Chapter 4
The Wicked Beginning
I woke up next to Fluttershy's warm body, my wing still draped over her in comfort. I slowly retracted the wing and put it back at my side as I got up to go see how early it was. I looked outside the window to see that it was still pretty dark. Damn, though! Luna had done a hell of a job that night. She must take some real pride in such good craftsmanship. Not the point. I slowly and quietly opened the door, grabbed my obsidian scythe, put it on my back and flew out so I could patrol the area in search of any of those Shadow Forms roving around. It must have been 10 minutes before I heard a scream from Sugarcube Corner.
I did a nosedive straight to the front door of the large building, coming to a quick halt in front of it. I kicked down the door to see a shadow version of Mr. Cake making an advance on Mrs. Cake with a knife held in his mouth. The real Mr. Cake was petrified in fear, standing in the corner with the inability to do anything except for watch his wife get cut up by the Shadow Form of himself…
Not while I'm around!
I dove in-between the two and whipped out my obsidian scythe, smacking the Lost Soul in the jaw with the iron rod. The Shadow Form of Mr. Cake hit the wall, almost going through it, and then started trying to get up. I quickly swiped the blade at his torso, but he jumped out of the way and sliced a cut into my left back leg. I gritted my teeth at the pain and swung my blade in a full circle, slicing the fake Cake in two. The Shadow Form's body hit the ground and simply dissipated into thin air. Mrs. Cake let out a sigh of relief, but Mr. Cake was still scared stiff in the corner of the room.
Mrs. Cake spoke up while I slowly panted. "Thank you so much! You saved my life!"
"It's nothing" I panted. "Just be careful." I flew out the door as fast as I possibly could to get back to my patrolling. I flew gently around the town as the sun rose out from under the horizon. I was a little busy looking at the sunrise to notice a call of help from below me. After a minute, I finally heard it. It was Derpy and her little sister Dinky being cornered by two Shadow Forms of… themselves.
I flew down at a 90 degree angle until I quickly changed directions and whipped out my scythe to assault the Shadow Forms from behind. I made a huge baseball swing and lopped off the Dinky Form's back legs and one of the Derpy Form's forelegs. I came to a halt and casually walked up to the fallen and helpless Derpy Form. "Oh, I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?" I asked sarcastically. SHING! Its head came off without resistance. "There! That ought to take care of the pain!" I flew off again, looking back to see Derpy and Dinky waving happily. I smiled back at the two, then proceeded on my patrol.
At around midday, I decided to see how the blacksmith was doing with that gun. I walked in to see a bunch of freshly made bullets strung around the place… they didn't look right though. "I'm trying! I just can't seem to get them right! I'm sorry!" he yelled out, somehow knowing it was me.
I walked over to the table to see a bunch of ammo that looked like it was pretty close to usable. "You're getting close" I said.
"Close don't mean jack shit!" he huffed. He pulled something out of the hot coals and said "There! I've finally found out how to make these fuckin' things!" He turned to me. "Wait until tomorrow and I'll have more of these turned out for you."
"Okay, thanks!" I replied. I turned and flew out the door to go back and see how Fluttershy was doing. I walked in to see that she was done with all the stuff she had to do for that day. Now she was just kind of sitting there. "Hey 'Shy!" I greeted her. "Sorry I was gone this morning. How's your day been?"
"Fine, thanks!" she responded, delighted to see me. "How is your day so far?"
"Fine" I said. "I saved some people from Shadow Forms early this morning, but that's about all that was interesting.
"You're so brave" Fluttershy told me, blushing slightly. "I could never do anything like that."
"Have you forgotten?" I chuckled. "You saved my sorry, helpless ass from Nightmare!"
"Well, that was-"
"Hey, there's no excuse for that!" I smiled. "You're brave, you just can't control when you are."
"I… I guess…" she muttered. We continued talking until the sun started to gently float behind the trees of the Everfree Forest.
It was getting to be about 6:30 or 7:00 (from a raw estimate) when Savior knocked on the door, having learned from last time that I don't like him barging into Fluttershy's home. We called him to come in and he complied. He stood right in front of the doorway as the door closed behind him. "I heard you saved some ponies from Shadow Forms this morning."
