The Journalist

by redspark

To take down a Ponyhood... (Part 1)

Chapter 31
To take down a Ponyhood... (Part 1)

Serena moved out of the way as a magic blast landed a few feet away from where she had been standing seconds ago. She turned and saw the ponies running after her. Her horn lighted up with magic as she began to cast a rather complex spell. She closed his eyes and imagined the floor cracking. He heard a satisfying cry as the floor began to eat his pursuers. She opened his eyes and noticed that they had stopped. She stopped the spell and the floor immediately closed. There had been six pursuers.

Now there were only two…

“You´ll pay for that!” one shouted.

Serena chuckled. “That´s what your friend down there said, and look where he´s now. I would recommend you to leave me now, before you get hurt.”

The pony growled angrily and charged at her. The pony was a unicorn with the usual dark cloak on him. Serena took out her knife and prepared. She charged as well. The moment they were about to crash, she made the teletransportation spell, appearing several feet away. She no longer had the knife on his hands.

The pony fell down, making a thump causing Serena to look. She was looking back forward when she felt a hard impact and the air was knocked out of her body. She struggled to breathe as she flew against a wall. She cried out once she felt the strong impact and landed hard on the floor. She looked up and saw an angry unicorn walking steadily towards here. She tried to stand up, but here legs didn´t worked.

“You thought you would ever get away with…” he didn´t finished before Serena had blaste him. The pony was soon on the floor, stunned. Serena chuckled and growled slightly in pain. She had broken at least one rib.

“I did got away with that…” she said, standing up. She was going to keep walking when other five turned out and stopped in front of her.

“Come on guys, can´t you give a lady a brake?” she asked annoyed. All those ponies were entirely covered in a black robe. Serena saw that none of them moved or answered. She sighed. “The usual funny lads, are you?” Her horn lighted up. “So, what do you guys think of having a party, don´t you think?” She levitated her knife in front of her. She was about to throw it when the five levitated their guns.

“Shoot…” she said, jumping to take cover behind a corner. She heard the heavy sound of guns shooting and she felt the air around her move. She closed her eyes as the bullets impacted close by. She rapidly jumped in front of them and threw her knife. The ponies were too busy reloading to even notice she was attacking. One of them fell down because of the knife.

“Show time…” Serena said, smiling.

The ponies took out of their robes knifes and large, wooden clubs. She shot at them a magic blast and teleported beside one. She kicked him in the back and teleported again, this time behind another one. She managed to hit him in the head before being kicked herself in the back. She shouted as she teleported away and back to where she had been standing at the beginning.

“Tough guys… Hitting a lady like that…” She picked with her magic three knives that they had thrown trying to hit her and managed to hit another. The pony fell back. The other two knives were easily stopped. One of them had managed to load a gun and pointed it at Serena.

“Why do you make it so hard and unfair!” she shouted angrily before jumping to the floor. This time luck was not on her side and she felt the bullet brush her leg. She felt a sharp pain and then looked at her leg.

The bullet had almost managed to hit her, little more and she would surely lose her leg.

“Ouch!” she said, before jumping back to her feet. The ponies were now running at her. She prepared and teleported on top of one just as they were about to hit her. She kicked his hard in the head, the pony falling down, passed out. Serena then stopped a couple of kicks and managed to land some herself. Soon, the ponies were all down on the floor.

She sighed and tried to catch her breath. It was much harder than what she had imagined.

She laid down a little, then went to take anything useful from the fallen ponies. She took a couple of knives and, after looking at one of the cloaks, thought if it would be useful to use one. She took one that she was certain to fit her and put it on. Surprisingly, she immediately turned black and she was certain that she now had a shadow protecting ponies from seeing who she was, except her horn, which stuck out of the cloak´s hoodie. She smiled and walked away.

She took a couple of twists and turns, making sure that she was far from the fight. After seeing a couple of doors, she found the cell door. She was going to help them now. Hopefully, they would not be angry anymore. She had almost given her life for them…

“Hey, you!” one shouted. She looked and saw three ponies approcahing her. She looked around.

“M-me?”

The pony gestured angrily. “Yes, YOU!”

Oh Celestia… they found me…

The pony stopped in front of her. “You need to join the search for the mare that infiltrated the base. Everypony is supposed to be on the lookout for her.” Serena felt the sweat in her face cool down. She was safe for now.

“O-oh… Right! I was, in fact, going to look down here.” She pointed at the door. The pony looked at the cell´s door.

He nodded. “Alright, but... “ he turned to the ponies with him. “Go with her. The mare is strong and can take one of us easily.” He turned back at her. “Make sure you catch her. No killing. I´ve heard many shots this night, and that means that ponies tried to kill her. I´d preffer to take her to Shadow alive, thank you very much.”

Serena nodded.

“Very good. Now on your way. We don´t have all night!” Serena opened the door and walked in closely followed by the other two that had been with the pony. She waited for them to close the door and proceeded to go down. The ponies, as she obviously expected, followed.

“Guys…” she said. The ponies looked at her. “Look, I think that we´ll find her more easily if we spread out, don´t you think?” One of them nodded, but the other shook his head.

“Come on idiots! She´ll easily take us alone. We need to be together.” that one said. Serena sighed.

