Black Hawk Over Equestrian Skies

Somewhere over Appleloosa...

Ponies in the little desert town, with its one large orchard of apple trees, had taken to watching the wide open sky as if gazing into the sun itself. Mares, stallions, and foals alike had ceased their daily routines with a hoof or hat to keep the white blazing light from damaging their sensitive eyes as they remained glued to the vast expanse. Still they kept looking despite the occasional pain when they happened to look too quickly towards a new spot. The two main pathways in the little hab town had frozen carriages, workers, and all as they were taken by some attraction which drew upon their internal instincts to become alert like prairie dogs at their burrow.

Only one pony seemed to be unaffected by the captivated masses as they rushed from one building to another, a silver gray mare with a bank tellers uniform. She galloped out of the town bank and into the doors of the adjacent building that had the label of Town Hall, too excited with a crucial message to notice anything off around her. A parchment gripped by her teeth flapped in her stride, a bum rush to get a message through had her barreling into the doorway and fumbled onto the wooden floor like a loose tumbleweed. Inside a lone secretary sat at the front desk up ahead, a teal mare with manilla mane seemed utterly bored as she stamped a few papers to what obviously was a common occurence in the lobby. A clock on the desk chimed at the hour.

"Clumsy as always I see?" she sighed with a passing glance at the scrambling bank teller.

The one in question felt the new bruise forming on her left forearm near the elbow she used to buffer her fall, the paper folded in her mouth only slightly creased. The mare winced as she moved back to her hooves and trudged onward with only a few feet away from the recipient of the notification.

"High Stakes, the door's unlocked and he' not in a meeting. I'll ring you in." said the neutral office worker droned as she pressed something behind the high rise front of the desk, a tiny bell above the door loudly rang.

"Ttthaaakkkuuuu!!" High muffled as she trotted sheepishly with a blush past the desk, her bun styled mane slightly disheveled from her tumble and long work day was a second thought.

She pushed the wooden way open, a wall of fresh apple pie wafted into her like a thick woolen blanket. The sunny day poured into the large room through six windows of six panes of glass each, giving the soft burnished oak interior a welcoming treat. Furnishings were small as was to the humble nature of the mayor of the town, the gentle stallion had only enough to entreat business ponies who stopped by. A few decorative tables, some local artisans works of art, and of course the very mayor's desk itself. It was a gift from the foals of the school during its first years, talented little ones they were who carved beautiful yet simple designs and images into the faces of the earthly furniture. Yet in such a rush as Stakes was in, she had never been able to give it much attention as to what the colts and fillies etched into it.

Huffing through her nose to steady her heart, she noticed Mayor Lucky Prospect already awaiting her with his hooves on his desk and a smile on his Clydesdale muzzle. He always looked gruff and hardy, yet in both public and private he had been nothing but a gentlecolt despite his parents lineage. Already he nodded to her to speak with his full attention upon her, the Dunskin coat ever soft on the eyes with the darker patch on the tip of his snout.

"THhhirrr!!" she tried to speak and realized the paper still remained inbetween her teeth.

A quick release to unclench her jaws and her hoof caught the slightly wet parcel which caused her to look away from her mishap.

"I'm sorry sir..." her shyness born of shame took root yet before it grew past a seedling it was trimmed from the base by the deep calming voice of Mayor Prospect.

"Don't be so harsh on yourself High Stakes, I'm sure whatever you bring to me is important but not the kind to lambaste yourself with? Go on?" the rumble gave a quiver in her heart from his southern accent, but still she remained reserved and denied eye contact.

She cleared her throat and hoofed the paper over to be grasped, "A gold miner says he's hit a rich vein, but not of gold."

The official leaned over and took the parchment, ignoring the area of dampness to read the contents, "Platinum? Huh? Never thought the region had such a source... tell me what do you know of it? Is it that valuable?" he inquired with a raised brow.

High gave an affirmative shake of the head that she nearly made herself dizzy, "Yes sir! Currently the ore is valued at one thousand bits per ounce on the market, Number Crunch said Canterlot's School for Gifted Unicorns and the Alchemy Academy in Van Hoover is offering bids for new sources as well! Promising two thousand bits or full government assistance for as long as the vein can be mined and thirty years after which. The gold miner says he's willing to go halves with the town and relinquish the vein to the town's ownership... says he's set for life from what he's seen."

The gruff stallion seemed enamored at the idea and held his initial reaction until he had a full grasp of the situation, it was a painful five minutes in which he took a sip of water from a glass mug. High Stakes felt her heart surge as she kept herself still, but in the end it was too much to be in the Mayor's presence. So she stood up and walked to the farther wall near the windows to admire the paintings, such a decision was not meant to be taken lightly. As even a bank teller herself knew of the dangers of mines and the processing of the ores, there was another settlement miles to the west doomed by a spill of the toxic byproduct known as WASH. It had since been inhabitable, a fate she hoped wouldn't befall Appleloosa especially with Prospect at the head of it who had a good head on his neck.

