Stolen Fire

by Tzelael

Exile

Stolen Fire

by Tzelael

Chapter 11: Exile

__________________________________________________________________________

Three hours had passed in the library, and Twilight already sensed that something was amiss. Professor Flamebearer simply sat silently the whole time, staring out the window. Twilight trotted upstairs. Spike sat on the edge of his bed watching the Professor.

“Spike, are you sure you sent the right letter?” Twilight whispered to her assistant.

“Of course I did, Twilight! I had it right in my claws before I sent it!” Spike grumbled at her.

“Sorry... It’s just that it’s already been three hours and the Night Watch hasn’t arrived yet.” Twilight jumped in place when Flamebearer finally spoke.

“You know, Miss Sparkle... There’s one aspect of the Divine Fire that I found most intriguing, if a bit unnerving.” The professor adjusted his glasses and looked up at her, a faint smile on his face.

“... And what would that be?” Twilight teleported back down to the ground level, then stood between the Professor and the window.

“Its effect on ponies, namely how it seems to do away with rational thought for most and triggers a fight-or-flight response in ponies who get too close to the creature. It seems you and your friends were spared this form of madness, as are the children of this town, present draconic company included.” His eyes wandered around the room. They stopped on a book filed under “E.”

“I’ve been able to explain the children part. Children, while more susceptible to believing in fantastic monsters, don’t experience the same instinctive sensation that something is wrong with reality itself by virtue that they simply not having been alive long enough that their view of the world is set in stone... Though why your friends and I are able to confront the creature, that I haven’t figured out.”

Twilight followed his gaze to the book he looked at. The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide. “... Do you think that the Elements of Harmony and our connection to them may have something to do with it?”

“I believe they might,” he said. “That and prolonged exposure to things that defy reality may have helped steel your senses to its presence. The exact details I wouldn’t be sure about... But, I’m getting ahead of myself.” He cleared his throat and turned back to face Twilight.

“Now, with you and your friends, and the children of this town and myself immune to the effects of the Fire which drives mere mortals mad, tell me...” He adjusted his glasses and smirked at Twilight. “What makes you think the Night Watch, relatively normal ponies, would be coming here at all?”

Twilight’s eyes widened in realization. Her horn began to glow as she focused on the professor. “Fine... I suppose I’ll have to detain you myself.”

Flamebearer grinned, his horn glowed orange. “You’re certainly welcome to try.”

Four magical shackles snaked out of the floor, and began to wrap themselves around Flamebearer’s legs. The wooden bust across the room briefly glowed orange and flew squarely into Twilight’s forehead. After the shackles faded, Flamebearer launched the bust through the window, and ran towards it.

“I promise you, Miss Sparkle... You won’t regret letting me get away.” He leapt out the window.

“Get back here, you crazy mad scientist guy!” Spike began to follow him.

“Spike... Wait...”

The dragon stopped in his tracks as he heard Twilight mumble and feebly wave her hoof up at him.

“Go to Fluttershy’s first, warn her...”

“But Twilight, he just–”

“If he knows where the creature is, he’d be heading to Fluttershy’s. If he doesn’t know, then you need to give Stitches a head start in leaving Ponyville.” Twilight tried to stand herself back up, her body wobbling back and forth as she attempted to regain her hoofing. She sternly restated her orders.

“Go!”

“But–”

“I’ll be fine,” Twilight groaned as she cradled her head in one foreleg. “I’m just a little dizzy. Now hurry!”

Spike didn’t bother to protest any further. He ran to the door, opened it, then ran toward Fluttershy’s cottage with all the speed his tiny legs could muster, which, sadly, wasn’t much.

Ponyville was almost pitch black, save for a few street lamps that illuminated a small area. Normally, the moon would have been another light source, but it was now completely hidden by the mysterious cloud cover.

“Huff... Okay... Fluttershy’s is... This way, right? Or is it this way?” Spike growled to himself and slowed down. He took several breaths before he ran again, his teeth clamped shut. The clouds above him rumbled, lightning arced between them and briefly caused a flash of light to illuminate the ground below. A pair of wings flapped in the sky. Spike looked up and saw a vaguely familiar silhouette.

“... Rainbow Dash?”

The figure dove down and began to fly low and next to Spike.

“The one and only! What are you doing out here, Spike?” Rainbow Dash examined Spike for a few seconds. “... Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Flamebearer attacked Twilight, and she sent me to warn Fluttershy that he was going to go after the Leaden One next!”

