Monster of Justice

Sure enough, just about every library in Manehattan had been looted. Apparently every other surviving pony in Manehattan felt like finding out what destroyed the city too. All that remained of these once great centers of knowledge were empty shelves, with the exception of the "Teen Drama" sections every time. Rarity shook her head as she stared at the sign which indicated the section, which was separate from the "Young Adult" section a few aisles down. Is that *really its own genre now?* she thought to herself.

She turned to a large pile of rubble and approached it. If she was lucky, there would be a dictionary in there. If she was lucky, no other ponies would be going around looting libraries of all places. She turned her attention to the largest piece of building she could see in the pile and raised her head, and the rubble raised with it. She dropped the boulder to the side and peered into the pile through the hole it left. No language dictionaries at first glance. She started sifting through the ashes and rubble, trying to avoid any- That was a wet spot! That was a wet spot! Why was that spot wet?! She squeaked and stumbled away from the pile and inspected her hoof. It looked like water, felt like water, and smelled like water. She didn't dare taste it.

"Are ya'll okay down there?" Applejack called down from the second floor, where she also searched for language dictionaries.

"Fine!" Rarity called back. "I'm fine!" She picked herself up and returned to searching, being extra careful to avoid that spot. "Have you found anything, darling?" she asked.

"Nuthin' up here," Applejack said as she made her way down the stairs. She sighed and looked up at the night sky through the library's new skylight. There was a full moon out that very nearly lit the city as well as the sun. It shone so bright that not a single star could be seen though its light. "Still, least it's a nice night."

"If only we weren't spending it rummaging through trash and debris," Rarity sighed and removed herself from her pile. "I still have so many designs to work on."

"Are you still in that creative slump?" Applejack started looking through the Teen Drama section, just in case some villainous employee or rambunctious scoundrel thought it would be funny to hide a Neighponese dictionary there.

"And this depressing environment isn't helping it at all!" She turned to her friend. "Why are you searching there?"

"You never know. Just let me check here and we can go back to Twilight."

Rarity let her continue her search and found a nice, clean spot to rest her legs. She and Applejack had been searching for almost five hours and was both more than tiring and less than fruitful. She blew some stray hairs out of her face and fixed what she couldn't blow away with her hoof. Her mane was in desperate need of a good brushing. She turned her eyes to Applejack, who had sneaked some likely poorly-written trash about Changelings and timberwolves and uninteresting protagonists under her hat when she thought nopony was looking. Rarity rolled her eyes and decided not to say anything. Everyone has some sort of guilty pleasure.

Rarity very suddenly turned her head in the opposite direction and spotted something dart behind a corner. That was the fourth time she had seen it do that. She couldn't get a good look at it, but she could tell a few things. It was taller than both her and Applejack combined, it was shaded a light grey, it had a tail, and it had very large eyes for its head. But what was it? And why was it following them?

"Applejack, darling?" Rarity turned her head back to her friend.

"Hm?"

"At any point in the night, have you felt like we were being... followed?" She turned back to the corner the thing had been at. Nothing.

"Now that you mention it," Applejack turned away from the bookshelves of angst, "I have been seeing something movin' around in the shadows. I just thought it was my mind messin' with me."

"I've been seeing that too..." Rarity picked herself up. "Maybe we should leave."

Slam! The sound of the door of the front entrance closing hard reverberated through the building. This meant one of two things. Either that thing had left through the front, or someone else had come in. The latter was quickly confirmed when the sound of twelve hooves trotting over the marble floor followed the door slam. Applejack quickly ducked into the pile of rubble Rarity had searched and silently urged her to do the same, which she silently refused to do. After a few seconds of glaring and waving, she (reluctantly) followed her friend, who was kind enough to take the wet spot for her. No safe pony that isn't looking for a dictionary comes out this late at night.

"Man, I d-don't know," one of the three stuttered. "Just... overnight."

"I know," a second one said in a deep baritone. "That just doesn't happen."

"It almost happens all the time," the third one pointed out. "Did you ever notice that?"

"You noticed it too?" the deep-voiced one asked. The three walked into the girls' view. He was an Earth Pony, colored deep blue, and definitely looked like he had a deep voice, being bigger than both of his friends. "I thought it was just me."

