Power Ponies: The Nightmare During Hearths Warming

by Deathscar

Chapter 1: Ringing Bells

Author's Note:

This is my venture into corny, cliche and over-the-top superhero stories. It's not one of my bests works, but it was definitely one of the most fun to write for. It was silly, cheesy but giving these creative characters new personalities was an absolutely blast!

I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

And a very Merry Christmas to all. I hope you have/had an awesome week, regardless of when you are reading this fic.

P.S. No proofreaders read this story. I wrote it two days after the Power Pony episode, so I might've glanced over a few grammar/spelling errors. Also, it was Christmas I didn't want to trouble any of them. Nevertheless I hope you enjoy this story!

“It’s almost Hearths Warming!” Saddle Rager flew upwards, pinning a few lights around the Power Ponies Secret Headquarters.

“Ugh,” Fili-second groaned, rubbing her temple. “Can somepony please tell Saddle Rager to not be so cheerful at seven in the morning?”

“Oh come now, Fili-second. The joys of such an occasion must take effect even on you!” Zapp spoke with a large grin on her face as she zipped to the giant monitor placed in front of their hideout, lacing it with bells and tinsels.

“Sorry, Fili-second needs another millisecond of sleep.” The speedy pony grumbled, slumping her face down onto the huge circular table in the middle of the room. “Which in my terms, means hopefully two hundred more hours.”

At the right of the room, the loud ‘ding’ of the elevator echoed through the large and mostly empty hideout. As soon as the doors opened, a bright shine accompanied the pony trotting out of it.

“Now, how are the decorations com— oh my!” Radiance looked up at the decorations, holding a hoof to her mouth. “No! This won’t do at all! The tinsels are in the wrong places! And—”

“Oh great. It’s Drama Queen come to save the day!” Fili-second mumbled into the table, throwing her hooves up in the air.

“I’ll have you know that I take Hearths Warming decorating very seriously!”

“Radiance, you take every decorating occasion seriously.” Saddle Ranger landed to the ground, raising her right hoof in the air as she spoke.

“Exactly! This place must look absolutely and positively perfect!” Radiance stressed, created a few mistletoes and hanging them around the hideout.

“For whom exactly?” Zapp asked, giving Radiance a skeptical gaze. “Our hideout isn’t exactly known to those ponies that roam Maretropolis!”

“Yeah, the zero ponies that are going to visit are sure going to have a gawk over our decorations!” Fili-second joked, her face still plastered to the table.

“Hmph. I suppose I shouldn’t expect a bunch of ruffians to know the meaning of good decorating!” Radiance mocked, tilting her head upwards with her eyes closed.

“Mmhmm, sure. Can I sleep now?” Fili-second groaned into the table, letting off a huge sigh.

Radiance was about to retort when the ‘ding’ of the elevator rung once again. This time, Mistress Marevelous and the Masked Matterhorn stepped out onto the hideout floor.

“Girls, we have a problem,” the Masked Matterhorn walked to the big monitor, holding out a clipboard in front of her face. Mistress Marevelous trotted in the opposite direction, leaning against the wall at the back.

“Aww, on Hearths Warming Eve?” Saddle Rager grumbled, hanging a few more bells. “Speaking of which, where’s that Hearts Warming tree I ordered? I swear it was supposed to be here already!”

“Not really the time to worry about that,” Mistress Marevelous interrupted, pointing towards the big screen at the front.

“She’s right. Somepony’s terrorizing the city!” Masked Matterhorn sat the clipboard down, bringing her hooves to fiddle with the buttons at the base of the screen. As she did, her flowing blue mane fell over her left eye.

“One day we’ll go through a week where we don’t hear those four words…”Fili-second grumbled, lifting her head to stare at the screen with the rest, her silver mane in a mess.

The screen flickered as an image popped up, showing a giant pony dressed in a red and white suit rampaging through the town, grabbing and smashing all the decorations he trotted past. His size was definitely larger than any building in the area.

