It was evening time in the city of Readish. Far above the center of the city, on one of the Sun Slot towers that lit the realm of Ordiane with extremely powerful magical illuminators, now less bright as night time was approaching, between the Slot itself where the lamps were, and the upper mirror reflecting the light back toward the ground, a pony named Rainbow Head was lying on metal ledge stretching around the tower. Clouds were not high up that day and passed below the Slot. The pony was white according to the color of her head, which was shaved from thick brown fur resembling that of a monkey, black on back of her head and tail, that was covering her. Her wings looked like those of an average griffon's. Beside her, two bags were attached to the tower with a hook.
The pony was looking to the side, where the completely unlit areas outside the city border, stood invisible, making the only areas missing city lights that annoyed Rainbow Head. She knew nothing about that dark madness except that there were some mountains that made the curious return. Neither pegasi watching the cloud layer from hanging rooms below, nor pegasi workers flying between factory buildings and the like, worried her as nopony else would see or reach the place where she was.
Occassionally, she would grab the bag and pick a pack of food, usually struggling to eat it with her thick fangs. Living in shadows of tower's framework, she needed nothing else until, once a week, she descended at night when no pieces of the artificial sun were working, to replenish her supplies. Or when she was on mission from ponies who supported her. They were all rather bat ponies.
But one day, after waking up in her usual place, she felt unusual, and found blue feathered stumps growing from her head in front of her ears.
"What in Fourier's name is this? By Euler, this is strange... And it's almost morning. I need to descend until crowds begin to gather in there," - she thought, tied the bags to herself and dove down towards the streets, shaking to wash herself when she passed the cloud.
Then, she arrived to a flat roof of one big building in a usual district with dull alleyways ending with spiky fences, like most others looked like, too.
She opened the roof door and went inside, as usual. Eventually, she met two pegasi she knew near the stairs, Hehehaha and Burp. Not expecting her visit, they got scared that they got in her way, which always led to a short fight. Then they saw her new wings, and one almost laughed. She kicked him in the chest.
"Eat a parallelogram," - she roared. "It's not your business." - she added quieter as they ran away.
She silently went further down, knocking on a specific door and heard low buzz triggering after she knocked. A minute later, a voice rang, "Is that you?"
"Bubble tumbleweed," - Rainbow said sourly.
"Did something happen?" - purple bat pony with ringing, vibrating voice, Cathode Charge, asked, opening the door without worry.
She came in, raising and dropping the odd wings.
"Holy squares, Rainbow, what is that?" - another pony, Awesumbra, blue with red stripes across her face, continuing on her mane, said, expecting trouble with Rainbow and not something this shocking, from her friend's words.
"I wouldn't know, I didn't do this to myself," - growled Rainbow. "They must have appeared while I was sleeping. I hope you had an answer, because I don't know, and would like to have it."
"I promise you I didn't see this anywhere before," - Awesumbra spoke, walking around the room, "not that we see much, we live in the darkness. You live near the Sun. You likely know more. I don't say I can't help, though" - she added, "we could perform a flight to our food source, together, tomorrow night. Do you still have enough?"
"I do." - werepony interrupted. "Do you plan telling me where that is? Not that I wonder, I just have a slight presentiment that it's in Concrete Entertainment's parks."
"Then I would like to know what supernatural trick did you use to guess? Is it the same magic that gave you the crest? Wreath thing?" - Awesumbra grew agitated.
"A gossip from a year ago, where you were seen performing a horror show in there. Your team did never do such loud things without reason."
"That was loud?" - Charge noted, "We just wrecked two unused buildings. Compared to the trick on Braying Mare Street, where we spooked ponies for months to leave us alone and the area is still quarantined for 'banshee moles' - now that was loud".
"Hm, I don't want to know until later." - Rainbow tried to make gestures with blue wings, which were developed completely by now. "I feel that these can just turn their reaction to laugh. And I'm not a comedian. I'll make them pay if they do."
Charge went to gather backpacks. "Harsh. You're too gloomy, and could make it an opportunity."
"To what?"- the beast said, "to become a pegasus? Don't make me laugh. I could cry here with just the same likelihood. Of never."
"We're a community," - Awesumbra said deviously, "devoted to survival of our species. You help us by surviving, to that we'll help you with the shadows, but if it turns out you're a special pony, which you are - just look at yourself," - she placed a whole banana in her mouth, "you could help-"
"Eat a glacier!" - Rainbow said. "We have a troublem! If you think this will help turn us all into... them?! You can't be serious!"
"Let's go already. Investigating why you look ridiculous, nevermind your screaming." - Awesumbra picked a scary pitchfork with her horn and went outside.
"I could swear by Discordiane you look like a chosen one," - Charge exited, leaving Rainbow alone with small candles and shady black cloaks lying around.
"Roar..." - Rainbow growled quietly. She picked a large cloak and a teacher's pointer as a weapon, and went out, leaving the door open.
Bat alicorn flew through openings between buildings, taking her time. She didn't bother to confuse ponies by exchanging flower pots between open windows and roof restaurants on the way - she did that numerous times on this route in the past, and silly ponies still didn't bother protecting their buildings from the air. For Awesumbra, this was also a convenient training path, where she could make complicated loops and bounce against these tall multi-floor buildings, sometimes breaking the walls, and even draw on buildings. She hated that she couldn't involve bat ponies into those drawings, though. It often made her angry, and she wished she could someday avenge her tribe.
Cathode had less significant flying powers, and she used to silently stop at every other balcony to rest. She didn't worry somepony would notice, she was too strong to get caught, and ponies didn't care much enough to make a serious trap. They did surprise her several times, though.
