Chapter IV: "Cleric and Beast"
Enjoying a wonderful meal, Scootaloo and Cheerilee were expecting the arrival of Falcon and his relatives. They both tried not to abuse the hospitality of family and therefore ate only one apple pie piece and some sour, but tasty sea buckthorn.
Like this they were sitting in silence, which was broken only by the monotonous ticking of the high clockwork cabinet. This repetitive rhytm almost put them to sleep, when suddenly from the hallway they heard a creaking of the door, and after it the clap and clatter of hooves. After a second they could a hear silent, barely articulate mumbling. Judging by the timbre of the voice, it belonged to a young mare, whose voice slightly echoed.
"Did I forget to turn off the lights?"
Shortly after these words in the living room appeared keeper of hearth itself, Crimson Shadow. More precisely, since she was married, Crimson Lover. In appearance it was a twenty-years-old or so batpony with, as it is not obvious, crimson mane and light gray coat. Despite her youth, she wore glasses, but she probably needed it only to work with small details, because she immediately took them off. The mane was braided in a ponytail style, but her bangs fell on forehead, like the one Colgate or Rainbow Dash had. This style was spread among pegasi, but for batponies it was a novelty. The tail curled freely, but I cannot say that it was too long.
In that guise hostess appeared in front of duo, curiously looking at them. She seemed startled, but not in negative way. Then her face reddened to match her crimson mane and she said all the following with such tone, like she was really flattered. And at the same time quickly and emotionally.
"Oh, Luna! Guests!" she exclaimed. "We have guests! And so unexpected ones! It's an earth pony and pegasus! The real ones! Oh, where are my manners?! I'm Crimson. Crimson Lover. My name used to be Crimson Shadow, but when I got married, my surname changed. Oh, what's your name?"
"My name is Cheerilee..."
"Cheerilee?!" she interrupted. "Oh, Luna! Cheerilee! You're a teacher from Ponyville school! But why did you visited us? Is our son a bad student or, what even worse, a bully?!" now she spoke with a concern.
"No. And there better be it. We were brought here by Falcon and need."
"Did something terrible happen?!" - she said with more and more rising concern and curiosity at the same time.
"Exactly. The earthquake formed a giant canyon and separated us from all other residents. I'm very embarrassed to ask you for this, but..." Cheerilee paused. "Could you give us a place to stay at least for a while?"
At the word "canyon" Crimson flinched and it seemed that all thoughts in her head turned upside down, but then immediately returned in a previous course.
"Oh, darling, of course I can! I hope nopony was hurt in a disaster. My husband won't mind, we're always welcome! Stay as long as you want!"
"Thank you very much..."
They exchanged smiles. And then Crimson noticed Scootaloo.
"Wow! This lovely creature must be your daughter?"
Cheerilee looked at Scootaloo. Pegasus' cheeks were filled with blush and it was evident that now she could not answer and she needed a support. Cheerilee couldn't help but chuckled kindly, answering the question while her cheeks were filling with same blush.
"Uh, no. She's one of my students. Her name is Scootaloo. The poor thing, she had the same misfortune. Moreover..."
Cheerilee bit her tongue, fearing to raise the subject, which could kill Scootaloo's spirit, than any other weapon. Crimson slowly cocked her eyebrow, but catching a Cheerilee's glimpse, she realized that it's better not to develop this question, dutifully changing a subject.
"I see you've already eaten a small part of my pie..."
"Yeah, it tastes delicious!" Scootaloo responded.
"Thank you very much. By the way, do you want some coffee, miss Cheerilee?"
"If it's not too much trouble for you..." she said uncertainly.
"Oh, not even a bit! Which one do you prefer?"
"Black with sugar, if you don't mind..."
"Everything will be exactly as ordered!" said Crimson with a solemn note in her voice. "Do you need anything, Scootaloo?"
"Well, if only a half of lemon..." some shyly answered filly, imagining her favorite fruit.
Will be done!"
And with these words Crimson retired to kitchen, leaving the earth pony and pegasus alone with each other.
Falcon, when he arrived in his native village, the first thing he wanted to see his father, so, while Crimson brews coffee and cuts a lemon, let's, dear readers, fast forward to him. His father, as pegasus already said, was a conductor of church choir, so, most likely, he was just in the temple. And he was.
When Falcon approached the temple, the service was over and ponies little by little dispersed, leaving only clerics and priests inside. Waiting for the father to finish a conversation with one of the clergy, Falcon seized a moment and approached to his father. It was a batpony with yellow eyes, an indigo mane and grey-yellow coat. His name was Aurora Lover. In a childhood many laughed at him because in their minds "Aurora" was a girly name, but he managed to make a friendship with all of them thankfully to his kindness and friendliness. During the services, he wore a white cloak with scarlet ornament, which distinguished him a conductor among the other members of choir. His radiated one of the senses: love or madness of the dreamer. But most of the time on his face was sealed with friendliness and happiness. Exactly with this expression he met his son, opening his mouth widely in a smile and sighing happily.
He had already heard about the catastrophe in Ponyville and he tried best to hide this news from his wife, because she loved their only child and son, and this strike could kill her on the spot. But what was his happiness when he saw his son in good health and unharmed.
"Oh, Luna! Son! It's really you!" Aurora exclaimed.
"It's me, daddy!" little colt responded.
Two tears appeared in his father's eyes and he ran and hugged his child, not holding back a rush of infinitely happy feelings and emotions.
"You have no idea how I'm glad that you're okay..." he paused, letting tears be free. "Oh, Luna, thank you for saving my son!"
"I'm glad to see you too, dad..." Falcon paused. "By the way, I brought with me those who saved me and now they need our help and shelter..."
"Oh, who are those brave ponies?" said Aurora admiringly. "I'll let them be sure they can count on our help at any time!"
"Let's go home, they're waiting for us." Falcon said, pointing to the door. "I'll tell you everything on the way."
When they finished a dialogue on such happy note, they went outside the temple walls and went home, and on the way Falcon, as he promised, told father about how Scootaloo and Cheerilee saved him from his demise.
Meanwhile, in the house, Crimson heard the same story outlined in the bright colors by Scootaloo. She admired the bravery of young filly and was immensely grateful to them both for saving her son, and after the story she said she would be able to adequately thank them. It was after these words that Falcon and Aurora entered the room. Mother, seeing her son, immediately rushed into his arms.
"You're here! Uh, words can't express how happy I am to see you! Although Aury didn't tell me anything, I felt in my heart that something bad happened!" Crimson screamed happily.
"And I am happy to see you, mum!"
"I'm sorry, honey, that I had to keep you in the dark, but I was afraid that you wouldn't survive this..." Aurora spoke sadly.
"Oh, let's forget about it! You must be really tired! Go eat, don't be shy!" then she looked at Aurora. "Oh, Aury, you may not know them, but these honored ponies are the ones we owe our son's life to."
Crimson brought Aurora to Cheerilee and Scootaloo.
"It's Cheerilee. She's a teacher and Ponyville school, where we sent our son to study. And this brave filly is Scootaloo. She's one of the students."
Aurora bowed respectfully, looking at those who were in front of him by eyes full of immense gratitude.
"Thank you for saving our child. We eternally owe to you and hope that we can thank you with dignity. Please stay with here as long as you want. It's the least we can do for you."
This family scene touched both mares to the very core. Scootaloo barely held back her tears, and then only because she didn't want to "fall" in her own eyes. At Cheerilee's cheeks already in two streams rolled down drop by drop, as she replied to the respectful Aurora's bow the same.
"I humbly thank you. I hope we won't bother you and abuse your hospitality."
"I can assure you that your presence won't bother us in any way. We're only happy to welcome you in our village. Welcome to Hollow Shades, miss Cheerilee and miss Scootaloo!" he said solemnly with noble notes in his voice.
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Two weeks later
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To the great joy and surprise of the newcomers, they were accepted as family friends and treated as if the residents knew them from birth. No pony in the village was no exception. Absolutely every pony smiled friendly at them, saying hello and offering to come to visit. Sometimes from such worries they even got a little confused and embarrassed, because they couldn't give any sensible thing or service to thank them. Time by time they tried to help somehow with residents' housework, but they refused. However, Cheerilee insisted that she was accepted to a village school as a teacher, though the head said that she needed to rest after such shock in Ponyville. It was like the love of elder brother or parents who overprotect the small ones in family. Don't think that Scootaloo and Cheerilee were ungrateful for everything that was provided to them by residents. Simply such excessive attention over time becomes annoying and sometimes there's a wish to hide from it for a while...
In this way these two weeks have passed. Sometimes the sojourners thought that here they can start a new old life, just with new decorations. It remains only to add that on the second week after the arrival of guests, Aurora got a little darker, than he usually was, but the rest he kept his soft and affectionate nature. He set an example of a good father, loving and caressing his son, but at the same time not too much pampering him. In other words, everything was going almost perfectly,
But the main word is 'almost'. Day by day Aurora became darker and darker, and if in the first two weeks on his face shone a joyful smile, now this smile could be compared with stretched or rather mad one. Now he even was gone for a several days from home, and with him from the church didn't go outside some members of choir and priests. This has never happened before. Together with him, it seemed like village was getting darker too. That jealous care about the newcomers disappeared somewhere, though familiars still were saying hello on the street with them. These changes alerted Scootaloo, Cheerilee and the other two members of Lover family.
One day Aurora returned home in a much better mood than he usually was. He didn't even walk now. He now fled to easy running, doing small jumps over floor and clattering with hooves. It was, if not scary, at least creepy to look onto his face. His eyes burned, pupils narrowed, a huge smile was stretching across his face. However, there was something really joyful and happy about this expression. This could not be explained in any way, but all the households felt trust in him. Looking around at every pony who was in home, he began his speech.
"Ladies," he didn't say 'friends'. "I'm glad to inform you that Oriole is going to visit us on the next week! I also hope that you understand he should be accepted with all the honors. Oh, right! Our dearest and respectful saviors of our son don't know who is Oriole..."
"For that matter, I don't know too." Crimson intervened.
"What, and you too? Well, it's not a big problem. I'll acquaint you with him when he'll come here." now he turned to Cheerilee and Scootaloo. "Also I want to say that I hope that the great honor of meeting him will cover at least small part of our debt."
After these words he bowed, turned around and left out, not letting his wife invite him to a supper. Crimson was at the loss. She had never expected behavior like this, though she was not offended. Pegasus and earth pony were also in complete shock, not understanding what it all could mean. Soon, however, the hostess called the two table, and they went to supper.
