Crossing Anthology Two

It was only a matter of hours after the daily paper hit the doorsteps of everyone’s homes. Immediately there were dances in the streets, cheering and laughing, and sighs of relief. Halie and Applejack sat on the porch together, rocking back and forth in their squeaking rocking chairs. Applejack picked up the newspaper, reading the biggest Headline on the first page;

“Yeeee haw! They got ‘im! Jonah and Cole got ‘im! WOOO-weee!”

Halie sat from her chair and looked over Applejack’s shoulder; Halie read the headline aloud;

“’SERIAL KILLER FOUND AND EXECUTED TODAY!’ Oh my god! They did do it!”

Applejack sprang from her chair jumping with Halie; Halie held her hooves as they both danced happily. Halie stopped and asked;

“But, where are Jonah and Cole?”

“Hm, that’s a good point, let’s see…”

Applejack skimmed the article;

“Ah! It says right ‘cheer! They weren’t able to be reached for questionin’… It also says there’s a celebratory victory party tonight in Canterlot, everyone is invited! I betcha it’s gonna be packed!”

An idea sparked in Halie’s mind;

“Ohh! Let’s go see Rarity and get some nice dresses!”

Applejack was never fond of “dollin’” herself up for formal occasions, especially if it meant having to be fitted for the “perfect” dress at the hands of Ponyville’s best dress maker. Applejack rolled her eyes;

“I was a twinge afraid you’d ask ‘at…”

Meanwhile:

The guards finally walked away from the locked cell containing their new prisoners. Once they were out of sight and obstructed by the large metal door down the dusty hall, Cole fired small bolts of electricity from his cuffed wrists to corrode the metal bondage and break free. Cole freed Jonah and Spike and removed the cloth that disabled their speech. Spike jumped towards the bars and grabbed them, trying to push his small body through the gaps, it was no use. Spike sat in the corner of the cell between the concrete wall and bars; he asked Jonah and Cole;

“How do we get out of here?”

Cole remained quiet, trying to think of a way out. Jonah leaned against the wall and pulled his mullet down, he said with disappointment and guilt;

“This is my fault… I knew I shoulda pieced all of this together sooner… we could have made it out a lot sooner, and not be stuck in so much trouble…”

Cole comforted his friend;

“Jonah, no. This isn’t your fault, I shouldn’t have told you to be less hesitant, and your attention to detail could have saved us. That mission to the asylum was probably a bomb waiting for us or something…”

Jonah didn’t respond, instead a flash of all his life and all his adventures until the present point ran across his mind. The strand of memories that came emphasized many souls he encountered in his life; Cole, Halie, Princess Celestia, the General, Mina, his father, his mother and finally his brother. Within moments he gathered up everything he saw and pieced it together into something he deemed unbelievable, he suppressed it, trying his hardest to ignore the inevitable;

“It don’t matter right now. We need to get out of here.”

An idea sparked in Spike’s mind;

“Cole! Use your fragmentation spell on those bars!”

“Oh! Holy shit, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

Cole pointed to the row of bars and fired a magic pulse to them, an explosion was made and the bars were reduced to thin stacks of crumbled rock. The three pushed the debris out of their path and ran down the hall to the exit. They barged through the thick metal door, only to be ambushed by ten stallion guards. Jonah, Cole and Spike prepared themselves for the onslaught of the many ponies opposing them.

Ice was blasted and lightning was fired, all the ponies were either frozen or stunned by shots of electricity. The three boys ran past all of them, they came to another hallway. At the end was the General’s office, which contained the portal required for a straight transfer back to Ponyville. Cole approached the door, Jonah stopped him;

“No! If he knows we’re out, then every guard in the buildin’ is gonna be after us! We’ll have to go back on our own.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s find a way out.”

The three crept down the opposite way of the hall, trying their hardest not to alert anyone. They approached a door, the peaked in to see a small room containing shelves of files and folders, at the end was a window. Spike suggested;

“No one is in here, let’s go out that window!”

Jonah nodded;

“Good idea, hopefully this place ain’t too far of a flight to Ponyville.”

The team entered the room; Cole opened the window and received piles of falling snow to the face. He shook all of the snow off his head and looked outside to see snow covered hills and frozen terrain stretching for miles. He tightened his vision to try and find any signs of Ponyville, or any civilization for that matter;

“I can’t see any towns or anything; it’s all just snow covered mountains! It’s a damn blizzard out there!”

Spike stiffened his stance;

“BLIZARD!? I can’t be out there! I’m cold-blooded! I could die out there!”

Jonah shook his head;

“No matter!” Spike hop on my shoulders, Cole grab on to me once I’m out!”

