//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: YogLabs: Quest for the Golden Horseshoe // by Prisoner 24601 //------------------------------// Silvertongue promptly departed, not wishing to stay any closer to his psychotic master. He wondered what sort of army Sriviramen had assembled, but an army of the damned sounded good. He went through the Interdimensional portal, and wound up back at the Altar of Benedictus. But this time, there was a pony standing before him. One with a brown coat, and head and mane shadowed by a dark cloak. "Mister Silvertongue?" The Stallion asked in a dark, mysterious voice. "Yes. You are?" "Names mean nothing." The pony replied with haste, "All you need to know is that I'm a friend." "A friend, eh?" Silvertongue said, "I'm sorry, sir, I'm in no need for a friend at the moment." "I beg to differ, Silver." He said, blocking his path as he tried to escape, "You and me, we're one in the same. The doctor has sent me." "Why?" Silvertongue asked, backing up. "To bring you your army." the mystery stallion said. "Well, then, by all means, lead the way." Silvertongue encouraged. "As you wish." And with that, the cloaked pony turned, and trotted away from the altar, Silvertongue not close behind. ******** After hours of clacking on his keyboard and speaking to it, Jesse finally showed the final product to his companions. It was a YouTube video, entitled: YouTubers Unite! Jesse pressed the spacebar key, and the video played. "Hello there everybody, it's Jesse,"he said, "As you can see, this isn't my home. No. It's quite a long story. You see, I came to this alternate universe through a portal in a Minecraft Server, of which the IP is below. It teleported me here, where I was brought in by these friendly ponies. But I need an army. An army to defend this peaceful race, and to revive my fallen friends, Lewis and Sips of the Yogscast. If you are willing to help, grab anything in your house that can be used as a rudimentary weapon, and enter the portal. We'll be expecting you, Army of the Space Butterfly." "Wow," Simon said, "That's great, Jesse!" "Thanks!" "How many people do you think will answer?" Applejack asked. "Oh, hundreds. Thousands, even, if we're lucky." "Thousands?!" Fluttershy gasped and hid under the podium in the library, "I don't know if I can talk to thousands of people." "Oh, Fluttershy," Sjin chimed in, "I'm sure it'll be fine. They won't be able to keep their hands off of you!" "That's what I'm afraid of." Fluttershy commented. "That being besides the point," Simon continued, "When is it going up?" "In about two hours. The internet here is awful." Jesse answered. "Well, pardon me," AJ said, "But I didn't see any of you gettin' off yer human rears to help!" "Sorry," Jesse said, "But you seemed to have had it handled." "Well, I can tell you one thing:" Applejack said, "If Rainbow were here, she'd have helped. She's loyal like that." Simon now thought through his head everypony in the room. Pinkie, Rarity, and the Fillies had gone home, but still Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen. "Where is Rainbow, anyway?" Everypony looked around the room, looking for their Cyan friend. "I-I'm not sure." Twilight said, "She went after Silvertongue, but hasn't come back yet." "Well, then," Simon said, "We'll have to find her!" ******** As a matter of fact, Rainbow Dash was laying in pain on the path through the forest. Her wing stabbed her with a dagger of agony every time she tried to move, and she feared it may have been broken. She slowly, surely, and painfully crawled down the road, inch by inch, steadily getting closer... and closer... and closer to Ponyville. She felt another stab of trauma as she snapped her neck to the skies, scanning the black and starry night for her house. But she could hardly see the stars themselves. She knew sleep was coming on, but she couldn't let it. If she slept, she would die. She knew it. She desperately hoped somepony, or someone, would come to her aid. Jesse, Sjin, even Simon, would be enough to save her. But she saw no signs of any help coming anytime soon. This wasn't her first injury. She had broken her wing before. Twice, in fact, but this time it hurt more than ever. There was the time her flying exercise went wrong, and she collided with the Earth at about 120 miles an hour, And then the time she was trapped in Ghastly Gorge. It was always her right wing. This one was, too. She looked to her side, expecting to see a vile, and crooked wing. But what she saw was much wore worrying: There was a massive clearing just past the trees to her right, and it was steadily becoming darker, and darker. A wall of shadows was slowly closing in on the Pegasus, but she shook herself awake, in a desperate feud to fight off sleep, and looked again. The darkness had fled, but it was still coming closer by the second. She looked to the skies once more, pain striking her as she did so. The stars were hardly visible now. Shame. They were her only comfort in a steadily darkening world. She looked forward, trying to scan the horizon for her friends, and her vision shortened even further. Darkness soon overtook Ponyville, then the tree line, then the road, and finally, the darkness closed in on her, her eyes shut, and she was taken by the bliss of sleep.