Chapter 6
Holding the pillow tight around her ears to ward off the cacophony of noise reverberating through the library’s walls, Twilight cursed whatever ancient pony had first banged two rocks together and invented the art of music. Though even comparing that trash to music is an insult to music everywhere, she thought, regretting her decision to put the local DJ in control of the celebration’s music.
Twilight peeked out from beneath her pillow to check the clock. She groaned.
There was a bang and a surge in musical volume as the door to her new bedroom was thrown open by Spike, wearing what looked like a lampshade on his head. “Hey, Twilight!” said Spike as he strolled into the room, his new hat jostling from side to side. “Pinkie Pie’s starting ‘pin the tail on the pony’! Wanna play?”
“All the ponies in this town are crazy!” she snapped. “Do you even know what time it is?”
Spike shrugged. “It’s the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration. Everypony has to stay up, or they’ll miss the Princess raising the sun.” He arched an eyebrow. “Seriously, Twilight, you should lighten up. It’s a party!”
“It’s a party! It’s a party!” she mimed, bobbing a hoof up and down like a flapping jaw.
Rolling his eyes, Spike shut the door behind him, dropping the music down from unbearable to just extremely obnoxious.
Twilight flipped over onto her back and let out another loud groan. “Ugh! I thought I would have time to learn about the Elements of Harmony, but instead I’m harassed by crazy ponies with their ridiculous friend-making!” Again, her thoughts returned to the passages that had been haunting her mind for days. “Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year–”
There was a crash from below and the sound of shattering glass, followed by loud celebratory hooting. Impossibly, the music got even louder.
Twilight threw her pillow across the room. “That’s it! I need some fresh air,” she declared as her horn burst into life. There was a crack of displaced air, and she vanished.
In a flash of light she exploded back into the material plane a moment later, landing on the packed dirt of the street outside. Teleporting gets a little bit easier every time, she thought with pride before turning back to glare at the library. Shadows of cavorting ponies played out over the windows. Even outside, the music was irritatingly loud. Her frown deepened. “Well, I have more important things to do than waste a whole night partying. Some of us are worried about the fate of Equestria!” she ended with a shout. With an angry snort she turned away and stalked off into the night.
The flaw with her plan became apparent when she found herself hopelessly lost after only a few streets. Ponyville was hardly Canterlot, but she was still wandering around an unfamiliar town in the dark. About the only landmark she could make out was the well-lit library – and there was no way she was going back there until she’d managed to relax a little. Until then, Twilight was content to just follow her hooves, losing herself in her own thoughts.
There were few ponies out so late – Most of them are probably busy keeping me from getting any work done at the library, she thought bitterly – but those that she did encounter greeted her with broad smiles. Twilight ignored them, too deep in thought to register their looks of irritation.
In time she found herself standing atop one of the bridges in the center of town. Pausing for a moment, Twilight lifted her head to gaze up into the sky. It was an incredible view. Celestia’s nights were things of beauty, seas of twinkling diamonds and rubies that always left her in awe. Even the moon hung high in the sky, burning with a cool light that cast everything in shades of white and silver.
Twilight shivered as she considered the moon, easily picking out the dark shape of the mythical Mare in the Moon. Once again the passage from Predictions And Prophecies leapt unbidden to her lips. “Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about everlasting night.” Her ears drooped as she rested her head on the railing. “Oh Princess, I hope you are right and this is just an old ponies’ tale. But why can’t I shake the feeling like something terrible is going to… to…”
Her thoughts trailed away as she picked out a dark shape floating down the river beneath her hooves. She craned her neck over the railing to get a better look. It could have been the night playing tricks on her, but she swore it was…
“A pony!” Twilight gasped. Her hoofbeats rang out on the wood as she galloped across the bridge and, making a tight turn, raced for the river’s edge. She hadn’t been imagining things – there was a pegasus floating listlessly down the river, tangled up with some shattered branches. “Help! Somepony get help!” she shouted as arcane energy engulfed her horn. Taking hold of the dark shape with her magic, she grit her teeth and began tugging the pony out of the inky water.
