Bird and Metal Hero

by Shark8

Avis cum volans negato

Avis cum volans negato.

Cheerilee sighed as she collapsed in her bed. Fortunately the odd location of her house, on the outskirts of town, had saved her from becoming homeless… and the soft bed was more than welcome after helping the fire-ponies and everyone fight the fires.

While it should have felt rewarding to have the fires all under control now, she felt empty inside — emotionally drained, hungry.

She pulled herself from the bed and trudged into the kitchen thinking of how she would have liked to have been able to see her students today, but the fires had been more urgent. The damage to the homes and families though… that could easily interfere with getting the school-foals back into classes.

She pulled a piece of cake out of the refrigerator and started eating it, wishing instead that she could just collapse into her special somepony’s forelegs and be held… well, that was impossible since she really didn’t have a special somepony.

Sighing, she made her way back into her bedroom, alone… save for the piece of cake that was being rapidly devoured.

* * *

Scootaloo jerked awake, the nightmare of seeing Ponyville aflame had once again been present; there was something disturbing about being confronted with the loss both in the waking world and the dream-world.

The unease was exacerbated when Princess Luna hadn’t shown up for any of the nightmares… but, given how many ponies were in Ponyville who had experienced the fires, it was quite possible that the Princess of the Night was simply overwhelmed with the number of nightmares to take care of.

Helping Cheerilee and the volunteer firefighters had felt exciting an kind of good, but it was tiring and they’d worked until long after Scootaloo was ready to collapse. Then the small orange pegasus made her way to her home where she met the smell of smoke still lingering in the home.

A frantic rush through the house and she finally found her parents bed, or rather what was left of it: the metal frame and a pile of ash. The stone floor and wall had apparently been enough to contain the fire… but all Scootaloo could see there was where her mom had been trying to sleep in when she’d left in the morning.

Scootaloo gasped and pulled herself out of the memories and back to the present. She didn’t know where her father was, and she’d been looking for him but none of the police-ponies seemed to know where he was… but then they were dead tired from working with the firefighters to put out the fires and none of them knew much about what anyone else was doing.

The hospital hadn’t had any record of him, and neither had the town-hall which had been hastily converted into a shelter for the uninjured ponies unable to return to their homes.

It was then that Scootaloo saw something quite strange: a bird trying to crawl around on all-fours like some sort of pony… and it even had what looked to be rainbow-colored hair.

The sight was so stupid, so silly, that Scootaloo found herself loudly laughing at the absurdity of the scene.

“What are you laughing at? Huh?” the penguin growled, and in an awfully familiar voice…

“Uh, Rainbow Dash? Is that you?” Scootaloo asked, blinking at the bird as if that would cause it to disappear.

“Who else is this awesome?” the bird replied, before shaking its head and remembering that it had been transformed by a horrible beast into what was probably an equally hideous form, “No, don’t answer that.”

“Discord zapped me…” Rainbow Dash explained to the stunned Scootaloo, “and if you wouldn’t mind, I gotta go see Twilight about this.”

“Eh, yeah…” Scootaloo said unsteadily, she had no idea where Twilight was, and Rainbow Dash was still too big for her to carry. There was a brief moment before the orange pegasus got an idea and motioned to her scooter, “Get on!”

* * *

Rarity woke feeling surprisingly refreshed, all things considered. It was a good morning, though somewhat late and with the smell of smoke hanging in the air… but no, no reason to start feeling grumpy! A real lady would handle life with grace and poise.

She looked towards Sweetie Bell’s room and considered waking her, but the little filly had been just as sick as Rarity yesterday, so it would probably be best to let her sleep in.

After a quick breakfast and getting made up to meet the day, Rarity spared a perfunctory glance at the calendar and was suddenly reminded that the inter-library loan on the definitive book on traditional Saddle Arabian clothing was supposed to be here today.

Rarity felt her smile grow as she made her way outside, heading over to Twilight’s… only to be confronted with a scene of destruction. It was as if some small, angry child with a magnifying glass had decided to turn his attention upon the town… assuming the townspeople were ants or the child a giant, of course.

Everywhere she looked se could see another burned home. It was dreadful, as she made her way across the town she noticed the few ponies out today looked like they hadn’t slept in a week, and when she got to Twilight’s she felt herself in a bit of a daze, like none of this was real and she was walking in a dream… she knocked on the door and Twilight answered, accompanied by the town’s resident cowpony.

Both Applejack and Twilight looked like they’d been crying…

“Oh, my dears, whatever happened?” Rarity heard herself asking, still in her daze, as if outside her own body and merely observing what was transpiring.

Applejack glanced over at Rarity and answered in a hoarse voice, “Apple Bloom’s dead and Granny Smith is in the hospital along with Big Mac… he ran in to save her, but they were both hit with a falling rafter when he was coming out.”

Rarity was about to comfort Applejack when Twilight added her own tale to the relating.

“I saw Spike die… he just suddenly caught fire and burned up.” Twilight said, “it was like those strange stories of Spontaneous Human Combustion that we read about back in Canterlot… well, I wasn’t supposed to, but the human history section seemed more fun at the time —” Twilight looked absolutely devastated as a single sob interrupted her story, “— Spike wanted to know if it was something wrong with their fire-breathing organs that caused it.”