“The Leaden One? You mean Stitches?”

“I guess so. I’ve seen this Flamebearer guy, Rainbow! He’s crazy, and I think he might hurt her!”

Rainbow Dash grimaced for a moment. She then landed and arched her back. She grinned at the baby dragon.

“Get on board, buddy, and hold on tight. It’s gonna be a rough ride.”

Spike jumped onto Rainbow Dash’s back and clung tightly to her mane. The pegasus lifted her wings, flexed them and prepared for take-off. She kicked her hooves off the ground and zoomed into the air at such an incredible speed that Spike barely managed to hang on.

As Rainbow Dash soared through the air, it took a few seconds for Spike to catch his breath and get used to how fast she flew. Finally looking down at the ground, he saw the glow of a small fire being carried by a pony that ran slower than their current speed. After they passed over it, Spike thought to himself.

“Somepony carrying a lantern? No, it looks more like a... Torch... Wait, a torch?!” Spike looked at the torchbearer, then toward Fluttershy’s cottage and realized the figure was running toward it.

“Rainbow! That’s him down there!”

“Yeah, I see him!” She picked up more speed, the wind whistled past her ears. She began to pitch downward and accelerated. Spike was at the point that he struggled to stay on her– he desperately gripped her mane with his eyes tightly shut.

Rainbow rapidly closed in on the cottage, though in the dark, it seemed farther away than it actually was. When it came into plainer view, she spread out her wings to increase air resistance and slow down, but still moved far too fast. When she touched down, she slammed her hooves firmly into the dirt and let the friction slow her down. Her momentum finally ground to a halt, the force of her landing left a trail behind her.

Spike, disoriented from the rough landing, leapt off of Rainbow Dash’s back. He banged on the door and shouted into the cottage.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy! You've got to get out of here!"

Rainbow Dash turned around and kept watching the path, seeing the torch-wielding pony approaching more and more rapidly.

“C’mon, Fluttershy, hurry up,” she muttered to herself, looking up at the second floor of the cottage. At that point, the door opened and Fluttershy stepped out of it.

“Spike...? What are you doing here?” Fluttershy asked, looking between the baby dragon and Rainbow Dash.

“That professor guy is coming after the Lead Pony Thing! He attacked Twilight, and she sent me here to warn you before he got here!” Spike pointed behind them and showed her the quickly approaching light in the distance. Fluttershy gulped as she noticed the fire.

“Oh no...” She poked her head back inside the cottage and called up the stairs. “STITCHES! WE NEED TO GO!”

Barely a second after she yelled up the stairs, the windows opened and the patchwork pony jumped out. Spike and Rainbow Dash cringed a little when he landed, the ground yielded beneath his hooves. Spike instinctively hid behind Rainbow Dash, but peeked out from behind her to see the creature that he had heard called the Leaden One.

“We’ll run as deep into the forest as we can, then Stitches can run deeper in to avoid capture! I’ll run back to try and keep the professor busy.” Fluttershy spoke as bravely as she could, though her knees trembled. Rainbow Dash looked behind her at Spike, then back at Fluttershy and grinned.

“Don’t worry about keeping the professor busy... Me and Spike here can handle it.” She patted the baby dragon on the back. Fluttershy raised her hoof in protest.

“But–”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We can handle one egghead with a torch. Besides...” Rainbow Dash punched Spike in the shoulder lightly with one hoof. “I think the little guy owes the professor one for attacking Twilight, don’t you think?”

Spike straightened up, looking determined, then turned to face Fluttershy. He gave her a salute and the sternest, most serious face he could manage.

“You can count on us,” declared Spike. He hopped onto Rainbow Dash’s back and held on tight for takeoff. Fluttershy smiled at them, her cheeks darkened. She looked away bashfully as she spoke.

“Oh... Um... I don’t know what to... I mean... Thank you so much! This will be so helpful, and I can’t thank you en-”

“It won’t be helpful if you and Stitches don’t get out of here!” Rainbow Dash pointed toward the forest with one foreleg. Fluttershy cringed and nodded quickly.

“Right!” She started to run into the forest. Stitches slowly began to follow, though he stopped at the forest’s edge. He turned to Rainbow Dash and gave her a lopsided smile, nodding in approval. The blue pegasus turned away and gestured to the treeline.

