Vigilante

Luna couldn't, for the life of her, figure out why this memory was locked away. It looked quite tranquil and peaceful compared to most nightmares that she's encountered.

She was standing in the middle of a large, grassy field. A river flowed through the bank, and several scattered trees flooded the horizon in the distance.

Sitting near the bank was Fluttershy... but she was only a filly, who only recently gained her Cutie Mark, from the looks of it.

She hummed and smiled at the fish inside the river as they continued to nip at the small food pellets she tossed inside.

All in all, it was a truly tranquil paradise that she was living in...

...And yet, it was locked away in the back of Fluttershy's mind.

The memory shifted forward, where Fluttershy was trotting back home through the forest, with Hummingway guiding her. He took the time and effort speaking to her about the many different kinds of trees that surrounded them, even warning her about the poison oak and the poison ivy.

Their conversation, however, was short-lived when the sound of a large, distressed kitten filled the air. Not even bothering to question whether it was some form of a trap or not, they both quickly rushed towards the sound.

They stopped when they reached a clearing where they could see what was going on. In the center of a snare trap was a baby manticore, flailing out and about in hopes that it could escape. Below the snare were three rather large changelings, each grinning wickedly and hissing at each other in their own language.

Fluttershy, despite being a timid young filly, instantly felt her heartstrings pulled at the poor creature. She quickly galloped towards the scene, ignoring Hummingway's calls for her to stop, and shouted, "STOP THAT! YOU'RE HURTING HIM!"

She wasn't sure if they could understand her or not, but at the very least, the manticore slightly calmed itself at her voice, implying that at least it might've understood. Regardless, though, the changelings quickly blocked her path and hissed at her. Even though she didn't understand what they said, she had a gut feeling that it wasn't the nicest of things that was being said.

She quickly unfurled her wings as she continued to run. Then, once she was close enough, she leaped into the air and took flight, only to be swatted to the ground by one of the changelings. She tumbled a few times but got back up and continued charging towards the manticore while it tried to find a way out of its prison.

Suddenly Fluttershy stopped all movement once she felt a tingly sensation across her entire body. Looking at her hooves, she noticed that she was being lifted into the air by the changelings' green magic, which was radiating around her body. Then, once she looked up again, she spotted a pair of insect-like blue eyes staring right back at her.

At once, her bravery was shot down; replaced instantly with a surge of fear. Her legs started to flail rapidly, her wings locked up on her back, and before she knew it, the world around her instantly became a blur. Finally, her back slammed into a nearby tree, causing her eyes to quickly water, blurring out her vision.

Despite her ears' loud ringing, she was able to catch the sounds of chains rattling nearby. Then, with every blink that her eyes made, small, brief scenes of a huge figure looming over her, striking at the changelings, and gripping onto their necks as they tried striking him, displayed before she passed out.

She woke up twice since that moment. The first time, she was lying in the middle of a familiar dirt road, barely able to catch a small glimpse of a tall figure walking away before passing out again. The second time, however, she heard a distant scream before feeling the ground fall below her, save for the pair of hooves that picked her up.

Opening her eyes, she saw her father's back as he rushed her towards the hospital. Confused, she looked towards the Everfree Forest, only to lock eyes with a figure looking back at her from behind a bush... a tall biped wearing a strange mask, and a hooded coat.

Her eyes went wide as the figure raised one of its arms in the air and waved before disappearing in a green fire. Finally, she closed her eyes and let sleep take her again.

Fluttershy weakly opened her eyes, only to feel the strangely familiar sensation that she was being carried. The first thing she noticed was that she was cradled in a pair of huge arms, and that the sunlight was blocked from her eyes by both, the trees of the Everfree Forest, and the shadow of the figure's head. The next thing she noticed was that the sun was up to begin with. She recalled the darkness of the Everfree Forest growing evermore present, signifying that the moon was rising... and yet, the sun was revealing the time to be midday. Finally, realization dawned upon her... the realization of what it was that was carrying her.

