Ponyville Ghostbusters Chapter 1
Ponyville Ghostbusters: Chapter 1
1100 years ago
The great General stood tall, watching his troops fight bravely against the ghostly enemies. His gold and blue uniform was covered in a transparent substance that had the same consistency as water but with a lighter blue tint. The Willowers had waged this war against them, and he would never rest until he and his fellow Equestrians had shown these bloodless abominations who truly ruled this land and that they would never stop defending it! He stood his ground as he was abruptly charged by three of them, he squinted his eyes to see them better. These things could drain their own colors and blend with things around them. The superstitious ponies called the Willowers ghosts because you couldn't touch them when they were like this, but the general knew that there had to be another explanation. The General did not believe in ghosts, what he did believe in was his pride in his country.
The Willowers were on the General now, he waited patiently while holding his ground. He knew that the Willowers had to be visible to attack. He squinted to see their outlines and waited for his move to strike. He heard a snap behind him. "General behind you!" shouted his second in command. But the General had already sprang into action, he popped up his flank and his leg muscles rippled as he bucked the enemy that was sneaking up ready to attack him. The Willower was hit hard and he flew right into the path of the unicorn archers. But this skirmish wasn't over yet, the General recovered and drew his sword. The sword was his prized possession, the golden hilt was fit with Sapphires that spelled out the name of his beautiful and darling wife. With the Willowers mere feet away now, he had no time to think. He roared as he reared his sword to the side and brought it upon the three enemies with a slash that sank through all three of them. Everything was so hectic, ponies shouting out for help that he couldn't give in his current situation, unicorns using magic to throw the Willowers, and pegasi dropping light sheets of snow over the invisible creatures. The General wasn't thinking correctly with all of this going on, and never once realized that his foes were still in stealth mode. They instantly turned visible, and prepared their attack knowing that he would never be able to recover in time to counter. He braced himself for an attack.
He watched as his second in command and greatest friend bulldozed the enemies with his horn. They were taken by surprise, the General took this time to jump up and ready himself for another strike, but the foes fled as they noticed four pegasi hovering above them holding a very heavy boulder ready to drop as soon as they were clear of the General.
"Are you alright Saltash?" asked the unicorn.
"I'm fine lieutenant Toss." replied the great General. "Toss you have been a great friend to me for five years now, I've owed you my life a few times now, and I will not let these monsters take yours away from you!" he finished valiantly.
"Thank you sir." said Toss, a glimmer forming in the corner of his eye.
"Fight bravely Toss."
The General turned around before Toss even knew what was going on and in a full gallop, headed towards the enemies front lines with no fear screaming, "For Celestia! For Luna! For Equestria!". He broke through the forces and began hacking and slashing left and right. Toss watched as his general was drenched in what looked like rain and kicked enemies in all directions. The General fought with fate on his side, but Toss watched in horror as everything went wrong in an instant. As the General thrust his sword in a stabbing motion into a Willower, it turned invisible to avoid the hit, and it worked just in time. But the General's sword shattered as it make forceful contact with a large boulder the Willower was backed up against. The General spun around ready to incapacitate a few and make it out of there to get a new weapon. But when he turned around, there were upwards of forty enemies surrounding him. He was outmatched and outsmarted. He turned his head to look at Toss and smiled knowingly to his friend. Toss looked at the face of his General and beloved friend, although it was stained with the watery life force of the Willowers, he could see tears. "General Dreadnaught! NOOOOO!" screamed Toss helplessly as all at once the enemies made a jump at the good General. Toss and General Dreadnaughts whole platoon of thirty ponies ran to aid their leader. Toss could barely see, the wind stung his eyes, he had never ran so fast. He didn't think about the torrent of enemies he was about to face or the extreme probability of death in doing this, the only thing he could think was that he knew he was too late to save Saltash.
The Equestrians fought hard over the next few days in their all out war and finally drove the Willowers out of their land. There were thousands of casualties on both sides. The battlefield was a very sad place to be. But the day after the war was over, Lieutenant Toss had commissioned a statue be erected in honor of their lost general. Under any other circumstances, he would have been denied, but it's hard to refuse when thousands of ponies agreed with him. Toss wanted it built as a memorial to those they had lost and to the bravery and loyalty that the General instilled in everypony. Working nonstop, the construction of the statue took only three days.
