Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
The moment she said that, something heavy slammed into the door, making it practically bend under the force. The hinges strained and groaned as the bolts that held them to the stone began to give way. Twilight, Sunny, Flurry, and Opaline all screamed and spread their wings, flying up to join Gusty on the balcony. They looked out, and their eyes widened in unison.
Wolves were pouring in from a gate on the outskirts of Skyros and prowling the streets. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of ponies around, and those that were were able to flee to safety. The wolves started leaping through windows and breaking down doors, searching everywhere for hiding ponies that they could grab easily. Down below, three wolves were scratching at Gusty’s door and whining like little puppies.
“They can’t get in,” Gusty told them reassuringly. “I put a special enchantment on the door - something of my own design, of course. Nothing can get through that-”
With a resounding crash, the door caved inwards and fell in a pile of splinters on the floor below them, sending up stacks of paper that now floated back to the ground like a flock of white birds. The wolves entered the building, howling, sniffing, and prowling.
“Yeah, okay, forget I said that,” Gusty muttered. “Run!”
“To where?” Twilight asked, scanning the streets below them. “There are wolves everywhere!”
“There!” Opaline pointed to the building at the center of the city, where Starswirl’s study was. “The portal is inside! If we can get everypony there and through, then they will be safe, and the wolves won’t be able to follow!” She leaped into the air and was about to fly away before Gusty grabbed her ankle and pulled her back inside.
“We have to be careful,” Sunny said, glancing nervously at the wolves inside Gusty’s house and the wolves just outside on the streets, none of whom seemed to have discovered them yet. “We can’t let them catch us, but we can’t stay here. Gusty, is there a way out where we wouldn’t be seen?”
The elderly mare looked up, and her face split into a grin. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She kicked a support pillar behind her, and a section of the roof suddenly collapsed, one end landing at the edge of the balcony and the other leading up to the outside, creating a ramp that went directly over the heads of the wolves below - wolves that had heard the sound and now looked up, their eyes narrowing and their lips peeling back as they bared their teeth and snarled. Two of them began climbing their way up the walls, using the bookshelves as ladders and knocking miscellaneous objects to the floor as they went, where some of the more fragile ones shattered into dozens of pieces.
“Go go go,” Sunny hissed in a hushed voice, pushing her friends toward the ramp. She herself was the last one to go up, and once she had joined the others on the roof, Gusty pressed a shingle with her hoof, and the ramp began to retract again. One of the wolves had reached the balcony and made a mad leap for the opening before it closed, but didn’t reach them by the time the ramp had secured itself back into place.
“This way!” Gusty called, and she took a running leap off the roof and soared toward the roof of another building. She came up just short, with her front legs grabbing ahold of the edge of the roof while her hind legs scrabbled for a hoofhold on the smooth wall of the house. She finally managed to pull herself up, shook herself off, and grinned. “Nailed it.”
The four alicorns simply spread their wings and took to the air, hovering just above Gusty. “We need to split up,” Twilight said, holding one hoof over her eyes so that she could scan the city. “If we want to get everypony inside before the wolves get them, we’ll be faster and more efficient on our own.”
“Right. I’ll take this level,” Sunny decided, gesturing to the area they were in. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Opaline, how strong are your fire powers?”
“Super strong!” the young alicorn boasted, puffing out her chest. Sunny glanced at Gusty to see if the statement was valid, and the unicorn shrugged.
“This little filly’s got some fire power in her,” she said, reaching up and rubbing Opaline’s head.
“Okay, then. Opaline, you take the far side of the lower level. We think the wolves might have some kind of weakness to fire. Get everyone to go to the center of the city and distract the wolves as you go. Just… you know, try not to get captured by one.”
Opaline’s eyes widened, and her face went a shade paler. Sunny could see that she really was just a little foal who was absolutely terrified. But Opaline closed her eyes and shook her head, and when she opened them again, she nodded firmly. “I’ll do my best.”
“Flurry, Twilight, you guys take the upper levels. Gusty, do you know how to get that portal thing to work?” Gusty nodded. “Then you get up there as fast as you can and get as many of these alicorns through as possible. Retreat if you have to,” she added to the whole group, “but stand and fight as long as you can. I don’t want to lose any of you to these monsters.”
“What about our friends?” Flurry suddenly blurted out, the thought having just occurred to her. “Everyone back on the zeppelin?”
“I’ll send them a signal,” Sunny decided. “But only after you guys get out of here. Something like that will tell every wolf in Skyros exactly where I am, so you ponies need to get to safety.” She took a deep breath. “Just… be careful out there, okay?”
Twilight smiled and gave Sunny a hug. Then with the flutter of wings, the other three alicorns were gone, and Gusty was slipping down a column until she reached street level and was dashing through the cobblestone roads of Skyros with a few wolves in hot pursuit behind her.
Sunny rose up and lit up her horn, the rainbow light glowing like lightning, and she lassoed one of the wolves chasing Gusty before she swung it into the others, tripping them up and knocking them down. Then she flapped her wings harder and unleashed a brilliant beam of light into the sky, which soared higher than the clouds that surrounded them and exploded in a magnificent golden flash. She hoped that would be enough for the other creatures on the zeppelin to notice and hopefully come help.
Down below, she counted two dozen (roughly) wolves that suddenly looked up in the wake of her magical firework, and all of their eyes narrowed unanimously, and they all started to growl low and threateningly in their throats.
“Hey! Yoo-hoo! Come and get me!” Sunny screamed down at them before turning and dashing away. Toward the outskirts of the wall that surrounded the lower level of Skyros. The wolves gave chase.