Jonah kneeled down to allow Spike to climb his back and rest his thighs on Jonah’s shoulders. Jonah stood back up and jumped out the window, floating stationary in midair to allow Cole to grab his legs. Once Cole and Spike were secure, Jonah soared against the thick blizzard, struggling to break through the hurling winds and snow that pushed him and blocked his sight.

As if the atmosphere was not enough to slow the boys, a loud “BANG” was heard from behind them. Spike kept surveillance and looked back towards the sounds origin. It was the General flying towards them, on his back he carried another pony robed in black leather and wearing a mask and wielding a long object with a handle and trigger. Spike tugged Jonah’s mullet;

“It’s them, the General and the serial killer!”

Jonah and Cole looked back together, the serial killer was aiming his shotgun at them, preparing to fire again. Cole was ready, with one hand wrapped around his flying friend’s legs; he used the other to charge up an intense bolt of lightning. Cole sprang his fingertips at the serial killer letting a bright strike of lightning travel to his enemy. The shooter raised a hoof and deflected the blast back at the three; a loud scream was heard from Spike. Cole looked up at the purple dragon, a large jagged burn mark was carved into his abdomen, and it began to bleed. Spike’s grip on Jonah’s head tightened, then gradually loosened, Jonah yelled;

“Spike, hold on tight!”

“I… I can’t… I’m not feeling good… the air… it’s too cold for me… This wound is only making it worse…”

The General was gaining on them; more shells were fired by the shooter on his back, each one missing. At the sound of each fire the three became more scared than before. Jonah was scared for Spike; his cold-blooded interior was failing him. Jonah told Cole;

“DO SOMETHING!”

“I CAN’T! HE’LL FUCKING SEND OUR ATTACKS BACK AT US!”

“TRY ANYWAY!”

Cole looked back at the duo closing in on them. He charged his power, and then sent a pulse of his fragmentation spell towards them; the serial killer raised a hoof to the pulse approaching him. The pulse was much for the shooter to bear; he deflected half of the blast. While the other half of the fragmentation struck his mask, the small explosion cracked the metal plating. The deflected shot hit the three, causing Cole to let go of Jonah’s legs and fall to the snow covered ground.

Jonah descended to the ground and assisted Cole. Cole stood up again and dusted the ashes of his burned clothes off his arm. Jonah was distracted by the drowsy dragon on his shoulders, Spike pointed to the silhouette of the duo following them. Jonah threw Spike to the ground and covered him in snow to hide him, Jonah and Cole did the same for themselves.

The General landed on the frozen ground, the serial killer hopped off his back and dragged his hooves around creepily, completely silent. The shooter raised his shotgun to the air and fired twice, the sudden sounds made Jonah jump from fear. Cole whispered to Jonah;

“Use your cryokinesis and freeze these bitches!”

“We don’t have time to fight them right now, Spike is hurt, and he needs to get to a hospital. Plus remember? DEFLECTION?”

“Oh. Damn…”

The two friends silenced themselves as the killer inched himself closer to their hiding spots. Jonah peaked up at him through a tiny gap in the snow, just big enough for his eye to look out without being noticed. Jonah looked at the killer’s mask, how it was cracked and dented. The killer shook a little and his body flashed like a hologram, between each flash Jonah could see a human’s face underneath the damaged face plating. Instead of the large pony shaped eyes, he started seeing human shaped eyes; they were as green as grass. Suddenly the serial killer fazed back to his fake unicorn self. The General approached him;

“Master Final Arbiter, your physical form is fading; we best return and repair the mask before tonight. If they appear later, we’ll have their heads then.”

The Final Arbiter said nothing, he only stomped the snow with a hoof, grinding anger and hatred into the crumbling snow. The General bent down to allow his master to climb on him. The General spread his wings and took off into the cloudy, snowing sky. No words were ever spoken by the Final Arbiter.

As their enemies flew away, Jonah stood and scooped Spike out of the snow he was hidden under. Cole stood after Jonah and asked rhetorically;

“The Final Arbiter…?”

Spike shivered violently and talked with tears running down his cheeks, his speech was mute and absorbed by the howling winds and stiffness of his tiny throat. Jonah hugged him tightly to preserve any warmth and flew into the air. Cole latched himself on to Jonah’s legs. The three flew into the distance, scanning the mountains for any form of civilization.

The Canterlot night was filled with decorative lights and dazzling with colorful fireworks. A party was assembled to celebrate the victory of the young heroes who worked so hard to save the planet from the ruthless serial killer. Little did everyone know that night, that this so-called “victory” was about to dissolve into heartbreaking despair…