Shadow Prophet

"CRAP! CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR!" Shadow yelled, as Raven was far closer. She jumped up and galloped to the door, pushing it shut. But it didn't close. The shadow pony stuck its hoof out with impossible speed and the door bounced off of it, smashing Raven's face. She staggered back and held her hoof up to her nose, which had begun to bleed from the impact.

Shadow grabbed the book that had been thrown at him and flung it towards the creature. It went through it entirely, causing it to turn yet again into a spreading mist. But it did not stay that way. Once the book was on the ground, the mist moved quickly and quietly over to Shadow, wrapping itself around his hooves.

Shadow tried to step away from it, but it continued to envelope his hooves.It began spiraling around his legs, working it's way to covering him completely.

Some of the dark mist floated up and into Shadow's nose. When he breathed it in, he gagged. Then he gagged again; a dry gag. He tried to grasp his throat, but could not move his hooves. His eyes bulged as he gasped for breaths he could not take. Raven wiped her bloody nose and took action. She leaped forward and, not knowing what else to do, stomped around in the mist. It moved away from her when she did, and little by little it was dissipating. She clapped her hoof on Shadow's back, and he coughed up a ball of black goo, which bounced and rolled out the door, the mist following it. Behind it, the door slowly creaked shut.

Raven Wing stared at the door, Rainbow Dash poked her head around the corner, and Shadow gasped for breath. A drop of blood from Raven's nose fell to the carpeted floor, and upon seeing it, Shadow was filled with a sudden surging rage. He moved forward slowly, opened the door, and stepped outside into the warm, sunny Texas day. He looked around, but could find no trace of the monster that had dragged him through worlds and had its heart set on tormenting him. Shadow looked up to the sky and yelled, so hard that his voice hurt, "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!! WHAT?! DO YOU WANT MY LIFE?! THEN COME AND TRY TO FUCKING TAKE IT!!"

There was a tap on Shadow's shoulder. He turned around and punched it, expecting the shadow-thing. Instead, he punched an orange mare wearing a blue uniform that read, "Midlothian Police." He was about to apologize, but then the mare grabbed his hoof and put hoofcuffs on it. She said,"You and your friends are coming with me." Shadow realized that these Midlothian Police must be like the Royal Guard or Equestria.

"Crap," he said. He had been cussing a lot recently.

Shadow paced his small cement cell, wondering just what the hell he was going to do. He had to do something. There was a potentially fatal beast out there, and here they were, cooped up in these small cells in the back of the Police station, the only inmates in the small hallway behind the office where the officer (Carrot Top was her name) was filling out paperwork, occasionally looking up at the three inmates, as though they might vanish if she didn't look at them often.

The jail-room was light by a single faint glowing orb that hung from a wire in the middle of the hall. Shadow had seen these in the ceiling of Raven Wing's apartment, but they were protected by glass and shined a lot brighter. The orb flickered every once in a while, which Shadow found to be terribly distracting. Shadow stuck his hoof out of his cell and waved it up and down, catching the officer's attention.

"What do you want?" She asked accusingly.

"Yes, well, erm... you see... Could you fix this, um, light...thing? It's really annoying," Shadow said with absolutely no confidence whatsoever. The officer's cold stare had drilled into him and sucked it all out.

Carrot Top laughed aloud. "So what? I don't have to do crap for you! Look, if you don't like the flickery light, then how about this?" The officer got up and went to the doorway that led into the jail-room. She flicked a switch that stood mounted on the wall outside the doorway, and the light went out. They would have been in total darkness, were it not for the light coming from the officer's office. She went back to her desk and sat down, ignoring Shadow and the other ponies.

Shadow smiled nervously and said, "Um, okay. Thanks," before pulling his hoof back into his cell and flopping down on his small, gross bed.

"Great plan."

Shadow pushed himself up and turned to see Raven Wing in the cell across from him, looking through the bars accusingly. Everypony had been looking at him accusingly recently.

"Sorry. I didn't know she was so... yeah. You wouldn't have done any better, I'm sure," Shadow said.

Raven scoffed. "Sure."

Carrot Top snapped, "Hey! Quiet in there!" Raven flashed an angry look towards the police officer, then asked her, "How long are we going to be in here," then, in a truly painful attempt at being polite to the officer, she said through gritting teeth, "ma'am?"

