A Strange Creature in Ponyville
Stage 1: Crashdown
It was a normal day in Ponyville, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and there was a light breeze just to stop everypony from getting to hot. Twilight was walking through Ponyville to get to Sugarcube corner to meet up with her friends.
“Isn’t today wonderful, Spike? The fresh air, the warm sun on your mane.” she asked
“Yeah, I suppose.” said Spike
Spike didn’t really want to tag along but when Twilight mentioned that Rarity would be there he practically begged to come, also the allure of sweets and other treats made the temptation too much for him to handle. Spike was just sitting on Twilights back watching ponies go about their daily lives, he waved to a few of them but was mostly just sitting back basking in the sun.
“Well we’re here Spike. Hiya girls!”
Twilight waved to Applejack and Rainbow Dash who were already sitting, waiting at a table they looked over and waved back.
“How y’all doin’?” asked Applejack
“Yeah, took you long enough” said Rainbow
“Rainbow, what is wrong with you today?”
“Nothing, sorry, I’m just SO tired I’ve only had a few hours sleep this week and after what happened this morning well.”
“Why, what’s happened?” asked Twilight taking a seat opposite to Rainbow Dash
“Yeah Rainbow, your one of the coolest ponies I know” said Spike who sat next to Twilight
“ONE of the coolest?”
“Uhh, yes...?” Spike said and chuckled nervously, glancing to Twilight pleadingly; she looked back at him in a “dig yourself out of this one” smirk
“Huh” huffed Rainbow, turning her nose up to Spike. “Well anyway, I’m wanting to tell you when the rest of them get here”
Spike breathed a small sigh of relief and Twilight started to chat to her two friends about their day so far, before long Rarity showed up looking irritated with Pinkie Pie bouncing along side, “What has Pinkie Pie done this time?” was the collective thought at the table.
“Well really Pinkie, do you really think THAT’S how a lady is supposed to act?” Rarity stated “I mean really that was a group of elderly ponies visting from Manehattan for a birthday celebration.”
“But that party needed some livening up, besides I think they liked it” as always Pinkie was in a cheery tone.
“It wasn't a party... UGH never mind, oh hi girls, and Spike.”
Spike had to stop himself from drooling as Rarity gracefully waltzed over to the table and sat down next to him.
“So what was your day like Rarity?” asked Spike
“Slow, not many orders to take care of and Sweetie Belle is away adventuring with her friends.”
“And what about yours Pinkie?”
“Well, first I woke up after having the most wonderful dream about a place called Candy Mountain then I went down stairs
and ……”
Pinkie described every single thing that had happened that morning, in a freaky attention to detail. There were also a few mentions of twitchiness in her tail and in other parts of her body that made all the ponies at the table look at each other worryingly but she assured them that there was no need to worry, there was no twitching now.
An hour past with the friends giggling and talking, but after a while they started to turn their attention to the lack of one of their number, Fluttershy had yet to appear and was starting to worry the group when all of a sudden she showed up, galloping towards them and came screeching to a halt right in front of the table where her friends were sitting.
“WHOA, what's got your mane in a tangle Sugarcube?” asked Applejack
“Oh… sorry I’m late girls but um… all the animals at my home were in hysterics and I just had to calm them down” Fluttershy
was obviously out of breath and panting heavily.
“That’s weird” said Rainbow “Ok, now we’re all here I want to tell you what happened this morning.”
“I was just flying around and clearing the skies but then I was shouted down by two of the royal guards and they started questioning me, they were strange questions like ‘Did I see anything while flying’ and ‘did I feel anything strange while I was up there’ ever since then they have been asking passersby the same questions.”
“That is quite strange” said Twilight “The princess hasn’t told me anything about this, Spike take a note, Dear Princess Celestia...”
she began but before she could say another word there were screams from ponies all across the town square, all of them fixated on something in the sky and all of a sudden the wind picked up into a gale, but it was unnatural.
“WHAT IN THE HAY IS THAT?”
screamed Applejack pointing her hoof at a massive, what looked like a storm cloud in the sky but it was to straight edged to be a cloud but it did kind of looked like a rip in the sky…
“A PORTAL?!” screamed Twilight
“WHAT’S THAT?”