The loud commotion was enough to draw the attention of the few late-night wanderers. A stallion shouted that he was going to go fetch a doctor as the others gathered nervously around Twilight. It was agonizingly slow, but Twilight didn’t relent until she’d finally pulled the pony up onto the shore. Her magic dissipated in a flash, leaving her feeling mentally and physically exhausted.
The pegasus wasn’t moving.
Any thought about her own discomfort vanished as she rushed to the pony’s side, Twilight’s mind racing through all the books she’d read, digging desperately for some nugget of useful information.
Twilight rolled the pony over onto its – no, from the shape of the muzzle it was clearly a mare – onto her back and cradled her head in her hooves. Even in the night, Twilight could see the scrapes and cuts across the pegasus’ dark coat, including one vicious cut that bisected her butterfly cutie mark. Her wings looked like they’d been mauled, her pinkish mane was a rat’s nest of twigs and leaves, and she was cold to the touch. Too cold.
“Please be okay, please be okay,” Twilight repeated desperately as she opened the mare’s mouth, looking past her broken teeth, checking for obstructions. She wasn’t breathing.
Although she’d never done it before, memorized lessons about CPR and emergency care sprang to mind – the result of her fillyhood dream of being a doctor, one of many such foalhood obsessions that had vanished as soon as she’d moved onto something new – and Twilight set to work, compressing the mare’s chest before pressing her lips to the mare’s chilled mouth and exhaling. Twilight pushed aside a silver pendant as she returned to the chest compressions, keeping count in her head. One, two, three, four...
The pegasus gasped and sputtered, forcing a stream of murky water out of her muzzle. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment before she fell back to the ground, limp. Only after Twilight had double-checked that the mare was breathing again did she realize just how fast her own heart was racing. “She’s breathing!” Twilight called out. “She’s alive!”
A ripple of relief passed through the assembled ponies.
“So, what is it?” one pony called out.
Twilight jerked her head up in surprise. “What?”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I’ll go fetch the guards!”
“Are you sure you should be so close to it?”
Twilight glanced down at the pegasus in her hooves and stiffened. With the emergency having passed, her mind could finally process what she’d mistaken for injuries.
Leathery wings lay limp in the dirt, more reptilian than equine, while the mare’s open mouth revealed sharp white fangs that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Long, tufted ears twitched fitfully as Twilight edged backwards.
What Twilight had pulled out of the river was like no pony she’d ever seen before.
*~*~*
Standing on his tiptoes, Spike peered over the edge of Twilight’s bed. “And you just found her floating in the river?” he asked.
Twilight rubbed the side of her head as she glanced up from the latest in a growing pile of books she’d been digging through. “Yes,” she repeated herself, knowing Spike would just ask her the same question in a few minutes. Again.
“Coooool…”
Shaking away her irritation, she returned her attention to the musty copy of Ancient Mythical Beasties of Olde Equestria she’d found on one of the library’s dustier, more cobweb-encrusted shelves. Twilight made a mental note to look up whoever had been librarian before she’d arrived so she could give them a piece of her mind at the sorry state of affairs in Ponyville. It had taken needless hours to locate all the reference books she’d required.
Of course, that hadn’t been the only delay to her research. Although it hadn’t taken long to transport the mare to the library and drive all the party-goers out into the night, once word had spread about the mysterious pony-thing she’d pulled out of the river, Twilight had been inundated by the curious and the frightened. Running interference for Doctor Horse while he’d examined the mare had made Twilight responsible for dealing with them all, and Spike hadn’t been the only one who had felt it their right to share their own extensive theories and beliefs with Twilight.
Twilight slugged down another cup of tea. It had been a long night.
“Is she part dragon?” Spike asked as he leaned forward.
“Ponies and dragons can’t interbreed.”
“But she’s got fangs, and dragon wings, and her eyes kinda look like mine.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s part dragon. Now come over here and stop bothering her. Doctor Horse was insistent we give her a chance to recover.”
“Well, what is she then?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. She’s obviously a pony, but beyond that, there just isn’t anything mentioned. After a few thousand years of Equestrian history I assume that somepony would have written something about sharp-toothed, bat-winged, cat-eyed ponies before now, but there just isn’t anything to go by.” She sighed and closed the book she’d been reading. “At this point I’ve exhausted anything even remotely scholarly. Now I’m just digging through books that talk about mummies and wereponies for some kind of hint.”