“Why do you need to make this hard!” she said. The ponies looked in confusion as she took off her hoodie and looked at them. “Good night!” she said, hitting the both in the head. The two looked at each other in confusion before falling unconscious. Serena would have laughed at that, but she was too tired and her lungs ached.

She began to walk again, trying to find were the ponyhood had gone…

*** *** ***

Hoofsteps…

Silence…

Hoofsteps…

Silence…

That was what Nimble Hoof had been hearing all day. She was terribly bored, and she had not wanted to eat anything that Shadow had sent to her.

Not barely an hour ago, a pony (obviously covered in a dark hood and all that) entered with a tray of food and gave it to her. She had refused, so the pony had left it on a table. She had seen the food and as time passed she began to feel more desire to eat it, but she refused. She was not going to accept anything from Shadow, even food. She hated him… Or did she really?

She remembered her dream and shook her head. He was bad. She needed to help her friends, but inside that room she couldn´t. She hated being locked, and she wanted to go out. She tried the door a couple of times, but of course it hadn´t worked. She was now laying on the bed, trying to come out with an escape plan. She was thinking all that when the sound of the door unlocking made her stand up.

The cloaked pony entered again and looked at her food. He went for it and picked it. Nimble Hoof was not going to let her opportunity pass. She picked up a chair and, just as the pony was looking back, she brought it down. The pony seemed to be going to don´t notice, but surprisingly, magic aura stopped the chair and sent Nimble back. The earth pony looked scared as the pony turned. His hoodie went off his head and she now saw the evil smile on his face. She gulped and saw the pony approach her. She was going to shout when she saw that the chair was right beside her. She picked it and threw it at the pony.

The pony stopped it, but before he could react Nimble was on top of her. He tried to take her off him, but Nimble began to kick him. The pony growled angrily and managed to get her off. She landed hard on the floor beside her bed. The pony looked at her angrily. Nimble stood up fast.

She moved to run but the door closed. The pony had closed it. Nimble knew there was only one way now…

She ran at the pony. Apparently, the pony had been too busy trying to see how he had won to notice her charge. When he noticed it was too late.

She crashed against him and didn´t stopped. She felt a flash of pain as she crashed with the pony on the wall. She let go of the pony as she rubbed her head, which had accidentally crashed as well. She looked up and saw the pony on the floor. She had knocked him out. She smiled and went to the pony.

In his robes she found keys and took them. She then went to the door and unlocked it. She looked outside carefully and smiled once she saw that there was nopony around. She stepped outside and looked around. There was a long hallway. On each opposite end there were two doors.

“Great…” she muttered. She began to try to choose through which door. It was going to be a long day…

*** *** ***

“Alright… now what?” Deepsqueak asked.

They were facing a locked door. Hopefully, after that door, they´d find Nimble Hoof. The problem was that it was locked for some reason. Now they needed to go through it, and they didn´t knew how. They had already tried to blast it, but the door seemed to be protected with some kind of anti-magic spell. There was no way of opening it without a key.

Metal Mane was pacing around. He seemed desperate to get out and find Shadow.

“We should come for her later! We are wasting our time!” All the ponies glared at him angrily.

“We are not leaving her!” Silent said. Metal seemed to want to argue, but rather stayed silent. He at least knew when to shut up, or so Silent thought.

“No, but really... “ Grey Stone said. “Now what?”

Silent shrugged. “No idea. Maybe we can look for the key. Whoever has it surely isn´t that far away."

All the ponies present nodded and began to move. Hey were about to make a turn and lose sight if the door when a heavy banging made them stop. They looked at each other before walking cautiously towards the door. It wasn't long before the door clicked and opened rapidly and with force. They immediately saw the pony behind it.

"Nimble!" Silent exclaimed. He ran and embraced her. The tired Nimble was surprised and didn't realized at first what was going on. She seemed to process that in front of her were her friends, and slowly a smiled made its way to her face. She hugged Silent back.

They finished the embrace and Nimbke looked in shock at them.

"How did you found me?" She asked. Hightip smiled at her.

"We are better than the shadow ponyhood thinks." He looked at Silent.

"Now let's get out of here..."

Metal Mane looked at him angrily. "No! We'll end this once and for all!"

Nimble saw him for the first time and felt her face drain slowly. Silent patted her in the back.

"Don't worry, he's with us..." he whispered into her ear. Nimble nodded slowly, but it was obvious she wasn't comfortable with that.

Hightip looked at Metal. The two looked at each other for a couple of seconds before Hightip sighed.

"You're right. We need to finish this ourselves." Deepsqueak was about to go against that, but Hightip rose his hoof to shut him. "We need to he sure..." He turned to Silent. "Take Nimble and get to her house. You are too weak to help." Silent looked shocked.

"What do you mean?!" he exclaimed. Hightip didn't answered. "I will not leave this mission just because you think I'm weak..."

Hightip sighed. "Alright... But this is against my wishes." Silent noddd, and was quickly followed by Nimble. "We need to find Serena..."

"You're late, found you first," said Serena, walking towards them. She no longer had the cloak and looked slightly bruised. "Take down Shadow and Time Keeper at the same time..." She smiled. "Count me in!" Hightip acted like if he was not surprised.

"Alright..." His mouth smiled slightly. "Let's show the shadow guys what it is to mess with us..."