Shadow Prophet

"No, no, no! What do we do?!" Raven screamed, backing up to the farthest part of her cell. The shadow came nearer to the jail-room. Shadow Prophet began looking around for something to use to defend themselves. There was nothing he could use, the only possibly defending items were in the Late Carrot Top's office, but there was no way they were going to be able to get in there. Shadow, out of ideas, began to think about how they could avoid the shadow. Then a simple and obvious fact popped into his head.

"It's a shadow!"

"Yeah? So?" Raven asked frantically.

"So... the lights are off in here! Shadows can't exist where there is no light!"

Raven realized this and sighed in relief. The shadow approached, but when it came to the border between the lightness of Carrot Top's office and the darkness of the jail-room, it stopped. It could not venture any further.

Shadow laughed. "Ha! We beat you with something so completely simple! It's hilarious!" He started doing a little happy dance around his cell, and Raven smiled in spite of herself. Shadow Prophet was certainly a strange character. Much like sompony she knew...

The shadow moved away so that the ponies could not see it. It was on the wall on the other side of the jail-room. Then, with a loud clank, the lights slowly came to life. Horrible white light filled the jail-room, and the ponies screamed. Rainbow Dash and Raven Wing took off and flew up to the roof of the cell. The lights in the hall were located higher then the ceiling of the jail cells, so there was darkness on the roof. They were safe. Shadow, on the other hoof...

"Get under the bed!" Rainbow Dash yelled at him. The shadow moved its way into the jail-room, appreciating the light far too much than any creature has a right to. Shadow dropped flat to the ground and slid under the thin space in between the jail cell bad and the cold cement floor, where no light shined. From his vantage point, he would only be able to see hooves if anypony were to arrive. Inevitably, he saw the shadow of hooves that had no owner, and cringed even though he knew he was safe in the darkness. The shadow stepped up upon the bed and the mattress began to bend downwards, as if somepony were slowly lowering a large weight upon it. The bed began to crush Shadow's back, and he found that he could no longer take large breathes. He could only take in short gasps of air, and those were quickly getting smaller.

Even though he knew it was the worst possible thing to do, Shadow stuck his hooves out into the light and began flailing them around, begging for help in the only way he could at that point. He tried to scream, but with his shortness of breath, all he could manage was a weak, "Haaaaaaaah..."

Raven Wing saw the empty shadow covering the bed completely and crushing it down on the helpless blue pony, and she took action. She flew over to her bed, waving for Rainbow Dash to follow. Together, they lifted the gross, orange, stained bedsheets off their own beds and carried them over to the edge of their cells. Following Raven's instruction, they both flung them outwards repeatedly, until Rainbow's successfully wrapped around one of the light bulbs that shined down on Shadow's cell. The light didn't go away completely, but it became very faint, and the shadow quickly moved away into better lighting.

Shadow climbed out from his bed and tried to run. He stumbled a few times, but managed. He ran directly past the shadow. It reached out for him, but without looking, Shadow batted his hoof around, knocking the shadow away. He ran to the cement wall and rammed it with his horn. He grimaced and collapsed after meeting the wall, but unicorn horns are stronger than any material, so it remained intact and broke a large chunk of cement out of the wall. It landed next to him. He climbed up again and lifted the chunk. It was very large and apparent that it was extremely hard for Shadow to lift it. But he still did and threw it at the metal poles which barricaded him. It broke two poles that had major rust on them with a loud, "Thwong!" then shattered in two on the ground.

Huffing, Shadow limped out the opening, not stopping for breath. He moved over into the office, and Raven thought for one terrible moment that he had ran away. But he returned with keys and unlocked the doors to the girls' cells. In between heavy breathes, he managed to say, "Come... on! Get out!" Raven Wing galloped out, followed by Rainbow Dash, followed by Shadow Prophet. The Dark One vanished in a shadow of smoke.

"Okay... stop! Please!" Shadow begged after running for ten minutes away from the police station. The mares stopped, and Shadow looked at them. "I... I can't... I..." He collapsed on the grass, panting for breath. "I need a break."

Rainbow Dash said, "Oh, come on! Not now! You didn't need a break when we were being flung between worlds!"

Raven Wing gave Rainbow Dash a dirty look, and the blue mare sat down in the grass obediently. Raven sat down next to Shadow and observed him for a moment, too tired to move, having been flung across space and time only to almost be killed by a shadow creature. He did need a break. His eyes were closed, but she could tell he was still awake.

"You didn't need to save us, you know. You could've left," Raven pointed out.

Shadow smiled, his eyes still closed. "No I couldn't."

"What do you mean?"

"The business man. He said I couldn't."

"What business man?"

"I don't know. He told me I had to take you both with me, no matter what."

"Hmm." Raven began to worry about Shadow Prophet's mental stability.

Shadow slowly opened his eyes and lifted his head. He looked around. "The Dark One is coming. We'd better get out of here."

"Oh, so now it's the Dark One?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Shadow stood up. "Yup." He looked around again. Suddenly came a large zapping sound that filled the air. "What's that?!" Raven asked. Shadow looked at a lone tree and smiled.

"That, my friend, is a pand-dimensional rift. Time to go." He trotted over to the tree, and put his ear up to it. The mares followed behind him, confused.

"It's inside this tree." They were about to ask, then Shadow ripped a piece of bark off the tree. Behind it was a large expanse of bright blue light that had beams of white light shooting out of it in all directions.

Shadow, without hesitation, stepped into the light. The mares, not sure of what else they could do, followed.