Sombra: The Shadow Over Ponyville

by Blaster Master

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Even though the battle was still a ways away from the Carousel Boutique, Rarity believed in being prepared. She packed the bare essentials (her real essentials, not what she would have liked to be her essentials) and stored her case next to the door. Then she began the tedious work of tearing her less expensive fabrics into strips. She knew that when this was over, there was going to be a substantial need for bandages, and she planned to help as best she could. Speartip and Blazebrush were outside, keeping an eye out for the monster in case it came this way, and August was with Rarity herself.
“I have plenty of silk,” Rarity was muttering to herself “But it won’t soak as well. The denim will do nicely! Denim isn’t ‘in’ right now anyway, August!”

The guard stood at attention.

“Be a dear and run into my workroom there, I believe I have a big stack of cotton garments. They’re alphabetical from left to right from the windowsill.”

August quickly went off in search of the desired material.

Sweetie Belle, Rarity’s little sister, suddenly burst in through the back door, “Rarity!”

“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity exclaimed “Thank heavens!”

The sisters rushed over put a hoof on each other to embrace.

“Where have you been?” Rarity demanded, “I expected you back from your crusaders meeting-”

“Rarity!” Sweetie interrupted, “Please! You have to help! Applebloom and Scootaloo! They’re in trouble!”

“What is it?!”

“I think they’re Timberwolves! On our way back, they attacked us! Please! We have to save them!”

Sweetie Belle broke the embrace and ran back out the door she entered from. Rarity, not wasting any more time or breath, followed her closely.

“Miss Rarity?” August said, entering with a pile of clothes on his back, “I thought I heard a-”

And then he realized she was gone.

***

A few blocks away, Sweetie Belle led Rarity to a small, abandoned house, where the front door was wide open.
“In there!” Sweetie Belle cried, pointing a hoof inside.

“Stay behind me, Sweetie!” Rarity said resolutely as she readied herself for a fight, “As soon as I have their attention, I want you to take your friends and run back to the boutique. And when you get there, tell the guards where I am, do you understand me?”

Sweetie nodded, tears welling up, “Be careful, sis…”

Rarity nodded to her sister, and charged into the house.

“Alright, you ruffians!” Rarity cried, “Prepare to feel the wrath of-!”

Her threat died in her throat when she realized there was no one there. It was a small one-story house with no corners, nothing and no one in it. Confused for a second, she looked back at Sweetie Belle, who had walked in after her sister, and closed the door behind her with an ominous click.

“Sweetie Belle, what-?”

Suddenly, out of the ground, a pair of dirty and familiar paws exploded through the floorboards and grabbed Rarity around the neck. She gagged as, out of the now exposed earth, a canine face looked at her with green eyes.

“Hello again, Pony!” Said Rover, leader of the Diamond Dogs, as he pulled Rarity into the hole he created.

Sweetie Belle casually pulled out a key to the front door, locked it, and snapped the key in the lock, jamming it. Sweetie’s eyes expelled purple energy as she followed the Diamond Dog down his hole.

Her guile is mine… And all that remains is…

***

Twilight fired another blast from her horn, aiming for one of its eyes. But with its heads jostling around snapping at the Pegasi in the air, the odds of that hitting were slim to none. Suddenly, she had an idea.

“Hey!” She called to the Dawn Guardian Unicorn, “I want you to bait him towards us!”

“Towards us?” He questioned.

“I have a plan!”

The Dawn Guardia’s horn glowed and, using a specialized limited telepathy spell, ordered the Pegasi to back off. The assembled Pegasi gave the hydra more room, just as a barrage of flashy, magic blasts hit it in one of its necks. It roared and stepped towards him. That’s when Twilight made her move.

She concentrated her energies and aimed, not high, but low. Her magenta beam hit the ground where the hydra was about to hit and instantly dug a ten foot deep hole in the ground big enough for the hydra’s foot. Not expecting a magic pothole, the hydra stepped right into it, lost its balance and fell forward.

This was the part Twilight hadn’t thought through.

She and her escort ran like the wind and barely got out of the way as the behemoth slammed into the ground where they had been with earth-shattering force, taking a few buildings with it.

“NOW!” Twilight called, “Hit it while it’s down!”

***

Pinkie was right in the middle of heading to the scene of the battle. The pink mare had chocolate frosting under her eyes as war paint, had pulled her cotton candy mane into a ponytail, and had modified her ‘party cannon’ to fire super balls with the intent of using them to trip up the top-heavy hydra. Ponyville was her home and everyone in it were her friends, she sure wasn’t going to wait idly by as a big, stupid, meanie of a hydra wrecked everypony’s homes. Her guards were nowhere in sight, having long since lost the hyperactive pony, but with her attention span she had totally forgotten about them anyway.
But as she pushed her modified artillery towards battle, she caught a glint in her eye. She turned to see the source of the glint and saw a familiar pair of glasses disappear around a corner. Pinkie stopped, but her cannon kept on rolling. Pinkie didn’t see, but heard the cannon crash into something, along with a cat’s startled yowl.

“Mom?”

It had been years since Pinkie had seen her parents. The Cakes were akin to her surrogate family now, but she never forgot her blood relatives. She trotted over to the corner where she thought she saw her mother disappear around. Looking around it herself, she caught a glimpse of a sickle cutie mark and a wide black hat as it rounded another corner into an alley.