"Every week it's endless night this or sucking out all the love in Canterlot that," the middle one in both size and voice tone said. He was an orange Unicorn. "Can't we ever have something simple, like an oil spill or something?"

The stuttering one, a very thin and green Pegasus Pony, laughed. "Yeah. Hey, c-come on, Flint, help me op-pen the stairs." He and the Unicorn, evidently called "Flint" walked into the Teen Drama section while the Earth Pony split off from them. The two stopped halfway through the aisle.

"Are you kidding me?" Flint asked as he rifled through the books. "Someone took Starlight!" Applejack pulled on the brim of her hat, which concealed the book she took. "I was just getting into it!"

"G-good riddance," the Pegasus Pony said under his breath. He flew up to the top shelf and pulled a book out of its place. The library shook and many angst-filled books fell from their places on the shelves as a flight of stairs opened up to the basement in the Teen Drama section.

Very suddenly, the big Earth Pony peered into the pile of rubble and came face-to-faces with Rarity and Applejack. He grabbed both of them with his front legs and dragged them out of their hole and into the open. They were then approached by Flint, who ran his eyes over both of them, sizing them up. His eyes widened and his eyebrows raised. He recognized them as two of the six fillies who regularly saved the world from those weekly threats.

"Rarity and Applejack," he said. "What might you two saints be doing so far from your thrones?"

"That is none of your business!" Rarity said as she shot up.

"Saints don't have thrones," Applejack corrected him as she got back on her hooves.

"Whatever, you know what I mean," he said to Applejack and turned to Rarity. "And, oh, it is my business, dollface. Name's Flintlock. I own this library now."

"Y'all got a deed?" Applejack asked.

Flintlock groaned. "Jitterbug!" he called back to the Pegasus Pony. "Show her the deed." Jitterbug flew into the basement and came back a few seconds later with a piece of paper, which Flintlock magically lifted from his mouth. "Indeed, I do have a deed."

"Is it written in crayon?" Rarity asked.

"Know what? Deed's not important." Flintlock crumpled up the deed and threw it away. "Point is, I'm in charge and I wanna know why you're here."

"We're lookin' for a Neighponese dictionary," Applejack admitted. "You don't have any, do you?"

"Barbell," Flint turned to the Earth Pony. "Go check the archives." Barbell nodded and ran down into the basement once again. "Any particular reason you're looking for this dictionary?"

"We want to translate somethin'."

"Right. Well, I guess it's-"

"Found one!" Barbell emerged from the basement with a very large dictionary in his mouth, which he handed to Rarity.

"There you go," Flintlock said. "Just be sure to return it when you're done with it."

"Thank you kindly." Applejack tipped her hat, forgetting that she had placed an angst-filled book under it. The door-stopper of a novel hit the floor with a very loud THUD. Everyone looked down at it. Starlight. Applejack and Rarity brought their eyes back to Flintlock, whose brow had furrowed and teeth had gritted. He wore a face of pure rage.

"Crush their skulls." Barbell approached them and lifted his front legs to stomp on Rarity. Applejack put herself between the two and bucked the large Earth Pony right in the gut and sent him reeling back in pain. Jitterbug took flight and moved to tackle Applejack, only to meet a piece of rubble that Rarity had thrown into the air. He was out like a light. Flintlock, being a smart pony, retreated into the basement. Applejack started to follow him.

"We have the dictionary!" Rarity reminded her. "Forget these ruffians, let's just go!"

"Alright!" She caught up with Rarity and they both started for the door. "But we should come back later with the others! Somethin's going on in that basement!"

They were only feet away from the exit when they both heard a loud pop from behind them. At the same time, one of the windows exploded into the outside. The two turned around to see Flintlock behind them, magically holding two flintlock pistols. Hence the name. "Not one step." He began to slowly approach them.

Rarity looked to Applejack. "I blame you for this."

"So do I."

"So what should I shoot first?" he asked himself as she looked over Rarity and shoved one of the pistols into Applejack's forehead, as she was just about to apprehend him.

"Where'd y'all find those pieces?" Applejack asked. "They aren't very common."

"Made 'em," Flintlock answered. "Building these things is kind of my special talent. Maybe those perfectly pedicured hooves. Or, just for fun, I'll shoot you're lovely mane."