“A PORTAL!”
“AH HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME AH MEANT WHAT IS A PORTAL?”
“IT’S ---.”
Before Twilight could finish, something rocketed out of the tear and as quickly as it appeared it dissipated and left something hurtling towards Ponyville. This only made ponies scream louder, run about faster and before long it smashed the ground and left a trail of destruction from the library to right outside Sugarcube corner, there was smoke, dust and debris all around where the thing had crashed. There were ponies coughing and still screaming everywhere.
“Is everypony ok?” shouted Rarity.
There were shouts and groans of agreement with more coughing and spluttering. As soon as the dust started to clear and everypony was back on their feet, attention turned to the thing that crashed right next to them.
“ugh, this dust is ruining my mane.”
“What do you suppose it is?” asked Applejack
“I don’t know” said Twilight “and to tell you the truth I’m not sure I want to know.”
“But Twi, what if it’s dangerous, I think that ---"
“That’s the point Applejack, it must have been going at some sort of speed to cause that level of destruction behind it, " she pointed a hoof along the wake of shatterd road "and if it’s still intact then, I just don’t know.”
“That’s why we have to investigate, to protect everypony---"
“Every…pony?” said an unfamiliar voice. which then set about moaning, groaning and wimpering.
"And what in tarnation was THAT?" asked Applejack
"You know I said 'what if it's still intact'...."
It took them a while to realise what Twilight meant, this made them all jump back at this realization. The only one who didn’t jump back was Fluttershy who stood wide-eyed at the crater.
“Fluttershy!” whispered Rainbow dash “Come here!”
“I…I can’t.” whispered Fluttershy “T…T…There’s a living being in there and I…I need to help it.”
“Fluttershy, now is not the time to get over your fears, get over here now!”
“I… I can’t.”
She was whimpering as she started to shift towards the crater, her friends were calling after her to come back but she couldn’t stop herself. Before she knew it she was at the edge and was peering in, the dust in and round the crater had yet to dissipate and it was hard to see her hoof in front of her face, still Fluttershy knew she must press on after all what kind of pony would she be if she let a poor innocent creature die like this.
Through the haze she caught a glimpse of something moving and approached cautiously, the closer she got the more of the thing she could see, it looked normal enough from this distance, even though, she appoched even more slowly, whatever it was she didn’t want to startle it into making a rash decision that might involve violence, she nearly had a heart attack when she heard one of her friends call her name.
“FLUTTERSHY!” It sounded like Twilight “ARE YOU OK?”
Calming her nerves she said just loud enough to hear “Yes, I’m fine, could you be quite please I don’t want to startle this creature.”
After a minute she began walking forwards again, but stopped almost immediately when she heard her name a second time.
“F....fl....flutershy?”
This was different though, it sounded weaker, more croaky, but closer. “It must be the creature” she thought
“Y…yes, thats my name, w... what's yours?” she said to it out loud.
Almost immediately she heard sobbing and a shout that nearly drove her back into the protection of her friends
“IT WORKED, IT… IT WORKED” there was a little bit of laughter but then there was sobbing again.
“Oh… it’s ok d…don’t cry”
“it worked.....it worked......it worked” laughing and sobbing in equal measure
The creature was a lot quieter and Fluttershy was almost on top of it, now she could make out features of it's body aswell. They all semed out somehow, the hind legs (or what she ASSUMED were hind legs) were longer than the average ponies and the hooves were misshapen, being longer agian. The forelegs were even WEIDER, shorter tjan the hind legs but the hooves again were mishapen, this time with what looked like claws but without the sharpnes, they were just cylindrical. With all the animals Fluttershy had seen, befriended and studied she had never even heard of a creature like this. What had happened to this poor thing?
Hovering over it now Fluttershy breathed "What manner of creature are you?"
Hearing this the creature shakily moved it's forleg and it's 'claws-that-weren't-claws' reaching out to her and said "hu...man"
It looked at her with deep, tearful, gray eyes, smiled weekly and colapsed unconscious leaving a very confused Fluttershy staring, processing what just happened.