Spike went pale and hurried over to Twilight’s side. “Is she a... vampire?”
“No.”
“Maybe some kind of mutant pegasus?”
“No.”
“What about some kind of freaky mutant pegasus vampire dragon hybrid?”
“No!”
Spike crossed his arms. “Well, I stand by my theory.”
Twilight gave him a flat stare before reaching for the next book. “‘Some kind of freaky mutant pegasus vampire dragon hybrid’ isn’t a proper scientific description of a new species. It’s not even accurate.”
He glanced back up at the bed and its unresponsive occupant. “Seems pretty accurate to me.”
Twilight grabbed another book at random and shoved it into his claws. “If you really want to help, then start reading. I have a dozen other books to get through before I’ve exhausted this library. And before we head to the Canterlot library, I want to make sure we didn’t miss something obvious here first.”
Spike nodded and, lying out on his belly, he cracked the book open in front of him. He began flipping through the pages. “Well, Princess Celestia has been around for a long time. I bet you she’ll know what that vampire pony is.”
“She’s not a vampire!”
“Hey, you said yourself you didn’t know what she is. That means she could be a vampire.”
Twilight’s mouth worked uselessly for a few seconds. “Just start reading,” she groaned. “I don’t need more stories about vampires and fictional monsters bouncing around when the Princess shows up later today. I heard enough in the past two hours to last me a lifetime.”
She dropped her book with a gasp. “The Princess!” she shouted, leaping to her feet. One glance at the clock confirmed her fears. “Sunrise is only a few hours away, and I’ve been so busy here I haven’t double-checked if everything is ready for her!”
“Twilight?”
“They’ve been too busy bothering me and partying, so who knows what they’ve done?” She began pacing back and forth, tail swishing nervously. “And I haven’t even finished my research into this prophecy about the Mare in the Moon!”
Spike lifted a finger. “Twilight, I–”
“It’s too late! Everypony is already meeting up at the town hall! I… I… I need to check on the others before the Princess gets here! Everything has to be perfect!”
Twilight vanished in a burst of purple magic, leaving Spike standing alone, a book dangling at his side. He dropped his upraised hand and slowly turned around, looking up at the pony resting in Twilight’s bed. He swallowed heavily. “Okay Twilight, I’ll happily miss out on the Summer Sun Celebration and just stay here for you. All alone. With the vampire pony.”
Spike sighed. “Sometimes I wish I was still an egg.”
*~*~*
Everything came rushing back at once. The pain. The cold. The nothingness.
The betrayal.
“Dusk!” Fluttershy cried out as she awoke with a start, adrenaline pumping through her veins as her memories jump-started her heart. “Noooo!” Kicking her legs wildly, she tried to escape her attacker, only entangling her limbs even further until they were cocooned tightly against her body. With a frightened squeak, she toppled backwards over the edge of the bed.
Her head struck the floor, sending a burst of raw agony through Fluttershy’s aching skull. Bound up tight, hanging upside down, head throbbing in pain, and with no idea where she was or what was going on, Fluttershy whimpered in unadulterated fear.
I’m dead, she thought to herself. This is it. Dusk killed me.I’m in the afterlife, being punished for everything I did wrong.
Trapped in place and unable to move, she was left to stare around her as more of her surroundings revealed themselves to her. Mind-numbing fear was slowly replaced with frightened confusion. Thoughts of death shriveled as she gazed around the inverted room. Even upside down she could pick out floors and bookshelves and desks and chests, all made of solid wood.
Wood! Fresh-cut wood! The sheer luxury of furnishing an entire room in it was imposing. Wherever she was, the owner was far wealthier than she could ever imagine.
Yet the ostentatious decor wasn’t matched by the banality of its contents. Rows of plain books lined the walls while stacks of parchment, scattered tomes, and the occasional potted plant offered the only flourishes of personality within the room.
Considering the incredible cost in furnishing a room full of wood, she’d expected to find piles of gems and ancient armors, not old throw rugs and a cuckoo clock. It was mildly disappointing – and certainly didn’t resemble the afterlife she’d been promised since foalhood.
