“…er here! … saw it fly … this al…” Ugh. Damn bounty hunters. Just when I thought I might be getting a decent night´s sleep. I stayed on the ground, hoping that maybe they would look into the wrong alley. A pegasus walked into my field of vision. Damn it all. I stood up and stretched, keeping the shadows wrapped around me so he wouldn´t see me.

After a minute or so of stretches the pony was getting a little spooked. With all the grunting and moaning I was doing so close to him, I really couldn´t blame him.

“Umm… Guys. I think we should get out of here.” The one I could see said.

Another one, this one also a pegasus, with a sailor hat and a blue and white striped shirt, said with a smirk as he also walked into my field of vision, “Good.”

“Good? Does that mean we´re getting out of here? Oh, thank Celestia. This place is freaking me o-”

The sailor interrupted him. “No, you imbecile. It means it´s here somewhere after all.” He smirked again. “5 mil. Think of what I… I mean, we could do with that. I could get a new boat. The harpoons will be well worth it.”

‘Harpoons?! What the hell?! That´s brutal! Where the hell is this pony from?!’ I´ll admit, that was scary. I looked at his flank and saw a whale with a harpoon entering his mouth and exiting his… rear, let´s just say. That gave me an idea.

I let the shadow cover myself as I took to the air. The ponies heard my flaps and turned to where I had been. “It´s definitely here.” The whaler said as he looked around. “Bring the harpoons!” He called to someone behind him and the scared one.

To my surprise, and slight fear, five more ponies walked into the alley with harpoons and a harpoon gun each, all loaded. I took one look at the group and swooped down before they could get into position.

I brought my feet beneath me as I got closer to the ground and stomped on the whaler´s back. He wheezed and fell to his knees from the sudden tremendous weight on his back. I didn´t fly away, but instead jumped to the side and flapped my wings once, creating the illusion that I flew away.

The furthest back of the seven harpooners, a young, yellow maned, brown pegasus stallion with a hook cutie mark, shot his harpoon up into the air, hoping to get lucky. He of course didn´t, and was now defenseless, being in the back.

I crawled up to him while he was reloading and grabbed the harpoon he had been trying to jam into the harpoon gun. He stopped moving all together and slowly turned his head to where I was. He didn´t see anything of course, not even my hand, he just saw the shadows around my hand that lead to me. These bounty hunters should really think about getting some day time shifts.

I pulled the meter long harpoon out of the gun slowly, the brown stallion didn´t dare look away from me or make a sound. After pulling the harpoon out of the gun, I simply vanished back into the shadows again and in a hushed whisper, told the brown stallion that I would save him for last, that he would end up either begging me to stop, or begging me for more.

After leaving the brown stallion to think about my words, I kept the harpoon and stepped over to the closest pony. It was another pegasus stallion, this one a dark blue with a grey mane and a ship and hammer cutie mark. A shipwright, how fun. I look at the others to make sure no one is looking this way. When I see that no one is, I quickly clamp his muzzle together with one hand and wrap my other arm around his midsection while still holding the harpoon.

I flap once, they turn their heads towards us. I flap twice, they´re trying to turn their rather large guns around to fire at me. I flap a third time, this time while on my back so the flap flips me around so I´m upside down and start descending. I flap a fourth time, they´re still turning their guns as I crash into the ground with both pony and harpoon in my hands.

After a second or two I fall through the cloud cover. I let go of the stallion, but stomp on his stomach before he can even think of flying. I knock the air out of his lungs and with the speed he rapidly gains he can barely breathe.

Three ponies burst through the clouds. I just grin and let go of the harpoon, pointy end down. The ponies’ eyes follow the harpoon for a second but that´s all they had to do. Their eyes lock on their companion, falling stomach up and a harpoon, rapidly gaining on him, going straight for him. The three ponies gasp and dart toward their breathless friend, trying their best to get there before the harpoon.

While they dealt with that I flew back up above cloud cover to deal with the last three, the whaler, the hooker, a light orange stallion with a dog paw print for a cutie mark and some mare.

“Wait… that´s four. Let´s go over this again. Stomp, insinuate rape, stomp, fool’s errand times three and one extra. That makes seven, so why is there an eighth?” After wracking my mind for all of half a second I decide to just go with it.

I fly up onto a nearby rooftop and look at the extra and the newcomer. The newcomer looks familiar. A cyan coat, magenta eyes, strong and well preened wings and a rainbow mane. Rainbow mane… Rainbow… Rainbow! From earlier! Why would she come here?