Toss stood in front of the statue. It rested on top of a hill overlooking the battlefield. Worker poneis were clearing away the dead and digging huge holes to put the Willowers. The statue was so lifelike for bronze, Toss could swear he saw the shine of pride in its eyes as it stood overlooking the landscape. He looked to the base where he read the inscribed words aloud,
"General Saltash Dreadnaught: Guardian of the Fallen"
Toss had chosen these words very carefully, for years and years to come, ponies would know of the greatness of his most beloved friend. Toss reached forward to touch the hilt of the sword on the statues side, it was the only part of the statue that wasn't bronze, it was the actual golden hilt fitted with Sapphires. He heard sobs from behind him and turned around to see a crying woman. He walked over to her.
"I am so sorry Stell." he said as he walked over and hugged the grieving widow.
"Thank you Toss, you've always been a great friend." she squeaked out in between powerful sobs.
"If there's anything I can do..." he started.
"Toss, you've done so much. I just wish I had a chance to tell him..."
"Tell him what?"
It was at that point he noticed something. Stell was putting on quite a bit of weight. He waited for her to answer the question, but then it hit him. He looked at her knowingly and just held her while she cried. Stell Dreadnaught was with child. There was a very small twinkle in the statues eye when everypony looked away.
Present Day
It was the eyes. The eyes that saw things that others did not. They perpetually faced north, never blinking and never shifting their deep gaze. Even now the eyes saw something in the night, it was different from what they usually saw. Equestria didn't know it, but these eyes needed to stay open, always, the eyes can never look away from their vantage point on the hill. If they did, all hell would break loose. On a hill, in front of a large mansion, perched the statue of General Saltash Dreadnaught, always watching over ponyville, keeping it safe. The statue watched, never blinking as a pony wearing a changeling mask with a hole in the forehead where a horn jutted out, and black clothing snuck up to it. This pony seemed very interested in the statue. The pony touched the hilt of the Generals sword and muttered something incomprehensible. The pony looked long and hard at the statue, absorbing every detail of it, the Equestrian General uniform, the stature, and the hilt. The pony took out a big black bag, and for the first time in eleven hundred years, the eyes of the statue were closed.
Sharp Edgington yawned as he woke up from a good nights sleep. He stretched from what seemed like the ceiling to the floor as he sat up and brushed down his ash colored mane with his hoof. He looked around the room he had seen hundreds of times before, but something felt different. The green walls he had seen so many times seemed darker, but the color was the same. He got up and dressed in his finest black silk suit that was handmade in fillydelphia, it just so happened to look great against his midnight blue fur, and strode out into the hallway. He let his wife sleep, she had looked so peaceful and beautiful lying in the bed.
As he walked down the long corridors to the kitchen, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye, he looked down the corridor this one branched off into and he could have swore he saw the flank of a gray pony rounding the corner. This was odd, no gray ponies lived here. He brushed it off as a trick of the mind, Must just be little Timothy, he thought. As he passed a window, he saw a few of his employees who lived in the mansion with him and his wife, running around frantically searching for something. He was so distracted by this, he walked straight into somepony, he had known this mare for many years.
"Annie dear, what is all the commotion about?"
"Sir Edgington," she said hesitantly, "it's the Generals statue."
"What about it dear?"
"Sir, it's gone."
"What!" he shouted.
"One of the butlers noticed it this morning when he went to go admire it like he does every morning."
This was bad. Sharp had heard stories passed down from generation to generation about what would happen if the guardian of the fallen was ever removed. But of course they had to just be made up myths...right? He ran outside to see this for himself.
Sharp could see up the hill before he even reached the point where the statue was supposed to be, it was true, it wasn't there. Someone must have stolen it! But who, and why would they want to steal something from the history of the Willowar? He reached the top of the hill, and looked at the empty air where the great General Dreadnaught once stood tall. All that was there now was a perfectly rectangular patch of dirt...and a smaller white rectangle. Sharp bent down to pick it up, it was a card, he read it to himself. It was indeed a robbery, he would call the police right away.
"I am anyone. Your Guardian of the Fallen, has fallen." the policepony read aloud as he looked at the card. The only other thing on it besides those words was a picture of a changelings face. Sharp was looking around for any signs of suspicious activity while the police took a loot around the crime scene.
"I don't want to press charges against whoever stole it, it just has to be back here."
"We understand Mr. Edgington, we will hop to it and get every available hoof on the case."