Stage 2: Close to the Chest
Stage 2: Close to the Chest
Still in shock over what just happened, Fluttershy could only stand and stare at the animal before her eyes, after a moment she shook it off and began to think about what to do next. It looked quite badly hurt, but not as bad as one might expect having fallen from so far up and so fast. Mainly cuts and bruises, still, there were deep wounds and more than a few broken bones she assumed.
“What did you call yourself?” she asked. “Hugh Mon? That’s a strange name, ok Hugh I’m going to take a look at some of your injuries, is that ok?”
The creature was still out cold, looking like it might be in that state for a while, Fluttershy inched closer. Not wanting to shock the animal in front of her, she carefully placed her front hooves onto one of its hind legs and applied a small amount of pressure.
“Good, that legs not broken.” She whispered
She did the same to the other “Oh my, looks like this leg is, ok let’s check the forelegs” again whispering.
Fluttershy continued to check all over the creature’s body, the damage was fairly severe, the right shoulder was broken, a couple of ribs were fractured, the left foreleg was smashed from the elbow down and it had suffered deep gashes all over. She was just checking the creature’s neck for any signs of spinal injury when she saw something move out of the corner on her eye. A strange white substance was moving up the creature’s body, starting from the misshaped hooves and working its way up. Fluttershy could only look in horror as the, whatever it was enveloped the creature.
“Don’t worry,” whispered a voice “it’ll be ok…”
Fluttershy turned her head to find the animal looking at her smiling and stroking her mane with a bloody “claw”, jumping back she looked on as the fluid rolled across the creature’s body, it had reached its torso and before long only the head wasn’t covered.
“Before I go,” the creature breathed, obviously in pain, “please don’t tell anyone about what you have seen of me, no one must know. Please prom---“
Before it had a chance to finish the creature’s head was devoured by the liquid, now having completely enveloped the creature, the fluid changed colours to a light gray and shattered. Fragments of the creatures “cocoon”, as best Fluttershy could describe, quickly turned to dust and drifted off.
“I…I…I promise.” Fluttershy said as she inched forwards again to where the creature was once laid and saw… something; it looked like a pile of ash, black as night and iridescent.
“What is that?” Fluttershy questioned and moved an inquisitive hoof towards the object.
Like if it was driven by the sound of her voice, the pile moved and let out a soft whimper and started to cry. It wasn’t a pile of ash but a foal, a unicorn foal with its horn broken. Almost without thinking Fluttershy scooped it up.
“Shhh, hush hush now it’s ok.” Holding the foal close to her chest she crooned to it “its ok now, don’t worry.”
“Fltsy, Flusy.” It whimpered over and over again.
“But what happened to that creature?” she thought, but pushed it back instead concentrating on the matter at hoof. The young pony stopped whimpering and fell asleep in her arms and her heart melted at the sight, Fluttershy started to gently fly out of the dust cloud she was in and head back to her friends. As she was leaving there was a flash of purple light and the dust around her quickly disappeared into the air, before her she could see all of her friends standing looking at Princess Celestia apparently locked in an argument with Rainbow Dash with Luna observing the hostilities.
“I don’t care what you think I’m going in there after her and you can’t---” She looked around and saw Fluttershy flying into view.
“I told you she would be alright.” said Celestia “You must always have faith in your friends.”
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow screamed flying over to meet her, but stopped suddenly when she saw that Fluttershy was carrying something “What in Equestria is that?” pointing to the thing she was holding.
“Well... it’s… um a foal” Fluttershy said “well a unicorn foal to be precise.”
Almost instantly, a barrage of questions was launched from all angles at Fluttershy, some asking if she was ok, others asking what happened in there but most asked if she knew how such a young pony managed to crash land in the middle of Ponyville and survive.
“Enough” yelled Fluttershy provoking a soft squeak from the child next to her chest, which quickly subsided. “I…I don’t know anything all I know is that there was s…something in there that needed my help, and then I found this” nodding to the foal. Fluttershy started welling up at having to shout at her friends but it was the only way to get them to stop.
“S…sorry.”
“No, were the ones who should be sorry, bombarding you with so many questions at once” said Applejack “now let’s take a look at that young'un”
Applejack, Twilight and the rest of the group started to walk towards Fluttershy, looking at the bundle in her forelegs.
“Stop,” Commanded Celestia, making everypony freeze in place. “Could you let me have a look at it first?”
