In Sun's Light

Wednesday

Sunshine was woken up by the sudden lack of arms around her. She half consciously sat up as Gavin got ready for school.

“Gavin?”

“Yes, Sunshine?”

“Why can’t I come with you to school?”

“Well,” Gavin began. “Some humans are nice, and some are bad. A lot of humans do bad things with good intentions. Earth runs on science, not magic. And talking ponies don’t exist in science. You’re a very rare, different thing, and some humans might hurt you trying to figure out what you are.”

“Oh… You won’t hurt me, right Gavin?”

“No. I won’t. I promise.”

With this said, he left for school. Once again, Sunshine was alone. But today she had a plan. Her magic hadn’t worked when she first arrived. She could feel it, but couldn’t harness it, like there wasn’t enough of something. Today, she was going to relearn how to harness her magic.

Three broken cups and a soaked book later, she could levitate things.

One broken Game Boy Color later, she could use buttons.

One carton of spilled milk later, she could pour drinks.

One bowl of salad and a carrot on a bun later, she could make her own food.

And three dozen paper towels later, everything was spick and span again.

Pleased with her progress, Sunshine sat down on the couch and turned on the magic box, and started to change the channel. The news hit her hard. Earth was going through terrible times. She was sad. She had to change the channel before she screamed. Eventually, she found a documentary. This would work. She could learn without getting sad.

* * *

It was an off day for Will. No campaign ideas today. He had something special he would do with his free time. It was time to pay Celestia a visit. He went to a secluded area where nopony would find teleportation residue, and made the jump. She wasn’t in sight, but that was alright. She couldn’t have got far. He started to look, combing the woods, and found nothing. Something was up. Suddenly there was a crack behind him. He whirled, casting his magic into a javelin that went straight through the coyote, burning a hole in its forehead all the way through to the back of it’s neck. It screamed as it died.

* * *

Sunshine heard a coyote scream out in the woods. It sounded close. She looked outside and saw nothing but the dark trees.

* * *

Curse the filly, she was gone. Coyotes weren’t doing the trick. Will needed to put something more tenacious in these woods. As it was, there were no good predators. He had just the thing. He started a spell, and smiled as just the creature he was looking for came out of this rift with a large predatory chitter.

“Perfect.” He said, before teleporting out of the creature’s warpath. Celestia was in for a surprise.

* * *

Shining Armor was startled as Graphite ran in, panting. He looked excited.

“Sir, we’ve got something! Something just made a jump. One of my long distance sensors picked it up.”

“Let’s go!”

Shining Armor had brought along some weapons for them to use. He handed Graphite a dagger, but Graphite refused it and pulled out a sword. They were both armed pretty well, it seemed. It was time to see what had come in.

* * *

Gavin had to walk through the forest. He was going to make up for being late today. As he was walking, he heard a wet crunch. It was a familiar sound, a bone breaking. He looked in its direction to see a large insectoid creature eating a dead coyote. He couldn’t help but gasp at its size.

That caught the thing’s attention. It turned, saw him, and stood up on two legs, flexing its mantis-like arms and roaring, unfolding two large scythe shaped pincers to uncover its grotesque mouth. All in all, the creature stood around eighteen feet in height. The ground shook as it walked menacingly towards him, chittering like predator. He started to run, and so did it. It brought down one of its blade arms in attempt to grab him, and just barely missed. It knocked him over as it tried to grab him again.

“Ah crap.” A familiar voice said. “Arthrax! We’ve got an arthrax!” Greg and Spencer suddenly ran in, intercepting the creature. Strangely enough, they had full blown swords. It roared and swiped at Spencer, who blocked with a sword, somehow not losing an arm, as Greg went around the back and slashed at the creature. His sword did minimal damage. What was this thing?

It spun, missing Greg but knocking over an evergreen tree as it attacked. Spencer then shot fire out of his free hand.

“What?!” Gavin yelled. “Since when can you do magic?!”

Spencer simply gave him a look before attacking again. The creature was too big for any real attacks.

“Guys!” Gavin yelled. “Bring a tree down on it!” Both of them looked at him like he was some sort of genius before taking positions. Spencer started using his sword to hack away at the nearest large tree while Greg attacked the creature and dodged it’s attacks.

* * *

Graphite needed to hurry. He couldn’t be in the way when the tree fell, which was soon regarding the way Shining was hitting that tree. But keeping this arthrax in the same place was hard. So he was glad when the tree fell, landing on the creature, making the earth shake. The arthrax started to struggle. That tree wouldn’t hold it long.

“Spencer! It’s head!”

“Right!” Shining Armor ran forward and quickly stabbed the creature in it’s eye. It kept moving, so he stabbed it again, and again, and again until all that remained was a little twitch. Finally, the titan was still.

“Who the heck are you guys?!” Gavin, who Graphite had forgotten about, yelled. Graphite turned toward him.

“Go home. You saw nothing.”

The last thing Gavin wanted was to mess with these guys. He did what he was told and got out of the area.

“Okay.” Shining said. “Search the area. Something else is here. Something has to be.” After a while of looking, they found blue teleportation residue and dead half eaten coyote.

“The arthrax didn’t kill this. Look at the head. This was a magic bolt.”

“It was. Graphite, whatever pony killed this coyote is the pony who got rid of Celestia.”

* * *

Gavin came in, hyperventilating, and quickly slammed the door behind him. He heard Sunshine scream.

“Gavin, what’s with all the noise?!” He shakily walked up to find her soaked by orange juice.

“What happened?”

“You scared me. What’s wrong?”

“There… There was a monster. I only barely got away…” He sat down and was surprised by a wet mass smelling of orange cuddling him.

“Hey, it’s okay. You lived. That’s what matters.” She was right, but where was this sudden maturity coming from? “I’m going to go dry up, be right back.” With that said, she got up and walked out, leaving Gavin confused. What had suddenly happened? Soon, the little filly came back, dry and wild maned.

“What happened? You’re suddenly all mature.”

“And you’re suddenly all scared. You comforted me when I was scared. I might as well return the favor.” She had a point. As he calmed down, she rubbed her head against him. Wasn’t that called a nuzzle? He couldn’t help but smile at the cute little display of affection, but he also couldn’t help but notice the pink mess atop her head.

“We need to brush your mane.” He picked her up, and took her to the bathroom. “How do you like your mane anyways?” Sunshine thought for a moment, then gestured to have her bangs brushed into the rest of the mane. Half an hour was spent detangling it and then styling it. It all leaned to one side, and didn’t look quite right, so he took a curl from her mane and put it back on the other side of her head. Satisfied, she nodded.

“Like that.” She started to admire herself, and Gavin left her alone in the bathroom to do so. It was then that it struck him. What would happen when his mom got back? Suddenly, a lump formed in his stomach as he realized that Sunshine would eventually be found out. He had to have a plan for when that happened. So, when Sunshine walked back out, he talked to her about it.

“Well. I was looking at a story book, and in it this little boy had a fake rabbit. It was a soft toy and made of something called velveteen. Why don’t I just act like a soft toy?”

This filly just got smarter every day! Gavin liked the idea. “Stay as still as possible.” She did, but she wasn’t very still. “We’ll need to work on getting you to stay more still.”

“Ok.” They had a plan, at least.