“Whoa, somepony needs a little happy pick-me-up!” Saddle Rager combed her short pink mane to the back.

“That’s Slay Bells, he appeared just a few minutes ago and has been destroying the town.” Marevelous swung her head to the left, causing her tangerine mane to flip to the side.

“Specifically, he’s been destroying anything Hearths Warming related,” Matterhorn corrected, clicking a few more buttons. “And it’s our job to—”

“Stop him. Yeah. I think we’ve got it by now.” Fili-second pushed herself up from the chair and onto the floor.

As the video on the screen continued to play, Radiance gasped loudly.

“Oh no! He’s destroying those well placed decorations I hung up on the museum! It took me forever to get those perfectly symmetrical!” Her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth turned into a frown as she combed her purple locks straight up. “Oh, it. Is. On.”

“I suppose requesting for a stop for hot chocolate would be a bad idea?” Zapp suggested as she hovered in mid-air. However, her suggestion was quickly met by angered stares. “I shall withhold my request for now then.”

“Come on Power Ponies, no time to lose! Let’s go!” Matterhorn urged, galloping out the door with the others following suit.

---

“Ho ho ho, where should I go?” Slay Bells slammed his hoof against the side of a building, ripping off the leaves that adorned it.

All of a sudden, a sharp ice bolt shot out from a rooftop, hitting Slay Bells square in his jaw and freezing it solid. Slay Bells released a large growl, causing the streets to shake.

“Slay Bells! Stop this at once!” Matterhorn shouted from the rooftop they stood on.

Slay Bells slammed his hoof against his frozen jaw, shattering the ice that had formed on it. “Power Ponies, such a pest! You’ll be turned into a mess!” Lifting his hoof, he slammed it back down onto the apartment, demolishing it in one fell swoop.

“You know, for someone called Slay Bells, you aren’t very threatening.” Fili-second spoke, resting in a laying position on Slay Bells’ shoulder. “And you’re wasting a lot of my sleeping time.”

Slay Bells raised his left hoof slowly, trying to get Fili-second off him. However, as soon as he slammed it down on his shoulder, the pony had sped back onto another rooftop, holding a glass of juice in her hoof.

Mistress Marevelous unhinged her lasso, twirling it before throwing it over Slay Bells’ right hoof. “Got you now you oversized Hearths Warming reject!” she taunted through the lasso in her teeth. Slay Bells struggled with his hoof, trying to fight with Marevelous’ strength.

“You dare destroy the Maretropolis style decorations that I so gracefully put up?” Radiance spoke with a scowl, created several hammers. “I will show you who's going to get removed you ruffian!”

Zapp circled upwards, gripping the necklace in her teeth as she ascended. “You shall terrorize our citizens no longer!” Biting down hard, she called upon a large storm, several thunderbolts already striking the ground and strong gusts of wind blowing her bright yellow mane all over the place.

“Want some hot chocolate?” Saddle Rager stuck her hoof out, gripping a small cup. “It’s really good! I’m sure it’ll make you less of an angry giant!”

Radiance sent her hammers forward, doing it simultaneously with Matterhorn’s fireblast.

Zapp raised her pendent as high as she could, preparing to send her lightning bolts as a quick follow-up. All the while Fili-second rested on the hoof, taking a sip of her drink. As the fireblast and hammers approached Slay Bells, a sudden jerk of his lassoed hoof caused Marevelous to fly towards a building, slamming into it at full speed. With his hoof free, he swung it towards the hammers and fireblast, destroying most of the projectiles, save for the magic flameball, which was instead reflected before striking Zapp.

“Nnngh!” Zapp gave a muffled scream as she felt the fire strike her chest, knocking her out cold. Zapp fell rapidly from the sky, the lightning she conjured going wild and striking Matterhorn, Saddle Rager and Radiance in their flanks, immobilizing them as they collapsed to the ground.

Fili-second dropped her glass and stood up on her hooves, her expression changed to one of horror as she saw her friends laying on the floor, all of them defeated. Fully distracted, she failed to notice Slay Bells’ hoof as he swiped her from the very hoof she stood on.