I´m about to go down and get this over with when Rainbow looks in my direction, I freeze when her eyes look at where I´m perched on the edge of the rooftop and stay there. Two of the others are busy tending to the whaler as he has trouble walking.

After a few seconds of her staring at me, I start thinking she can see me, but how could she? I´m just a shadow in the night… Unless she´s not looking at me, but something behind me.

I slowly turn my head, but there´s nothing there. I turn back to the mare and she´s still looking at me. I grab the edge of the roof and jump but extend my wings so that they´re exactly where I was. I look at her again and see her eyes on my wings which she thinks are me.

Looking at the other three reveals that they are trying to get out of the alley, the whaler being carried by the other two as they try to flee. We can´t have that, not without a good, scary and scarring last moments with me so they never want to come near me again.

I extend my wings as high up as I can so what Rainbow thinks is me is now roughly two and a half meters tall and another meter and a half in width. Her eyes widen and I jump of the ledge just as she takes her first step backwards. I open my wings wide and glide towards the other three.

I land hard on my feet so as to make them notice me. They turn around and gape at my fake form.

They start to shiver as they notice the five centimeter long claws on my hands, whimper as they notice my draconic feet. They shake their heads as they see the large horns on my head, twisted and bent beyond believe. They finally realize they can move again and back away as my fangs snap together and my mouth curls up in a sick imitation of a smile, made all the more repulsive by the absence of lips.

The two who can move scream and run, leaving the whaler so he doesn´t slow them down. I leap at the hooker and grab the end of his tail. He falls on his rump but tries to stand up again, screaming all the while.

I smile and say, “Wasn´t I going to do something with you?” I only smile wider as he starts to flail his hooves, trying to run and kick me at the same time. In the end he, in a last ditch effort, manages to twist his body so he can bite his tail. I act like I don´t know what he´s doing until he´s almost through the last hairs on his tail, and then I yank as hard as I can. That scream could have been music for all I care, not like I´ve heard any good music since coming here.

“That´s one way to get it out of the way.” I say with as sultry a voice as I can manage.

Now royally freaked out, he gets up and gallops out of the alley with his wings flapping for extra speed.

With him taken care of I turn to the whaler. He´s trying his utmost to crawl out of the alley, his wings limp by his sides and just the smallest of movement in his back legs. I don´t really see any way for him to escape on his own in a believable fashion if I where to turn my attention to him, so I instead wrap myself up in shadows again and look for Rainbow. I look around the alley, but I don´t see her, until I look up.

She´s sitting on the ledge above me, looking down at me. I don´t like it.

I expand my shadows so they cover her as well as me, along with every part of the alley and exits out of said alley as well. I fly up beside her and watch her as she backs away from the ledge and looks around. I´m about to jump on her when she grabs something from her side.

I´m momentarily blinded as a bright light shines on me, making it harder to maintain my appearance and dispelling every shadow I wasn´t actively holding together. I bring my wings up to protect my sensitive eyes and a second later I cover myself with shadows. I slowly lower my wings and glare at the shining monstrosity in the mare´s mouth, a flashlight.

I´m truly glad I have the ability to just snuff it out. The flashlight starts flickering and Rainbow shakes it until it stops working completely. She looks to where she remembers me being, but I´m gone, or am I? It´s so nice to always have the element of surprise.

I stand behind her as she has her little panic attack, these ponies are hilarious. When she spreads her wings to fly away I grab the right one. She stiffens and turns her head so fast she winces, but I´m faster still and get on her blind side before she sees I´m not where I´m supposed to be.

I grab her muzzle with one hand and her exposed neck with the other. She reaches a whole new level of stiff when I start rubbing her neck. “An exposed neck is a sign of submission. Is that what you want, to submit to me? To let me do what I want to you without caring for your health, mental or physical?” I smile as she shakes from her hooves to the tip of her wings.

My smile disappears when she speaks, not to call for help, but to me. “Why? You don´t actually ever do anything but scare ponies.” I let her go.

She straightens her head and looks at me, or what she thinks is me. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out as her whole body shakes violently. When she stops shaking she speaks to my illusion, “This is what I mean, you aren´t doing anything, just scaring ponies away. Why do you want ponies to stay away from you, why?” Her rapid breathing and how her eyes darting all over me is a clear sign of how scared she is, but she isn´t running, why?

