The Storm before the Calm
The sun began to slowly rise above the horizon, lighting up the previously darkened landscape, until finally the light managed to shine directly on Ponyville.
Of course, the second it did, the small village seemed to burst forth with activity. The doors opened, the shutters flew open, and various pony heads peeked out, looking over at the beautiful sunrise that shined down on them. One of the first ponies out was Applejack, stepping out from the house and taking a deep breath, exhaling moments later.
“It’s gonna be a good day,” she told herself with a little grin. The expected “Ee-Yup” from her older brother could only confirm her statement. With that, she trotted off towards the apple orchard. Those apples weren’t going to pick themselves after all!
The lovely day however was wasted on a few. Twilight Sparkle looked over her books, her tongue stuck out in concentration as her horn glowed. “This is the last time I let Pinkie host a party at my house,” she grumbled under her breath to herself. The books floated behind her and into the arms of Spike, who still looked like he was asleep. “I don’t even know how a party put all my books out of their alphabetical order.”
“Yeah...” Spike yawned weakly, his head dipping forward a little bit, resting on the book at the top of the stack. “It’s...it’s a real...mystery.” His eyes were barely open. “Twilight, it’s too early, can’t I go back to sleep and we just do this later?”
“It’s easier if we do it now, rather than put it off until later,” she said as another three books landed onto Spikes stack, forcing him to move his head. “Besides, you’ve been sleeping until midday lately, and that’s not healthy for a baby dragon like yourself! You need a more concrete sleep schedule.”
“Sleep is good.” Was his dead-pan reaction, glaring at her from around the stack. “It can’t be a bad thing to get too much of a good thing.”
She rolled her eyes a little bit at his logic and placed another six books on top of his already towering stack. Spike grunted and let them slip from his paws, landing with a heavy THUD in front of him. Twilight cast him a quick look over her shoulder to make sure it wouldn't fall over on him.
“Are we doing anything today?” he asked, falling on his back and closing his eyes, curling up. “I really...really hope not...so...” he yawned “tired...”
“I don’t think so,” Twilight said to herself as she placed one final book on the top of the stack. “It looks like it’s going to be a lazy day.”
“All the more reason to sleep.” And thus, the baby dragon fell into another deep slumber, snoring softly.
She chuckled a little bit and began to fix the books that somehow were put out of order during the party. She had to ask Pinkie how she managed to do such...well, impossible things. One book caught her eye as it flew past her. Opening it up, she began to read from it. Good Celestia, she had completely forgotten she had this book! A little reading couldn’t hurt, she supposed...
“Oooh...” Cooed the vanilla colored pony down at the little fluff ball as it looked up at the much, much larger pony, young eyes wide. “You’re...adorable!” She rubbed her nose against the little baby rabbit, causing it to squeak.
Indeed, it would seem quite a number of baby animals seemed to be showing up lately. It was to be expected, it WAS mating season after all.. Always a fun time for Fluttershy, she loved playing with the new baby animals. Right now the littlest rabbit squeaked again, his attention diverted to something shiny off to the side. Fluttershy giggled a little bit.
Suddenly, the wind picked up and a flash of rainbow shot in front of her. “Rainbow Dash, would you like to see the new baby animals? They’re so cute!”
Somehow Rainbow Dash managed to pick up on the soft spoken pony’s voice, and the blue pony appeared at the side of Fluttershy. She seemed to be in a rush. “Yeah that’s really cute, I can’t really talk I’m already late!”
“Late for what?” Fluttershy asked innocently, blinking up at the much braver pony.
Rainbow Dash winced; she didn’t have time. “Look, apparently we Pegasuses didn’t get the memo we had a storm scheduled last week, and now we have to really scramble to make up for it!” She cast a quick look at the animals around her and Fluttershy. “I’d get them to somewhere dry if I were you, this is gonna be a doozy!”
And so, with another flash of rainbow, the Pegasus was gone. Fluttershy braced herself as the wind nearly knocked her off her hooves, looking up at the sky. Almost on cue, the sky began to darken with the growing storm clouds that began to cover the forest and Ponyville.
“Oh dear...” She mumbled. She looked around. Thankfully the animals knew enough to know when to go for shelter. So she gave a little sigh of relief before she looked down and saw the baby rabbit hiding just behind her leg. She smiled. “Come on, little one.” She said as she nudged him. “Let’s go find your mommy and dadd-”
KRA-KOOM.
The thunder made the forest to shake and rattle, the ground rumble and her teeth shake together. The baby rabbit, however, took it the worst. It wasn’t used to a storm of this caliber, or a storm at all. So the strange, very loud, VERY scary noise caused it to suddenly bolt off into the dark of the forest. The farther away from the storm it was, the better. The wind began to pick up, and Fluttershy gasped.
“No! Wait!” She cried out softly. She rushed after the bunny for all she was worth.
...brought to a halt when Celestia and her army of Pegasi were able to bring down the mighty overlord. Many lives were lost, but--
“Whatcha readin’?”
“AH!” Twilight screamed, causing an influx of magic to shoot from her horn and hit the all ready teetering tower of books. They fell on poor Spike below.
“Mm...What do you have against sleep...” Spike grumbled from under the pile.
“Pinkie!” Twilight gasped a little bit, rubbing a hoof against her chest. “You scared me. Where...where did you come from?”
“The front door, silly!” Pinkie said, the ever-manic grin plastered on her face. “Where else would I come in from?”
“...Can’t fault her logic.” Spike said as he pulled himself from the pile, brushing himself off. Another loud boom of thunder caused the three of them to jump. “Jeez, this is a brutal one, isn’t it?”
