The Bone Diaries(New)

The next morning, Twilight wakes up and finds herself at her desk. “Did I fall asleep here? Huh, haven’t done that since I first studied to become Celestia’s apprentice.” She smiles warmly as the memories fill her head. “Yeah, that’s when I first got Spike.” Her eyes widen. “Oh crap, did I leave him outside?!” A snore coming from upstairs answers her question. She exhales from gratitude but then blushes when she remembers why she threw him out. “I can’t believe I almost kissed Shuffling Mist. Sure, I think we were both fantasizing and didn’t realize it but still, I hope it won’t be awkward next time he comes over.” Her thoughts are interrupted when she hears a knocking on the door. “Now, who could that be at this hour?” She gets up from her desk, walks to the door, and opens it, revealing Shuffling Mist. It takes some willpower to keep herself from blushing. “O-oh, hey Mist. What’s up?”

Mist nervously smiles and says, “Well, I didn’t notice until I got home but I think I left my saddle bags here. It was late when I realized so I didn’t want to come back and bother you.”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all.” Twilight takes a quick scan of the library and sees Mist’s bags in the corner. “Yeah, got them right over here.” She picks the bags up with her magic and gives them to Mist, who puts them back on. “Now, is there anything else?”

“Well…” Mist shifts his hooves nervously while clicking his tongue. “I was, uh, kind of wondering, well, if you’d be interested in, perhaps…” Mist is interrupted when the two of them hear shouting and screaming. “What the…?”

A small group of ponies round a corner and begin heading towards the library. Twilight calls out, “What is going on?”
One of the ponies, clearly out of breathe, says, “There’s, there’s something chasing after us. Something scary!”

“What is…?” Twilight soon gets her answer as a familiar shape comes around the corner and she whispers, “No…” Coming around the corner is the same kind of creature that attacked Twilight and her friends when they were in the forest. The “Raptor” as Mist calls it, except this one is bigger than the other one and this one has a row of feathers going down its back and covering its tail. The raptor sticks its nose in the air, smelling, before turning its gaze towards the group of ponies gathered around Twilight. The feathers on its whole body raise and it shrieks at them, causing the ponies to rush inside the library, all except Twilight and Mist. The raptor then begins running towards them, faster than anything Twilight’s ever seen. “Look out!” Twilight then charges up her horn and fires a blast at the rushing creature, hitting it in the head. To her and Mist’s shock, the magical blast simply bounces off, only succeeding in dazing the raptor for a few seconds. “Impossible! That should’ve worked!”

The raptor, now enraged, charges back forward. Mist tackles Twilight out of the way as the raptor crashes into the library door. He then picks her up and says, “C’mon, we gotta lead it out of here.” Twilight nods and they begin running. The raptor picks itself up and, upon seeing its prey escaping, gives chase. Twilight and Mist are both shouting at the other ponies to get inside, lock their doors, and do not come out until they say it’s clear. “So,” Mist begins. “What are we going to do against that thing? Obviously, magic isn’t going to work.”

“We have to trap it somehow. I’m still trying to figure out how though.”

“Maybe give it a treat and tell it ‘sit’?”

Twilight rolls her eyes. “Very funny.”

When the two round a corner, they nearly crash into Applejack and Applebloom. “Whoa Nelly, what in tarnations is goin’ on?!”

“It’s the creature! Or another one of those creatures. The one that attacked us in the forest.”

Applejacks eyes open with shock. “Say what? Here, in Ponyville?”

“Yes, now you have to take Applebloom and get out of here while Mist and I try to figure out how to capture it.”

“Gotcha. C’mon Applebloom, let’s…”

But before she could give any orders, the raptor jumps from a roof and lands in the middle of them, causing them to yell and split up. The raptor looks around until it spots Applebloom. Snarling, it goes after the young filly, tries to run away as fast as she can, calling out, “Applejack!”

“Applebloom! Run!” Applebloom squeals as the raptor snaps at her, dodging the deadly jaws, with the four older ponies close behind. Applebloom suddenly cuts into a narrow alley and darts through, the raptor nearly slipping as it goes in after her, knocking over trashcans and boxes, making the route inaccessible. “Drat, we have ta go ‘round. Hurry!”

Applebloom runs out of the alley and continues running as the raptor bursts out behind her, boxes and can going flying all while shrieking menacingly. She spots an empty can laying on its side and makes a b-line for it, ducking into it. The raptor tries following her but is too big around the shoulders to fit. Still, it continues trying to snap at her, barely missing her. “Get away!” she shrieks but the raptor persists.