And yet... she wasn't afraid. The way how the creature held her, despite its arms feeling metallic, and its face; emotionless, wasn't like that of a predator, but more of a protector... a guardian, of sorts. In a way, it held her similar to how her bear friends would carry her.

Then she noticed a pair of familiar faces rested on the creature's shoulders. On its left shoulder, a chicken with pure white feathers poked her head out to watch her... Elizabeak.

On the creature's right shoulder, Hummingway rested with his eyes closed, seemingly exhausted after his and Fluttershy's recent ordeal.

Elizabeak blinked a couple times before tilting her head to the side. Finally, she turned towards the creature and started to crow.

("It looks like she's up, Vigil!")

Fluttershy slowly blinked before turning towards the creature again. Then she weakly muttered, "V... Vigil?"

The creature first looked at Elizabeak, then turned its head down until it was facing Fluttershy. She meekly lowered her head to her shoulders while the creature tilted its head to the side, observing her.

Suddenly, the least thing that Fluttershy would've expected happened... Elizabeak pecked the back of the creature's head, causing it to turn towards her again.

("Vigil, you're scaring the poor dear!")

Fluttershy suddenly felt Vigil's left arm lower from her body, and saw it hovering over her. She flinched and closed her eyes when he started motioning his hand towards her, but when she felt nothing happen, she opened her eyes again.

Vigil's left hand motioned in different gestures she couldn't recognize, but could understand as a form of communication.

Elizabeak sighed before shaking her head.

("I understand that you're just trying to examine her, but the least you could do is be considerate of her feelings about it!")

Vigil then shrugged his left shoulder before returning his left hand below Fluttershy's back again. Then he continued to carry her towards whatever destination he had for her.

"Um... w-what's going on?" Fluttershy asked.

Elizabeak looked at her again and weakly smiled. ("Ah, of course. Sorry, dear. Vigil here isn't quite accustomed to the pony culture just yet.")

Vigil turned towards her again, which made her snicker. ("Yes, Vigil, I can understand what she's saying. Unlike someone here, we actually decided to learn the ponies' language through each others' knowledge, as opposed to trying to figure it out ourselves.")

Vigil raised his left hand again, but only used one sign; he raised his middle finger up and pointed the back side of it in Elizabeak's direction, which only made her laugh, though it sounded more like a series of squawks.

"Um..." Fluttershy began, only for Elizabeak to quickly look at her again.

("Oh, um... you may not want to know what that sign means.") Then she popped his finger with her wing before whispering, ("Language, Vigil! This is a mare, after all!")

Fluttershy cleared her throat, catching both of their attention. "Um... w-where is he taking me?"

Elizabeak rubbed her beak in thought as she examined the surrounding area. Then she looked at Vigil and asked, ("You're okay with me letting her know where we're going, right?")

Vigil merely shrugged his shoulders as he continued walking through the forest. Fluttershy examined the surrounding area as well.

Like before, the trees in this side of the Everfree Forest were a lot taller than she was used to seeing them. What's more, several of the trees had cuts on them, where a blade made contact with each. Some were simple straight lines while others were two lines crossed together. In the distance, though, a large mountain rested with a cave inside it.

Elizabeak began crowing again, catching her attention. ("We need your help, Fluttershy.")

Fluttershy blinked confusedly at her, only to turn towards Vigil. Vigil, in turn, looked at her and nodded his head.

"W-what do you n-need my help for, though?" she asked.

Elizabeak motioned towards the cave and replied, ("We need you to explain to a pony that we're not here to hurt her. She seems to be shaken up, and won't accept the fact that Vigil here saved her...") she looked at Vigil before adding, ("... well, I say saved, but um... she kinda-sorta already died before he could get to her.")

Fluttershy gasped at that statement before stuttering, "D... died?!"

Elizabeak nodded her head before crowing, ("Indeed... but Vigil managed to bring her back. Please, don't ask me how. It would be a little too complicated to explain at this time.")

The sunlight was quickly replaced by pitch black darkness. When Fluttershy looked around, she noticed that they were no longer in the Everfree Forest, but rather, inside the cave. Her heart rate started to pick up as a distant sound caught her ears... a sound that only grew evermore eerier as they approached, due to the echoes of the cave.