“Dad!”

Pinkie ran after it, wondering what her family was doing in Ponyville. Whatever they were doing here, she had to make sure they were safe before she joined the battle. She was galloping now, trying desperately to keep pace with her family. As she entered another alley, she saw the silver mane of one of her sisters peering out from around another corner, but quickly retreat at the sight of her.

“Blinkie!”

She galloped full tilt around the corner and was half surprised to see her family there at the end of the dead-end alley, wearing sullen expressions and avoiding her eyes.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Pinkie asked.

Their only response was for Mr. Pie to tip his hat further over his eyes.

“Is it because I left? I always planned to visit, I promise…But…I was a little ashamed” she admitted, feeling tears well up as she approached “I didn’t want to be a rock farmer like you Dad, I wanted to go out into the world! Can’t you understand?”
They finally looked up at her.

“I didn’t want to be stuck on a rock farm forever. I wanted to make everypony in Equestria as happy as I am! I wanted to be something you never planned for me to be… But I hoped I never disappointed you…”

Her family smiled, and shook their heads to say ‘you could never disappoint us, Pinkamena’, and held out their hooves for a group hug. Pinkie let her tears spill and ran to hug them.

But her whole attitude shifted when she passed straight through them like they were mist. No, not mist, mist felt wet to walk through. Walking through the illusions of her family, she felt cold. Cold and scared. She lost her footing and hit the ground face first. She looked back up at them, and saw a change. They were no longer smiling, nor sullen. They were grim and sneering. Suddenly, paws reached through the dirt and grabbed Pinkie’s forehooves, and another grabbed her backhooves. She started to sink into the dirt, crying out for help, but in the midst of the crisis and the whole town in a panic, no one noticed one more screaming voice. Pinkie’s last sight before she sunk under the dirt was of her family evaporating into smoke.

Her happiness… And now… The stage is set…

***

Giving one last contemptuous roar, the hydra sank back into the river from whence it came, following the current back towards the forest. The Royal Guards cheered in their victory, the Earth Ponies holding aloft their spears and the Pegasi flying victorious formations in the sky.

“The job isn’t over, ponies!” Lt. Broadsword’s voice came over the Mayor’s PA system, “We still have some packs of Timberwolves attacking the outlying farms! Some units there need reinforcements! MOVE!”

Twilight Sparkle knew where she had to be; she had to go and make sure Sweet Apple Acres was ok, for the sake of Applejack. Gathering her guards, she headed for the Apple’s ancestral farm.

***

The farm was far from a pretty sight. The Apple’s barn appeared to be where the Apples had made their stand, so most of the outlying structures had been torn to shreds, undefended from the claws of the wolves. As Twilight approached, she saw that the fighting appeared to be over. Guards were all over the place, securing the perimeter and cleaning up the broken remains of what must have been dozens of wolves.

She trotted up to the leader of the squad, “What’s the situation?”

“The area is secured, no fatalities,” The guard informed her.

“Thank you so much for getting here so quickly!” Twilight said, truly thankful.

“It wasn’t us, Miss,” The guard corrected her, “These wolves were all busted by the time we got here. Apparently, it was all him.” The guard nodded his head off to the side.

Twilight turned and saw Big Macintosh, lying on the ground covered in bloody bandages, with Granny Smith next to him, stroking his head.

“Big McIntosh!” Twilight cried as she went over to her good friend’s brother “Are you ok?”

“…Eeyup” was his weak response.

“You fought all these Timberwolves by yourself?”

“Had to. It’s what AJ woulda done.”

“Yes,” Twilight said, at the verge of tears, “Yes, it is.”

***

Twilight returned to town hall a while later, where Lt. Broadsword was looking over a map of Ponyville, assessing the damage done.

“Lieutenant,” Twilight greeted, “How’s the damage to Ponyville?”

“The damage is pretty extensive and the casualties among my platoon are high,” The Lt. said, not looking up from his map, “More than half of them are in the local hospital or the medical tent we out up to supplement it. But we were able to stop any fires before they spread and there weren’t too many fatalities, considering we were attacked by a hydra.
But I’m afraid there’s more new Miss Sparkle. The guards assigned to protect Miss Rarity have checked in; she’s gone.”
Twilight’s eyes dilated in horror.

“And there’s been no sign of Miss Pie either. Considering the timing, this must have-”

“Been a big diversion!” Twilight finished, almost as a scream, “They was drawing our attention with a hydra while they snuck in here and kidnapped more of my friends!!”

“Miss Sparkle…”

“Why did you have your elite guards protecting me!? Why didn’t you give them to Rarity? Or Pinkie Pie!? I’m Celestia’s student, I can take care of-”

“It’s because you’re her student we had them guarding YOU!” Broadsword interrupted with a stomp of his hoof and a billow of his wings, “At the end of the day, you’re the most important member of the Elements of Harmony, and I had to allocate my resources to protect the most important asset!”

“My friends and I are not just assets!” Twilight screamed, “I would give my life for any one of theirs! They are the most important ponies in my life and I…RRRGH!!”

With a cry of frustration, she ran out of town hall, shoving guards aside. She didn’t stop until she got to the library, and then she locked the door, climbed into her bed and sobbed.

She was tired, scared, and now she was very close to being alone.

And she didn’t know how to stop it.