And Rainbow? She didn't know their path at all, and had to follow them blindly, trying to not be too late. She stopped at some point to water some plants, though. Also, she forgot the pointer in there.
Concrete Entertainment's park was basically a free to use park with rides, including gravity shift stations, different training simulations, fast elevators... there were no roller coasters, because they were widely used as normal transport throughout the city. But to enter or exit the park, a regular pony would need to go through a crowded marketplace, often used to host major events. But bat ponies entered it through underground passage disguised as a sewer well, so they had to let Rainbow know. when they sensed her flying closer, they flew towards her.
"Rainbow. See this big dull armored fortress?" - Awesumbra began. "Guess if we can infiltrate it or not."
"Naturally..." - she replied, "but how should we get there now?"
"It's a long and free ride." - Awesumbra giggled. "no long lines either. The sewers is a cool experience, you've got to try it."
"You,re joking, yes" - Rainbow groaned, trying to break the atmosphere.
"Exactly. But we're still going there. Don't worry." - alicorn dropped the joke, voice changing to indicate cooperation. She descended the well using the ladder, helping herself with wings.
Charge pointed to the well, inviting Rainbow in. The werepony obeyed, getting her fangs stuck on the steps several times. Then, waiting for her to proceed, Charge followed.
The passage was dark as expected, but straight, clean and convenient. On the other side, there was a shorter ladder combined with a staircase. It was more convenient to just fly to the exit and lift the cover.
Outside, there was a service corridor with two doors on each side. The team picked one, and it led them to the building with exhibition going on, shelves containing rare plants and mushrooms. There was only one pony in there, just walking around random shelves. She was orange, and wore an odd dress that seemed to be one piece of cloth tied around the pony, another semi-transparent pink piece cut inaccurately, pinned to it with paperclips. The pony held a rope with lasso loop in her mouth, a spiky green flying ball tied in the loop. Also she seemed to talk to it, but they couldn't understand. It was something like:
"Drift happy me. Clue behave you drift long wide big area. Drift, you following hoop. Rare tide flowing wide. Flutter eight drifts just now. Me what you clue."
Then she turned to visitors, saying "Me what, he clue. Me greet you wide, you see smiley kind."
Charge whispered, "I don't know what's going on, just now."
Awesumbra frowned, "It was way awkwardly happy. Lead the way, Rainbow."
"Where?"
"Charge, you lead the way..." - tall blue pony felt worried, adding to trouble of their hidden arrival.
Charge turned to orange pony. "...hi? I'm sorry, we need to go quick." - she forced a slight smile.
"You mind me rot? You no go not, Dash go not!"
Charge ran outside to night time park area with stopped fountains in circular pools of different colors, placed in zigzag line. No one was out there. There was no signal paper snowflake in the window where their companions were usually expecing them to come. Charge wondered, what did their coming here mean now. With silence around them going odd, even Awesumbra now seemed uneasy with her pitchfork.
Suddenly the fountains emitted green slime that didn't seem to fall in any pools, followed with a sound behind them that Awesumbra immediately associated with teleportation. A menacing cow now stood before them, levitating a sign reading "3lo" written with berry juice, strawberry pieces hanging from the sign. The mighty cow frowned and said most menacingly:
"You do not realize your weakness before our nightmare-inducing magic. Bow before the great Moo!"
Awesumbra blinked, shook her head, and lowered the pitch black pitchfork.
"Charge, my minions!" - the cow shrieked in really high-pitched voice, and ghostly white contours rushed to them from three sides.
"Right." - Awesumbra retracted the fork, set it on the ground, cast shield on others, and picked it again. "I thought I was magical here. What is this nonsense!" - she yelled. She began to come closer to the cow, rotating the fork around her.
"You have nothing agaist me, shadow!" - ghosts around the alicorn started a phychic attack, and she dropped the weapon, trying to remember something and resist the hypnosis.
"Now I've got your weapon. I'm supreme," - nasty cow said, obviously trying to think of a better voice to scare them with.
Awesumbra was put on her knees unable to resist the magic.
Charge and Rainbow tried to fly behind her and surprise the cow, but she teleported, also waving a fork and trying to stab with it. Rainbow then picked the sign of evil and tried to attack with it. It was a good weapon, but it was cursed, and Rainbow felt that it became difficult to run forward with it, she couldn't concentrate on her hooves. But her energy was stronger than the curse, and she threw the sign forward. It struck, but was ineffective.
The cow teleported and multiplied, summoning some clone cows. They began to moo, trying to confuse the ponies.
"Eat a violin, silicon pipe eater!" - Rainbow tried to swear, overwhelmed by its presense from all sides.
"What?" - the cow got angry and began to charge. Clone illusions did not. When the cow was about to ram into Rainbow, Awesumbra chased the cow with her pitchfork, wisely avoiding making sounds, and caught her tail. Horrible cow then began turning fast, trying to swing her off, but she stayed, still holding the tail, keeping altitude, and levitating the weapon.
Cathode Charge attacked her, shocking the evil slightly.
Awesumbra pulled the tail, thrusting the fork into cow's back.
Rainbow yelled as loud as she could in the cow's face.
"Ow, it hurts," - the cow said, teleporting to the roof, "I'll return, you just wait" - and she disappeared.
"You know, it seems I'll have nightmares," - Awesumbra noted, rising.
"Frobenius knows this was hard," - Rainbow tried to wipe her forehead.
"Let's go home and lock the door," - Cathode said optimistically, pointing to the buildings.
So they defeated the nefarious cow, and Awesumbra found that going home was awesome.
