Author's Note

Hello everybody!

I honestly felt that this chapter gave me the most difficulty, I just couldn't find a good entrance, and even now I think it has some pretty weak points. It honestly could be better in an edit, but for now, this shall do. Though I have to admit, this might be my most weakest chapter. I hope to improve things in the future though. It's just that it was hard to tackle this. I think I redid this chapter three times.

I think more interesting scenes should come in the future. But right now it's just developing the beginning which is getting me. But that's how a good story starts off good. The beginning. I hope the last part makes sense as does the entirety of this chapter. Might end up slowing down production speed so that I can have more time organizing the chapters. Cause I felt this chapter was the most messy one.

If you guys have any tips, tell them to me. Like if a chapter could/should be split in two and expanded, grammar and story errors, etc.

Thank you for all of your support! We hit 110 likes right now! Let's keep soaring through the skies!

リ𝙹ʖ𝙹↸||

Chapter 4: Nobody

“We’ve arrived at Ponyville. Enjoy your stay, happen, Princess!”

As the conductor waved them off the train before pulling away from the station, Twilight Sparkle and her friends began to survey their surroundings. Ponyville, the town that they had called home for years, appeared empty. Tumbleweeds bounced through the deserted streets, and a cold drift of air swept through the land.

“What happened here?” Twilight asked out loud, feeling a sense of dread. The party of six began to walk through the main street, the only sound being silence.

“Maybe everybody’s waiting to host a party for us!” Pinkie Pie said enthusiastically, bouncing alongside her friends while holding up a cyan balloon. “I hope whoever planned the party did it well! Do you think it will be Cheese Sandwich? It’d be so fun to see him again!” The pink mare had a grin that stretched from ear to ear. Nobody commented on how Pinkie Pie seemed to be crushing on the party stallion. Given the current atmosphere they were in, there was no time to open a discussion about it. The air just felt… wrong to them. Almost foreign, as if something very corrupted and dark had occurred in their home.

Then, they felt and heard the noise.

• Commence (1) “But Nobody Came” Creepy Ambient Remix (13+) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzO_W6mgzA&t=22s&ab_channel=NickNitro

The eerie silence, the lack of life, the feeling of desperation, and the faint whisper of a line of words they couldn’t hear, all of it along other things swept through their minds, causing the six to freeze instantly, literally for Pinkie as she was frozen midair in one of her jumps.

“I’m scared…” Fluttershy whispered in fright, her body trembling as their pace began to drastically slow down. Their bodies pressed against each other, to make sure nothing crept behind them. Rainbow and Applejack had their fists ready to punch while Rarity and Twilight had their magic prepared.

“Girls, if something bad occurs, we’ll have to work together. Our magic reservoirs are still weak after the magical feedback, and we don’t know how physically strong this potential threat can be. So everypony, keep your guard up.” Twilight said out loud, a hint of fear in her voice. Rainbow Dash grinned at her though.

“Don’t worry Twi! I think I alone can handle the threat, and with all of us combined, nothing can stop us!” The cyan pegasi said, lifting Twilight’s hand in the air as a sign of victory. The Princess of Friendship smiled as she lowered her hand.

“Thanks Rainbow. I just want to take precautions, that’s all.” Twilight said before she suddenly felt as if she bumped into somebody. Her body immediately stepped back, which left her knocking into her friends and causing all of them to fall onto the hard ground. When Twilight looked up, all she could see was a masked figure staring right down at her. The eyes of the painted face turned red as the static only increased in sound. It was becoming louder, louder, even louder as the figure began to shorten the distance between them. Her body suddenly tense up, her mind was going into a frenzy. Fear, just unexplainable fear, controlled every fiber of her body. The thought of dying suddenly passed through her head, it was nearly crippling. She closed her eyes, expecting the worst.

Then, before what she feared could occur, the sounds suddenly vanished, along with the presence of being stared down. Opening up her eyes, she realized that the figure, he was just gone. Disappeared without a trace. Twilight immediately lifted herself, just in time to hear her friends groaning in pain as they began to rise.

“Ugh… my head… what just happened?” Applejack asked, her cowboy hat having tipped in front of her face. She soon fixed it before helping Rarity up by grabbing her by the arm.