The can widens a bit at the opening and just as the raptor makes one final lunge at her, it lets out a cry of pain before being forcibly dragged out, claws screeching against the metal can, before being lifted up and thrown down the street, pass Twilight and the others, who come to a screeching halt. “What the hay?” Applejack exclaims. The raptor gets up, shakes its head, and shrieks at its assailant before charging.

The girls go around the corner and see a fight occurring between the raptor and, to their surprise, the creature Rainbow Dash described. “I-it’s the Bone-Hound! Asteroth!” Twilight yells out. Standing no more than 20 feet apart, the two foreign creatures size their opponent up, both roaring and shrieking at each other. Asteroth positions himself so that he’s between Applebloom and the raptor. Then, in a flash, the raptor charges the Bone-Hound, who responds by snapping at it with his jaws. The raptor expertly dodges the bone crushing jaws and tries to flank him. Asteroth spins around and smacks the raptor with his tail, sending it flying through a wall and into a building as ponies flee out the newly formed hole. After a few seconds, the raptor charges out of the hole and rushes Asteroth, catching him by surprise. It jumps, lands on his head, jumps and spins before latching onto his back with its claws. Before it could go for his neck, Asteroth begins bucking and running like a rampaging bull, eventually launching the raptor off and onto the ground. Before it could get up, Asteroth pins the raptor to the ground with his claws. Opening his jaws, he prepares to finish the raptor but then roars and rears back in pain as a second raptor with brown scales, no stripes and smaller, less bright feathers grabs the back of his neck with its sharp teeth, releasing the first raptor in the process. Seeing the chance, the first raptor leaps at his throat but Asteroth sees this and slams his bony head down, crushing and killing the raptor. Soon, more shrieks are heard as 1, 2, 3, 4, and eventually 5 more raptors round the corner and charge him, outnumbering him 6-1. Asteroth desperately tries to get the second raptor off before the rest of the pack overwhelms him but to no avail. Instead, Asteroth ignores the second one and focuses on the rest, all while the other ponies are watching. Twilight begins heading in the direction of the fight and says, “C’mon, we have to help him!” Another one of the Raptors begins to jump up on Asteroth’s back but is interrupted by getting hit in the side of the head with a rock. It begins snarling and turns to the one who threw it. Twilight sticks her tongue out at it and says, “Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size?” Screeching, the raptor chases after her.

As one of the raptors is chasing Twilight, Shuffling Mist decides to try the same thing. He picks up a rock and yells, “Hey, you!” A raptor looks at him and Mist tries throwing the rock at it, only for the rock to fall short, earning an unamused look from the raptor. “Eheheh.” The raptor, seeing him as easy prey, then rushes him. When it reaches him, Mist jumps up and delivers a roundhouse kick to the side of the head, stunning it long enough to do a back flip kick, knocking it back. The raptor gets up, shakes its head, and runs off.

Applejack runs up and asks, “Where in tarnations did ya learn tah do that?”

Mist rubs the back of his head and replies, “Well, uh, to be honest, I watch a lot of martial arts movies.”

Applejack rolls her eyes and charges into the fight. A raptor, seeing Applebloom unguarded, starts slinking towards her but before it could reach her, Applejack jumps in front of it. “Ohhh no ya don’t, ya overgrown critter! You’re gonna have ta go through me!” The raptor lowers its head and snarls at the orange pony, then slowly backs up. “Ha! What, ya afraid or somethin’?” She then hears something land behind her. She spins around and sees a raptor jumping off a roof at her. Before she could react, another raptor comes flying through the air and crashes into the jumping one, knocking it away from her. She turns around and sees Asteroth, finally with the raptor off of his back, looking towards her, having thrown the raptor to save her and is now making his way towards another raptor. All the ponies and Asteroth get together in a group and the raptors do the same, staring each other down.
Finally, after what feels like hours, one of the raptors, a brightly colored one that’s slightly larger than the rest, begins chirping towards the other raptors, when gesturing towards the forest. The raptors give one final screech at the ponies, and runs off, having accepted defeat.

The ponies begin cheering at their victory. “Way to go girls!” Twilight begins. “I can’t believe we actually did it. Is everypony alright?” Everyone begins acknowledging until they hear something fall down behind them. They spin around and see that Asteroth has collapsed to the ground, open wounds bleeding profusely. “Asteroth!”

Asteroth’s vision begins to get blurry as the ponies gather around him. He sees the purple one yelling to someone, but he cannot tell who. All he can think of is going to sleep as his eyes slowly close shut.