“Hurry up and go already!” Stitches quickly turned to the forest and rushed in right behind Fluttershy.

“So what’ll we be doing to keep him occupied?” Spike asked as he stared as the torchlight got closer.

“I have an idea...” Rainbow smiled as she scuffed her right forehoof across the dirt.

****

Professor Flamebearer galloped down the path to Fluttershy’s cottage. In his mouth he held a torch, or more accurately, a branch he found on the ground that he had lit with an enchanted flame.

“It’ll keep going as long as I concentrate my magic. The fire should keep burning without consuming the torch.” He closed his eyes, his horn glowing as the fire danced with life. “At least until I need to release it... The enchanted fire will spread quickly, and I’m certain that it’ll serve its purpose.” He kept walking toward the cottage, led by the orange glow of the torch he was carrying.

“There he is...” He saw the Leaden One run into the forest. His teeth clenched tightly around the branch, his horn glowed as he maintained the magical flame. One of the other figures in the distance, a pegasus, suddenly shot toward him with immense speed.

Shocked, he ducked when the pegasus headed on a collision course with him. When he got back up, he saw that the baby dragon from the library stood in front of him after the mare seemed to disappear behind him. He pulled the torch out from his mouth and stared down his reptilian opponent.

“You’re going to pay for what you did to Twilight!” Spike shot a jet of green fire at the professor. Flamebearer barely stepped out of the way in time for part of his coat to be singed.

“Really?! A monster is loose and all you can think of is exacting your petty revenge against me?!” He swung his torch towards Spike– a futile gesture, he knew, but enough to at least make him back away. “You just can’t see the big picture, can you?! If this monster goes loose again, thousands of other ponies will go mad, and if I don’t capture it to dissect it and learn its secrets, all of that suffering will have been in vain! Why do you all insist on impeding what is clearly for the good of all ponykind?!”

Spike ducked, rolled and dodged each swing of the flaming branch. After he leapt back, he stopped for a moment and heard a whistling noise pierce the air. He grinned for a moment as he looked at the professor.

“You know what your problem is, professor?” Spike jeered at Flamebearer.

“That I am insane? You and your mistress have made your position on that very clear.”

“Well, that is a problem, but that’s not the one I’m talking about.” The whistling in the air grew louder. “Funny you should bring up Twilight, because the two of you have the same problem...”

Flamebearer placed the torch back in his mouth, then spoke through clenched teeth as he tried to start his gallop again.

“And wha’ woul’ tha’ be?!” Before he could get away, Spike grinned, jumped, and grabbed the professor’s hind leg.

“You get too carried away!” Spike only delayed Flamebearer for a moment, but it kept him in one place long enough for a streak of rainbow to fly past and snatch the professor up into the sky.

“Wha–?!” Flamebearer stared in shock as the ground beneath him suddenly grew distant in a ludicrous amount of time. Rainbow Dash held him in her forelegs and smirked as she sped through the air.

“Thank you for flying Air Dash. Your next stop will be Canterlot and a nice, padded room.” Rainbow Dash picked up some speed, flying over the Everfree Forest before she turned toward the capital. Flamebearer, however, jerked toward the forest in an attempt to throw off Rainbow’s balance. As the pegasus tried to regain the proper alignment, Flamebearer held the torch’s fire against her skin.

"Yeeow!" Rainbow Dash screamed in pain, dropping the professor. As he fell, he flung his head to the side and threw the torch toward the deepest part of the forest he could reach, his concentration on the flame itself being lost. As it twirled through the air, he pushed it with his mind to ensure that it would land near one of the drier trees.

While the torch fell into the forest, he continued to plummet toward the ground. He attempted to use his magic to launch himself toward a clearing near a river. He fell short of the shore, though, and he crashed through the boughs. After he took out several branches and gained several scrapes in the process, he finally hit the ground with a loud thud.

****

Stitches and Fluttershy ran through the woods frantically as they continued on to wherever it was darkest. The forest got thicker the further in they went, though they were still able to easily weave through the trees. They stopped for a second when they heard a distant thud, Stitches looking around nervously.

“Stitches! We can’t stop, we need to hurry!” Fluttershy started to run again, but slowed down as she sniffed the air.

“Is that... Smoke?” She jumped up and hovered into the air, looking around and finding an orange blaze glowing in a deeper part of the forest, partially obscured by a plume of black smoke.