No longer prey to absolute panic, Fluttershy took stock of her situation. Bent backwards at a fairly uncomfortable angle, she was hanging halfway off the bed she’d awoken in, her head resting on the floor. Glancing down – or rather, up – at herself, she was embarrassed to see her bindings were nothing more than the sheets she’d somehow managed to wrap around herself in her panic, leaving her like a fly in a spider’s web.
“Well, at least nopony was here to see me like this,” she said, laughing nervously.
The door at the far end of the room opened with a creak, and her blood turned to ice water. She stared, wide-eyed, at the door, dreading her first look at her captor. And she stared. And stared. And stared.
Eventually a small purple head peeked out around the doorframe. The two of them made eye contact. “A baby dragon?” she asked incredulously.
The dragon leaned out a little further, revealing beautiful green frills, a nervous expression, and a rolling pin grasped tightly in his adorable little claws. Maybe it was her position and all the blood rushing to her head, but Fluttershy was instantly giddy with excitement. “Oh my, it’s a real baby dragon!” Fluttershy gushed. “I've never seen a baby dragon up close before. He's sooo cute!
The dragon blushed and took a few more steps into the room, revealing a string of bulbous white vegetables hanging around his neck. “Uh… hi. I’m Spike,” he said as he lowered the rolling pin.
Fluttershy giggled. “Hello, Spike. I’m Fluttershy. Wow, a talking dragon. I can’t believe I get to see two dragons in the same day. So, what do dragons like to talk about?”
“Oh, you know. Normal stuff. Like gems and, um… doing dragon things.”
“Wow. And what is that you’re wearing around your neck?”
Spike looked down at himself. “Garlic.”
“Garlic…” Fluttershy repeated the word to herself. “Wow. How exotic. Is that a dragon custom?”
“No, not really. It’s protection.”
“Protection from what?”
His blush deepened. “From… vampires.”
Fluttershy glanced around the room, suddenly on edge. “Vampires?” she whispered. “But they’re not real… right?”
Spike laughed nervously. “No. I was just, uh, worried you might…”
“Might what?”
“... might be a vampire.” He said with a wince.
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why would you think I would be a vampire?”
“Well, because me and Twilight couldn’t figure out what you were. And since you’re so, um, different,” he spared a glance at Fluttershy’s fangs, “I just thought…”
Fluttershy frowned, indignant despite her predicament. “I thought dragons were familiar with ponies.”
“I’m used to ponies, just not fangy bat ones.”
“You’ve never heard of thestrals?” asked Fluttershy. “I… I can’t believe it. I know we were erased from the history of ponies, but how could dragons forget us too?” Hurt, she glanced away – or tried to, but her awkward position conspired with gravity to keep her pointed in Spike’s direction. She contented herself with a sad pout.
Looking both embarrassed and confused, Spike tossed the rolling pin and garlic aside before moving to Fluttershy’s side. “Hey, don’t be upset. I bet Twilight has heard of bat ponies before,” he said as he gripped the sheets and began prying Fluttershy lose. After a few fruitless tugs he stepped back, planting his hands on his hips. “Wow, you’re really stuck in there, huh? Okay, just stay still, and I’ll get you free in a jiffy,” he said as he lifted a claw. It looked far sharper up close.
Fluttershy gulped and squeezed her eyes shut. The claw sliced through the air above her with a swish. There was a moment of weightlessness when the sheets released their grip before she was spilled out onto the floor. She rolled over with a groan and carefully stood up. Her vision wavered, but held firm.
Checking to make sure her crescent moon pendant was still in place, she proceeded to look herself over. She noted one of her wings bore careful bandaging that didn’t mask the dull ache from a treated wound. She’d treated enough wounded animals to tell it was good work. It wasn’t the only one, as she counted around a dozen other smaller bandages across her body. Reaching up with a hoof, she felt the bump on her head, a gift from the hardwood floor to join the previous one she’d earned from… from…
Dusk! The other pony’s name slammed down on Fluttershy’s thoughts like a blacksmith’s hammer, reverberating through her soul. Dusk hit me and I remember… falling. And cold. Wet, dark, terrible cold. Shock, confusion, and fear welled up inside as the memory of Dusk’s gaze filled her mind. Beneath it all was the impossible truth that left her mouth dry and her heart racing.