“T-Thanks darling… I… I don’t know what happened… but… it felt terrifying!” The white unicorn exclaimed, her body shaking in fear. Fluttershy wasn’t in a better condition compared to her, her body completely frozen in fear, making her unable to get up. It wasn’t until Rarity began to softly tap her shoulder when Fluttershy began to respond, and even then she had trouble rising. She spoke no words, her face showed no expression. “Fluttershy, anything wrong?” Rarity asked, looking worried at their shy pegasi friend. Suddenly they heard Rainbow Dash yelling for them.

“Girls! Come here quick!” Rainbow Dash yelled out, flying in the air with her wings. Twilight and the rest immediately raced towards the speedster as Rainbow Dash continued to guide them through the town, through the narrow streets, until they eventually reached their destination. And immediately the rest let out gasps of fear and terror, as Twilight could only mutter a few words out loud.

“Oh… my… “

The purple alicorn was too shocked to even finish her sentence, shock gripping her soul as she looked in front and saw three of her former friendship students laying on the ground, their bodies twitching from time to time, but otherwise, their bodies showed no signs of life. Immediately Twilight rushed towards the nearest one, who was Gallus, and began to furiously try and jolt him conscious again.

“Gallus! Can you hear me!? It’s me! Twilight!” The Princess of Friendship yelled as she began to shake his body, softly slapping his face from time to time, and opening up his eyelids, only to gain no response. With the minor exception of his chest lifting and lower from time to time, which signaled his breathing, he would’ve otherwise passed off as dead.

“Any responses from the other two?” Applejack asked as she began to inspect Sandbar’s fallen body. Rainbow Dash, who was looking over Smolder, shook her head.

“Nothing. Other than some soft breaths and random twitching… I… I don’t know what happened!” Rainbow yelled out, flapping her wings as she began to lift herself into the air. “The only one who could do something like this would be King Sombra and his fear spell, and I don’t see any shadows. Heck, I don’t see any figure leaving this-”

Rainbow’s voice suddenly cut itself off as something clicked in her mind. Applejack and the rest looked at her with worry as her hands began to shake, forming into fists. A snarl appeared on her face as she began to float herself down, still in the air though, as if she was ready to take off.

“Rainbow! Did you figure out something?” The cowgirl asked the Wonderbolt member, who suddenly looked at her with a serious expression.

“It was him,” Rainbow said with a single sentence of silent anger.

“You mean the Mr. Masked Figure we saw before?” Pinkie Pie asked, looking up to Rainbow Dash. The cyan pegasi simply nodded silently.

Applejack suddenly pulled Rainbow towards the ground with a lasso, causing her to grunt in confusion as she tried to escape.

“Hey! What gives!?” Rainbow Dash yelled as she tried to escape from the tied piece of rope around her, but Applejack persisted in keeping her on the ground.

“I know that look! You were about to go after him weren’t you?” The cowgirl said, pulling as hard as she could, as Rainbow began to flap her wings fiercely, wind blowing into AJ’s face.

“Obviously! He hurt our friends! Look at them! They looked as if life had been sucked out of them! He needs to pay! He’s the threat! He’s the anomaly!” Rainbow yelled, her wings now flapping hard enough to reach a speed of a hundred miles if she was unbounded by the orange mare holding her.

“And he nearly knocked us off when we first came here! And he was going easy on us! If you go alone he can do the same thing he did to you, and we wouldn’t know where you’d be! What if you encounter him in the Everfree Forest and he knocks you out! You’d be at the mercy of all the creatures of the forest! I can’t let you leave and risk having you being eaten by a Timberwolf! Rainbow stop please!” Applejack yelled fiercely. Rainbow continued to struggle, but upon processing what her friend had said, her wings began to slow down, until she ultimately stayed on the ground, remaining silent.

“Twilight! What just happened!?” A new voice yelled out. The group of six friends turned around and saw a light purple unicorn with a dark purple mane approaching them at a fast pace. She wore a purple dress and had a set of glasses in front of her face. She looked at them with a face of worry, as she glanced towards the fallen students. Behind them were the familiar faces of Silverstream, Yona, and Ocellus, who went around her, before freezing and releasing gasps of shock as they saw their friends on the floor.

“Sandbar!”

“Gallus!”

“Smolder!”

The three girls tried to rush towards their fallen friends, but the light purple alicorn swiftly used her magic to hold them in place.

“Girls! You can’t go near them, otherwise you might hurt them.” The mare said, her eyes remaining fixed on Twilight, who sighed.

“Hey Starlight… I think it’s safe to say it would’ve been better to see each other in better circumstances…” The Princess of Friendship stated. The mare in question nodded solemnly.