The next week was spent all in preparations for the arrival of the mysterious guest, which Aurora all just kept saying, but didn't tell any details about him. In the village Aurora was a very respected pony and therefore no resident dared to disobey him. If he was talking about a honor guest, then they need to take him accordingly.
No villager was left out of this event and it seemed to be very admired by Aurora. By the end of the week, the entire village had greatly changed and became simply amazing. What would be a callous pony here would not come, this spectacle was obliged to strike him to the very depths of his soul. These were expectations of the residents. To be honest, this really would amaze any pony.
Residents were looking forward for the arrival of a new guest. Ahead of everypony stood Aurora. He seemed more excited than the others, which is not surprising considering the heat with which he spoke about guest's arrival. And yet the identity of the mysterious visitor remained a mystery to everypony.
The day was slowly coming to an end, though in this place penetrated only few sunlight rays, so you could easily say that there all the time reigns an eternal night. However, the purchase of vitamin D is not affected by this and the organism could function well, like in every other settlement. Meanwhile on the east side of horizon, already have been shown the shape of the moon. But the moon was kinda... different. It wasn't moon that Princess Luna raised! Now its color wasn't light-azure. He was scarlet, like a sunrise. The sky was also brightened, exposing all the nebulae, stars and other mysteries of the boundless cosmos. Instead of twilight darkness, the sky was well lit up by purchasing color like Cheerilee's coat.
But the higher moon climbed, the more disturbing it became. The scarlet rays of dawn already gone and instead of them was a crimson lightings.
Finally the moon fully appeared. The first catches the eye her unnatural bright crimson color. This color was never noticed at the natural phenomenon of the red moon. But what stunned every pony - it is its size. She was just a huge size. Even nearby standing poplar was one and a half times less, than its diameter. Nopony knew what to expect. Suddenly, Aurora went up to the hill with somepony of the villagers. Looking, Scootaloo noticed saw that it was Star Dust; the old pony, who few days ago treated her with delicious gingerbreads and condensed milk. Very intrigued by all the events, she quietly slipped up behind them, unnoticed by anypony, and then began to wait for what will happen.
It took a good ten minutes and Scootaloo already decided that from here just opens a good view and therefore she proceeded to quietly approach two standing stallions. She was already standing to the right of Aurora, as suddenly there was deafening roar from the east relatively to Ponyville side. It was a loud screeching noise, which almost gave a headache to Scootaloo. This roar was like the neigh of horse, but pitched to very high notes, sometimes turning into an aggressive snort. And then Scootaloo looked where the sounds came from. It was a rupture, but exactly what or rather who was rising from it sickly scared Scootaloo.
From afar, it was hard to see how it looked like, though the night was very bright. However, the one thing was clear: this beast never existed in Equestria until now.
With a sinking heart, Scootaloo watched its movement in the village's direction. But Aurora seemed perfectly calm and all this situation looked like he was expecting this. It inspired Scootaloo some trust to the creature, but the fear prevailed against other feelings. She wanted to go down, but she couldn't; fear bounded her legs. She wanted to ask, but she couldn't; fear had sew her mouth shut with iron threads. She only looked through her on this beast, listening with her ears its piercing cries.
Finally, the beast disappeared behind a layer of trees and temporarily all feelings returned into her body. Now she could ask, but with all other feelings returned indecision. Aurora seemed so calm and no muscle on his face didn't budge. This gave confidence to a little filly and she asked.
"Who is this?"
Aurora turned his head and replied with a slight smile.
"Didn't I tell you his name was Oriole? He's my friend and God at the same time... Funny, isn't it?"
Scootaloo flinched at the mention of this. In addition, the stallion said it in such calm voice with his usual kindness, so it became even somehow creepy to hear this. A roar could be heard through the forest, but now it was even louder.
"He's coming pretty fast," Aurora said with same creepy calm in the voice and even some chuckle. It scared Scootaloo even more, than the beast itself.
"Scootaloo. I want to say you're lucky to acquaint second with him. You got a front-row seat. I'm that you'll like each other," the stallion tried to take a conversation with Scootaloo, before it was to meet the first time. But Scootaloo didn't seem wanted to develop this, so he leaved her alone, not trying to disturb little filly, that, as it seemed, was very nervous.
Abruptly, a roar was heard in the thickets again, followed by a crackling tree. And then there was seen its source - a tall and thick falling poplar. The giant collapsed to the ground like a lousy man, rumbling with its beautiful green leaves on its crown. The earth exposed the age-old roots of the great tree, like the guts of a torn animal. This demise of centuries-old mighty tree breathed into Scootaloo such fear that she couldn't even move her eyes away, not to mention a movement. Now she was like a marble statue, because all the pallor appeared on her face, so it was no longer to distinguish it from the phantom. Cold horror paralyzed all of her body parts: from head to tail.
Finally the dust raised by the falling of mighty poplar abated, and the brown hair appeared from behind the crown. A double-digit smile appeared on Aurora's face. His face told about affability and about some other feeling, which appeared first time on this virgin from maliciousness face. Sudden she heard a quiet laugh, which grew more and more until it turned into a laughter, which is usually met old fellows or friends.
"Oriole, come here, please!" shouted Aurora.
The beast spotted him and headed to the hill. With each its step Scootaloo's body began shivering harder, so it seemed about her soul jump out of her and she'd fall over dead to the ground. As if sensing this fear, beast walked unhurriedly, making short steps and slowly rising its paws. Now its ominous snort seemed even more violent and bloodthirsty. At some point Scootaloo nearly fainted in shock, but quickly reacted Star and Aurora caught a falling filly. However, her eyes could not stand against the stress and fear, didn't open even if she wanted to. Unfortunately no pony paid attention to this.
Except Cheerilee and Falcon. They didn't know what was the nature of terrifying guest and what was happening on the high hill, but their souls felt something bad was about of all this action. Both carefully climbed up the hill, where the 'elite' audience of the meeting was. Turning his head, Aurora smiled and greeted them.
"Oh, it's nice to see you here. Remember, I promised something that I can do for you to cover a part of our owe? So here it is. Meet the Great Oriole! Or just Oriole, whatever. He is good friend of mine and he might help you to earn a peace. But I see that my friend Scootaloo became a little woozy. Do you know what might happen to her, miss Cheerilee?" he asked with his usual tone.
Given all the oppressive atmosphere and the presence of the beast, it's not surprising that little filly lost her consciousness. Even if this will turn out to be a friend, its appearence is too intimidating. He just got close enough to get his description. Around its physique this creature resembled a common wolf. However, a number of differences was quite noticeable. His front paws were somewhat longer and seemed to be stronger than his rear legs, making his body go not parallel to the ground, but a little across it. However, they were not much longer, otherwise he would have to move in a very uncomfortable way for him: like a gorilla; on the knuckles of the fingers of forelimbs, what is very inconveniently, given his structure of 'arms'. The head vaguely resembled the snout of crocodile, creating something between a gavial and amazon caiman, but it was covered with wool, like wolf's one. His teeth seemed to have got him from some of prehistoric saurians, probably from the spinosauridae family or so. Along the ridge, fur rose higher than on the rest of the body, forming a track or even, roughly saying, the beginnings of wooly sails. The huge claws were caked with blood.
Perhaps, it the imagination this picture looks a little funny, but when this twenty-meters-long creature stood in front of them it wasn't funny at all. His blood-red eyes, which seemed to have provided a color palette of red, stared into their spirits with their white irises, slowly turning into a scarlet fiber, which then became a crimson and at the edges of the eyes finally blackened. All were seized with a nervous trembling and fear. All, expect Aurora. Only he remained to be as calm as he was before. He continued to ask.
"Miss? Miss Cheerilee? Falcon? What happened to you all? Why are you so... scared? Aren't you afraid of meeting with my friend? I understand. The first meeting is always the most nervous. You'll see he is a good guy." said Aurora with a smile.
"M-maybe we should... n-not... meet-t him?.." mumbled Falcon, trying to talk with a father.
"Rubbish! You should... No! You must see him! It's my oath and debt!" he exclaimed.
"M-maybe we can forgive your owe with everything you've done for us?" Cheerilee tried to smile.
"How can you saying things like this? No, no, no..." Aurora shook his head.
Cheerilee and Falcon exchanged their glances. They realized that the meeting could not be avoided and they hoped for the best. In this vein, they were waiting for this beast to come to them and then be what will be.
Finally the beast came to the hill, leaving on it ambiguous glance. On this face they could read anything, but not a condescension and geniality. There came another deafening roar that caused all to sway, and Scootaloo to wake up from her oblivion. It seemed to give him much pleasure. Then he looked at Aurora's eyes.
"Greetings, my friend," the stallion bowed.
The response to the greeting was the same snort, but without the evil notes that were inherent to it. This response was followed by a combination of chirping barking with the same inflated octaves. After listening to him, Aurora slowly nodded his head multiple times.
"Can't wait to start the meal?" he said, grinning. The beast nodded. "Serve the lunch! Or rather a night snack" stallion continued with little laugh.
Suddenly, as if grown out of the ground, on the hill appeared two batponies, who took Star under his forelimbs. He didn't resist. Not understanding what was going on, the three stood in complete shock and bewilderment, fluttering. The beast opened its mouth, baring sharp, like a blade, teeth. In the Falcon's head something began to get clear, when he suddenly, like a lightning, darted to his father, and a split of second later, was already beside to him. He had seen something like this twelve years ago, but back in those days he was just a baby, who was one year old and because of this he didn't remember anything. Now, however, he set his soul and body feel it's not a warm and friendly meeting, and out of the crowd, only he and Crimson could affect Aurora.
"Dad, what are you doing?!" Falcon cried.
Now he understood what here Star Dust was for. They probably wanted to feed the beast to appease the latter.
"It's a madness! How can we give our true friends, who never wanted to harm anypony, to be eaten by this... disgusting thing!"
"To be eaten?" Aurora burst out laughing, like it was an excellent joke. Oddly enough, it didn't seem like the laughter of an insane pony at all. "You're kidding good, Falcon! I haven't laugh like that for a long time. Wait, you're serious?" the last sentence he said after a small pause. "In that case, let me put everything on its shelf. Okay, gentlecolts, let's stop this action for a while. I need tell everything to someponies."
At his command, the guards released the old pony and the beast layed down on his stomach, leaving his head on the front paws.