It was the sound of a mare crying.

Princess Celestia trotted through the throne room, eying the newly repaired environment. Normally she would feel a sense of comfort when inside these stone walls, but as of late, they only managed to cause her paranoia to get stronger with each passing second.

After her sister passed out the previous night, she felt like the throne room was no longer safe. As such, she cautiously eyed the surrounding areas, hoping that the "Vigilante" as Discord called it, wasn't in the room with her.

As she sat on the throne, she closed her eyes and exhaled deeply. Her horn lit up, and she began moving the sun towards the proper position once more. Then, once that was finished, she opened her eyes and quickly scanned the area surrounding her... nothing.

Eventually, though, her eyes locked onto Philomena, who was perched inside her golden cage, staring at Celestia with a strange expression on her face... almost like a deadpanned look, but with a hint of concern showing.

She tilted her head confusedly, wondering what could be going on with Philomena, when Discord's words echoed through her mind.

"Indeed... he takes orders from the animals themselves!

Celestia slowly stood from the throne, then curiously trotted towards Philomena. Ever since she found Philomena in the Everfree Forest centuries ago, she managed to pick up on most of a phoenix's language.

"Philomena... what do you know about the Vigilante?"

Philomena continued to stare at her for a long while before raising her right wing up and preening her feathers.

Celestia sighed before weakly smiling and turning back to her throne. "I had a feeling as such... there's no way you'd know about-"

("He is not the enemy.") Philomena crowed, stopping Celestia in her tracks.

She turned towards Philomena with a look of disbelief splayed across her face. Finally, Philomena looked back up and eyed Celestia critically.

("Do not be mistaken, Celestia... he isn't a bad guy. He's just... different.")

Slowly, Celestia trotted closer to Philomena. "H-how... how is he not a bad guy? Haven't you seen what he's done to his victims?!"

Philomena nodded her head and replied, ("Yes... but have you seen what manticores do to their victims?")

"Yes, but-"

("So if anything, consider him as more of a... civil kind of predator, who's also under our control.")

Celestia frowned at her. "Controlled or not, he mustn't be allowed to strike anypony down like that! I... I can't just let him do things like that!"

Philomena shrugged her wings before closing her eyes and crowing, ("Believe what you wish, Celestia... but don't think that you'll be able to protect us all from him... in fact,") she opened her eyes again, facing Celestia, ("it is us who are protecting you, Celestia. Think of it as our way of thanking you for taking care of us.")

Celestia shook her head and turned back towards the throne. Before she could take another step, however, a chilling breeze flowed in through the window. Her eyes shot open as the all-too-familiar sounds of chains rattling through the throne room echoed into her ears.

Not wasting a single moment, she charged her magic in her horn, turned towards the source of the noise, and shot a bolt of light towards the creature.

To her surprise, the human stood there and took the blast to the chest. He flew back several meters until he landed on his back. Slowly, he tried to stand back up, but before he could, Celestia blasted him again with more magic, repeatedly, and with a panicky expression on her face.

Finally, after one last blast, she dashed towards the human and slammed her right hoof into his chest, coating her right foreleg with blood.

The human's arms convulsed for a brief moment, then fell limp. Then, the human's movement ceased at once.

Celestia sighed deeply before shakily raising her right foreleg in the air, staring at the crimson liquid that now coated it. She breathed heavily as her legs quivered. Then she began to question her motives. Tears began to fill her eyes as the recent events just now registered through.

"Oh, divines, I... I've murdered someone!"

She then looked at the dead man's face and eyed the mask curiously. Shakily, she reached her hooves towards the mask and grasped onto both ends of it. Finally, after taking a deep breath, she lifted the mask from the creature's face, then gasped as the figure's eyes shot open from behind the mask. It grabbed her by the horn, disabling any magic she could cast, and stood back up, lifting her with it.

She stared at the creature in disbelief while Philomena spoke to her from her cage.

("In the end, the only one you will be harming...")