Sunny ducked under an archway and swung down an alley with more wolves joining the pursuit with every passing second. Up ahead she heard a scream, and she poured on speed just in time to round a corner and wrap a golden beam of light around a wolf that was trying to grab a young alicorn. Sunny yanked the wolf back and threw it behind her so that it crashed into the others, stopping them for a brief moment.
“Get out of here!” Sunny called to the alicorn as she picked herself up off the ground, gasping for breath. “Get to the center of the city! Don’t stop until you get there!”
The alicorn nodded and dashed off into the streets, rounded a corner, and disappeared. Sunny spun around and glared at the wolves that were slowly picking themselves up and regrouping. She lanced another one and pulled with all her might. The wolf fought her as hard as it could, but eventually Sunny’s light overpowered its darkness. The wolf howled as it dissipated into nothingness and shadow, leaving behind an alicorn who had been caught in the first wave of the attack.
“Get to the center of the city!” Sunny cried as the alicorn looked around wildly, trying to figure out what was going on. “Keep moving! Go!”
Unable to stop to see if she had done what Sunny had asked, Sunny taunted the wolves once more and flew across a courtyard, leading them further away from everypony else. Her entourage was growing by the minute.
Opaline Arcana gasped for breath as she tried to flap her wings harder and move faster. She scanned the labyrinth of buildings below her, trying to see if there was anypony that needed her help, but so far it seemed to be mostly deserted. She hoped that was because the alicorns had seen their peril and had already fled. Then she wouldn’t have to do anything, which meant she couldn’t mess anything up. According to everyone else, that was all she was good for.
“Come on, Opaline,” she muttered to herself. “Focus!”
She gently soared down to land on the street, looking around as she did so to make sure her presence went unnoticed. She was trying her hardest to do this right; Sunny was trusting her to a super important task, and she was determined not to screw it up.
Opaline wasn’t quite sure why Sunny and Flurry were acting so strange around her, but she knew that they were from the future, so the only possible explanation was that they had heard of her from their time. Opaline suspected that was a good thing - it meant that she finally did something important - but the way that Flurry Heart’s face had looked when Sunny had suggested teaming up told her a different story. She wondered what she might do, or might have already done, that would cause her to be remembered in such a way - and if there was any way she could change it.
Just then, she heard a crash down one of the alleyways, and Opaline gasped, looking around wildly for the source of the sound. She backed up slowly, trying to regulate her breathing and racing heart rate, when she felt something cold slam into her back and pin her to the cobblestone street.
“Let me go!” she cried, twisting in vain to try and free herself from whatever was holding her down.
“I wouldn’t struggle if I were you,” said a voice, and out of the shadows cast by one of the buildings a creature emerged. He was a towering beast that simply radiated a dark and ancient power. His gigantic horns curled around the sides of his face and glowed with bright yellow light, crackling with lightning and pure, undeniable strength. His eyes were bright and menacing and unnatural, and as Opaline stared into them, she sensed that he was looking into the innermost depths of her soul, unveiling every secret she had ever kept and every desire she had ever wished.
The massive blue ram tilted his head at her. “Pity,” he said softly, almost to himself. “So much potential… wasted.”
Opaline privately agreed, but she hated to hear it coming from this monster of a being. She tried to push herself up onto her hooves but was unceremoniously flattened to the ground again by whatever was standing over her.
“You have so much power, young one,” Grogar went on, taking a few steps closer to her. Opaline saw her fear reflected in his eyes, and she struggled harder. “You could do so much more than what they give you credit for. You have the ability to do great things. You don’t need these other pathetic, lesser ponies to tell you what you’re capable of. You can carve your own path.”
Opaline glared at him, gritted her teeth, and lit up her horn, pouring as much power as she could into that single blast, which she aimed right at Grogar’s sneering, pompous face. He swerved to the side easily, avoiding it, and chuckled, which made Opaline even angrier.
“You see? You know what true power can be. And you want it.” He crouched down low until they were eye-to-eye. “You want it badly. No other power can stop you if you have all the power.”
Grogar stood up and took a few steps back, nodding to something behind Opaline. The cold things pressing into her back retreated, and a shadow wolf trotted around to stand next to the ram. It stared at Opaline with cold, unfeeling eyes.
“My wolves have already cleared this part of the city. Save your time and go run off with your friends somewhere else.” He shook his head sadly at her, as if she had personally disappointed him. “You could have been so much more…”
And with that, both he and the wolf disappeared into the shadows, leaving Opaline standing alone in the abandoned street, her head swirling with rage, contempt, determination… and the smallest inklings of ambition.
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“They can’t get in,” Gusty told them reassuringly. “I put a special enchantment on the door - something of my own design, of course. Nothing can get through that-”
With a resounding crash, the door caved inwards and fell in a pile of splinters on the floor below them, sending up stacks of paper that now floated back to the ground like a flock of white birds. The wolves entered the building, howling, sniffing, and prowling.
“Yeah, okay, forget I said that,” Gusty muttered. “Run!”
I got to say the shadow wolfs are way op heck
Ohh is that me we kind of changed the past
Oh ok so maybe that's how she got this idea that she could be better than anybody else
Oh boy this is really not good so it looks like gorgar is on the attack on skylof and it looks like Sunny Twilight and flurry heart have to lead the other Alicorn citizens away from the shadow wolves and it looks like they had to make their escape first and all of them had to split up and Opaline found herself in front of gorgar but apparently he struck a core on her soul about being wasted potential probably this is when she's starting to get the idea that she could be better so I think the history is still keeping going about her ruling