"Good. First, I want to assure you that it's not a feeding or sacrifice. It's, if I can say so, the borrowing of the body. Damn grass! If I could, I'd draw a blueprint. Wait a second, I'll talk with Oriole."
He left the three, and then approached to the beast. Having exchanged with him a couple of words, he turned to our characters.
"Good, let's go to school. There's a blackboard and I can explain everything clearly. Can you help me, miss Cheerilee? I'm not the best in the hoofwriting."
"Okay," Cheerilee recovered her cognition a little.
"Thank you."
And they darted to the school. This building, like all others, was built in kind of a gothic style. If there wasn't any sign outside, it'll be impossible to distinguish it from other building without looking into windows. The interior was in excellent condition: clean tables, strong and comfortable chairs, beautifully painted floors and walls, even something like primitive heaters were hung during the winter or frosts.
But the attention of our characters was now attracted by a huge blackboard on the second floor in a lecture hall. Exactly to it Aurora came up with Cheerilee, and the rest sat down on the closest places to the chalkboard.
"Oh, I remember when I taught here until I didn't become a conductor. Such memories... Okay, throw it away! Let's start from the beginning," he asked Cheerilee to take the chalk.
"Alright, let's start from the beginning. About twenty years ago in Hollow Shades was a research group of six ponies: I, Crimson Shadow, Star Dust, Indigo Mane, Sand Slash and Oriole Bird. As you can guess, we went to the different expeditions, conducted research of the found materials and made a reports of the researches. In those days not far from our village was a relatively small fracture of the earth's crust, which, however, went far deep into the bowels. Of course, it couldn't remain without our attention and we slowly, but surely were preparing for the expedition. Just in case, we brought a stretcher and a pair of rolled-up mattresses. When we went down on the bottom, our kerosene lamps barely could lit our way and we had to use torches as marks not to get lost in this cave labyrinth. I don't know how much time we were lost there, but it seemed like it was about several days have passed, and yet we didn't even touch the food and didn't want to!"
Aurora fell silent, but after a few seconds he continued his speech.
"After a while, the air began to became somewhat stale, breathing now is more difficult. It wasn't surprising for us, we had to deal with it during our expeditions in the caves. We moved forward for another fifty meters, when suddenly the progress became almost impossible because of the terrible density of air and stuffiness. However, we continued moving forward. But soon, our stamina was exhausted and we lay down on the cold floor of the cave. Below the air was in normal condition, so after couple of seconds we restored our strength, had a snack and then moved forward again. Despite our hopes, the air density was increasing and soon it became almost impossible to breathe, so we had to use a prototype of a gas cylinder, which was filled with oxygen. We took one breath and went on until finally the stale air again will become a burden and then did another breath of fresh air. But the volume of cylinder was very small and therefore we very quickly depleted the entire stock. And then the race for life and death began. Going back is a suicide, because we've gone too far to get out of range. So all that left was to move forward."
Aurora paused.
"Gradually the tunnel became to narrow. It didn't bother us for the first time, but then we had to bend over. And later we even had to crawl! But there was no other way, so we crawled forward without stopping for a break. All our muscles groaned, and we ourselves are not too different. Suddenly ahead I heard Indigo's voice 'We're deadlocked!' At that moment my heart drowned, my breath was caught. I couldn't believe we'd die like this. We all were desperate as we heard Sand Slash's voice. 'Do not bucking slander, there is a way up here!' He has always been distinguished by his peculiar humor, even in the most extreme situations, and therefore quickly raised our mood. In addition, he was often swears and uses words we don't know, so I'll change all of them. Anyway, we crawled up to him and looked where he raised his hoof. 'Come on, fillies, do just like me.' He said this and rested his hooves on the walls of the completely vertical passage. A two minutes later, his breathless rough voice could be heard again, but it seemed he wasn't making any efforts anymore. 'What are you, stuck in there? I told you to eat less vegetarian cutlets! Get up here, bucking vegans!' I can't express our happiness when we heard these words and we one by one got up here," he turned to Cheerilee. "Miss Cheerilee, now, please draw a symbol of our group."
Cheerilee drew six ponies on the blackboard as fast as she would draw a long line across the board.
"Thank you. Let's continue. Finally we could take a breath of a fresh air. Then it was like a dream for us. Next to us beat the wellspring from beneath a pile of stones and boulders, making little rills. We drank enough of this ice water, but after this we immediately found that it was a single cavern, from which there was no exit. We got upset, but even then Sand Slash saved us, giving us all a good nape slaps. 'Sirs, you dullards! You can't even think? They also call themselves explorers... Where do you think the wellspring comes from?!' Then we really thought like we were knuckleheads. The answer was under our nose. Taking all precautions, we began to dig a passage with our pickaxes. We were always encouraged by Slash's crazy songs and this time was no exception. After three hours or so of digging, we were able to open a passage, but also we almost were washed away by accumulated water behind cobblestones. Behind the wall there was a rise to the surface. After a couple of minutes of walking through the tunnel we found the elevator. This discovery surprised us, but not too much, because something like that we've already seen and we decided it's just an old abandoned mine. In that case, it was necessary to be careful, as everything can collapse at any moment."
Aurora signly showed Cheerilee to draw the mine sign. She obeyed.
"We were there for about two hours or even more until we finally saw a daylight. Happily rushing forward, we didn't expect an ambush. As soon as we reached the entrance, there was an explosion of dynamite and fragments of stones hit the running Oriole and Sand. Their bodies were completely covered with blood, and Sand broke his leg when he was hit by a large stone. We managed to pull him out, but the ceiling had already started to fall off and we had to hurry up. Sand saw that we would never have time to escape, if we dragged him with us. He decided the unthinkable. He threw all his possessions and, dragging his broken leg, ran deep into the cave, shouting 'Run for your life!'. As much as we wanted to go back for him, we had to run. Reluctantly, we ran to the surface. But here we were in danger too. From the bushes jumped some unknown creatures. They looked by no means friendly and so it proved. One of those bipedal woolly creatures jumped and bit Oriole in the neck. I hit it with my pickaxe just in time and he immediately fell dead, and we had enough time to escape. We weren't going to lose one more good friend, so me and Crimson took Oriole on our shoulders. These creatures probably didn't expect such audacity and therefore did not chase us. We got to the Hollow Shades without incidents only to tell horrible news."
Aurora paused once again. Every pony in hall listened without daring to interrupt him.
"Things got even worse when Oriole got caught in a terrible fever. It was the day of my wedding with Crimson. Day by day he was getting worse. We all tried to help him in any way we could, even Princess Luna came here to help the poor thing. But nothing helped. Oriole's body got covered with tumors, which seemed to cause to him a terrible sufferings. One day he just disappeared leaving nothing to explain his disappearance. I immediately began to search for him, but I had not a single hint where he could go. After a several months, I got able to attack on his trail, once again reading his diary, which he by good luck forgot to take with him. Apparently, he was headed to that rupture we were visiting. Having collected all that could be useful, I went to the road, having said goodbye to my wife. Crimson was pregnant at the time.
When I reached cliff, I went down. I heard a little sniff on the half way, but it was a bass voice. I got wary, picking my weapon in the teeth. When I reached the bottom, I lit the torch up. And immediately regretted this decision. Some four-winged raven appeared in front of me, but I wasn't up to looking. In a panic, I rushed away, forgetting that I can fly. However, the pursuit wasn't too long, as the raven was killed in a few seconds by a giant wolf. Now you can easily guess that this wolf is Oriole. That's the whole story."
All were silent, admiring Aurora's story. But suddenly everyone heard the Falcon's voice.
"But I still don't understand what you were doing on the hill."
"Oh, sorry, my son. I forgot about it. As I said, this is just a borrowing of a body. Temporary. Please, miss Cheerilee, erase everything was drawn before," Aurora said with his lovely tone.
Cheerilee took a rag and removed all, that she painted before.
"Thanks. Now let's get to the science of magic in a simplified form. Please, draw a silhouette of a batpony stallion. It's Oriole. Now, draw a silhouette of... Well, the same Cryolophosaurus equestrensis. In my travels, I was able to find the corpse of one of those predators and perform an autopsy. As it turned out, each of its teeth was connected to the gland, which allocated some unknown cells. Probably, the invasion of these cells into the Oriole's body caused this incredible and painful transformation. Draw a silhouette of a wolf under Oriole and draw an arrow to it please. Alright, I'll take pointer. Now, look, that's the principle we can use to turn him back into a pony, but only for a while."
"Now I understand..." said Scootaloo. "But what happens to those who give their blood?"
Aurora almost jumped on the spot. It seems that he didn't expect this question. Biting his lip, he mumbled something inarticulate and fell silent. After this he loudly said.
"The lesson is over, I hope everything is clear for you now."
"I didn't what happens to donors," Scootaloo and Falcon repeated in unison.
"Stop, bucking oaf..." flashed through Aurora's head. Then he said aloud. "I've already said. Didn't you heard?" He felt how sweat protruding on his forehead and he being squeezed from all sides.
"Can you repeat it, but more loudly?" Scootaloo asked.
Aurora realized that there was nowhere to go and now he decided to tell the truth.
"I don't know..."
"WHAT?!"
This statement was extremely unexpected for everyone. No one could understand is this a joke or not. All the ponies did was just looking at Aurora with widely opened eyes.
"YOU'RE WHAT?!" exclaimed Crimson, that just got here.
"I don't know... But I'm sure there's nothing bad can happen! Oriole doesn't have such disposition..." I must admit that he was not completely sure in his words. He hasn't trusted himself for a long time. In general, since the first meeting with Oriole in the village, he changed a lot, though he remained a kind and responsive resident, as well as loving and caring husband. But some dark parasite crept into his mind and devoured it part by part. "Now, let's go. Oriole is waiting for us!"
He had this to say, as suddenly through the door of the school stuck huge five-fingered paw, that was similar to Oriole's forelimbs. Certainly intentions were not the best. All shield back, everyone didn't want to be caught. Soon, attempts to catch the prey stopped and our characters could carefully get out.
"Did you foresee that when you prayed to him?" reproachfully said Crimson.
"No, that can't be..." he stopped, when see what the beast was doing.
The whole village was shrouded in flames, clouds of smoke covered the firmament. Oriole, turned into a horrible beast, made a complete mess over a small village. The last remnants of Aurora's mind finally dried up and he went insane. Mad laughter spread over the ruined village.