“That’s why I’m here!” Pinkie said, hopping about as she smiled. “It started raining, really hard! And I didn’t wanna get wet, so I started to walk between the raindrops! But I got tired so I decided to hunker down here for a while!”
“...Walk...between the...but...how...” A migraine started to build, so Twilight didn’t question it further. “Okay, okay, you can stay here. I’m just finishing up some cleaning, after the party YOU had at MY house.”
“I know! Wasn’t it awesome!?” Said Pinkie completely oblivious to Twilight’s tone of voice. “The music, the drinks, the snacks, easily one of my best! We should have another one, tonight!”
“NO.” was Twilight’s defiant answer. As the two ponies began to talk amongst themselves, Spike decided to start moving the books off him and onto the bookshelf. He grabbed the book Twilight had been reading, and cast a quick glance at it before he put it away.
The Dark and Terrible Tirek.
“Little bunny!” Shouted Fluttershy, much louder than she was used to. “Come out! We need to get you home!”
The rain was torrential, the winds were near hurricane force and Fluttershy could barely hear herself think. When Rainbow Dash said this was gonna be a doozy, she wasn’t kidding. But still, for the baby bunny, Fluttershy would brave the worst storm.
She looked around tree trunk after tree trunk, under and over every rock, up and in every hole in every tree, and still she didn’t see a thing anywhere. She grimaced a little bit as she hid behind one of the trees, trying to ride out the worst of the gale force winds that forced its way through her.
Her eyes widened as in front of her, one of the largest trees in the forest began to crack and splinter at the bas, her eyes looked up as the tree began to plummet down on her. With a squeak of terror, she flew out of the way, barely missing the tree as it crashed down, crushing another tree under its immense weight. She panted, heart going a mile a minute. She needed to get him back and FAST.
Her attention turned to where the tree once stood. There was a structure she didn’t know was even there previously. Of course, the forest was immense...and she didn’t know EVERYTHING about it. The lightning cracked across the sky, showing the structure was indeed, an enormous castle.
She stared at it for a few moments, taking a deep breath. She’d looked everywhere, and he was probably in there. But it looked awfully scary...
“M-Maybe I’ll get Rainbow Dash to come with me.” She started to fly off, but stopped herself. “No! That baby is all alone, and I’m the only one who can help him!” She began to fly toward the castle...and stopped again. “Then again, strength in numbers...” She began to fly back towards Ponyville.. “No! I have to do this. I can’t keep depending on everyone else’s help.” She took a deep breath, and began to fly toward the castle.
She thought for one more fleeting moment that Rainbow Dash would be able to help one final time, out of fear. Shaking her head of the thought, she made her way back to the castle.
“I MUST say, darling, it’s too kind of you to take us all in,” Rarity said as she dried off her mane with a towel, grimacing and wondering if she’d get split ends from this. “Having friends in the midst of a storm as fearsome as this one is much better than being all by yourself, after all.”
“Please, you’re all my friends!” Twilight said to the five ponies as they dried themselves off. “You would have done the same for me.”
“Too true.” Applejack said with a nod of her head. “Celestia knows a pony can’t collect apples in this kinda weather. Girl could catch her death out here!”
“I think I may have gone a little overboard with the storm...” Rainbow Dash mumbled to herself as she floated near one of the windows. There was an intense crack of thunder, and a bright flash of lightning that caused all of them to jump in surprise.
“Ya think?” Applejack asked, deadpan and shooting the Pegasus an annoyed look.
“Heh, if we’re this freaked out by this storm,” Spike said with a grin as he sat on the bed, just above Rarity. “imagine how freaked out Fluttershy is!”
An uncomfortable pause overcame the ponies, when finally Twilight asked what was on all their minds.
“Where IS Fluttershy?”
“Little bunny?” Fluttershy asked as she slowly made her way down the dark corridor. She was shaking and quaking, whimpering a little as every shadow on the wall seemed to form into a monster for the sole purpose of tormenting her. She shook the thoughts from her head and continued on. “C-Come out...”
A little squeak from down the end of the corridor made her heart leap. He really was there! Oh thank Celestia, he was all right. Her pace picked up as she rushed into the adjoining room that was at into the room at the end of the hall. Her eyes scanned the darkness, but it was all so dark she could barely make out her hoof in front of her face!
A little movement in the dark did catch her attention. It was the baby! She quickly rushed over to the baby bunny and let out a sigh, picking it up with her hooves, holding it to her chest. “Oh I’m so glad I found you! I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you!” She nuzzled him to her chest, relief washing over her body. “Are you alright?” She held him up to her face. The poor thing was still shaking. “You aren’t hurt are you?”
It still seemed visibly scared - not of the storm that was raging outside, but of something else.
“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy frowned. Slowly, her eyes followed the bunnies eyes that something was over her shoulder. She turned her entire body
The lightning flashed in that exact moment, illuminating the absolutely massive being that was standing right behind her. It was twice as big as Celestia, had the BODY of a pony. The upper half of its body was muscular, something similar to what Iron Hoof had, What was most frightening about the creature was its face. Its face was cold and frozen in an expression that could only be absolute, pure rage and anger, his fangs bared in a seemingly permanent scowl. The eyes glared forward, full of hate and malice.
Fluttershy’s eyes nearly popped from her skull, and along with the bunny, screamed in terror. She then rushed from the castle in a blur that Rainbow Dash would have been proud of.
The figure didn’t move from the spot. However, at that moment, the shadows themselves seemed to move by themselves...