Rarity couldn’t think of anything to say, all this was coming on too quickly… Sweetie Bell’s friend and Spike, both dead? The town burned half to the ground? What else could happen?

“Hey Twilight, Rarity!” a voice called, interrupting the three friends as they congregated in the entrance to Twilight’s house.

They all turned to find that it was Scootaloo bearing down on them with her scooter… except there was a passenger onboard — a penguin with what looked like rainbow hair.

“Well?” the penguin asked, crossing its flippers? wings? in a most impatient, and familiar, manner.

“Is that you Rainbow Dash?” Applejack asked, eyeing the apparently talking penguin… it’d be just like her to be on a cloud somewhere throwing her voice and pulling a stupid prank.

“Of course it’s me!” the penguin said, as if astounded that anyone wouldn’t recognize her.

“I found out who did all this! I caught him red-hoofed, and then he did this to me!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, waiving he flippers around for emphasis.

“Who are you talking about?” Rarity asked breaking the confused silence that intruded after Rainbow Dash’s outburst… apparently she wasn’t going to explain until asked.

“It was Discord,” Rainbow Dash said, “He was at Fluttershy’s looking at the ashes that remained… he even crushed Angel Bunny’s skull… who would do that except the killer?”

“Rainbow Dash, did you perhaps tell all this to Discord?” Rarity felt herself asking, almost seeing the pieces of the puzzle fall into place before the former-pegasus could answer.

“Of course I did! He heeds to know that he can’t fool me!”

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight interrupted as the penguin threatened to wind up into a bit of a spiel, “do you think that maybe you made him mad saying that he killed Fluttershy?”

“Why would it make him mad? He did it!” Rainbow Dash pushed on, headstrong as ever… and, as her current predicament clearly showed, not considering the consequences of her actions.

As Twilight and Rainbow Dash got into a slight argument over her stubbornness and lack of foresight Rarity’s eye was drawn to a bruise on Scootaloo’s shoulder.

“How did you get that, dear?” Rarity asked, indicating the oblong discoloration.

“A ladder fell over and hit me when we were fighting the fire at Diamond Tiara’s… it was her dad trying to get to her room, but that’s where the fire started, she was already gone.”

And at that moment everything became real: Fluttershy. Spike. Apple Bloom. Diamond Tiara… the dam of numbness that had been holding back her tears and sadness broke.

Rarity turned and ran, even as she cried, not even noticing when she kicked a pile of soot.

* * *

Sweetie Belle yawned once and rolled over yet again, the sunlight streaming in her window indicated that it was probably time to get up — after all, that meant that it was early afternoon. She pulled the blankets over her head and then, when a particularly annoying songbird decided to start singing outside her window decided that it was indeed time to get up.

Rolling out of bed and tumbling to the floor in a cascade of blankets, she exited the bed in her customary manner… one that her sister would no doubt find “appalling” and earn her a scolding. It didn’t matter much, anyway, because she made her bed before her sister ever thought to look in on her.

Sweetie Belle grinned at herself in front of the mirror Rarity had placed in the room and thought that she looked as good as she felt… which was encouraging, because that sickness had been terrible… but that was over now.

‘I can’t wait to hear what Apple Bloom and Scootaloo have been doing!’ she thought to herself, there was a flash of guilt over not being up to school yesterday, after all there had been a project that was due.

After bounding down the stairs, into the kitchen, and devouring a piece of cake left in the refrigerator, Sweetie Bell was ready to go find her friends. Just as she was about to get to the door it swung open and Rarity stepped inside the boutique.

Sweetie Belle found herself gaping at her older sister: halfway up each leg was the black of ash and soot… and her eyes were red and poofy, like she’d been crying... ash-dust having found the trails and made two dark vertical trails beneath her eyes.

“Oh, you’re up Sweetie Belle.” Rarity greeted her little sister woodenly, like she was too exhausted to care about much. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go see Scootaloo and Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle said, unsure whether to be excited over the prospect of seeing her friends again or concerned about what caused her sister’s appearance.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle…” Rarity’s voice caught, choking on some unnamed sadness.

“What?” Sweetie Belle asked, feeling her excitement drain away.

Rarity looked down at her little sister, wondering if she should tell her or let the filly find the bad news herself… no, it wouldn’t be good to withhold that from her, it’d only make her feel betrayed when she found out that Rarity hadn’t told her.

“Apple Bloom’s dead.” Rarity said, wanting nothing more than to throw herself into dressmaking, to have something to do other than think about everything that had happened. “So is Diamond Tiara, and Spike, and Pumpkin, and the Mayor, and a lot of ponies.”

“What!?” Sweetie Belle interrupted between ‘Spike’ and ‘Pumpkin’, “No! It’s not true, Apple Bloom’s not dead.”

There was a moment of silence as the two sisters regarded each other before Sweetie Belle broke off and ran out the door calling back that she didn’t believe Rarity.

Author's Note:

The spontaneous combustion of a quarter of Equestria's inhabitants is pretty rough -- I hope I'm capturing the impact on the characters well enough.

In any case, I hope the next chapter is a bit less heavy... so I'm planning on doing some Great and Powerful Trixie! in the next chapter.

Comments

[Dream Seeker]

Haha! You're doing so great, that I'm considering doing a 'bad ideas' story of my own.

[Shark8]

5511135
Thank you; I just hope I can keep up the pace... 2,000 words a day is more than I've been able to do in years.