Dusk tried to kill me! He actually wanted to murder me!
Something grabbed her shoulder. Fluttershy struck out on instinct, her Legionary training operating far faster than conscious thought. Spike gave an aborted shout as he was bucked across the room, bug-eyed and grasping his stomach. He hit a shelf and collapsed wordlessly, showered in falling books.
“Spike!” Fluttershy called out as she leapt forward, the despair at accidentally harming a cute and defenseless little animal enough to break her free from her memories. She tossed books aside as she desperately dug the downed dragon out, repeating his name again and again.
“What was that for?” he asked as Fluttershy helped him stand. He wheezed, clearly out of breath, but he sounded more indignant than hurt. “Do you kick every guy that tries to help you?”
Fluttershy stepped backwards and hung her head in shame. She squeaked out an apology. “I’m so sorry! It w-was an accident, I promise! I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Hurt? Please. I’ve got thick scales. It takes more than that to hurt a real dragon. Just, you know, don’t do it again.” Removing a thick almanac that had been resting on his head, he slid it into the shelf behind him, before giving Fluttershy a once over. “So what was that about?”
“What was what about?”
“You totally just froze up and started shaking like you’d seen a ghost.” He cocked his head to the side. “Maybe you should lie down again. At least until Twilight gets back.”
Fluttershy shook her head as she tried to push Dusk from her mind. Guilt at hurting an innocent little animal was a powerful recuperative aid. “Thank you, but I’d rather stay up and stretch my legs.”
“Well, if you’re feeling good enough to kick like that then I guess you’re okay. Just help me clean up first and we’ll be square.”
Still, it was little consolation for the mortified Fluttershy, who lashed out at herself. The first dragon I meet in my life, and I end up hitting him! I can’t do anything right. What if his parents had seen me? They wouldn’t… they…
Fluttershy paled. “Spike?” she asked, her voice a thin whisper.
He returned another book to the shelf. “Yeah?”
“Where are the grown up d-d-dragons?”
“There aren’t any. It’s just me and Twilight staying here.”
Fluttershy exhaled with relief. The last thing I need is a meeting with a terrifying, sharp-toothed, claw-having, pony-munching, full-grown dragon right now.
Despite the emotional exhaustion of having gone from one extreme to another and back again in mere minutes, Fluttershy’s training began to reassert itself as she turned her thoughts to the here and now. If she was going to get anywhere, she needed answers.
Picking up the nearest book, she joined Spike in reshelving them. “So it’s just you and this… Twilight living here?”
“Yup. I mean we just moved in today, and things have been just wild. A new home, a huge party, and a real life bat pony, all in one day? What are the odds of that?” Chuckling to himself, Spike picked up another book. “So, what’s with the accent?”
“Accent?”
“Yeah. You kinda sound like one of those actors in those boring plays Twilight used to take me to. Like, from olden times.”
“I didn’t know I had an accent,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. “Isn’t this how ponies talk?”
“Not really. Is that how they talk from where you’re from?”
Fluttershy coughed, suddenly on guard. “So is Twilight a baby dragon like you?” she asked, changing the topic.
Spike giggled. “Naw. She’s the pony that hatched me. I’m her assistant and help her with her studies. I dunno if you remember her, but she’s the purple unicorn who pulled you out of the river. And since she’s Princess Celestia’s personal student, that means I have plenty of work to do. Taking notes, writing letters, finding the right books; you name it and I’m in charge of it. I pretty much keep things working around here. When you meet Twilight later, you’ll see what I mean. Hopefully she… Uh, Fluttershy? Are you alright?”
Fluttershy stood frozen in place, a book halfway to the shelf, her face as white as her wide-open eyes.
“Oh not this again,” he muttered, checking there was nothing expensive behind him. Spike waved a hand in front of her face. “Hey, Fluttershy? Fluttershy?” He snapped his claws a few times in front of her muzzle.
The book she was holding trembled. “P-P-Princess C-Celestia?”