“Fire! Fire! There’s a fire in the forest!” Fluttershy began to hyperventilate. Her head darted around as she tried to find the quickest escape. She took deep breaths and forced herself to calm down.

“Okay, Fluttershy... Just calm down and think... Where should we go?” She caught a glimpse of a familiar clearing in the Everfree Forest that a river ran through.

“That was the river we crossed when we first found the Elements of Harmony!” She smiled brightly at the sight of the water, then landed underneath the trees facing the general direction of the river. On one hoof, that direction got too close to where the fire had started, but on another hoof, if they took too long to get to the river, the fire might’ve spread too far anyway. At this point, they were too far into the forest to backtrack to Ponyville, even if it was a good idea.

She had no choice. She took a deep breath, called to Stitches and began to gallop.

“Stitches! This way!” She ran towards the river while the patchwork pony followed close behind. Stitches galloped, though he twitched nervously as the smell of smoke reached his nose.

“We’ll just need to stay near the river, then when the fire dies down, you can go wherever you can... Someplace far away from any pony who’d hurt you.” She smiled at him as he ran. Stitches briefly returned the gesture before he saw the fire spread more quickly to his right. He stopped each time heard a bough fall off one of the trees as a result of the blaze.

Fear began to overtake Stitches as he saw the fire engulf more of the trees. The light of the fire and the heat that radiated from its glow caused his insides to thrash about inside him, as if they were trying to escape his body. His pace slowed considerably as he stared, enthralled with terror at the sight of the flames beginning to surround them.

“Stitches! Come on, we’re almost there!” She pointed at the tree line just ahead of them. He looked past it, and though it was partially obscured by the smoke that was choking the air, he saw the water ahead. Eager to be out of the way of the fire, he ran toward the clearing, but stopped dead in his tracks at the combined sound of a tree limb crashing and Fluttershy’s scream.

When Stitches turned to face her, Fluttershy was pinned beneath a burning tree branch. She desperately tried to crawl out from under it as she groaned in pain.

Sparks flew off and made contact with Stitches. He howled in agony when some of the embers landed on his flesh. The points the sparks touched him in began to glow blue. At each point, it felt like his insides were ready to burst out of his body. He looked down at the log, his eyes widened in unbridled terror, which worsened when he looked up.

A lone figure limped towards them. It was barely visible through the smoke, but Stitches was certain it was Professor Flamebearer. The passing time slowed down to a crawl. It took him only a second to realize that if he ran to the water now, Flamebearer would be trapped and would have no way to follow him. He could escape right now. He could run away and finally be rid of his hunter, no doubt by his own machinations.

Another second ticked past, and he looked back down at Fluttershy. She coughed heavily as the smoke engulfed her. She struggled under the weight of the burning branch. She writhed as she unsuccessfully tried to escape. Unable to stand the sight of it anymore, he shut his eyes tightly and charged toward the fire.

"No!" He howled in rage and agony as he lifted the burning branch off of Fluttershy. He held it up for a few seconds. Doing so caused spots of blue flame to erupt from the wounds on his forelegs before he hurled the bough toward the river. After it flew through the air, the branch landed in the water and steam hissed from where it fell.

He looked down at himself after he got back on all four hooves. Blue fire still leaked from his wounds, each of them about the size of a coin. He leaned down and picked up Fluttershy by the scruff of her neck with his mouth. His jaw quivered before he clamped down on the skin around her neck, his unsteadiness threatened to get the best of him.

He had to act quickly, otherwise he could drop her or grind his teeth into her for too long. He swung his head and tossed her toward the shore as gently as he could. She slid across the ground, watching helplessly as she stopped just out of reach of the wildfire.

“Stit... Ches...” Fluttershy gasped out. She weakly reached out to him as she saw what he did. She barely had the energy to stay conscious, but was determined to watch as long as she could. Stitches turned back, as Flamebearer walked toward him.

“Stitches... Run...” She tried her best to call out to him, but her choked voice was drowned out by the crackle of the forest fire.

Stitches looked back at her for a moment and smiled, then swung his forehoof into the nearest tree, causing it to fall behind him. When it crashed, the tree was completely consumed by the fire, nothing visible beyond it. The only hint at what occurred beyond the fire was a long, pained howl from within the raging inferno.

Fluttershy could only stare in silence as tears rolled down her cheeks.