"Damn Straight!" I proudly announced. "Why?"
"I was just coming to make sure it wasn't some stupid rumor you started to make yourself look good" he sighed, almost rolling his eyes at the thought.
"Hello, I resent that" I said, annoyed.
"Dick," he muttered. "Anyway, I think you should do a patrol like that every morning from now on. It may help save ponies' lives like it did today."
"Sure" I agreed.
"Okay, I'm gonna go now" he stated, turning and walking out.
Suddenly, a feeling started tugging at the back of my head, telling me to go to the bathroom mirror. "I'll be right back" I told 'Shy. "I gotta go to the bathroom." I walked in, closed the door behind me and quietly rapped on the mirror. "Bo, what do you want?!"
"Calm down, Reaper" he sighed. "I got the info you wanted."
"Thank you!" I said, letting out a sigh of relief.
"Although, this won't make you very happy" he mumbled. "Look, here. The mountain you need to go into is located in the Everfree Forest. It should be at the center of it. Now, I know they took Sweetie Belle, and they took her, and now Scootaloo as well, to the heart of that mountain. They need three children to power these… orb thingies in order to summon more Lost Souls. That's the mountain where the blood sacrifice will be. The Lost Souls will kidnap Applebloom tomorrow, and there's nothing anypony can do about it, even if you wanted too. That means all we can do is prepare ourselves, then invade that temple and rescue the three fillies. Also, that blood sacrifice has to be from somepony "closely associated with the Nightmare himself." Last, but certainly not least, you've still got plenty of time to prepare yourselves, but Lost Souls will start stacking up in a week or two, so I advise you get ready pretty soon."
"Okay, thanks for finding all that out for us Bo" I thanked him once again. "I really appreciate it."
"Whatever saves your ass" he laughed. I walked back out of the bathroom and sat back down next to 'Shy. She looked tired, which was how I felt too. She looked at me and asked me "why is all this stuff happening?"
"I wish I knew 'Shy" I answered. "I really wish I knew."
The next morning was about the same as the one that came before it. A few Shadow Forms on the loose here and there, but nothing too serious. Rainbow Dash had a Shadow Form of Spitfire chasing after her (oh the painful amounts of irony) and Bon Bon was being tortured by a Shadow Form of Lyra (hey look! More irony!). Other than that, there wasn't much that happened. I also handled it easily and quickly, and like the day before, I headed to the blacksmith at about midday. He was finally done with the ammo he had made. He apparently was able to buy gunpowder off of a pyrotechnics expert (and I thought my purpose was pretty weird) and that was how he had gotten the gunpowder. He gave me all the ammo for free, since he didn't know if the ammo would fuck up the gun or not. It helped, especially since we now had a weapon to give to Savior.
I flew to Twilight's tree with the rifle slung onto my back. I came to a gentle stop at the front door of the house. I grabbed the rifle off my back and tapped on the door using the butt of the gun. He opened it to see me holding a big ol' rifle, which in the case of us both being ponies, must have been pretty damn weird. Regardless, he accepted the rifle with open arms, as well as the info that Bo had given me. We just needed a little bit more of a game plan. Other than that, we would be good.
That night passed like the one before as well. Me and Fluttershy passed a lot of the time talking, but she also wanted to know exactly what was going to happen with this whole situation.
"I ain't no fortune teller" I laughed. "I don't know how it's gonna go, but it'll hopefully end pretty well. We just need to go in there with at least a slight idea of what we're gonna do."
"Oh, okay" she withdrew. "I'm sorry I brought it up."
"You're adorable when you apologize, you know that?" I said, laughing a little.
She blushed and hid behind her mane. "Well… uh…"
"I'm sorry" I apologized (god, so much irony). "Let's change the subject to something a little less touchy." We kept talking until we both got tired. She wanted to sleep in her bed that night, so I just curled up on the sofa and fell asleep quietly after we said our goodnights. The next morning came all too quickly with the beginning of it being Savior knocking at the door. I opened it, rubbing my eyes at the sight of the familiar bright-green colt.
"We have a problem" he said straight out. "Applebloom is missing."
I stood there for a moment… I only responded with one thing…
"I know."
Chapter name based off of the song "The Wicked End" by Avenged Sevenfold