“Yeah, Princess Celestia!” Spike smiled, relieved she was responding again. Misreading her terror as awe, and desperate to keep her engaged in case she had another episode, he continued, “Twilight’s been the Princess’ student for… well, ever since I was hatched. They’re really close.”
Fluttershy gasped.
“I know it can be a little hard to believe, but I’m serious. We have a tower on the castle grounds and everything. I even use my dragon fire to send messages directly to the Princess.” His face brightened. “Hey, do you want to send a message to the Princess? It’s pretty awesome.”
“Nooooooo…” she wheezed as she retreated from the cheerful dragon. Curtains hung in front of the windows, but between them she could glimpse a familiar sliver of thatched roofs and colorful buildings light by the late night sky. A pit of ice formed in her belly as she realized just how stupid she’d been.
Spike was the same dragon she’d seen that morning.
Twilight was the important official that had arrived on the chariot.
Fluttershy was trapped in the heart of Ponyville.
With her heart trying to hammer its way out of her chest, Fluttershy began to hyperventilate. Spike works with the Sun Tyrant! I’m a prisoner and he can summon the Sun Tyrant and I have to get away before he or this Twilight send a message and she comes here and cooks me up and eats me!
Spike grew concerned as the book she’d been holding dropped to the floor. “Fluttershy? Is something wrong?” he asked gently, careful not to touch her again. “Was it something I said? I didn’t meant to offend you or anything.”
“No! Everything is f-fine!” Fluttershy said too loudly as she continued backing away. “I really need to… to go and… go,” she finished lamely before spinning around and making a dash for the library door.
She didn’t notice the discarded rolling pin until it was too late. Letting out a startled squawk as her hooves kicked out from beneath her, she was sent sailing through the open door. She hit every step as she tumbled down the stairs, and landed flat on her back with a loud “Oof!” Aching all over and too dizzy to see straight, she forced herself up onto her hooves and stumbled off blindly as Spike called out her name.
Glancing around blearily, she identified a large, partially curved door as the most likely exit and aimed herself towards it. Her legs were bruised and her hooves felt like lead, but she pushed on. She had to escape before Twilight returned and used Spike to summon the Sun Tyrant. Although torn by the desire to rescue the innocent dragon from his undoubtedly cruel servitude, self-preservation and her own sense of duty kept her aching body her in motion. She had to get away and report back to Captain Vanguard so the Rangers could–
Fluttershy came to a stop inches from the door.
Dusk will be waiting for me with the other Rangers, a dark thought whispered at the back of her mind, cutting through her terror like an obsidian knife. Dusk might not have been working alone The rest of the squad could have been in on it – including the Captain. Fluttershy winced. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t craft a convincing reply.
Trapped between two dangerous choices, she found herself frozen by indecision. Her anxiety crested. She had to act, she had to do something, but what? What?
“Fluttershy! Wait!” Spike shouted, huffing and puffing as he ran after her. The appearance of the Sun Tyrant’s associate barreling towards tipped the scales, and with a last frightened look in Spike’s direction she threw open the door and dashed out through the door – and into utter pandemonium.
Screaming ponies galloped past her without a second glance. The whole town filled the streets, screaming and shouting and moving like cattle in a stampede.
Fluttershy jumped back into the safety of the doorframe as a stream of dark starlight coursed through the air just above their heads, followed by booming laughter that seemed to drip with joyful malice. Just the sight of the thing was enough to root Fluttershy in place, everything too chaotic to even comprehend. Fear and confusion and desperation fought for control as she watched the panicked ponies flood out of the streets. Most returned to their homes and slammed the doors shut behind them, while others just took to the hills, putting as much distance between themselves and Ponyville as they could.
Right on the heels of the dark cloud was the cruel rainbow-colored pegasus Fluttershy had seen at the farm, but despite her incredible speed the apparition outpaced her easily. It's laughter lingered on even after it had slipped over the horizon and disappeared from sight.
“Night time… forever?” the pegasus said aloud, hovering above the now abandoned streets. Panting heavily, she turned away reluctantly – and spotted the clearly-illuminated Fluttershy still frozen in the library’s doorway. Her eyes narrowed into daggers. “Hey, you!”