"The God got angry! Ha-ha-ha! Finally!" He didn't realize what he says, and soon enough he was catching the poor passer-by's into shoulders, clutching them as tightly as possible to himself, repeating all this words over again and again. Crimson tried to talk with him, but he didn't even want to listen and addressed with her like with every interlocutor. Her patience was worn out and she gave him a savory slap in the face. For a second, it seemed to bring him back to his mind, as he said "Crimson? What's going on?", but after a few seconds he lost the consciousness.
In this condition, he was in great danger. An ordinary unconscious batpony will not able to resist a rabid beast. It is worth mentioning that Aurora was the only pony in the village who had at least some combat experience. Maybe if they can wake him up, he can help. Like this everyone reasoned on their place. But they were not everyone, so their minds were occupied by different thoughts. They wanted to save everyone and at the same time to get out of here as soon as possible.
Apparently, noticing easy prey, the beast rushed to our characters. Crimson didn't stop her attempts to wake up her husband, slapping his cheeks. When it seemed that the death is inevitable, an unexpected help came. Crimson had to hear just one sound of voice to recognize who it was.
"So you though you got rid of me, miserable hay?!" rough voice, swearing and non-negotiable sound "g" gave out Sand Slash.
The beast could not expect this blow and because of the force of the lunge and the surprise fell to the ground. On top of all, it didn't immediately recover its mind, so time was definetely won. A sandy colored batpony flew up to the shocked ponies.
"What are you standin' there for?! Are you stuck or what?! Oh..." Sand noticed unconscious Aurora. "Now I understand... Hive me a second." he said with accent.
Although Crimson didn't want to leave her husband, but at the Sand's request she had to. Untied the bag on his waist, Sand took out a handful of pink pollen, which he immediately scattered over the stallion's body. It took few seconds before Aurora coughed and opened up his eyes. Sharply jumping up of the ground, he raised his hoof to the mouth, covering a cough. When he have finished, he looked over his savior with full of tears eyes, that appear with a strong and prolong cough.
"Sand Slash! Is that really you?" excited Aurora asked.
"No, it's your bucking mum!" Sand sarcastically replied.
"Don't swear, there are children over here," strictly said Aurora.
"Oh, I'm sorry... Wait! Who the... hay... are those?!" Sand said, pointing to Cheerilee and Scootaloo. He didn't let Aurora say. "Uh, let's get out of here first!"
He said this just in time, because the beast was already on his feet. Meanwhile Sand was handing out commands.
"Crimson, help the purple mare fly! Here, it should make the task a little easier." he gave her something, that looked like a rucksack. "Okay, you two just stay close to Crimson and do not fly anywhere far from her!"
"I'm afraid that we can't fly. I can't fly itself, and Falcon broke his wing," Scootaloo said.
"What?! Uh, nevermind. I've seen foals like you before, so it doesn't surprise me. Just stay somewhere in bushes, but don't ho out of sight of Crimson. It's better to stay together. Yeah, that's even better. You four just run anywhere you want in the forest!" he turned to Aurora. "Do you want to remember hood old times?"
"Hey, I remember this Sand!"
"Let's ho!"
As it was discussed in the plan, the defenseless rushed into the forest while Aurora and Sand distracted the monster's attention. Furious cries of the beast made it clear that he slowly began to get mad, which clearly wasn't very good sign. According to the laws of the genre, enraged in the edge, he went into a frenzy and began to destroy everything indiscriminately. Sometimes he pounded the air, sometimes he punched the hole in the wall of house, and sometimes sharpened his teeth on the eaves. Aurora took out his old dagger and inflict small cuts, which further angered the beast. Sand acted as a poser, distracting beast's attention at the right time.
Everything was going well. It would continue if at one moment Sand would able to properly respond the attack. This strike had a disastrous effect for Sand, throwing him into the stone church wall. Falling to the ground, Sand was almost dead. Aurora began to strike with a vengeance to try to distract Oriole's attention, but it cannot be said that he was good at it. The beast seemed to be paying no attention to him now. Suddenly he saw Crimson, who threw something to him. In a blink of an eye, Aurora recognized his cane, which, when the blade was added to it, turned into a scythe. He owned this useful instrument and at the same time a formidable weapon flawlessly. Thus, the benefits of his position little increased and he began to beat the monster with a vengeance.
Now the beast fully felt the strength of Aurora's blow. It could no longer ignore the intrusive opponent and tried to throw him off. However, it didn't help even a bit, because Aurora had wings that never let him down. This started to anger the monster and it started to kick his legs, bouncing and waving sharp claws. Luckily, Aurora was fast enough to dodge that hail of blows. When the monster made the mistake of completely leaving the protection of his neck, Aurora didn't scruple to take an advantage of this opportunity to defeat the beast. Dodging another attack, he swung the scythe and aimed it, as it seemed to him, into the carotid artery. That he could easily defeat him. But fate had another plans.
Barely touching the skin, he didn't notice how the beast darted forward, completely demolishing him for its huge weight. Aurora came insight of what was happening and he wanted to dodge, but he barely had time to make a small scar on the monster's neck, as its giant paw crushed the stallion. After the fall Aurora was still alive, but already on the brink of. Because of strike the world around him swam, circling in a mad vortex. He shook his head to come his senses and with horror found himself lying very close to dead Sand Slash, and the beast was heading straight to his family, probably smelling them. He tried to get up, but immediately fell down. The unbearable pain in his back legs cut through his entire body, so he almost fainted from the pain shock. A scream burst from his chest, and after it a heavy intermittent breath swept over him. The stallion looked at his hind legs. As soon as he did it, he noticed that one leg is broken and lies at a completely abnormal angle, and the hoof on the other was just turn off! The walk couldn't be considered at all.
However, there was one idea - the wings! As it turned out, they were completely intact and in great condition. Gathering all his remaining strength and picking up the scythe, he flew up. Fortunately, the beast didn't have time to go far and Aurora was glad for it. Gathering speed, he used the element of surprise to completely pick out the enemy's eye, causing him to be half blind. The beast howled in pain, then again began to furiously wave his limbs. Now Aurora's weakness was that he could not sit down anywhere he want to recover his strength and return to a battle. He had also to act for sure and at the same time quickly, because the previous round and the injury had almost exhausted him. Waiting for a good moment, he with the last hope clung scythe into the monster's neck. Redirecting all his strength in the hooves, he pulled the scythe down, deeply cutting the leather and meat of the beast. But at the same time, he made himself opened. Overcoming the pain, the beast grabbed him with its teeth and broke the poor pony into to halves. It was outside Aurora's power and he watched the last moments.
"Goodbye, Crimson... We will see later... Take care of our son and those brave ponies... Goodbye..." he said and breathed his last. The last tear rolled down his cheek and his body slowly cooled. The inexplicable warmth came over him and washed his soul away with it. He died.
Climbing into the forest jungle, four ponies were hiding from the horrible beast that seemed to follow them. However, this paranoia isn't a surprising thing, because in such situation it's easy to go crazy. Just imagine: all your friends with whom you had a nice conversation yesterday, you visited them, you drank the tea with bagels together; all of them now were only cold mutilated corpses. No matter how our characters were trying to drive away these horrible thoughts, but it was in vain. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Oriole, which was turned into a monster, obviously didn't want to let anyone go alive and from afar already four ponies could heard his heavy steps. This forced our characters to hurry up, because hide on the averagely open terrain isn't the best idea.
"Hey! Quickly! Come here!" came Scootaloo's voice.
Turning their heads, trio noticed how a little filly was pointing with her hoof to a mixed thickets. Without unnecessary words, they understood the hint and moved to that direction. But suddenly they stopped, noticing something. The observed shaggy bump little by little grew up and very soon was about five meters in height. It is impossible to describe the horror of characters' terrible realization. Now they are faced the one from whom they just tried to escape and hide in the woods. Panic-stricken, they ran in all directions until the monster had fully risen to his full six-meter height. Waked, they tried in the density of the forest to find each other, but only Crimson and Falcon could finally meet. Scootaloo and Cheerilee were completely lost in the woods, and unless a miracle could help them to out of this forest alive.
The laws of nature in this place did not work. Moss grew not only on the north, but also on any side of the tree. Sunlight didn't penetrate out here, so it was impossible to determine east or west by the sun. The foliage and bark were completely symmetrical on all sides, demonstrating a perfect shape of the tree, which, however, prevented the definition of the cardinal points. Even from that small list, it can be concluded that orientation to the cardinal points was a light, if not impossible, then at least a very difficult enterprise. Our characters didn't have that much time, so they needed to consider each step for two forward, because no one knew for who the beast will pursue. Therefore every of them had to think like Oriole is chasing right behind him or her. But the most important thing - they should not forget about each other. Exactly on love and mutual respect all their relations were built: they were a big family, though separated by blood ties.
Scootaloo was wandering in a monotonous forest, bumping into a new places, but she recognized them as old ones, because they were almost identical to what she had seen. This effect was amplified by the panic fear of loneliness, which captured her. But it is impossible to blame her: little filly, which is barely soon will be thirteen years old, roamed in the dark forest all alone, where behind the every tree it could lie the mortal danger. Exactly this fright she felt when she passed another tree, and she was grabbed. Filly wanted to scream, but the hoof that squeezed her mouth didn't let here to do it, and then she turned to its owner. In the purple mare she immediately recognized and a sigh of joy escaped from her chest.
"Miss Cheerilee! You're alive!"
But after these words Cheerilee even stronger squeezed the filly's mouth and partly strictly, partly gently shushed on her. After that, the teacher pointed in the direction where they could see the silhouette of the bulk, that was very close to them. Quickly realizing the seriousness of the situation, Scootaloo didn't attempt to speak and was absolutely silent. About a minute later, Cheerilee released Scootaloo's mouth and pointed to carefully move exactly like her, not behind and not ahead. Performing all the movements exactly like the elder mare, pegasus slowly followed Cheerilee.
After ten minutes they managed to escape in the monotony of the forest. This time they managed to run away. They spoke in a faint whisper, so the only thing that could give out them was the rustling of leaves, but they looked under their hooves and tried to avoid the large blockages of leaves.
"I remembered the road," said Cheerilee. "We can get back to the village, and if that's safe, we'd try to give at least some kind of signal to Crimson and Falcon."
"Sounds pretty dangerous..." Scootaloo replied. "But in my opinion it's worth it."
That's what they decided to do. Lucky for both of them, Cheerilee had a photographic memory, so they easily found their way back. However, it wasn't without rounds that they needed in order to avoid the unpleasure meeting with walking around beast. But winding in the different ways, they got to the ruined village. Making sure that no one follows them and the village is empty for alive creatures, they began to think what signal to give so as not to cause suspicion in the wild beast. Going though all possible options, they decide to stop at the construction of the inscription. The beast is unlikely to be interested in this, given the fact that it was driven by hunger and instincts.
