//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Trekking Through the Towers - 1/2 // Story: The War of the Equestrian First Reign // by Creative Charmer //------------------------------// Everyone marched around the ruins of the Equestrian sentry posts, searching around for anything they could "learn" from. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were probing the area around one of the fallen posts, and not finding much of anything. "So what exactly are we supposed to be looking for?" Rainbow asked out loud. "Anything that looks like something to learn from, I guess" Applejack responded. Rainbow dash let out a heft sigh. This whole trip was not feeling so "cool" anymore, as to Rainbow Dash: digging through a bunch of debris did not have as nearly as high "cool" levels as talking about the military history of the sentry posts. She wanted to see the posts being used as they were in the past, but it was obvious that nopony was going to find that here anymore. Applejack and Rainbow Dash had now moved from outside the fallen tower to underneath it, as the housing part of the tower had fallen on a nearby rock formation, wedging itself between a higher and lower boulder, and now both of the boulders were propping up the building and keeping it from touching the actual ground. As they explored further, Applejack noticed a large chunk of wood buried within the sand, and she promptly began digging it out. Because of her disinterest with this excavation, Rainbow did not want to take part in the actual excavating part. She was more in favor of taking it easy, and decided to just sit back and relax. "Well, let me know if you find something," Rainbow landed on a mound of sand several feet behind Applejack. "I'll be waiting right here for you," she said as she laid herself down on her back and shut her eyes. Applejack ceased her digging and looked back at Rainbow Dash, bothered by her exclusion of herself from doing any actual work. She wanted a way to teach the pegasus a lesson about slacking off, and it was then that she noticed a trickle of sound coming out of a crack in the tower, and this spot was located right over Rainbow Dash. From this Applejack got a good, but kind of sinister, idea. Applejack first found a small rock, and placed it on the ground in the right spot. She then turned around so her back was facing Rainbow Dash, and with a single, sturdy buck, Applejack punted the rock straight at the crack in the tower, which, upon being struck, the weakened wood immediately gave away and an hefty downpour of sand poured out of the hole and right onto Rainbow Dash, completely covering her. Not long afterwards, Rainbow Dash's head burst out of the top of the pile of sand she was now surrounded by, and she let out a few coughs. Applejack trotted over to Rainbow Dash. "So, did yah learn somethin'?" she asked smugly as Rainbow Dash looked back at her irritatingly. ~~~ Spike ambled his way through the ruins of the sentry posts, with Pinkie Pie hopping along with him in her usual, gleeful self. Spike appeared to be getting worn-out from the constant trekking in the hot desert fun, but Pinkie Pie was doing perfectly fine—as if she was immune to the harsh effects of nature: not getting hot or tired, and just staying with her usual appearance of jollity. Seeing her as happy as she usually was bugged Spike to the point where he had to know her method of beating the heat. "Pinkie, aren't you getting hot at all?" he asked her. "Sure! But I'm thinking about too much other stuff to think about being hot!" she responded joyfully. "And which stuff is that?" "Oh, the usual stuff! Cakes, candy, Gummy, my friends, parties, hopping, clouds, fluffy stuff, trees, grass, sand, the sun, parties again..." "You're thinking about the desert and that doesn't make you hot?" Spike asked in disbelief. "Of course! Thinking about the desert doesn't make me feel hot! Only thinking about feeling hot would make me feel hot! Why would it work any other way?" she then trotted away smiling, as Spike followed her—trying in futility to understand the words that came out of Pinkie' Pie's mouth. ~~~ "Exactly how long must we be here?" Rarity complained to Fluttershy as she wiped some sweat from her brow. The two of them had been walking together for some time now, and neither of them had yet to discover anything capable of learning from. "Well, Twilight didn't say we were supposed to be here any certain amount of time..." "Well, I don't feel that I am accomplishing anything by just walking around and looking at these silly towers. I mean, what is the real importance of being here now that Twilight has already explained everything we needed to know earlier? Didn't that seem like enough to satisfy a normal pony?" Fluttershy paused for a moment. "...yes, well—Twilight isn't a normal pony," a look of fear suddenly draped across Fluttershy's face. "Oh, please don't tell her I said that! She might take it the wrong way!" "Oh, don't fret so much, Fluttershy. You know Twilight isn't the kind to lose her temper over that sort of thing." "Yeah, she only loses her temper over anything having to do with tests and studying," Fluttershy then chuckled, and Rarity did a bit of tittering herself. But then, Fluttershy felt yet another pang of panic strike through her very being. "Oh! Please don't tell her I said that, either!" she pleaded as she grasped Rarity, who just sighed in response. ~~~ Out of everyone on this expedition, the only one who seemed to be learning anything at all was Twilight, since she was not only making the most effort to gain knowledge about the sentry posts, but also she knew the right conduct in which to learn, which her friends did not. Twilight had began her search on the sentry post she had teleported to the top of earlier. She walked inside the building that rested atop the tower, and commenced in her perusing of the many old and decaying objects that lay within the building's many rooms. She used the flashlight spell to aid in her search, shining a beam of light from her horn to gain a better view of everything around her. One factor that was clear to Twilight immediately was that there was not one corner of the building that was not a total mess. Chairs and desks were overturned, pieces of broken wood lie splintered amongst the floor, and weapons of all sorts were scattered all around—some broken, and some not. However, even as fascinating as this was for Twilight, she had yet to discover anything of personal interest to herself, she continued her search throughout the edifice. After passing through to another room, Twilight's light had uncovered something that greatly pleased Twilight: scrolls. Dozens and dozens of aged scrolls were lying in various places inside this area. There were scrolls sitting on top of tables, sticking out of open drawers, and even lying unrolled upon the floor. "Look at all these ancient scrolls," Twilight stated as she advanced further into the room. "I had no idea the military ponies kept such a full archive of information in these sentry posts—and I can't wait to read them all!" she hooted excitedly. There were many various assortments of these scrolls, and Twilight was so thrilled over this treasure trove of documents she did not know where to begin. Ultimately, Twilight chose to begin with a scroll that was located on a table adjacent to her, because she could not discern what was contained in each parchment, and decided it would be best to just start with the scroll closest to her vicinity. Picking up the scrolls with her magic, Twilight floated the parchment nearer to her face to examine it. Upon her initial inspection, Twilight saw the scroll to be covered with dust, deeming it to be in unfit conditions for her to read. Knowing this diminutive dilemma was simple to resolve, Twilight moved the scroll closer to her mouth, took a breath, and blew off the dust coating the paper. Unfortunately and unexpectedly, though, after Twilight blew the dust off the scroll, the paper on the scroll disintegrated into dust itself, leaving only the roller on which it was attached. Twilight stood motionless in her astonishment over this new occurrence. "...well, I can't say I thought these would be in pristine condition," she admitted, not very discouraged with this predicament. Twilight then looked over at the other scrolls lying on the table, and pondered if their physical condition was equivalent to the scroll she had. Seeing this as something that required testing, Twilight moved over to the table, took a deep breath, and blew on all of the scrolls, and the paper bound to each scroll crumbled into powder just the same. "Hmm..." Twilight thought. "This is a bit discouraging. I was really looking forward to studying these ancient scrolls. Oh, well," Twilight then placed the scroll handle on the table with the others. Afterwards, Twilight turned to leave, but halted momentarily, using her magic to align the scroll handles so they would look more organized, after which she left the room. Having exited the building, Twilight looked around at her surroundings. "I don't feel that I had much to study in there," she gave a sigh of disappointment. "Maybe I should go see how the others are faring. Hopefully they're all having more fun than I am right now."