Fluttershy bolted in the other direction, earning a loud curse from the pegasus. The empty night sky seemed so inviting, but Fluttershy had never been the strongest flier, even without a bandaged wing. There was no way she could beat the pegasus in the air. Fluttershy’s only hope was to lose her in the nearby alleyways, and fast.
Panic leant her strength. Legs pumping, heart racing, Fluttershy galloped around the corner and managed a dozen yards before she was tackled from behind. The pegasus flipped Fluttershy over onto her back. Wings flared wide, she leaned down and shouted, “Tell me what you did with the Princess!”
Too frightened to think straight, adrenaline pumping through her system like burning kerosene, Fluttershy’s training took over.
She headbutt the pegasus.
What followed was a hazy, half-remembered dream. Each movement was automatic, sheer muscle memory. Fluttershy might have graduated at the bottom of her class, but she’d still had martial arts continuously drilled into her since she was a foal. The pegasus moved like molasses. Fluttershy flowed around her pathetic defenses with ease. Sometimes she didn’t see the pegasus at all, just Russet Lance again, his leering face filling her vision, sneering at her no matter how hard she battered it.
Coming to her senses, Fluttershy found herself standing above the pegasus, her fangs bared as she gripped the other mare’s throat in her hooves. One wing bent backwards, her face and body a mask of blood and bruises, the pegasus stared up from the mud with a mixture of confusion and pain. Mostly pain.
Fluttershy could hear her old drill instructor’s voice in her ear, telling her to finish her opponent. The pegasus was the enemy. She’d attacked Fluttershy and almost killed Silver Pike, and now she was defenseless. Fluttershy stared down at the mare, her muscles wound up tight, her whole body pulsing in time with her heartbeat. All she had to do was wrench the head to the side, snap the neck at the base of the skull, and she could safely escape into the night. She was so close to freedom. She was a soldier. It was her mission. It’s what she had to do.
The pegasus gasped loudly, desperate to fill her burning lungs as Fluttershy released her grip on the mare’s neck. “Now d-don’t try and follow me, okay?” Fluttershy said as she scooted backwards, her whole body trembling in the throes of an adrenaline overdose, her mind still caught up in an emotional storm. “I’m really s-sorry. Please, just please forget I was even here.”
The world turned pink as Fluttershy was engulfed in a bubble of magic and yanked up into the air. Marching across the field, a winded Spike at her side, was a lavender unicorn whose horn burned furiously with arcane energy, reflecting the dangerous glint in her eyes.
Fluttershy whimpered and began running in the other direction. She remained in place as the bubble spun around her like she was a gerbil on a wheel. Fluttershy didn’t stop. She knew who that unicorn was, who it had to be, and she had to get away.
It was Twilight Sparkle, personal student of the Sun Tyrant, and she had Fluttershy trapped.
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Why the cliffhanger
!
I am hyperventilating! Awesome!
you damn tease. Why did you end the chapter like that? you basically revealed nothing, now I had to wait for the next one.
yay, we have contact! and im glad to say it wasnt as bad as i thought it could have gone, so that was a bonus.
...also
HERESY!
Well, as far as first impressions go, that... probably could have been better. But c'mon, Twilight, you only have to talk to Fluttershy to realize she's harmless. Well, sort of. A bit. Don't mind Rainbow Dash over there, really.
Also, wow, everything's moving fast - I wasn't expecting Nightmare Moon to show up quite this quickly. :O
This story is really good, bro, I am loving it a lot, but please, ask your editors to step up a little. There are a lot of easily-fixable errors in this chapter that really detract from what is otherwise an exciting and significant turning point in the story.
Either way, looking forward to more.
-_CG
Can't wait for the culture shock when Flutters refuses to give information to a "servant of the Sun Tyrant."
The absense of Batponies, even basic information about their existence, in Equestria, seems to prove the genocide actually happened. I wonder how will Celestia explain that to Twilight.
What, no wooden stake, Spike?
And Rainbow's down for the count! ...honestly I'm not surprised by that.
In Flutter''s defense, Rd did tackle her and her training kicked in and she didn't kill Rd when she easily could have.
Ooh, I wasn't expecting the perspective shift. :)
"the feeling like something terrible"
"feeling that something"?