She gazed at the few seven foot tall paintings she could see without making too much noise, they were all of the town's history and its founders. Oil paintings of rather amazing quality had moderate detail paid attention to the outlands look such as large rancher hats, vests, and the fancy dresses that would drop every jaw in the saloon. There was the first mayor and his family, the Apple family who ran the orchard that supplied the red delicious, the bank owner himself, and a strange wide blue eye as wide as the window picture frame itself that starred back at the viewer.

High Stakes peered at the then disturbing painting not having remembered ever seeing it before, it was a questioning piece of art that the mayor would ever consider tasteful. She felt a chill run down her spine when her own vision detected a slight jerk of the giant black viper pupil, her own breath caught in the back of her throat. All apprehension towards the stallion who ran the small town went out the window which coincidentally had a peeping titanic eye on the other side. Her hooves rebelled against her mind's command and stayed rooted where they were, but her terror remained striking every nerve she tried to will with lightning of utter dread. Paralyzed where fate left the mare, the eye blinked with a subtle squelch that could be heard past the glass panels.

The icy cobalt tissue moved in such a way that gave the feel of layered tendrils over one another upon a deep chasm of unending, encircling the slit which contracted and expanded with more movement. An intelligence behind the jerking and searching meant it was looking upon her as she did it, she was not dreaming in the slightest. She sat helpless as the great orb pulled away, blocking all sunlight still as it rose to reveal a nauseating color of ivy green scaly skin. Somehow High Stakes could even hear the void that the horrible form had left fill with air by a rush of wind, desert dust sucked upwards and peppered the window.

With lungs burning for the need of a gulp of vital oxygen the innocent pony had been given reprieve after such a painful gratuitous moment. Yet that was all she was given before the wood planked wall that stood between the nightmare and her erupted inwards with a deafening sound. A large muscular appendage of a cephalopod shattered the lone barrier into splinters, ruining the quiet air with devastation and whining beams which took on additional pressure. Glass fragments sprinkled the large office with their tingling chatter, paintings all around lost their supports and collapsed onto the hardwood floor with the rest of the detritus. The smell of dry wood permeated the atmosphere as it mingled with the scent of decaying fish and oddly enough a touch of ozone as acrid as it already was. A few pieces of timber had traveled with the bank teller and piled onto her, effectively pinning the lithe body into place to the right of Mayor Prospect.

"What in Tarnation!!" he coughed, his eyes stung from fragments that blinded him.

The unlucky stallion never had the chance to see again nor say another word, as once the pillar thick fleshy limb disappeared with a flicker of light in its absence. Did another more insidious thing blindingly fast replace it as something tore down from above with devastating effect. If any hearing remained it was obliterated then just as the second floor and ceiling fell down. The humble mayor disappeared in the wreckage as a cloudy plum and fragments filled the ruined room ever further, wood continued to bend and break under further stress from the damage done.

"... mmm... may...yor... ppprrroosss..." High Stakes mumbled as her whole world dizzily spun around.

An unholy gurgling roar rumbled every lose particle and whatever was not nailed down within a two hundred foot radius.. For all that she barely felt, she could just see the entryway she came in by being assaulted from the other side as a few planks had kept it barred in their death fall. Her ears were deaf and her mind dumb, but she could swear she heard the sound of instruments playing in the distance as tears tried to clear her sight of grim. Even as it felt hard to breath with a spear pointing towards her diaphragm each time she inhaled, there was an odd sound of violins and cellos whose bows played them with utmost expertise. A soft music carried through the mare's damaged hearing and into her head where each note soon bounced around, the tormented reality she endured only worsened from there.

Soon the door swung wide open and nearly blew off its hinges, a figure moved in and began swinging away with something square and flat. High did not have the facilities to take in much more visual data aside from the swaying ground and the feel of gravity pulling her tightly in place. Blurry wormy things had tried to creep over her face when the faint shape of somepony batted them off her, a struggle ensued for what felt like hours as another set of hooves stomped in front of her. Nearly finding her snout smashed accidentally, the percussions of the other seemed to just pierce the loud cacophony tainting her every thought. Then something bit down onto the collar of her uniform and dragged her through the door frame from where all had begun, Stakes soon looked to the wall were a wriggling spiked appendage speared the office wall. Her stinging eyes prevented much else from being noticed as she brought the wrists of her forelegs to her face. All she could see past them were hooves trudging and slipping as they pulled her helpless self into the lobby.

"Mmmaaaayyy...ooorrrrr..." High Stakes murmured again feeling the act of breathing no longer suffering from the ailments earlier.

Still the two things that persisted were vertigo and the classical music, how she begged for it to stop. She cared little if the right side of her barrel began to hurt from the grazing roughness of the wood floor and soon the hard dirt road outside. Suffering remained with her like a tender family member as the purity of Celestia's sun shone into her pupils.