Sharp could swear he was seeing shimmers in the air. Either he was actually seeing this, or it was just his knowledge of the myth making him paranoid.
"Officer, do you see shimmers in the air?"
The officer looked up.
"I see some heat shimmers Mr. Edgington. It is pretty hot outside today. Mr. Edgington, I understand that you want the statue back, but you make it seem like something terrible is going to happen, why is that?"
Sharp looked around and realized that there were more ponies there then there should have been. Some were in police uniforms, but others were wearing the gold and blue uniforms of the royal guard. The uniforms were sort of faded. He spotted one wearing the Lieutenant stripe and decided to go see why they were here. But as he got closer, he saw something that he didn't see before. Not only was the uniform faded, but so was the pony! Sharp gasped, he could see right through him. He tried to tap the lieutenant on the shoulder, but his hoof just passed through. Sharp looked in horror, it was true, all of it! The myths, the legends, everything. He backed up so far that he bumped into the officer who was still waiting for him to answer the question, it was apparent he didn't see what just happened.
Sharp and the policepony stood and watched as one of the royal guard members came running down the hill, his uniform was torn and ragged. He ran to the pony sharp had just backed away from.
"Lieutenant Toss!" he yelled, "The Willower army is beginning to amass on the outskirts of the battlefield in the Everfree forest!"
"Well soldier, you had best get ready for the battle of your life. Have you seen the General?"
"Sir, no sir. The last I saw of him was on top of Breeze Hill."
"Well gather up some troops and go search for him, we need our General back! Attack any enemy that gets in your way."
"Yes sir!" he saluted.
As the newcomer turned to leave, about 20 creatures appeared out of thin air and began advancing on the nearby guards. The creatures just appeared where Sharp saw the shimmers. He knew there was something going on.
"Willower scouts! Ambush!" shouted Lieutenant Toss.
"Evasive Manuevers men, drive them back!"
Sharps heart almost stopped as ponies and Willowers began running and flying around fighting one another. Toss had thrown one of them close to the policepony. It stood up and took a long look at the officer.
"Where is your general" he said. His voice sounded like broken glass crunching under sand paper.
"I...uh.."
The creature reared back to attack the officer. But a pegasus of the royal guard ghosts grabbed it and quickly flew high into the air. It didn't dare go into stealth mode, for fear of what might happen. Sharp and the officer tried to run but were stopped by the guards who threw them to the ground, their eyes glowing red.
"Where is the General!" one screamed.
"We don't know!" Sharp shouted back, his voice shaky.
"We're pushing them back!" yelled Toss.
The two ponies looked up and charged at the group of Willowers who were running away from the battleground. They became invisible, but they could still be seen, it was almost as if they had all of a sudden put on camouflage suits. They were hidden, but if you looked hard enough, you could see them. The royal guards ran them off of the grounds and then regrouped.
"Men, the enemy are probably getting ready to attack at any moment, we must find the General so we can fight this war."
"Yes sir!" replied every voice.
"Storm the battlefield and any outlying areas, assume anything not dressed in Gold and Blue is an enemy."
Sharp heard and saw this, but he just couldn't believe it. Ponyville, everyone knew, was built on the battlefield in which the Willowar took place. They were going to storm Ponyville in search of the statue and the Willowers were gathering in the Everfree Forest for an attack on Equestria. He became ever more scared as the group of royal guards charged directly at him and the officer. The ghosts reached them but didn't stop, in fact, they ran right through them both. They turned around and watched as they faded away right in front of their eyes on the flat landscape barely fifty feet away.
Sharp looked over to the officer who was stiff as a board. It was obvious that he was extremely scared. He was too, but this was no time for tomfoolery, something needed to be done. He turned back around when he heard his front door open. His wife stepped out of the house and began walking towards them. She was tall and beautiful, with silvery fur and a hunter green mane. She was dressed in an elegant purple silk dress she had bought in town. The hem billowed behind her as she walked.
"What's all the commotion about dear?"
Sharp turned to the officer.
"Could you please fill her in? I need to go make a call."
"Certainly sir, but might I ask something?"
"Yes officer?"
"Who you gonna call?"
Sharp looked at him for a second, then up to the hill where the statue was supposed to be, then he shifted his gaze to Ponyville, and finally he looked the officer dead in the eyes with a very grim look on his face.
"The only people I know who can help us. Ghostbusters."