"Well, the rainbow one was clearly hit across the head by one of you, she was also screaming at one of you. There were sounds of fighting and your blue, frizzy friend disrupted the public greatly. I'd say either until tonight, or overnight. Now shut up,I'm trying to work."

"Hugs and kisses to you too," Raven muttered sarcastically.

Shadow groaned with his face buried in the bed. Overnight? Who knew what kind of damage that creature he'd unwittingly released could do in twelve hours? In ten minutes alone it'd gotten three ponies arrested. I bet my bottom dollar it planned for that to happen, Shadow thought. I thought it was some basic creature that just wanted to kill us like a barbarian. But I was wrong, wasn't I? This thing, whatever it is, wanted us out of the way. And it did it rather cleverly.

Shadow found his voice out of his control again, and somepony else whispered out of his mouth, "The Dark One." Raven looked at him for a moment, then looked away.

Shadow's eyebrows furrowed. Wait. What if it wasn't trying to get us out of the way? What if it's just trying to drive us mad? It certainly looks like that's what it's been trying to do. But if that's true, then...

"It's here," Shadow realized, jumping up from his bed. He galloped to the corner of his cell, attracting the attention of Rainbow Dash, who had been silently sitting in the same cell as Raven, looking at the grossly stained bed, Raven Wing, and Carrot Top.

"Hey, Carrot! Carrot the Parrot, listen to me!" Shadow yelled at the officer. She gained a very angry face.

"What did you just call me?"

"Carroty Parroty, the one and only carrot-making parrot!" Raven gave Shadow a look like he was insane, but Shadow ignored her.

Shadow closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, while Carrot Top stomped around her desk and up to his cell. When she was right in his face, Shadow's eyes snapped open. "Yes. That's what they called you when you were little, wasn't it?" He said.

Carrot Top's eyes widened.

"Little bitty Parrot Pop, gross, shy, and weird," Shadow chanted. "Little bitty Parrot Pop, don't be shocked if she grows a beard!"

Tears trembled on the officer's eyes, threatening to spill over. "How... how do you know that?" She asked shakily.

Shadow whispered, "Let us go, and I'll tell you." The officer wiped her eyes and then looked to the floor for a moment. She looked over to the keys to their cells hanging on the wall, thought for a moment, then, "No. No, I can't." She didn't look at Shadow Prophet before returning to her office. Shadow reached out his hoof and waved it around again, but she ignored him. She sat back down in her desk and massaged her temples for a moment before returning to her work.

"Wha... how did you do that?" Raven whispered.

Shadow looked at her and said, "Let us go, and I'll tell you," sarcastically. Then , he froze, and his pupils dilated. He gasped coldly, and looked into the office. Raven and Rainbow followed his gaze, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Until they noticed a second shadow on the wall, standing right next to Carrot Top's shadow.

"What the-" Raven started, but Shadow held his hoof up to his mouth, symboling a, "shush." Raven quieted, and watched in part-awe, part-terror.

The shadow on the wall reached out to the officer's shadow and tapped it's shoulder. Carrot Top jumped and looked around her, not noticing the extra shadow. She brushed her shoulder and then looked back at her work. The no-pony shadow violently grabbed Carrot's shoulder and wouldn't let go.

Carrot Top tried to move her shoulder, but found it was being held in place by something she couldn't see. The shadow took it's other hoof and swiped it across Carrot's shadow's face quickly. On Carrot's face, a large bloody cut appeared at a diagonal slant, and she screamed in pain. The shadow began dragging Carrot's shadow closer to the wall, and the officer was pulled out of her chair and dragged along the floor. She kicked and screamed, but with nothing to do to stop the shadow, it was pointless. You can't hurt a shadow.

Both the shadows became more clear and defined as they neared the wall. The pony-less one had no distinguishable features whatsoever. Carrot touched the wall, but she didn't stop moving. She began to absorb into the wall. He shoulder spread out and vanished as she was dragged to wherever the shadow was taking her. Apparently, being flattened into non-existence is not very comfortable, as Carrot Top began screaming at the top of her lungs, and she started crying for her mom. The ponies in the jail-room all looked away, unable to watch as she was slowly and painfully murdered. When the screaming stopped, Shadow Prophet took a glance at the wall. Carrot Top was gone, but her shadow still stood alongside the other one that had dragged her into oblivion. Her shadow trotted into it, and vanished. And just like that, Carrot Top was no more.

Shadow believed nothing more horrifying could happen than what he had just witnessed, until the murdering shadow began to move towards the jail-room.