"Twilight rolled the mare over onto"
"the pony over"?
"the night it Twilight could"
"night, Twilight"?
"the pegasus’ dark coat"
"pegasus's"?
Though I believe there are styles that drop the s.
"The pegasus gasp and sputtered"
"gasped"?
"her. The Doctor Horse was"
"her. Doctor Horse was"?
"I assume"
Extra space?
"laying out on his"
"lying"?
"past two-hours to last"
Interesting. Why the hyphen?
"Once glance at the clock"
"One"?
"out on Summer Sun"
"on the"?
"Thoughts of the death shriveled"
"of death" or "of her death"?
"Yet the ostentatious of the decor"
"ostentatiousness"?
"I know were were erased"
"we were"?
"far sharper much less"
"sharper and much"?
"was still place"
"still in place"?
"proceeded to look herself."
"herself over"?
"with a hoof she felt the"
"hoof, she"?
"out of breathe"
"breath"?
"behind him, before giving"
"him before"?
"should lay down again"
"lie down"?
"is Twilight’s a baby"
"Twilight"?
"Spike’s grew concerned"
"Spike"?
"dark starlight course through"
"coursed"?
"just took the hills"
"took to the"?
"She headbutt the pegasus"
"headbutted"?
Shoulda just stayed in the bed...
Fluttershy is going to have to make a choice soon...
Keep going! ;)
Ahh, I can't wait for the next chapter >.<
Yeah, if the town gets worked up over a zebra, a pony with bat wings is definitely going to make them worry. And that's before she beat the crap out of Rainbow Dash. A shame Fluttershy didn't get a chance to meet Nightmare Moon. That'll be quite a sight.
In any case, I'd say the odds of what follows resembling the standard timeline have fallen to near zero. Whatever happens next will be very interesting.
7464823 a thousand years are a long time. If nightmare moon was forgotten so were they. And an explanation for the absence of batponies can be found in their devotion to Nightmare Moon: They might very well have fought unto death, similar to ww2 japanese. In that case Celestias Soldiers would have had little choice but to kill them.
OOOOOOH
Just want to say love the story so far. Wish I could give it more thumbs up. I like how well your keeping the characters in character despite the change in the timeline.
And I love where you ended the chapter as much as I hate it. So many possible directions you can take from here. I'm really curious which one you go with.
7465488 You, my friend, sound exactly like my editor. I use google docs so when she finally stops watching anime and gets to editing, I get a nice long email with about 15 edits at once per 10-15 paragraphs. Your comment just made my snicker so I wanted to let you know you made someone laugh today.
Btw... Sooooo... Fluttershy has become Xenith from fallout Equestria without the painful backstory, interesting. Eager to see where this goes.
7467988
Heh. Well, I'm glad it amused you. :)
I do a fair bit of editing myself, so I suppose some commonality wouldn't be unexpected.
This is out of character. The Fluthershy I know doesn't like confrontation.
Spike grumbles, "How would you know? You won't even let me try with Rarity..."
"What was that, Spike?"
Spike yelped, "Nothing that will start a massive series of fanfics dedicated to elicit and graphic erotic pony-dragon romance!"
"... I'm just going to feign ignorance now for the sake of my sanity... what little there is..."
New chapter? Prett yplease and with strippers on top?
Well.
After all this is said and done; the next council meeting should be interesting.
"Silhouette and Sky Lance; you two should feel /very proud/ of yourselves for being the first pair of ambitious, greedy, /devious/ ponies to inadvertently reveal our existence to all of Equestria in /1,000 years/. Surly you two are a stunning example of leadership."
derpicdn.net/img/2012/8/24/81404/thumb.png please Sir, can we get some more chapters? Please.
Fantastic story, I do hope it continues
New chapter?
I keep thinking about this story, and how we’re just getting at the juicy part. I really hope it isn’t dead.
7922467 nah it isn't man. writer has been going through school stuff.
Any hopes for an update to this story again, it great so far.
There's a missing 'been' in the short description for this story.
Will you update the story?
Do we know when the next chapter will be posted??
7470559 As long as the author does not forget how base Fluttershy works, then she ain’t completely out of character. This is an AU, after all.