Fortunately, in addition to full destruction, there was no fire or any other dangers. Perhaps that's why the two were able to find relatively easy timbers of the wooden frames, which propped the metal coating of gothic houses. However they faced a new problem: the timber was very heavy, so lifting it up consumed too much energy, so the mares will be unlikely to continue the escape. But they didn't want to leave or move away from Crimson and Falcon, and therefore decided to perform this difficult task. Although the signal will be crooked, askance, ugly, but they will send it.
So they decided, as they both were dragged suddenly by someone into the shadow of the ruined building. Panicking, Cheerilee kicked the kidnapper. From the shadows, a mare's moan suddenly come.
"Oh, it hurts so much!" the pair recognized Crimson's voice. "For Luna's sake, miss Cheerilee! I think you broke my nose!"
Crimson's nose really bled, but judging by the outward signs, it wasn't broken. However, it's necessary to recognize the fact this blow was very strong and painful.
"Oh, I'm sorry, miss Lover! I didn't expect to see you here!"
"I can say the same about you both," - Crimson smiled.
Scootaloo tore off a piece of cloth of the banner with the flag of village and tied it around the Crimson's head like a bandana, though it was a bit clumsy. Bapony nodded to the filly and little pegasus smiled, when an adult mare patted her hair and head. Suddenly pegasus felt a soft hoof touch on her right shoulder.
"Glad to see you, Scootaloo," Falcon said.
"Me too, Falcon," she responded.
Exchanging pleasantries, our characters went away from this disastrous place. They walked along the same road on which they were leaded by Falcon when they arrived to Hollow Shades for the first time. The everyone's mood was not the best at all, but stronger than all Crimson suffered. On the way back she saw a corpse of her husband. Even in the forest she felt that something bad happened, but now, when she saw her beloved without a second half of his body everything became even worse. Of course, she hid this pernicious sight from her son, but her in soul is now forever settled this bitter loss. Maybe, only her joyful, as far as it can be in such situation, son full of hopes separated her from full despair.
Adults kept an absolute silence, while foals talked about this and that. The whole company was pleased to be distracted from the terrible events of the past day listening to funny, but sometimes a little coarse Scootaloo's and Falcon's jokes. In any other case, they would strictly shush on them and give them an angry look, but everyone now just needed this chatter. Foals themselves spoke with the same purpose, which for adults listened to their strange jokes and humor. They got to talking to the point where they almost forgot about the beast that could possibly chase them and run out of the forest in any moment, but hitherto its smell didn't even fly in the air.
Interrupting the reigning silence, Cheerilee asked.
"Everything's alright, miss Crimson?"
Batpony shuddered, like awakening from a deep dream. She did not hear a single word of the question, but still intuitively guessed its meaning. However, Crimson couldn't open the horrible secret to Cheerilee, because there was Falcon, which might be get shocked by these news for the rest of his life.
"Yeah, yeah... I'm fine..." she said sadly and looked at Falcon.
Connecting all the chains in her mind, Cheerilee guessed that revelation can not happen, while little pegasus was nearby. Nodding in the affirmative, she decided to change the subject of the conversation.
"So you... you knew Oriole?"
"Yes..." Crimson sighed deeply. "He was the spiritual and unspoken leader of our group because of his life experience. He was the one who founded our team. If Sand was our soul of the company, Indigo was its brain, so Oriole was its mind. We all thought he was dead until Aurora brought us the news, which he told you about in the lecture hall. And I want to say, that the one who attacked the village is really Oriole."
Everyone instantly became silent from this announcement, turning to Crimson their own views. In recent weeks they have learned that you can expect everything, but this sort of twist they didn't expect. In their head firmly stucked the idea this belief was a consequence of hypnosis, with which the creature could inspire anything, when it exposed its wooly hood. This method of murdering they could see during the destruction of the village. Knowing that Crimson was in her right mind, it made their theories crumble to dust.
"But how do you know?" Scootaloo asked.
"Eyes," Crimson responded. "Eyes can tell more, than voice or body, if you can read them. I can do it and I one look into his eyes was enough to understand what's happening with him. At the first meetings, he remained the same friendly pony, albeit in a different guise. I'd like to note that he still could sometimes turn into his true form, but only for a very short time: not longer, than a two hours. But today I saw like he was struggling with something, which strength was compared to some sort of god or all four alicorns. And when he started all this bloodbath, in his eyes was such an inexpressible pain and sorrow that it's impossible to convey them in words. It was like he was trying to say that his body no more under his control and everypony should run and save its lives..." she started to crying.
"Oh Luna, I'm very sorry, miss Crimson..." Scootaloo replied, touched by this confession.
"It's nothing. I needed to say this." Batpony said, sniffling.
The journey continued in the same way, so it seemed like this conversation had no effect on the group. But, as then, at the listening to excellent jokes and just a fun conversation, every pony forgot about the possible lurking danger in the grove. However, oddly enough, on the way out of the forest they didn't get any hint of its presence. Not even a single trickle of smell. But now they saw the exit of the forest and, while beautiful sunrise was supplanting its scarlet rays purple night sky, which opened an inexpressible view of the stars and nebulae.
Rushing to an exit, they didn't expect a terrible guardian. In front of them stood a monster, which once upon a time was Oriole. But now it was a bloodthirsty beast, who only wanted to satisfy its insatiable hunger. Without wasting time, he roared with deafening scream, under the shell of which lurked a dangerous infrasound, and ran to our stunned characters. But, fortunately, they managed to recover themselves in time and took an advantage of the tactics that have already proved its effectiveness: they rushed in all directions. Understanding, that he will not catch them all at the same time, he first alighted in the uncertainty, but then decided to chase, in his opinion, the weakest one.
Scootaloo ran through the wonderful forest, scaring the birds and not caring about the poisonous snakes she can disturb. Now she had one goal: to run in such wilderness, where the was no passage for this beast and wait out its onslaught there until it finally decides to leave. The thorn bushes, as if trying to slow her down, thrust their sharp needles into her thin skin, leaving there long scars and wounds. Sometimes it seemed to her that she heard a heavy steps and deafening roar behind her, but when she looked back, there was only exotic bushes and trees. But still the thought about pursuit didn't leave her even for a second. No, she wasn't afraid of him or death. All past events shook hardly her poor child's psyche and only the thoughts about who stayed in Ponyville separated her from complete insanity. Thoughts about Rainbow Dash's mentoring. Thoughts about friendship with Applebloom and Sweetie Belle. Thoughts about Cheerilee's love. For their sake, for the sake of these ponies she is obliged to live! All of them love her, even the harsh mother superior, they all appreciate her and are very afraid of losing her. These thoughts occupied her mind, in addition to finding a safe place that has already shown its shape in the distance.
Encouraged by this mark, she doubled her running speed and ran to a grove of coniferous trees with even more enthusiasm. Although she already didn't pay attention to what was going on around, now she literally just lost her peripheral vision. Her eyes were dimmed by the fog that appeared from the huge overabundance of adrenaline in the blood. Heart was pounding like a mad, pulse echoed in her temples; some unknown force drove and drove her, like already seemed, broken and exhausted body. It seemed like she was about to fall to the ground because of decline of the strength or a terrible overabundance of the hormone of a fear - adrenaline. But nothing like this happened and little, but very brave and proud filly was rushing to her goal, when she heard she didn't want to hear the most. The high-pitched roar. Scootaloo didn't even have to look back to guess who was chasing her. There's left only question about the distance, but judging by the roar, she'd say it was seventy meters away or so. It's not very far, considering that creature is about twenty meters long, so pegasus must hurry up. The inner instinct told her all moves of the monster, as well as what he was going to do next.
Filly was no longer short of air and, being too exhausted, she often inhaled the air through her opened mouth, with the last efforts ran to the thickets, that should stop the beast. Mouth has already made a foam that fell on passed way; eyes were dimmed with tears from the previous efforts; the sweat streamed from her body; teeth gritted, and then opened for a weary breath. Even the lungs themselves refused to absorb what seemed to be cold air. I have to admit, they didn't absorb warm air too willingly. It was the final flight from the certain death, which got to her closer and closer.
But no, the strength was cheating on her and it'll run out soon, and she will succumb to a fatal fatigue, being no longer able to change anything. Scootaloo knew this, but still continued to fight for her life, taking all those attempts to evade beast's attacks. Her speed slowed down, her legs began to tangle, everything in her head mixed up, and her eyes didn't see anything clouding her vision and now she saw only an incomprehensible mess of different without any hint where to go. Fortunately, she ran like once in the direction she needed. But she won't be able to run to the grove.
The last strength left her, leaving her to fend of herself. As if she was pierced through with the arrow, she fell to the ground, breathing heavily and almost choking. Now Scootaloo realized - it was her end. She didn't even have the strength to raise her head to take a last look at the neighborhood and the murder. In the last minutes she whispered and flashed her thoughts through her throbbing head because of beyond pulse of blood.
"Heh, I didn't expect that it will end like this," flashed through her head. "Well, I must my demise with dignity. Who said that? I have no idea, but I think now I know what he or she was talking about. Yeah... It's pretty sadly that I won't see Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Rainbow Dash for the last time. But if you'll think about it, then we all anyhow will get into the coffin. But still I hope they'll get there much later than me. Oh, here comes my turn!"
She tried to get up, but the barely moving leg didn't let her to do it.
"Ah, let Tartarus deal with it!" she exclaimed. "I think it's a decent posture for the death."
The beast slowly approached her. Finally coming in focus it tilted his its head and sniffed. The stillness of filly seemed to confuse him. It seems to disdain the carrion, and therefore it was in uncertain - shall he swallow or not? A glimmer of hope appeared in front of Scootaloo, and her eyes sparkled. However, it was a fatal mistake. The beast, possessing hawkeye vision, immediately noticed these sparkles and, using its primitive brain, after a minute of reflection, concluded that pegasus is still alive. The last hope instantly crushed under beast's paws. Scootaloo shut her eyes so the pain of bite won't be so harsh.
While Scootaloo is waiting for her irrevocable death, let's get into the thickets nearby, where Crimson Lover, the poor widow, is trying to escape from invisible danger, the thought of which stucked in her head. Well, it's impossible to accuse her of egoism, given the fact that for her it was unknown what happened to Scootaloo.