The figure lowered its hood, revealing its long, ethereal blue, green, pink, and purple hair. Its tall, purple eyes stared back at her. In Celestia's own voice, it concluded, "... is yourself."

It raised the mask up with its left hand, then turned it around, with first-person images of the victims appearing on the other sides of the lenses. Then, in a blurring motion, it shoved the mask towards Celestia's face, surrounding her vision into complete darkness.

Celestia's eyes shot open. Looking around, she noticed that she was still sitting on the throne. She rubbed her eyes and let out a yawn as the sunlight brightened the throne room. She looked around and noticed Philomena preening her wings, seemingly unfazed by the world around her.

Celestia slowly stood from the throne and began to approach Philomena. Before she could take more than a few steps, however, a scroll appeared in front of her.

Curious, Celestia lifted the scroll up to her face and began reading its contents. Upon noticing what the message was about, her eyes widened, and her mouth began to lower. Finally, in the blink of an eye, she lit up her horn and vanished in a burst of light, leaving the scroll to fall on the floor.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Something awful has happened! Fluttershy, the Bearer of Kindness, disappeared without a trace, and we need your help finding her! I'm sorry if you're busy at the moment. I understand if you're too tired to look... but the others and I have been searching all night, and couldn't find her anywhere! We're worried something might've happened to her.

Anyways, we await your quick response.

Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle.

"Twilight? Are you alright?" Spike knocked on the door to Twilight's room. After asking him to send her letter to Princess Celestia, she stormed off with a trail of tears falling from her eyes.

She replied to him from the other side of the door. "I'm fine, Spike... I'll just... I'll just be a moment."

He sighed before slowly opening the door. The door had a little resistance coming from the other side, as something blocked its path. After turning on the light, he gasped as he saw large piles of books scattered across the room. He knew that sometimes, Twilight would end up forgetting to clean her room and tidy everything up... most of which would be on a bad day, or a day where she would be too focused on something to worry about those kinds of things.

This time, however, there were signs of something else entirely. The room didn't look like she was angry, nor occupied with anything specific. No, it looked more like she was devastated, and searching for something that could mean the life or death of something... or someone.

"Twilight... I've sent that letter to Princess Celestia. She'll have an entire search party for her, so there's no need to panic, okay?"

He crawled up onto her bed, only to frown when he saw her with her head buried in a book. He slowly approached her, and gently placed a claw on the book before lowering it to where he could see her face. His efforts were met with little to no resistance.

Her purple eyes no longer contained that spark of life that they always had. Her mane was raggedy and misshapen. Her cheeks, however, were coated with tears.

Spike's frown intensified when he saw her like that. He walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

Shakily, she raised her hooves up and returned the hug.

"Don't worry, Twi... we'll find her, okay?"

She slowly nodded her head and whispered, "Okay..."

Meanwhile, in a simple little house in the center of town, Bon Bon placed the grocery bag on the ground before reaching in her saddlebag for the keys to her house. After finding them, she placed them in the door and twisted, opening it and allowing the door to open.

After placing her keys in the saddlebag again, she lifted the grocery bag up and trotted inside.

Like usual, the living room was unoccupied. Ever since the previous month, her roommate Lyra would keep herself locked inside her room, doing Celestia-Knows-What.

This time, however, Bon Bon would confront her about it. She placed the grocery bag on the counter and slowly trotted up to Lyra's room, where the lights only continued to grow brighter.

After knocking on her door a few times, she asked, "Um... Lyra? Are you in there?"

There wasn't a response. Curiously, Bon Bon tried moving the handle of the door. Like usual, though, it was locked.

"Lyra? Is there something you need to talk about?"

Again, silence. Finally, Bon Bon rolled her eyes and pulled a card out from her saddlebag. Then she placed it between the door and the frame, and moved it around in an attempt to find the latch.

Once the latch moved back into the handle, she gave the door an experimental push. With a smile, she opened the door, but froze when an awful odor began to emit from the room. Looking around, she was able to find several jars filled with yellow and brown liquids, with flies floating over each. On the walls and the floor, multiple sheets of newspaper articles were pinned, each with one common subject; the monster from the Everfree Forest.