Everywhere around the bank teller ponies of Appleloosa were in full fright as the behemoth carved its way through Town Hall. It easily vanquished the simple structure as its muscular body that matched the height of its roof, essentially having powered through thick support beams and rafters as though they were dry clay. The muck colored abomination swung its long squirming serpent appendage attached to a bulbous meaty torso, supported by thick trunk like legs as those of a fat dragon claws and all. Dense rocky slabs of armor protected its abdomen and shoulders, striated and cracked from age and battle. Though what drove everypony else mad with fear centered around its globular head. A thing of grotesque amalgamation of a hagfish from the deep seas to make up the mandibles, fins that wriggled along the edge of its spade shaped head, writhing feelers surrounding the deathly maw grasping at the air desperately, and nine blue eyes that glowed with an ethereal energy if one looked too long into them.

High Stakes heard the music grow louder in her skull, forcing her to ball into herself even though she had been dropped by her once sudden savior. Her forelegs went straight to the sides of the head as she hazily tried to stop the obnoxious sound, the instruments were no longer playing a cord nor an orchestrated sheet. She whipped her head in every which way as bows screamed pitches too high to tolerate, strings were plucked with abandon, cellos screeched painfully under the onslaught of craziness beyond the mare's comprehension. What made things worse were a pattern of drum beats whose thuds rose from nothingness to assail her, every two seconds three slaps to the taunt screens carried on until they were so loud that even the psychotic strings were overwhelmed.

As the little mare lay vulnerable to anything of malice and ill intent, things from the monstrous creature crawled towards her like hunting centipedes. Countless legs sprouted forth from the sides of the ropy tissue that felt the dirty earth with taps every other moment over old hoof prints of the maddened masses. Only once they sensed the tail and back legs of High Stakes did they seem to really come alive as fire ants after finding the culprit who disturbed the colony. Even as they poked and prodded the fur of her legs the sensation never made it to the mare's attention, still she fought off the cacophony that consumed only her being.

She screamed to the top of her lungs until her vocal cords were raw from a shriek to hoarseness, "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Just when the wiry extensions of muscle and bumpy skin were nearing her barrel to entwine around as pythons subduing prey, the dark entity gave pause. It had been looking around the little town and the surrounding barren desert, the rocky hills and their treasures within. Those big piercing azure oculars seemed trained on the heavens to the west. It disregarded the easy pickings before it as ponies still ran a muck unsure if they should head for the hills or bunker in one of the buildings. A silent observance which at first seemed as if it were perhaps communicating with something or for most of the towns ponies who hoped it might have found a new place to grace with its unmatched terribleness that only Celestia could deliver them from.

The sheriff of the town with his gray beard and weathered features watched the monster for a brief ten seconds while he tried to get some kind of order into place, failing to do so spectacularly.

"The tartarus is it looking at?!" he gawked cursing the lack of a deputy unicorn to have some kind of magical power over it, thankful he could remain sane after staving off an encroachment of Dust Demons during the first year of the town's existence.

Before he could give a single further word of it, something bright surged into its cuttlefish cranium in a mere blink of an eye, a bolt of hot light like an arrow from Elysium eternal. What followed it came the crack of thunder and a two second undulation of its fleshy head as if an internal force sought to break out. So quickly had it happened that the explosion occurred on what the officer guessed was the exit point, turquoise glowing blue innards spewed outwards from the point of entry of what he hoped was one of the Princesses doing. Effectively painting the bank and the destroyed Town Hall with gore that splashed gelatinous chunks heavy enough to break through the structures material. Stomach churning sounds filled the air with powerful effect that sweetened the saliva in ones mouth. The sheriff gaped in awe as the threat lost all life, the ravaged conglomeration of its face lolled like a loose wheel on a broken axle. With no whimper nor roar of pain, the giant eventually fell back into the government building like a toppling cyclopean pillar giving way to unrelenting weather.

"For the love of Celestia!!" he shouted as its hefty corpse sent a tremor powerful enough to collapse a few of the neighboring houses and send every pony to the soil.

A loud hum zipped overhead in succession with the death of the spontaneous foe, a large black hawk judging by its size swooped low just barely grazing the nearest wind vane that squeaked as it twirled off its base. The wings ever long and drawn back, its body too dark that light couldn't reveal its details, yet no beak to see, and only a reflective eye in the dead center of its head. It left the area as quickly as it came heading off towards Canterlot if the sheriff knew his internal compass like the back of his hoof.

Quiet finally blanketed Appleloosa if for but a spell as everypony watched the object disappear into the clear blue sky. Only once it was far enough to no longer identify did the folks resume their scared state of minds, and that was what woke the officer back to his post.

"Ba... ba... baaaa... back to your homes!! Everypony back to your homes!! The beast is dead!!!" he valiantly cried out attempting to harness as many of the deranged ponies as he could, he knew it would be a heck of a long day before it was all over.