“I heard what Silverstream, Yona, and Ocellus had to say. There was a brawl here, between a masked figure and three other creatures. Sandbar, Smolder, and Gallus stayed behind to see what would occur next, while these girls next to me went to find me to report what occurred. Soon after though… we heard a scream… I don’t know what occurred apart from what they told me, but seeing their friends on the ground… it was nothing good.” Starlight said, which made the ruler of Equestria shiver.

“Would murder fall into ‘nothing good’ or ‘extremely bad’?” Rainbow Dash asked, causing the rest to stare silently at her as Rainbow pointed towards something on the ground, a liquid that was spreading down the slope.

Blood.

“I… I think it doesn’t take a genius to guess what occurred to the three figures the students are mentioning.” Rainbow said, which prompted Twilight to tentatively ask the most logical question.

“Then… where are the bodies?” Twilight asked, which caused Rainbow’s eyes to dart around, looking for any sign of a blood trail, but finding none.

“I… I don’t know… but point is, things were violent enough for blood to be drawn. And… oh dear look at Gallus’s neck.” Rainbow said with a shocked face as she pointed at Gallus’s neck. A visible line of blood was slowly dripping from his neck, and immediately Twilight and Starlight cast their magic to make three stretchers.

“Hospital. Now.” Twilight ordered, her voice trembling. All of them who were present began to prop Smolder, Gallus, and Sandbar onto the stretchers, before carrying them away. “We need to give them medical treatment, fast. Especially to Gallus. We don’t know how deep that wound is. And for all we know… he could be… let’s not say that word right now…” Twilight said with dread. All she knew was that whoever was behind the masked face must be the culprit, otherwise, who would be?

Twilight began to think about the other villains she and her friends had faced in the path. Discord, the God of Chaos, was dangerous not because he killed, but because his chaotic actions simply caused mayhem. He just wanted to have fun, like an energetic child, without consequences, only that there was such a thing as consequences from them, but he didn’t realize it. If somebody stood in his way, he simply swayed them away, made a joke, maybe corrupt them, but never explicitly hurt them. Nightmare Moon was more brutal, attacking her sister, wanting to make the night eternal, trying to attack Twilight and such. But given the circumstances, everything can be passed off as desperation. Both Celestia and Twilight were obstacles to gaining what she thought would occur, adoration, by making the night eternal. Such action, if it ever did occur, would bring the horrible fate of the world slowly dying from hunger and coldness. But apparently, she never realized this, and if she did, she only cared about the ‘adoration’ she got from those near her. ‘The Ends Do Not Justify the Means’ is something Twilight began to realize when it came to each villain, but in the end, they always never went towards that final step. Chrysalis wanted to conquer Equestria because she wanted to gain love for her citizens to feed on, and when the Changelings changed, she was enraged because the ancient traditions of her kind were wiped and replaced by Equestrian ones. However, for the most part, she simply trapped ponies, she never killed them. Tirek was betrayed by his brother when he tried to impress his father by trying to take over the nation, and while he did attack brutally, he did so because his opponent was as strong as he was. It was just him and Twilight, and if anybody stood in their way, welp it was their fault if they got blown up. Any deaths would’ve been indirect and accidental in his case. Cozy Glow had misinterpreted what friendship was and given that she was a child, she couldn’t do much apart from manipulate everything. King Sombra, the worst when it comes to enslaving the Crystal Empire and trying to rule Equestria, did just that. Enslave. Nothing else. He used fear to sway others, and it seemed like he never killed. Pony of Shadows? Yeah, he just wanted recognition by the Pillars who misjudged him, and again, a youngster. Starlight? Misguided.

Twilight soon realized that unless she was missing key information, every single one of the villains they faced never killed anypony. Ever. They did some horrible stuff but never killed. Her friends could’ve been killed by the Legion of Doom when they were captured, but they never did. They just imprisoned them.

The mysterious masked figure though, scared Twilight. He showed no mercy and no hesitation to kill anybody. He was dangerous. He already killed three supposedly, knocked down her students, and nearly attacked them as well. Why didn’t he do the same thing to them as he did to the others? Hiding behind a mask certainly didn’t help him, as it all made it clearer that he was hiding something.

And with that something clicked into Twilight as she continued to haul the students on their stretchers. Something that she knew was dangerous, but if nothing else was done, worse could occur.

He needed to go to Tartarus.