And there, cradled in the center of the room in a fetal position, was Lyra Heartstrings. Her mane was disheveled, and her horn appeared to be bleeding at the tip.

Bon Bon gasped and rushed up to her friend. "Lyra! What in Celestia's mane are you doing?! You're... y-you're bleeding!"

"I... I... I d-did it..." Lyra murmured.

"Did what?! Hurt yourself?!" Bon Bon sarcastically screeched before trying to lift her friend up. Upon making contact with her, however, she had to force her hoof back, due to the heat that Lyra's body was giving off. "Sweet Celestia! Lyra, you need to see a doctor, now!"

"H-he... he's... b-been here... t-the whole time..." Lyra whispered before collapsing on the ground.

Bon Bon screamed before dashing out of the room, out of the house, and towards the nearby hospital.

Fluttershy slowly looked around the room she was in. Everything seemed much more taller. There was a table on one end of the room that appeared to be nearly as tall as Princess Celestia, herself, if not taller. The chairs were about the size of Princess Luna, though.

On the walls, multiple drawings of diagrams with different creatures and their insides were displayed, each in surprisingly accurate detail. A desk about the same size as the table was below those diagrams with one particular diagram on it, seemingly recently drawn... the diagram of an earth pony.

Fluttershy then heard the sound of a scream, followed by hooves galloping through the cave. Turning towards the source of the sounds, she was able to catch a pink and blonde blur headed her way. Then, before she could react, she was trampled backwards, along with the pink blur, and together they fell over, only to stop in a corner where a candlelight revealed the runner.

Blue eyes met golden eyes, as the tension in the room only grew. Fluttershy slowly raised a hoof towards the pony that mysteriously vanished about one week ago.

"L... Lily?!"

Lily Valley slowly lifted her hoof towards Fluttershy and stuttered, "F... Fluttershy!" She quickly pulled her into a hug and cried on her shoulder, while Fluttershy returned the embrace.

"Thank goodness you're okay... w-we were worried about you in Ponyville!" Fluttershy stated, only for Lily to nod her head.

"Y-yeah... I was... o-on a trip to Canterlot, when I... w-when I was..." She opened her eyes again, only to notice Vigil standing at the entrance where she came from.

She screamed before backing away, attempting to pull Fluttershy with her. "M-MONSTER! FLUTTERSHY, RUN! PROTECT YOURSELF!"

Fluttershy blinked a couple times before sighing and gently patting Lily on the back of the shoulders. "Lily... he's not going to hurt you."

Lily, who at this point was lying on the ground on all fours, shaken up by fear, slowly looked up at Fluttershy, surprised to see a calm expression on her face.

"Y-you... y-you're s-s-sure about t-that?" Lily stuttered.

Fluttershy rolled her eyes before gently patting Lily on the head. "Would I lie to you?"

Lily sighed before slowly turning towards Vigil again. "C-can h-he understand us?"

Fluttershy shook her head before turning towards Elizabeak, who was just then appearing from the other room. "Elizabeak, can you please tell him to sit down? He's scaring her."

Elizabeak nodded her head before crowing the commands to Vigil, who looked her way.

Lily watched in disbelief as the titan listened to the little chicken. He sat down on the floor and crossed his legs, then looked towards the two mares again.

Fluttershy cleared her throat then looked at Lily. "Lily," she motioned towards Vigil, "I'd like you to meet Vigil." She then turned towards Vigil and added, "Vigil," she motioned towards Lily, "I'd like you to meet Lily."

After Elizabeak crowed a translation to Vigil, he nodded his head then lifted his right hand in the air, which only made Lily flinch. When she opened her eyes again, however, she saw that he was merely waving at her.

She slowly raised her hoof at him and waved back. A weak, forced smile formed on her face before the world around her began to spin. Finally, with the fatigue of her running mixed with the information she was just now processing running through her mind, her eyes rolled up towards the back of her head. Her eyelids grew heavy, and before she knew it, she was on the ground, completely passed out.