"You touch my mane, you die," Rarity threatened, her voice carrying all the malice in the world. Flintlock decided to try his luck anyway and blasted one of his pistols just above her head. Applejack covered her ears. Rarity saw him laugh and say something that he probably thought was clever, but she couldn't hear him over the ringing in her ears. His two partners in crime, now recovered, walked up behind him.

"Hey, you guys are back. Check out what I did." Rarity looked around the area immediately around her and saw a fair amount of burned hair all behind her. She looked into one of the windows. It would take weeks for her to fix her mane. It was ruined. She then decided that Flintlock would pay. With his blood. Her horn glowed blue and the marble floor was lifted from under the criminals. With a flick of her neck, Rarity sent the three through a wall and pursued them with Applejack through the hole they left. Flintlock kept the two at bay, threatening to shoot them for real.

"You're not leaving here alive!" Flintlock shouted.

"For cryin' out loud, it's just a book!" Applejack shouted back. Barbell silently approached them from behind and pinned them to the floor.

"It's art!" Flintlock closed the distance between him and his enemies and placed the barrels to their heads. "And nopony steals my art!"

Before he could deliver any killing blows, Flintlock was lifted into the air by a very tall figure. A figure taller than both Rarity and Applejack combined. The figure threw the gunpony to the side and dragged Barbell off of the fillies by his neck and threw him next to Flintlock.

"What is th-that?!" Jitterbug asked anyone who would answer.

"It doesn't matter what it is!" Flintlock responded. "Stop it!"

Jitterbug, wasting no time, jumped onto the thing's back and wrapped his front legs around its neck. The thing thrashed around and tried smacking him off with its claws.

Applejack helped Rarity back onto her hooves and jumped through the whole she had made. Before following her friend, Rarity looked back at the thing. The spines on its back began to glow blue. Seconds later, a shockwave of the same hue burst from the creature strong enough to entirely remove Jitterbug from its back as well as singe Rarity's mane, ruining it further. On the other side of the room, Flintlock had regained his bearings and prepared to shoot the heroic thing. Rarity lifted the other pistol from the floor, took aim, and blasted the other firearm out of the air and reduced to to scrap. She then bent the barrel of her own before discarding it.

Rarity watched as the three criminals accepted defeat and made a mad dash for the hole in the wall and out the front door past Applejack. She turned back to the creature that had saved her and her friend's lives. "Thank you very much," she thank the thing. The creature, in an act of celebration, did a little dance and, hopefully accidentally, fired a ring of blue fire from its mouth that finally put Rarity's mane out of its misery. She then decided that she was done and jumped out of the hole, leaving the creature to itself.

"I got the dictionary!" AJ declared.

"Great, let's go," Rarity said as she shoved her out the door. "Let's go now."

"Are you kidding?!" Twilight asked. "He freaked out like that over a trashy teen novel?! I wouldn't even do that!"

"That's how it went," Applejack nodded. "You think maybe that little guy was some kind of dragon?"

"I've never heard of a dragon emitting a shockwave from its body," Twilight said. "This could be a major discovery! We should go back there tomorrow and look for it!" A smile grew wider across her face with every word.

"I'm with ya, Twi. The little guy saved my life. I'd like to thank him myself."

"Guys!" a familiar voice called from above. Rainbow Dash swooped down, coming to a stop just in front of them. She paused to catch her breath. That's something that rarely happens. Her wings remained unfolded, ready to take back to the sky in a moment's notice.

"Rainbow Dash! What's wrong?!" Twilight asked as she and Applejack hurried to their very tired friend.

"There's... there's something big going on at the... at the harbor!" Rainbow panted.

"How big?" Applejack asked.

"Big enough to destroy a city!" Eyes widened and jaws dropped.

"I'll wake everyone up, you two get to the harbor!" Applejack started for the closest tent, which belonged to Pinkie Pie. "We'll meet you there!"

A silent agreement was made between the three. Rainbow Dash immediately returned to the skies  and started south, toward the waterfront. Twilight Sparkle unfolded her wings and quickly followed. In the distance, Applejack could hear an unearthly wail. A terrible noise that made the entire city rattle, as if Manehattan itself was shaking in fear along with every sane mare and stallion that could hear the roar that only a demon could produce. A roar that could chill even the Princesses to the bone.

"SKREEEONNNNNGK!"