Anyway, she ran through the unfamiliar to her part of the forest and almost got lost in the impenetrable thickets, when she heard too much familiar roar. Even the lightning that struck between her legs would not strike her as much as the sight she saw, when she jumped into the bush. In front of her opened a place that supposed to become a bloody repast. A former pony and a wonderful friend was going to kill an innocent and defenseless filly, that didn't even hurt anyone. Crimson couldn't stand this terrible in every sense sight and, throwing away all prejudices and fears, rushed to the rescue with tears in her eyes. She didn't forget her oath and duty to this brave filly and was ready to fulfill it in any moment. So the time has come to pay the debt fully. She didn't possess any martial skills or brute strength like her husband, but her heart was filled with devotion and loyalty.
The predator didn't even think about sniffing, while the light breeze could easily give out hidden Crimson. He was too busy with its exhausted prey. Perhaps that's why the element of surprise has so strongly affected him, when determined Crimson rushed out of her ambush to it.
Hitting exactly in the right eye, she made the beast cry pitifully and recoil, and then flew up to Scootaloo. While monster the monster was holding with forepaws his aching eye, batpony lifted the exhausted filly on her back and flew away from the site of occurrence. Scootaloo lost her consciousness, and therefore saw nothing. Fearing that the beast will soon realize what happened, she noticed a grove of trees, where Scootaloo headed before and then rushed right there. Her fears were confirmed when another shrill howl was heard, mixed with the resentment and annoyance because of the escaped prey, and within a second there was a sounds of a heavy feet stepping on the ground as they fled. Looking back, she noticed how the predator was quickly approaching them. At some point it made a jump, apparently, calculating where she will be after a couple of moments. Fortunately, Crimson's head was not only to wear a hat, but in order to think. Recognizing the beast's maneuver, Crimson grabbed Scootaloo's body with her front hooves, sent her body down a bit and pushed herself with help of wings back. This uncomplicated action helped her to avoid the death, which until then was very successfully pursuing them because of filly's weight. This, though not much, but slowed down Crimson's speed of movement, and now even these little things are very useful.
The beast didn't expect this twist of plot and, being stunned, dug a furrow in the ground with its muzzle, so it was possible plant a whole wagon of rye into a trench. It won a little more time and Crimson managed to fly into impenetrable for Oriole grove, feeling safe enough. Shaking off the dirt, which covered it after a fall, the monster roared with even larger anger and rushed towards the grove. However, soon it realized that the age-old trees won't let it just walk there, as the distance between them barely exceeded two meters or so. For a while it was walking along the border of the grove, apparently, looking for a passage. Making sure that there's no passage anywhere, the beast once again roared because of annoyance and with ferocity hit the nearest tree. Oddly enough, the century-old oak gave way under the heavy impact of the monstrous paw and was torn off from the soil together with all roots. The monster's eyes flashed and it snorted maliciously. Now Crimson remembered how easily he pulled out a thick poplar at today's meeting.
Not waiting until beast will start to make inroads with his own paws, she picked up Scootaloo and began to wag among the trees. Can't say it's a great idea, but so far there has been no better choice. However, even meandering among the trees couldn't stop the brute force of the monster, whose strength didn't seem to run out ever. Strong thick trees broke under its blows like a fragile matches. Although it greatly slowed down its movement, but the same grove produced the same effect to the fugitives who were afraid to crash into the wooden trunks, so the visit into the grove didn't really change anything in this pursuit.
After a while Scootaloo woke up from fainting and didn't immediately understand what was happening. In front of her misty eyes opened a hodgepodge of the grass carpet and wooden pillars with green leaves on them. She didn't realize how she was flying, but soon noticed gray coat and crimson mane. Filly was still pretty weak and barely moved her lips, pronouncing words.
"Miss... Crimson... What... happened?" she hardly said.
"No time to explain, my orange! First we need to hide somewhere." Crimson replied.
"I ran... into the... some sort of grove..." Scootaloo started.
"We're already here and it doesn't help even a bit! He has more than enough strength and he makes the road over here by himself!" Crimson said with panicky tone.
Scootaloo turned her head and saw how another sequoia was shredded to pieces with falling twenty-meters trunk. It was then that she realized that she greatly underestimated this beast and thus almost independently drove into a trap herself and Crimson, that came to the rescue. And now she couldn't even do anything to improve the things because of a terrible pain when she tried to move an every single part of her body. The feeling of guiltiness and the inability to fix it put a strong pressure on her.
"I'm... I'm sorry..." Scootaloo said
"Sorry for what?" Crimson asked in surprise.
"That I... dragged you... with me in... this trap..." she explained.
"Rubbish! You didn't know that Oriole will crush the trees so easily. Well, we all didn't know, so it's silly to blame somepony!" Crimson replied. "Besides, do not forget about the most prior task for now!"
"And... Thank you..." Scootaloo said.
In response, Crimson just smiled and decided not to continue the conversation, because it was reducing her concentration and she could easily slam into a tree. She didn't want it, considering that the bloodthirsty beast was chasing them, which, besides was cutting the whole trees down.
After above a ten minutes of continuous pursuit Crimson managed to fly to a familiar area. She stopped for a second to consider her plan of action, and immediately rushed forward, hiding in the bushes. Having got there, mare gently dumped Scootaloo to the ground, put a hoof to her lips and showed to keep an absolute silence. However, I must say that Scootaloo anyway wouldn't make a single sound because she was pretty reasonable and, though she didn't like school, fairly clever filly, so she clearly understood the whole situation they were in. That's why she just nodded in response, closing eyes for a second.
Suddenly, over snuggling to the ground ponies flew a thick tree trunk. As they expected, a vicious roar followed the flight of the tree. This roar was no longer as deafening as the previous ones, partly due the fact that the ears of our characters have heard it many times and their hearing slightly dulled, and partly due the fact that they were ready for it. In the bushes it was possible to see how the beast was inspecting the area with his eyes filled with hatred and hunger. Apparently having noticed nothing, he raised his front paws and drifted them high above the ground, and then abruptly lowered them, shaking the ground. Probably, it expected that this action will cause them to panic and leave the shelter, but its expectations were not met. At some point, snuggled up to each other ponies thought it wanted to leave this place with vexation. However, in fact, it decided to try the last effective means.
Here Scootaloo and Crimson noticed how hair on the neck of the beast started to slightly fluttering. I have to admit that it didn't really looked like a fur - it was more like some kind of porcupine quills. But anyway, they started to slowly climb up, making a rattling noise like the tail of a rattlesnake, and then unfolded into a hood similar to one that the frilled lizard has. The chirping noise didn't stop as the quills were moving back and forth, creating a drawing, thanks to different shades of fur. Crimson immediately recognized this technique. She saw it at the moment when beast started to destoy the village: thus he subordinated the residents to his will, and nothing prevented him to kill them. However, Scootaloo didn't know about this and kept watching.
"Close your eyes!" Crimson whispered and wedged a hoof between filly's face and object of attention.
But it was too late. Filly was under the influence of hypnosis and didn't hear anything that Crimson said to her.
Suddenly the quills of the beast stood up, like soldiers at command, then it slightly lowered its hood and immediately sharply spread it, giving order to its subordinates to approach it. This was understandable if you'd see how entered into a trance Scootaloo stood up and was about to take a first step towards her execution, as Crimson suddenly grabbed her and tumbled her down. Probably, the predator didn't noticed them as any reaction didn't follow. Crimson had to lie down on her to pegasus couldn't get up, because she didn't have that much strength in her hooves. Even though she was well-mannered, but now she's in her thoughts was swearing after every second word. And it's unnecessary to speak about hordes of elegant insults to the monster; two-thirds of all sentences were something like this:
"Go away, you disgusting, detestable, nasty, cruel, vicious, horrible murder and bloodsucker! Go away!"
The remaining third, as was mentioned, was occupied by swearing. Of course, she didn't pronounce a single word out loud, though she was in a terrible panic. Those two minutes of waiting became eternity for Crimson. However, the end comes to everything and the monster, thinking that they had slipped away, went in the opposite direction with irritation. After another minute Crimson could finally take a sigh of relief. But there was a new problem: Scootaloo was still under the hypnosis, being equal to ordinary plant in this forest. Fortunately, Crimson knew how and where to cure it. In addition, the passage to this place was free and therefore she immediately went there.
There was nothing to fear since the beast went in opposite direction, and forest didn't have any other dangers at its disposal. I should also mention that this place was pretty close to the duo and the full following paragraph will be devoted to the description of what it is. At its core, it could be called an ordinary forest glade. Nevertheless, it is worth paying attention to the huge diversity of vegetation growing here. However, it was inherent in the entire forest, but here it was felt best. In this chimera of someone's sick imagination there was a lot of growing plants: from simple mosses and lichens to a beautiful daffodils and lilies. Sometimes there was such species that haven't been described by the science.
It was one of those flowers that Crimson was looking for. The residents of Hollow Shades called him Flaming Bladeleaf, mainly because of its unusual properties. As you can guess from its title, its bloom was just beautiful by the nature and really resembled a wandering light in the field. But playing with fire is a dangerous thing. It is only accidentally or in a fit of feelings to put a petal of this wonderful flower in your mouth as miracle of nature turns into a vile rascal or even worse. Instantly there's a feeling like on a tongue was carried back and forward dozens of red-hot nails, previously having wound them with a barbed wire. And sometimes patients described a condition even worse than that. Sometimes there were rumors that somepony was able to revive his grandmother, putting into her corpse mouth a lot of these petals. Rumors are rumors, but these flowers helped to drag out from oblivion fallen in unconscious. That's why these flowers were selling out as quickly as cold water in the desert. Fortunately, they were quite attractive for the bees, so in addition to self-pollination they were spreading by these insects.
The search for Crimson was not difficult and soon she found a total jungle of these eighty centimeters high flowers. Carefully tearing one petal, she opened mouth of not moving Scootaloo and put the petal in. She, of course, expected screams and panic, but she in no way foresaw what it had evolved into. Crimson had already prepared herself and put her hooves on filly's shoulders to calm her down, but then immediately regretted this decision. Jumped hyperactive Scootaloo hit her in the chin, so batpony moaned and didn't immediately understood what was going on. Meanwhile, the awakened filly was scampering across the meadow with the speed of light, wild narrow pupils and a protruding tongue. At the same time she constantly kept saying in minutes of respite from the cry:
"Oh my gosh, it burns! SO HOT! Water! I need water! Somepony, PLEASE!" she shouted.
