she was presented with. She shook her head to try and concentrate. "Okay, look, I'm looking for..."

"We do cakes, muffins, donuts, pies..."

"... I... what..." Bolt just glazed over as Diana rattled off all manners of baked treats. Her mind couldn't help but wander to thoughts of food. Oh, how hungry she w-

"... and party supplies!" The clerk beamed as she whipped out a hefty firework from under the counter. This pulled the pegasus from her daydream, but at the same time, completely baffled her. She slowly tilted her head as she reeled from the confusion, to the point where she didn't notice the clerk start to twitch a little, and the colour begin to drain from her face. She was oblivious as the clerk pawed around the counter for something. It wasn't until she saw sparks and a flint being tossed away that she registered that something was going on, all topped off when the pony before her screamed, "Get down!" Rather than debate the reason why she lit a rocket pointed at her, inside no less, she dropped to the floor to get out of its path. She looked over her shoulder to see a figure standing behind her, only for the firework to screech overhead and connect with its torso. The thrust of the firework carried the stranger straight back out the door of the shop. Once out into the town square, it detonated, creating a brilliant explosion of coloured lights across the plaza. Chunks of the unfortunate victim at the centre of the blast flew.

Jaw dropping in abject horror, the pegasus sprinted out into the square, followed by the clerk, who leaped over the counter to follow her. As she drew closer, it became quite clear that it wasn't a pony who was sneaking up on her. Its primary identifying features were two large, brown, feathered wings splayed across the ground, mounted on a quasi-quadrupedal form; its front limbs bore razor-sharp talons, and it wore a headwrap with a curved beak poking out. A gryphon assassin.

"Miss Cake... I am in your debt." Bolt looked around at the earth pony. Diana just blinked, oblivious to the significance of her action.


The ruckus started to draw the townsfolk out of their homes; slowly at first, but before long a crowd was beginning to form at the scene. Spectra sent the clerk to Calvade's farm with the spear while she passed out on a bench. Her, along with Rose, Dawn and Wingscale (the Baroness had left in the night), returned as quickly as they could to find a large mass of ponies standing in the square, all talking amongst themselves, forming an almost impenetrable wall of bodies around the scene in the middle of the town. The crowd was at fever pitch; the deafening noise made ordinary conversation nigh on impossible. Calvade turned to Wingscale and shouted something; there was no response. It's not that she didn't understand; she just didn't hear. She yelled again - nothing. She sighed, pulled down her hat and started fighting her way into the crowd. Dawn and Diana followed. Wingscale just soared overhead. If she had words to describe it, she would be thinking, why didn't she just ask for a lift?

The trio burst out into the clearing, stumbling over a bench. Bolt was sleeping soundly despite the chaos around her. Rose took her hat off and threw both arms into the sky, after just a moment's examination of the dead gryphon. The crowd began to hush as she exercised her unwritten authority over the town.

"Ponies!" she exclaimed once the roaring of the crowd had begun to die down. They faded to a soft murmur. "What this is..." She spoke slowly, clearly and deliberately. "What you see here ain't no accident. This gryphon... this..." she grabbed the fallen assassin by the back of the head and pulled it up to show the crowd. The damage to its midsection was severe enough that its legs failed to come up with its upper half. "... beast... did not come to Ponyville to talk. It certainly did not walk into Sugarcube corner to buy cakes. It came here..." She tossed it on the ground in front of her. "... to spill pony blood. This spear..." she grabbed the spear from Diana and held it aloft. "... was forged by gryphon claws, with one thing in mind. To spill pony blood. Now ah don't know about y'all folks, but if you ask me, these here are acts of war."

An undercurrent of chatter began to sweep across the crowd. It ceased when the earth pony held her open palm in the air. "Now ah know what yer thinkin'. What in the hay is a gryphon doin' all the way down here? Ah don't know. Mighta been... checkin' out the lie of the land? Maybe, spyin' on the town so that when the horde gets here they can just waltz on in? Who knows. But ah do know one thing. He shouldn'ta been here. And that tells us somethin' else. That them sissies Canterlot ain't doin' squat to keep 'em out. What are them ol' airheads doin' instead?" She took the Wanted poster from her pocket, unfurled it and waved the crumpled paper in the air. "Pointin' fingers an' buck everythin' else. See these two fillies they're lookin' for? They are both right here and didn't do nothin'." She began to pace around the clearing. "Ah think all this makes one thing pretty clear. If we wanna get these featherbags off our turf, if we wanna be able to sleep safe at night, we're gonna have to do it ourselves! Who's with me?" As she raised her fist in the air in time to her last statement, the gathered crowd roared in approval. Dawn, taken aback by their enthusiasm, leaned back to shout a word to Calvade over the din.

"How did you know Bolt was going to bring back a dead gryphon?"

"Ah didn't, it was just a nice surprise!" She yelled back, and resumed egging the crowd on. The triumphant ruckus was quickly hushed when something else came into play. From one corner of the huddle, the chanting ceased. This quiet spread through the crowd quickly. The back of the crowd parted, and slowly, the division spread to the front. Heavily armoured soldiers stood along the sides of the channel, holding the mass of ponies back with their crossed glaives and halberds. Walking hastily through this passage was none other than the Baroness Corundum. Rather than the subtle black wraps she had been wearing the previous night, she instead donned a graceful red dress that flowed a short way behind her. Her heels clicked as she walked, and she came to a halt at the edge of the scene. In deathly silence, she looked up and down, slowly and calmly, between the instigators and the dead gryphon. For a tense moment, nothing was said. Corundum locked eyes with Calvade. There was just their stare, and the deafening silence. The Baroness, maintaining her gaze, reached to the belt of her robe. In a single, quick motion, she pulled a hempen bag, no bigger than a fist, and tossed it to the earth pony. The contents clacked together in the catch; gemstones. Alert, she caught it easily. In the quiet, her stern words could easily be heard by all.

"I heard the whole thing. Make it happen." The crowd erupted in cheering. Rose and the Baroness just continued to stare, a smirk creeping across each of their faces. In the noise, speaking would be impossible; though each knew what the other was thinking. Just like we planned.