“Wha— Hey! Let me go!”

Slay Bells gave a deep laugh. “Ho ho ho, I found my own present. A test subject for my new machine!”

Fili-second struggled helplessly, in the tight grasp of his hoof. “Girls! Get up!”

However, her cries were met only with groans of pain. Before she could call out to her friends once again, she saw the buildings move past her vision rapidly as Slay Bells trotted forward, the image of her friends disappearing in the distance.

---

Zapp threw herself onto the round table in the hideout, holding her chest. “Ugh, that did not go favorably.”

Saddle Rager followed suit, throwing her back against a wall before sliding down. “Owie…your lightning bolts really aren’t just for show!”

“My apologies. After Matterhorn’s fireblast to my chest, I lost all control of my bolts.”

“Ow…sorry about that.” Matterhorn limped into the room, rubbing her flank.

Marevelous trotted in as well, holding Radiance in her hooves. “We should be more worried about Fili-second! S-she’s going to be used as a test subject for some machine!”

“I’m worried too.” Matterhorn tinkered with the machine at the front. “But until we get better, going against Slay Bells is suicide.”

“How can somepony be so cranky during Hearths Warming!?” Saddle Rager angrily remarked.
Marevelous sat Radiance on the table, sprawled out. “Look, we don’t have time to waste. Let’s just power through Slay Bells’ hideout and—“

“And what? Get captured too? We’re in no shape to fight!” Matterhorn interjected.

“And if we don’t, Fili-second could become some sort of monster! Who knows what might happen to her!?” Marevelous argued.

“Brute force isn’t going to win us the day, Marevelous!”

“But it’s the only choice we have!”

“We can wait and—“

“We can wait and next thing we know, Fili-second could be turned into some sort of monster! Matterhorn, you can’t always just sit down and think!”

“This isn’t your decision to make!” Matterhorn stomped her hoof on the floor, causing the whole hideout to rumble.

“And your decision isn’t the right one!” Marevelous slammed her hooves on the ground as well, resulting in a larger tremor.

Saddle Rager quickly trotted out of the room with only Zapp taking notice. The black-clad pegasus quickly took off after her friend.

“Saddle Rager? Where are you headed?”

“Away,” Saddle Rager replied coldly. “I need to walk, be alone.”

“On Hearths Warming? That is most unusual. I would assume you would be the pony to seek company the mo—“

“Well, you’re wrong, Zapp. I just… want to be alone. All this arguing’s bringing back too many bad memories.” Saddle Rager continued her trot towards the escalator.

“V-very well then.” Zapp gave a sigh before turning around. She was met with a sudden burst of the meeting room door as Marevelous stormed out of the hideout. “What in Maretropolis…”

Zapp rushed in immediately, seeing a furious Matterhorn firing off several ice beams around the hideout, creating large icicles and stalactites all around the area.

“Matterhorn! What did—“

“Why won’t they just listen to me!? I know what’s best! I do! That’s why I’m the leader!”
Matterhorn continued firing off her barrage of magic.

“Matterhorn!” Zapp rushed up, holding her by her shoulders.

“I do! I know what’s best!” Matterhorn tried desperately to break out of Zapp’s grip, tears starting to run down her face. “I always know what’s best!”

Zapp pulled her into a hug as her speech slowly turned into mumbles and whispers. “I’m the leader, Zapp. I… I know what’s best for the team. I do…don’t I?”

Comments

[Regreme]

Interesting start. Not sure what color you mean by tangerine though. Did a search and found two different color results.

Do you have any artworks of how you think they'd look like? I'm extremely curious. Either way, liking this thusfar.

Oh, and also, here's a theory... when the mane six were turned into them, Twilight didn't seem to have the usual access to her horn, so I theorize that Masked Matterhorn's horn is actually a part of the helmet, something created to allow a pegasus access to unicorn magic. Just a theory.

Either way, on to the next chapter.^_^