Well, one less problem. However, as is usually the case under the law of meanness, one problem is replaced by another. Simply put, they needed to find Cheerilee and Falcon. Fortunately, the chances that they were alive are quite high, given that the beast was chasing Scootaloo all this time.
Batpony flew to pegasus and grabbed her shoulders, holding from following unnecessary marathon across the field.
"Shhhhh! Easy, brave filly, easy. Everything's alright. Oriole may have hypnotized you, but we were able to resist it. It's all thanks to the petal that's in your mouth right now. You can get it out of there before it'll start to burning even more."
In the Scootaloo's mouth was going on a real hell. Everything, from the palatine to the tongue, everything felt as if it was blazing with an immense flame. She tried to spit, but barely could gather saliva. However, this didn't bring any results. Suddenly, filly completely froze in place, not moving an inch, when it dawned an insight.
"Oh, don't tell me you swallowed it!" Crimson said, guessing what's wrong.
"Is something threatening will happen?" Scootaloo asked quietly.
"Well, aside from the pain all the way to the stomach, no. At least, it's not fatal." Crimson replied.
Let's face it, burning pain in stomach isn't the most nice feeling, but still it's more preferable, than a death with the same agony. That's why they went to look for, if I can say so, lost Cheerilee and Falcon. However, this adjective is unlikely to suit Falcon's personality as in his michievous childhood he traveled in this forest for most of the free time with his friends, many times causing his parents to be alarmed about him; so given the fact that he had, though not perfect, but a great memory, he could get lost in the woods with a really tiny probability. Cheerilee also probably met him, because Scootaloo saw, when she glanced back one time, how mare was winding among the trees, slowly going to the foal's side.
"I hope you're right," Crimson replied to the heat-distorted Scootaloo's speech about her observation. "Does it burn?"
"Not really..." Scootaloo said this, not much out of her pride, but out of motives not to cause unnecessary troubles, hiding what hell was happening in her esophagus. Of course, pride was also involved here, but to a lesser extent, than usual. "It's like some red pepper, if you eat just a little more than a half."
However, even by her distorted speech any listener could guess what atrocity was going on there. Her voice, which was so often compared by her friends to the beautiful voice of Marine Peters, now sounded more like the muttering of some old woman or pony, no matter. Some letter or even syllables were completely swallowing, it was mostly solid consonants. Some may even compare it to Granny Smith's one, but notes of happy youth remained there. In general, she kept a stiff upper lip.
It is impossible to say how much exactly time has passed, when after all these wanderings they finally saw the horizon of the plain and the half-risen sun. Looking around, they noticed something that made them come into even greater rapture. It was Cheerilee and Falcon! But something was wrong. To two just emerged from the forest ponies barely came the words, but to understand them wasn't possible. It wasn't easy to even catch the intonation which they were pronounced with. Then the pair went to reapproachment. However, I cannot say that running ones were happy to see this. On the contrary - Cheerilee began to abruptly shake her head from side to side, and Falcon began to shout even more louder and desperately.
Soon the reason of this running was visible.
Now I must tell what happened to Cheerilee and Falcon all this time.
Scootaloo was right in suggesting that Cheerilee was moving purposely in the Falcon's direction. Cheerilee went there as soon as she noticed that the beast rushed in the completely different side. Falcon, in turn, stopped fleeing, making sure that no one follows him. And what a joy it was when he saw Cheerilee. Get out of the forest will not make them any difficulty, given Cheerilee's memory. And even if it were not enough, Falcon's knowledges would help them well. In other words, they were a bit more lucky, than Scootaloo and Crimson. However, unfortunately, the world is arranged so that sooner or later it's necessary to pay for all good. Of course, everybody have to pay for the bad too, but that's another story. In their case. the payback hour came pretty early, when they were almost out of the forest. Behind them they heard the steps of heavy paws. Obviously, the beast realized that the frontal attack isn't the most effective means and decided to change strategy. However, hiding the thirteen-ton and twenty-meters carcass is not an easy task.
"Oh no..." flashed through their heads.
Without waiting for beast to attack, they lunged forward and ran out of the forest, turned to left, where they saw Scootaloo and Crimson standing in the distance. Oddly enough, the beast is clearly in no hurry to expose itself. At least, until the cranky wind finally will carry the terrible news to the ears of the far-standing ones. However, it's impossible to say exactly what motivated it at this point. Suddenly Crimson's eyes sparkled as if they were visited by the most incomparable idea in the entire history of universe. She said something to Scootaloo, then filly jumped and shouted like in rush of the joy.
"Come here, quickly!"
Of course, this didn't add any speed, but intonation, with which these words were pronounced, notably intrigued fugitives. When the pair finally managed to approach them, Crimson explained the plan of actions. I propose to omit the details, because dear readers will be able to see them in the course of the development of the chapter's plot, but the main goal was to drive Oriole back to the rupture of which he got out with Aurora's help. No one can survive a fall from such height. That's what they decided.
Suddenly, just about twenty meters away there was a rustle in the bushes and then jumped out this "hero of the occasion", seizing the opportune moment. The four ran in different sides, but they all headed in the same direction. To the earth ditch there wasn't too far to go and that's why they were able to run there at such open space. However, even with such a mitigating circumstance, they managed to visit the verge of the demise more than once. But it's not surprising when you're being chased by a insane twenty-meters-long leviathan, which was driven only by hunger.
Getting to the cliff was a big deal. However, they managed to get there unharmed. Unfortunately, it was only the easiest part of the plan. Now was the most difficult - to throw a monster into the abysm. This would be easier if all four could fly, but only Crimson could use her wings. Cheerilee and Crimson had to do all work by themselves, which is logical, because they could not expose foals under the fatal blow. I have to say that at the first attack the beast almost fell off the edge of cliff, but this risk seems to have given him or rather it a hint that he should be careful with this height difference. The most prior goal for it was, of course, Cheerilee, because she can't fly, and therefore can't make some dizzying maneuvers and pirouettes, that Crimson got up no worse than any member of Wonderbolts. However, its focus on Cheerilee had its unpleasant consequences. Crimson could do whatever she wanted and didn't fail to take this opportunity for a more detailed inspection of the battle situation. It was then that she noticed something sticking out at the back of the beast.
It was her husband's scythe! It remained in the creature's body, inflicting a deep slice. In battle, mare never had to use it, she didn't participate in fights at all, but at the autumn harvest very often used this scythe, and also to just mow the overgrown grass on the lawn at home. Perhaps these skills will be useful to her right now.
She flew up and landed on the back of the monster. Pull out the scythe was not an easy deal, but there was nothing that she couldn't cope. Now, in Crimson's hooves was deadly, blood-stained weapon, that freed many of the tomb guardians from their eternal painful oath. Weapon, that served faithfully to its creator until the very end. Now it's orphaned, who needs such an unremarkable and useless scythe at first glance? But it will wait for centuries, millenniums, if that's necessary; it will wait for its new master and will serve him with same faith, but the feelings that it mutually felt to its creator will no longer have these feelings for other master, if the weapon can feel at all. Taking it in her hooves, Crimson felt like she lived through all these travels again. Again looked at running Sand, again married with Aurora, again grieved the loss of Oriole and saw the last moments of her husband's life. It was as if she felt that the scythe is the soul of her beloved husband and for a moment she even managed to see the face of Aurora on the bloody blade. She didn't know if she was going insane, but she didn't resist to it at all. She was much more pleased to think that her husband's spirit will guide her hoof and the scythe to help them win.
And indeed, the weapon was acting like the feelings awakened in it. The blows were delivered easily and freely, leaving deep cuts throughout the body. The beast began to get mad and therefore was distracted by the annoying mare fluttering over his back. Looking at her, you could really think that some invisible force was helping her. She moved very adroitly and gracefully, without a miss hitting and dodging Oriole's terrible claws, so her fight was like reminiscent of some grace dance. Her eyes were serious and stern, she didn't make any unnecessary movements, rarely blinked. All the moves were thought out two steps ahead. If everything will continue in this way, the fight will go on forever, because on one side was dexterity, intelligence and brave heart, and on the other - large size, ferocity and brute strength.
Then Crimson just got an insight: the most reliable way to kill is to sever the carotid artery. Having reached its neck, she was just about to make the coveted blow, but the blade bounced off of the wool. The neck was protected by those hypnotic quills! They were very flimsy at the first glance, but even scythe, whose blade was forged of iridium and easily cut through steel armor couldn't rip or dissect this stuff. It's terrible to even imagine this quill in the section: how many things there will certainly be mixed. She tried again, but the result was the same. Realizing that in this way she does not help the case, she dodged another attack and flew behind the monster.
Unfortunately, it seems like the beat has realized that trying to catch her is just a waste of time and therefore began to look for an easier prey. It's also encouraged by the fact that it's unlikely she's able to kill him, just making a little scratches relatively on his size. Bloodstream almost instantly stopped flowing from such a worthless wound. There's only one option left, but it was extremely dangerous. But there was no choice and Crimson voluntarily signed up for these measures. The only thing she'll regret in the event of her death is that she won't be able to see the future of her grown son. However, if legends about spirits don't lie, she will always be in his heart, as her parents did. Cheerilee was a good mare and Crimson could fully trust her.
Okay, stop! Right, why am I making some sort of memorial service here, if Crimson is still alive and can get out of this mess healthier than a bull? Indeed, it's better to return to the plot, before otherwise I'll miss some important details, or will invoke to me the wrath of dear readers because I'm writing like N.V. Gogol once again.
As I already mentioned, the beast stopped paying attention to Crimson and began to search for easier prey. And it looks like he was making some progress in his endeavors. He smelled something and was already following whoever it'll be. Scootaloo and Falcon were shivering while hiding behind a bulky rock, as the beast was heading in their direction. Fearing that the predator was really following them, Falcon gently pushed Scootaloo in the shoulder and pointed to the forest. Without further ado, filly guessed his intentions and nodded in response. Luckily, the boulder behind which they were hiding, was high enough to so that anyone could barely see the crowns of the redwoods in the forest, that was towering over it.
Unfortunately, the beast trusted his sense of smell more, than his eyesight and kept moving forward. As was mentioned before, Crimson's attempts to stop him didn't help even a bit and he just didn't pay attention to her. However, in batpony's head some plan appeared. It was risky, insane, desperate, but maybe it was the only way to get this him to where he come from. Crimson took advantage of her permissiveness, while the monster was distracted by the trail of smell and flew behind his ear. Given the fact that she knew how wolves are look like, their eyes must be directed forward for better hunt, and knowing that in front of her was in its basis overgrown wolf, his anatomy shall be not harshly different from the original. Thus, it remains only to make a sharp dash and make a strong and accurate blow right into the eye. It might get beast very angry it probably will finally attack her.
