The Darkness Saves the World

by Eon Seb

Chapter 3

Ponyville was a simple little town on the surface. Now, that being said, it had still seen a large amount of strange happenings over the years ,so seeing a pair of ponies walk out of an alleyway where no one had been a moment earlier was not commented on. What WAS mentioned was the appearance of the ponies as one looked like they just came out of the war with Alpacastan.

The other was carrying her companion and apologizing “I forgot to account for our size difference with the shadow portal. Are you okay, dear?”

The smaller newcomer shivered for a bit before answering “Next time, I'm making the portal. Let's just get to the list. I'll be all right shortly.”

The two were quite a sight around town. While triclops were not uncommon, seeing ponies with such a drastic size difference got people talking. A woman with pink fur and hair rushed off after seeing them at the speed of a bullet. The two took very little notice of this at the time, however, as they were wrapped up in finding the correct way to their first destination: Sweet Apple Acres.

After briefly consulting their map, they arrived just in time to see an orange mare wearing a Stetson, plaid shirt and cut off jeans kicking a tree to knock the fruit down. She had strong glyphs and runes coating her body forming a sprawling apple tree design which was ruined by the eye-like shapes on the back of her hands. They waved to her after making sure she was not going to charge another tree.

When Applejack saw the pair of mares approaching the farm, she at first thought it was a mother and daughter. When they arrived and she saw the actual size of them, however, she could only whistle at how tall the larger mare was. Even her brother Big Mac was short by comparison. The smaller of the pair looked young a first glance, but the suit she wore coupled with the calm, if slightly nervous, gaze made her pause.

“Howdy, name's Applejack. What are you two doing here this fine day?”

“W-we are here to check on the preparations for the C-celebration.” The smaller mare looked ready to try and hide

“Sweet apple cider. It's like looking at a tiny Fluttershy” Applejack grabbed them both by the hand and pulled them over to the barn “let me introduce you to the Apple family."

One meet and great brunch later

Twilight groaned from her place on Moondancer's back “The food was great, but I ate too much pie.”

Moondancer shook her head in exasperation “You ate a pile of pies that was as tall as you are. What did you think was going to happen? I'm amazed you haven't puked or exploded yet!”-

They continued down the path back to town before curiosity got the best of Moondancer “Did you notice anything about the elder ponies in the family?”

Moondancer could not shake the feeling that something had been, well, slightly off about those old mares. All of them had been hunched over with large noses and sunken eyes, and, for a brief moment when Granny Smith smiled, her teeth had gone from flat across the board to razor sharp.

“They were hags if I'm not mistaken. I'm more surprised the population in town is as high as it is if one has been living here very long.”

As they were contemplating this, a rainbow streak smacked into Moondancer (Who managed to maintain her balance with a bit of magic) with a sound not unlike that of a coconut being hit. “OW! What did I hit?”-

Rainbow looked up to see a mare who had to be one of the tallest in the world giving her the evil eye. - “Sorry about that, You okay?”

Moondancer felt her eye twitch before she sighed “Yeah, I'm fine. I take it you are Rainbow Dash, the one who is supposed to be keeping the sky clear?”

Rainbow's face morphed into a scowl “Come on! I could do that in 10 seconds flat and I just got home from my last year in service.”

Every citizen was expected to have basic training in the army to defend their home should the need arise. All ponies trained from 16 to 18 to join the army and only those with true mental or physical difficulties were exempt. 2 years of training, 3 years of service minimum. Based on her appearance, it would make sense that she just came home a short while ago.

“Preposterous”-

Rainbow's head jerked up at that to notice a trio of eyes staring at her from the large mares back.

- “I don't care how skilled you are! No pony is fast enough to clear the sky in 10 seconds.”

Rainbow just gained a cocky grin “Watch this.”

-10 seconds later the sky was clear and Twilight needed a new jaw-

“Hey. See you two later.”

After resetting their jaws, the girls walked into the main hall to see a triclops in the middle of decorating with, a drake helping her?

The mare was a pristine white with purple hair wearing a well tailored dress which looked perfect for day wear. Her third eye was bright blue.

The drake was wearing a simple shirt and pants with no shoes to keep his claws free. He was purple with green scales on his head and, for once, Twilight found someone who was eye level with her.

Before they could do more than get the pair's attention (much less introduce themselves), the mare took one look at Twilight and was crushing her in a hug gushing about how cute her outfit was. Quick as a flash, she had sped off to who knows were talking about outfits to increase the cute. The drake just sighed.

Why was his boss/mother/sister so embarrassing?

He turned to apologize to the other mare only to meep at the sight of her eyes glowing white her teeth sharpening to points and her aura going black. Moondancer picked the drake up by his shirt 'Tell me where she went now!”

The drake stammered out the directions, before introducing himself as Spike and the well-dressed mare as Rarity. After that, he tried to ignore his life flashing before his eyes. He was also trying to ignore the town as they sped down to the boutique.

Rarity had been brought back to reality by the shacking of the person she was carrying. She quickly sat the girl down and started to apologized, and hope that she could still get some modeling. When had they gotten to the boutique? “I'm sorry dear. You were just so cute I lost my head. I had planed to see if you would model some smaller clothing lines for me?”

Twilight paused to regain control of her breathing and think. On the one hand, she had just been dragged across town by someone she did not know. On the other how many times had this happened in Canterlot over the past week, for the exact same reason (They had been turned down do to their attitudes)? At least this mare was polite about it once she calmed down. “I would not mind helping you. It would be nice to not have to re-size clothing all the time.” Before Rarity could get too excited, there was a crash and her door flew across the room she turned and saw her life flash before her eyes at the look of rage on the much larger mares face. She was about to start praying when the smaller mare walked over and booped the tower of muscle and magic on the nose, gaining her attention. “I was just about to get fitted for some new clothing. Any suggestions dear?”

The change was instantaneous and Rarity and Spike both thanked the sun before helping their new customers and going over the decorations for the celebration. The girls left 2 hours later with a new wardrobe.

Rarity had fainted after they left when she realized how much they had bought.

They strolled up to the small cottage expecting to see a band practicing, not to hear a choir of birds from the back (though the choir of birds WAS very, VERY good). When the source of the song came into view the first thing they noticed was a mare who appeared to have faint glyphs on her body which resembled letters in many languages.

They almost wrote her off as a budding omnilinguist till she started flouting. Moondancer stepped on something which made a loud noise the mare dropped to the ground spun around and after catching a glimpse of the of the size of one of her visitors fell over sideways. It took five minutes of coaching (and Moon sitting down) for Twilight to coax the mare out of her fear induced faux-coma. After properly introducing themselves and double checking that Fluttershy (as the mare was called) had all the songs ready for the celebration, they decided to check out the library for some peace and quiet before the big party.

When they entered their pre-arranged temporary haven of peace and tranquility, they were immediately assaulted by noises bright colors and loud greetings.

Who in their right mind would set up a party in a library? Then they noticed it.

Standing in the center of the party with a grin too big for its face was a pink mare. The form may have been different but, even with how briefly they say it before, that smile was unmistakable.

'I'm not drunk enough to deal with this" Was Twilight's last thought as she entered what was her personal hell.

Moondancer's thoughts can best be summed up as an unintelligible mass of growls and groans as she prepared to use all her self control to not cause somepony to need the hospital. It was going to be a long night.