Nathan was now 7 years old and growing up fast, as for Skyla she was now 2 years old, Cadance and Shining Armor could not be more blessed as they watched their daughter and adopted human son grow up so fast. Anyway, it was Nightmare Night in Ponyville, which was the equestrian equivalent of Halloween; this was Nathan's favorite holiday because of the fact that just like Halloween, the ponies dressed up in costumes, bobbed for apples, got candy and other goodies, and above all, hearing a scary story about Nightmare Moon, but this Nightmare Night was different because Zecora decided to take a break this year as well as Luna, they had done the part of the story almost every year now that they needed to rest from it, so Mayor Mare told Twilight to tell Nathan about maybe him telling a scary story, luckily he did know one called "The Thing".
Nathan was dressed as a Jedi padawan, Shining Armor was a grim reaper, Cadance was a zombie bride, and little Skyla was a bumblebee, once they got to the castle, Nathan walked up to the doors and knocked and the one to open it was Spike who was dressed in his little dragon costume he wore once before.
"Hey Nathan." Spike said
"Hey Spike, where's Aunt Twilight and the others?" Nathan asked
"They're getting their costumes on right now, come on in." he said letting them inside, when Spike saw what Skyla was dressed as, he cooed silently and walked up to her.
"Aww, Skyla you just got the cutest little costume." he said, this made her giggle, when he looked at Nathan's costume, he was puzzled.
"Nathan, what are you supposed to be?" he asked.
"Ah'm a person from a series of movies called Star Wars, known as a jedi padawan, they basically are warriors that defeat enemies called sith lords, a padawan learns from an expert jedi or an expert sith, and they carry a weapon called a lightsaber which is what ah'm holdin' here in mah' hand." he said, it was a blue toy lightsaber.
"That's cool." Spike said, he then turned over to Shining Armor and Cadance's costumes.
"You two look great." he said
"Thanks little dude." Shining Armor said.
"Thank you Spike." Cadance said.
Just then Twilight and her friends came down from upstairs with their costumes on and ready, Twilight was again Starswirl the Bearded, Applejack was in her scarecrow costume, Pinkie Pie was a chicken again, Rainbow Dash was in her shadowbolt costume, Fluttershy was a vampire, and Rarity was a franken bride.
"Howdy y'all." said Applejack, she approached her favorite little boy with a noogie, "And how's mah' little Texas man?" she asked getting a giggle from Nathan.
"Ah'm fine Applejack." he said, she and the other four were soon confused by his costume.
"Nate, what are you supposed to be?" Rainbow asked.
Ah'll explain later, right now we've got some ground to cover." he said, walking out the door, Cadance and Shining Armor smiled at each other and followed him out along with Twilight, Spike, and the others ready for a night of fun.
"Attention everypony," said Mayor Mare who was dressed as a clown again, all the ponies in costumes gathered around the center to her what she had to say, "Now as you all know, Zecora and Princess Luna have vowed to take a break from telling the story of Nightmare Moon, they said it was just for this year, luckily we will get a scary story this year, it's going to be told by Equestria's future guard captain, please give a big hoof, from Dallas, Texas, Nathan Cadenza!" Nathan walked up onto the stage where he was applauded by hoofs pounding the ground, Mayor Mare gave him a microphone then went off the stage to join the crowd of ponies.
"Thank y'all for lettin' me attend over Zecora and Luna this year, ah' do have one scary story for y'all, but ah' must advise that those of y'all with weak constitutions leave the crowd at once, because this story will make you not go to sleep tonight, with out further ado, let's begin, mah' story it's called 'The Thing'."
"The Thing?" Rainbow Dash yelled from the audience, Nathan gave a scary sounding chuckle, "Oh, you'll see Rainbow, it happened to one of the nuns of mah' old orphanage, when she was in college." Everypony started listening to Nathan's story.
"Late one night, when she was a graduate student, she was workin' in a lab with one of her professors, it was raining heavily. They were unpacking bug specimens from an expedition to a place on mah' world called the Amazon, some of the insects were quite large."
"H-how l-l-large?" said Applejack trembling in fear.
"The nun caught a species with two foot long pinchers, the Amazon pinch-a-pod."
"Ewww." Spike said from the crowd.
"Anyway, it was late and the professor decided to go home, he had no umbrella, so he decided to look around for an extra one that somebody might've left behind, the nun kept working, she started to open the last crate and was surprised to find that it was already open, 'that's odd' she remarked."
"Kind of weird." said Rainbow who was now too trembling in fear.
"Well just then the old professor called out that he had found an umbrella, it was a plain umbrella, with a long wooden handle."
Gulps could be heard from the crowd as Nathan continued his story.
"The only distinguishing mark was a green emerald at the end of the handle, a large round jewel that caught the light and glinted, it looked almost if it had blinked, as if it was some kind of eye. The nun walked the old professor to the door so he could lock up after, the professor stepped out into the rain and opened the umbrella. There was a high pitched buzzin' and then a horrible rattle of scales and wings, the nun could see this was no umbrella, it was some kind of a...."
"Thing?!" said Cadance who, along with Shining Armor, were also in fear of this story, Nathan's story was now getting even more scarier by the minute.
"She saw with horror that the wings were lined with hundreds of ridin' stingers, the stinging wings curled around the old professor, the nun heard something like a satisfied slurp..."
Some of the ponies now began whining in terror, including Rainbow Dash, this was not good enough for her, nothing like this scared her before.
"And then, with a blood curdling shriek, the thing flew off into the night!"
Then Nathan said with a low scary voice, "The old professor was never seen again."
The crowd stood there frozen in terror.
"So as y'all head home tonight, be on the look out, the thing could be comin' fer' YOU!!!"
Suddenly an air horn blew causing all the ponies in the crowd to scream away in fear, the one that blew the air horn was Spike, secretly, he and Nathan had planned this, Spike was only pretending to be scared, but once the crowd scattered, Spike ran onto the stage and gave Nathan a high five.
"All right." Spike said.
"We got 'em." Nathan said.
A good scare to pull on the crowd for Nightmare Night was completely successful, suddenly there were hoofsteps approaching them, they looked behind them and saw Zecora, she had been listening from behind the stage and was mighty impressed with it.
"Well Nathan I must have to say, that was a good yet scary play." said Zecora who appeared out of the blue.
"Thank you, Zecora." Nathan said.
"And Spike you did well too, frightening them into the blue."
"Thank you, Zecora." Spike also answered.
"Now we must pick up our kicks, and go find the other six, you two may follow me, and the others we will soon see."
Nathan and the others followed Zecora out into Ponyville.
END PART 1