Taking a deep breath, she left her makeshift hiding place and accurately followed her absurd plan. However, on a result it's impossible to say that this insane thing was unsuccessful. Thankfully to this attack, the monster lost the opportunity to see with his right eye and almost fainted due to pain shock. Unfortunately, though the plan had its success, it was only partly a success. A couple of seconds before this incident, he managed to rise above the six-meter cobblestone thankfully to his height and saw a fleeing foals. This prey was preferable to him and he decided to deal with "the annoying fly" later. With just one leap, he was able to cover the most part of the distance. Frankly, given his size, the fact that he was able to land from a six-meter height, not breaking a single bone, makes me wonder and start to build different hypotheses about his weight and how he was able to make it perfect for these extreme jumps. Well, it's not a biology textbook, it's a novel, or at least a semblance of one, so I'd better not dwell at it. I'll accept this fact and move on.
His fall scared the foals even more and injected into their blood so much adrenaline, that they could barely think what was going on. However, one thing was clear to them: they need to run. At the first bite, the monster was able to enjoy the taste; no not, the taste of blood, but of the damp earth. However, he didn't really like it and so he hastened to get rid of dirt in his mouth. Fortunately, this delay allowed the duo to run back a decent distance and they almost ran right into the forest, where they only had to hide. And they did it - they confused an unsightly beast, diving into the bushes.
Unfortunately, it worked only temporarily. The sharp olfaction of the beast swept through all the bushes and found foals' smell. Because of the dense thickets poor ponies couldn't what was going on, but their hearts felt something bad will happen right if they won't rebound in different directions. Their expectations were met when they nearly got torn apart by a giant paw with sharp claws. There was no question about hiding again, it was vitally necessary to recede urgently. And it was necessary to do it quickly, while the predator was still sure that he swatted his prey and just waited for its real death. Fortunately, their size allowed them squeeze between the branches of the bushes relatively unnoticed, thus not much attracting the beast's attention. Falcon was even more lucky: he was to the right of the monster and so it unlikely was able to notice him, given the fact that its right eye was cutted.
However, the monster understood that something was wrong here. He raised his paw and to his shame and regret, he saw that he missed and under his paw wasn't a jumbled pile of bones and organs, but an ordinary dust. I think it's needless to say how furious he was when he saw this unpleasant thing; he single-handedly destroyed the whole village, killed all of its residents and couldn't just catch these four ponies, even with all his abilities and superiority. Yes, the mist of the beast's bloodlust completely eclipsed his mind and he could no longer feel any emotional feelings, but it was impossible to call him a fool, given that his intelligence was even somewhat higher than the dolphin's level, which in the animal world can be considered as a real breakthrough. What a pity that any researches related to him is likely to result into the another tragedy; he's a carnivore animal after all and can't be blamed in his actions because he just doesn't have a mind, that he lost later that night. Tragic story.
But let's get back to the main plot. In a fit of rampage, he began to chop off to right and left bushes with the hope that one of his blows will manage to kill the restless madcaps. However, even if something like this will happen, it's not right now, because they have already ran away from him at a decent distance, although at beast's scale it wasn't that much big. Monster again called for help his keen sense of smell. Several times breathing the air, he was able to discern the smells of the area and find a trail, that was similar to the smell of these two foals. It led back - to the rupture. Without thinking a second, he followed the trail. The open space is his strong point and this time they won't be able to escape. Not to say that he was particularly surprised by the fact that the trail led directly behind the stone, behind which foals were hiding a couple of minutes earlier; an unfeeling beast like him is unlikely can be surprised in bad or good way, unless exposed to the element of surprise. But what is strange is that their trail was lost right behind this boulder. That's it is literally gone, it could not be find absolutely anywhere. There were two options: either they have properly fooled him, or they're hiding somewhere over here.
Now the beast was absolutely confused. He climbed up on the cobblestone, looked around all the sides of it, but saw nothing about those foals. Suddenly one thought striked him: maybe it's better to look all around? This thought was successful, because the reconnaissance has borne its fruit. Not far away he saw foals, that were fleeing at their full speed. Scootaloo looked back and apparently catching the eyes of predator, whispered something to Falcon and it seemed like they ran even faster, than they could. Crimson is nowhere to be seen and no one knew what she was doing all this time since she disappeared from behind the monster. But it's not about that now. The beast jumped off the boulder and landed just in front of helpless foals. They can't run away now and nothing will interfere this bloody feast of the wild exultation. Now the paw was raised to strike with a coveted blow and delight bloodlust of its owner. The monster that came from the deep abyss, which had taken so many lives two weeks ago, seemed particularly terrible and violent at this moment. The blood-stained claws were now like death scythes. Here he is - the emissary of terror, horror, madness and pain. But what a shiver it is when you think about those times when he was just a nice friendly pony. That's what Crimson felt when she was about to make a blow, which had to decide everything once and for all. The foals tightened their eyes and clung to each other in fear: all escape routes were cut off. Falcon was whispering something that no one could figure out what it was, but by the intonation it could be understandable that he was trying to calm his friend down. Maybe someone would think that it's Latin language, but who knows? By the pleasure beast raised his collar like the frilled lizard. Just what Crimson wanted...
She quietly flew behind the monster's back and aimed to swing the scythe. The hour of reckoning and revenge has come. Crimson sent the blade with her hooves right into the fleshy leather of the neck and to secure the result pulled her weapon on herself.
The formation of a new, much more painful tear in the flesh caused the beast to howl, and instead of striking, he spewed out the blood. He knew he'll die very soon. However, it's necessary to praise him for his purposefulness: even at his deathbed, he tried to harm his successful foes and was dangerously close to his goal. His strength was leaving him with incredible speed, but a few of those "villains" he will take away with him in the hell, it was beyond any doubt. Gathering his last strength, which has been not yet exhausted, he again raised his paw and with all fury and desperation striked with it, while slightly standing up on his hind limbs. Claws precisely were to dissect the foals' bodies into three parts.
Crimson, seeing this, was horrified, left the scythe in the neck and rushed to the rescue. From the bushes nearby Cheerilee was already running in her turn. Purple mare wanted to carry out of here both, but in a hurry, unfortunately, grabbed only Falcon's scruff and didn't noticed this immediately. Luckily, an other mare was on the way and then pushed the filly of a second before the moment of his death. However, like any hero, she paid the price for such a bold deed. Her left side was crowned with three huge and gaping scars, from which the blood flowed. The wing was ripped and turned into a bloody minced meat. No, she was still alive, but it was very hard for her to stay conscious. Burning pain permeated her whole body. But the goal was achieved - a huge monster was now lying on the ground with forever closed eyes, not making a single breath, that would make a sign about glimmering light of the life in this dead body.
The trio ran to the wounded mare.
"Mum, are you okay?!" Falcon said nervously.
"Yes, Falcon, I'm okay. I just have a little injure here, heh," she responded.
"Everypony," Scootaloo commanded. "put her on your back! We'll carry her to the place where she can be given due attention!"
However, this command was not needed, as two other ponies were already mentally agree with filly. They put the mare on their shoulders and headed towards Ponyville. At first, Crimson was just lying there, not quite understanding what was happening. The pain didn't stop, but at the same didn't intensified their movement, at least not yet.
The last words of previous paragraph weren't written in vain. After a few meters passed, the scars pain began to burn more and more stronger. The pain became unbearable and it was why Crimson began to panic a little. Fortunately, the veil of fog don't shrouded her mind and she could think properly. And now her chief thought and desire was to lie down somewhere below to make the pain subsided. She began to asking her carriers to put her down.
"I'm glad you want to help me, but it's not needed," she started. "Really, you don't have to that. Just let me lay for a while, I'll be fine."
"These scars doesn't look fine," Scootaloo retorted. "They're too big. You need a medical attention. Hey, Falcon, do you know where the nearest town is?"
"No, I don't. I've heard about Canterlot, but it's like unlikely that it'll be somewhere near. It's a capital after all. What about you, miss Cheerilee?"
"I have bad news for you. To get to Fillydelphia, we have to get through a mountain pass and only then we'll see the closest city." Cheerilee said. "There's an option to go to Manehattan, but this transition will take at least a week. And we don't have that much time."
"I'm telling you - put me somewhere," Crimson kept telling. "I will be only a burden to you on this way."
It's been about an hour, and they've just came to the stone, behind which foals were hiding during the battle with Oriole. Crimson looked at the stone with a somewhat special face and in a gentle voice said to her porters.
"Please, stop," she said. "Lay me here."
"But we can't lose a second!" Scootaloo tried to retort.
"You've already done a lot more, than you needed to. You saved all Equestria and other countries. You're one of the bravest ponies I've ever seen," she paused. "That's why I want to help you my last time. Just let me lay down near this stone."
She spoke too well and all three of them decided to follow her desire. Gently removing her from their shoulders, they sat her on her rump and then she leaned back to the cold cobblestone. The burning pain gradually subsided, leaving a slight tingling.
"Yes, I needed this. Thank you..." she started. "Here. Take it and go to the Fillydelphia, bypassing the mountains. In the city you will find the hotel called 'Silver Blood'. My friend works there. Ask the guard about Strong Blood. When he or she will call him, just say you're my friends and he'll give you a shelter... That's it... Now, you should go."
"But I don't want to leave you, mum!" Falcon rushed to her.
"Silly, have you forgotten what I told you when you was moving to Ponyville? I'll always be with you. In your heart. I don't believe in souls and spirits like your father, but I believe and know that your loved ones will always remain in your heart. So, you won't be alone, my son." she tightly hugged Falcon with tears in eyes.
"I love you, mum," he said sniffling.
"I love you too, Falcon," she responded.
Scootaloo and Cheerilee couldn't stand against this farewell of the son with mother, which he probably will never see again, and, in turn, they gave her a hug.
"Now, you all need to go. The sun is almost up and the path is far."
Every pony agreed with her and, saying goodbye, turned around and went to the west relatively to the mountain range, that you could see far away. When the trio disappeared, Crimson turned her eyes to the sunrise and sighed deeply.
"What a beautiful dawn... Too bad it's my first and last time I see this..." she said, looking at the rising solar disk.
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