“Why, you ask.” Her head turns to her right and she sees another illusion just like the one in front of her.

“Why is the question.” She looks at the third illusion, this one on her left.

“Yes, why is most certainly the question.” She looks behind her at the fourth illusion.

“But if why is the question, what would the answer be?” She looks at the original illusion, the one in front of her.

“Would the answer be a what or a where or a who or a why?” At this point she´s thoroughly confused as she looks behind herself.

“Why would the answer be a why if the question is too?” She can´t help but look to her right at the illusion who spoke.

“Because why is what happened in the past, an action or reaction.”

Rainbow starts turning in circles and looking at all of the illusions, trying to find something different about any one of them.

“But can the answer still be a why if it´s also a what or a where or a who?”

Rainbow looks very confused, to the point of fear.

“If it was a what or a where or a who wouldn´t it also be a why if it´s the answer to the question of why?”

Rainbow seems to decide this is a not healthy for her sanity and tries to leave, but the illusions lock her in with their wings but don´t react to her in any other way.

“If why wasn´t also a what and a where and a who wouldn´t that mean that the past is a lie?”

Seeing she can´t escape she tries to cover her ears with her hooves. The left and right illusions grab her hooves and hold them above her head.

“It would seem that right now we have a who doing a what in a where but the question is why?”

Rainbow´s eyes widen as the illusions’ eyes fall on her.

“Why is the question why? Does the why change with the what and the where and the who or is it always the same?”

Rainbow opens her mouth to say something, but an illusion beats her to it.

“Why not ask the who the why of what the who was doing were?”

Rainbow still looks the same, wide eyed, confused and a bit frustrated.

“But what if we´re asking the what the who at where was doing it why?”

Rainbows eye twitches in annoyance.

“I thought the question was a why not a what. Why is the why a what now and when did it change?”

Another twitch.

“The why is a what since the who is a what and if the who is a what then what the what and the who do where and why is what the who would want but why?”

The illusions all look at Rainbow and she looks back confused. “What?” She asks.

“No, the question is not a what nor a where nor a who but a why. Has the why of the who doing what and where lost its meaning this who?”

Rainbow has to take a few seconds to understand the question and when she does she doesn´t understand the question. ”Huh?”

“The who is trying to lie to us the meaning of the what, where and why and with whom, we should do the what with the who in this where but why wouldn´t we not do the what in the where over there?”

Rainbow seems to be getting a bit frustrated. Why? Heh. “Hey, I don´t understand all these whos and whats or the wheres or whys, but I´m no liar!”

The illusions stay quiet for what feels like an eternity after all the whats and wheres and whys and whos before.

When none of the illusions seem to be about to speak Rainbow tries to say something but an illusions starts talking as soon as she opens her mouth. “Why not is both the question and the answer. But why?”

Rainbow does something between a loud groan and a scream before her head slumps forwards.

“Why not?”

The illusions disappear and she falls down onto the roof. I stand up and withdraw my wings from around her. Then I disappear before she regains her bearings.

As Rainbow walked into the alley where her friends had been scared she sees a big, black feather lying on the ground and knows it´s from him. Without really thinking much about it she picks it up and stores it in one of her wings, then walks back to the hotel where she and her friends were staying.

“Why not? Why why not? AGGHHH! NOW I´M DOING IT TOO!!”

As soon as Rainbow walks through the front door Twilight is in front of her.

“AHH! TWILIGHT! Don´t just suddenly appear like that!”

Twilight had the decency to look a bit ashamed of herself. “Sorry. Where were you? What were you doing outside again? Why-“ She never got to finish.

“NO! NO! NO WHATS OR WHERES OR WHOS OR WHYS UNTIL I´VE HAD A GOOD NIGHT´S SLEEP!” She then proceeded to walk past Twilight, up the stairs and through the door to her room, leaving Twilight stammering in the lobby.

“What? Why? Where has she been and who did this too her?” Twilight was already planning what to put on her list of questions.

When she entered her room, Rainbow pulled the feather out of her wing and put it on her nightstand.

“What are you hiding?” She whispered to the air before getting into bed, thoroughly exhausted after all of the night´s weirdness. “And why?” She whispered, this time to her pillow, just before sleep took over.

Author's Note

I made a thing. Going to sleep now. Tell me if it lives up to your expectations or not. I can´t stop thinking what, where, who and why.