Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

The Rush of Eternity

The hooded pegasus was faster than any of them. As their body turned and they leaned into their front legs, raising their hind legs, their other wing slid out from beneath their cape, holding a small green black orb filled with crackling energy. It all happened in mere fractions of seconds, too quickly for any of the guards to even get close to the podium. As the pegasus' wing slammed the orb down to the ground, their hind legs bucked against the glass casing. Both containers shattered at the same time, and a cloud of dark smoke filled with lightning erupted around the pegasus, hiding them from view.

The few guards who were closer to the centre were zapped by the cloud, and left temporarily unconscious. The smoke soon dispersed, in part aided by the magic of a few other guards, but once it cleared both the hooded pegasus and the jewel were gone, leaving behind only shattered glass.

Immediately it was chaos in the room. Ponies began running, looking left and right, some screaming, as guards uselessly tried to contain the commotion and some tried to calm others down, their voices barely audible beneath all the clamour. Amidst all the confusion, however, two ponies remained motionless, staring intently at the centre of the room where the jewel had been. Two unicorns.

"Where in Tartarus did it go?" quietly barked Dust between gritted teeth, muscles twitching as he held himself from running off without a lead on direction.

Brush's eyes began to scan the room, staying higher above the crowd, but still she couldn't spot anything. Even the hole in the ceiling showed only the starry sky above. "Are there any tunnels beneath this room?" she asked, thinking through the possibilities. The other alternative was a unicorn accomplice, but that seemed unlikely given the redundancy of the setup.

Dust caught what she was getting at. "No idea," he replied, tempering his tone a little. "Do you need to see the thing to do your thing? We could take it and book it otherwise."

"Not direct line of sight, but I need to know where it is," said Brush. "I could have grabbed it while we could still see it, but you'll forgive me if that didn't immediately occur to me." She began to walk, towards what direction and why Dust wasn't sure.

He followed behind her. "Do you have a plan?" he asked, nervous. "If that thing ends up in the wrong hooves it could be trouble."

"I don't have a lead," Brush replied. "But, whoever took it isn't sitting around, and if we stay here looking for clues we'll never catch them running away. We're going up where we can see clearly."

"Do you think they'll be flying away?" Dust had made his way to her side, and his bulk helped with parting the crowd as they pushed their way through it.

"No. That would make them too clear a target. But it's our best bet at seeing something."

Comments

[Speckle]

Did the guy bust the ceiling to give them a wrong lead?