“Y…yes of course princess”
Celestia’s horn started to glow and she very carefully began to levitate the small unicorn into the air, making sure not to wake it. Slowly examining and studying it for what seemed like hours Celestia let out a small sigh.
Fluttershy was the first to speak “What, what’s wrong? Is something wrong with---?”
“No, that’s the problem.” said Celestia
“How can that be a problem?” asked Twilight
“I can’t find anything wrong with a foal that fell from such a height up in the sky and was travelling at a fast enough speed to leave such a massive wake of destruction.” She pointed towards the damage “Don’t you think that’s a bit strange that he should escape with nothing more than a broken horn?”
“He?” Squeaked Fluttershy
“Yes, it’s a little colt, but please Fluttershy, did you happen to see anything else?”
After being asked that question, Fluttershy could only remember what had happened with ‘Hugh’ being covered in a cocoon like substance and then apparently disintegrating… The realisation hit her like a train, the creature hadn’t disintegrated but had transformed, into the foal she held in her arms and now was hovering in the air, suspended by the princess’s magic. “What do I tell them?” she thought to herself “He asked me not to say but… I… I---”
“Fluttershy, are you bleeding?” asked Luna
“W… what?” Looking down she could see a bloodstain that was slowly spreading on her chest where she was holding the foal, his horn must have cut her, “Oh, my... i’m sorry.”
“For what, it’s not your fault.” Said Rainbow “I think it would be best if we took Fluttershy to the doctors to have that treated”
“Very well, then I will take this young colt back with me to Canterlot.” Said Celestia “Canterlot has better medical facilities and this way I will be able to—“
“No…” said a barely audible voice “I…want…flutsy”
“What was that?”
Only Fluttershy new whose voice that was, after all she was the only one who had heard it before. She knew who it was but was frozen, unable to talk “w…why is it asking for me? Is it because I found him? Helped him?” she asked herself
“I WANT FLUTTERSHY!”
With this screech what was left of the little unicorn’s horn started to glow and almost instantaneously he started to fall, having nullified the princess’s magic. Everypony was frozen on the spot gawking at what just happened except for Fluttershy, she moved faster than she ever thought she could and caught him a split second before he hit the ground. Whatever the little creature had done obviously used up what little energy it had left and slumped into Fluttershy’s forelegs. At first she thought he had died, using its last bit of energy in an attempt to get back to her, the sound of an animal whimpering in pain had never filled Fluttershy with such relief before.
“Well looks like I better leave him with you then, I don’t want to risk that again.” Said Celestia
“Huh?” asked Fluttershy looking up at her “A… are you sure?”
“Yes I am, he asked for you and you responded. I think that makes you the perfect protector.”
“Yeah Fluttershy, you’re like the most responsible pony I know” said Rainbow
“I would have to agree,” added Twilight “now let’s get someone to take a look at that cut of yours.”
“And get this little guy checked out.” Said Fluttershy
“Of course!” began Pinkie “Then we can throw a WELCOME PARTY!!!”
Laughing, Fluttershy, with the little bundle in hoof, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Spike left to pay a visit to Horse MD. Once they were out of earshot Princess Celestia tuned to her younger sister.
“Luna, why did you stop me from questioning her?”
“Because she didn’t know how to answer, she saw something but doesn’t want to tell any of us.”
Luna was now by the crater looking inquisitively at something; slowly she started to levitate it out of the wreckage of what was once a street. It looked like a blackened lump of charcoal but as she picked it up it began to glow slightly, a dim purple light.
“What’s that?” asked Celesta “Let me see it.”
“First tell me what you found on that foal.” Luna said moving the light behind her back “I know you found something, you can’t be my sister without me picking up a tell or two."
“OK, look that foal isn’t just a unicorn, it’s an Alicorn. Now hoof over that lump!”
“What? Ok here is, but an Alicorn? Are you sure, it didn’t look like it had wings!”
“There’s no doubt, its wings have been “clipped” as it were; Easy to miss, if you weren’t looking for them or anything strange.”
Taking the lump of strange light from her sister’s telekinesis spell into her own, both Luna and Celestia made off for Canterlot in an effort to understand what happened that day.
