As the intrepid explorer made her way through the jungle, she marveled at all the natural wonders. Plants of such vibrant colors grew everywhere, and unknown creatures buzzed, squawked, and chirped all around her. The heat and humidity would have compelled a lesser adventurer to turn back and go home, but no such thought ever crossed the mind of the brave, shrewd, and all-around awesome Rainbow Dash.
Admittedly, Dash had chosen to trek the jungle primarily to emulate her literary idol, Daring Do. Despite the vast number of unknowns about her situation, Rainbow's spirits were high, she was out in the wilderness and a real-life adventure awaited. She continued with her fantasynovel narration,
All of a sudden, our hero was jumped by a ragtag band, no, an entire platoon of undead temple guards!
"You think you scare me? Come and get me then! Take that! And that! And that!
Rainbow continued her epic battle against the imaginary assailants, will all sorts of punches, kicks, and dive-bombs. They responded by drawing their swords. She picked a stick off the ground and wielded it like a sabre, giving it a flourishing spin,
"You're all going down! Hwa! Get back!"
One of them tried a sneak attack, but Rainbow effortlessly parried and struck her own blow!
Suddenly, the noise of a small creature interrupted her thoughts. Dash froze with embarrassment when she saw a wild Cherrim high up in a tree, derisively laughing at her theatrics.
"You got something to say?" called Dash "why don't you come down and say it to my face?"
Cherrim blew a raspberry, and shut its petals like a set of blinds.
"Jerk" muttered Rainbow Dash.
A loud clap of thunder rang out, and a huge downpour started instantly, drenching the pegasus in seconds.
"Perfect" she groaned. She ducked under a tree branch for cover, but it did little good, the rain was too strong.
"You know what?" she said to nopony in particular, "to heck with regulations! I can't take this right now." She flew up into the dark clouds and began kicking away at them. But to her great surprise, the clouds didn't part an inch. Instead, every time she stuck her hoof into a cloud, it was like there was nothing there, like the cloud was just a thick fog. Rainbow Dash screamed in frustration and lowered herself back down to the ground. Her stomach growled. In her fury she kicked a nearby tree, causing a ripe mango to fall from its branches.
Excitedly, Rainbow Dash flew up to the top where dozens of bunches of ripe mangoes were hanging.
"TROOOOOOOOOOPE!" A brontosaurus Pokemon with huge fern leaves growing out of its back glared right into Rainbow Dash's eyes.
"I saw them first! Get your own!" snorted Rainbow Dash against her better judgement; this Pokemon was gigantic, and could probably crush her underfoot. But she was hungry and hardly in a diplomatic mood.
"TROPIUS!!!" the Pokemon swung its long neck at Rainbow Dash, but she dodged swiftly to the side.
"I'll wrestle you for the tree" offered Dash boldly.
"TROOOOOOOOOOOPE!"
Rainbow Dash opened with a diving kick, which Tropius swatted away with its fern leaf. Rainbow Dash hit the ground hard, but the rainwater softened it up enough to cushion her. Tropius charged at her, but Rainbow deftly dodged by sliding under its legs. Confused, the Pokemon kept running and slammed into a tree headfirst. It grimaced at the pain, but pushed itself back onto its feet. It began flapping its leaves whipping up a huge gust of wind.
"Hey! What the...?" exclaimed Dash as she was blown backwards. She beat her wings furiously, stabilizing herself before the wind forced her down. Sensing a moment of weakness, Tropius charged again, but Rainbow shot up into the sky.
"Too slow!" she taunted. Tropius started whipping its leaves again, and Rainbow Dash braced herself for another gust. But instead of attacking, the Pokemon began to rise into the air.
"You can fly too? No way!" exclaimed Dash. Tropius barreled at her, going at much faster speeds than it could with its legs. Rainbow dodged again, but only just, she could feel one of Tropius' wings graze her feathers. She couldn't risk taking another tackle, but Tropius was too strong to fight with brute force. She racked her brains for options, and finally something came to her.
"Hey Tropius!" she called, "I love your wind attack! It's like a gentle spring breeze!"
"TROPIUS!!!!"
"You're so weak, you couldn't blow out a birthday candle!"
"TROOOOOOOOOOOOPE!" roared the Pokemon indignantly. It hovered in place and began flapping its wings furiously. Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes and focused on the target. Compared to the weather she faced on the job, this wind and rain was nothing, she told herself. She took off quick as lightning, and with her hoof extended, aimed right for Tropius' exposed belly, landing a devastating punch to the gut. The winded Tropius recoiled in pain, and Rainbow seized the opportunty, grabbing it around the waist and shooting downwards, suplexing it into the ground.
"Had enough?" asked Rainbow Dash boastfully. Tropius struggled to its feet, and began trudging away. Rainbow Dash was about to hurl one more insult, but a different thought occurred to her.
"Hey!" she called to the Pokemon. She snapped a branch of mangoes off the tree and threw to the despondent Pokemon. "But if you tell any of your friends that I'm going soft, you'll be sorry!" she warned.
Gleeful from victory, Rainbow Dash began picking fruit off the branches. Before long, she had gathered a large stack at the base of the tree. As she flew back up for another round, she heard crunching noises coming from her mango stack. She went back down to investigate, and saw a purple gremlin-like Pokemon helping itself to one of her mangoes.
"Sableye, dear!" came a familiar voice from below, "where ever have you run off to?"
"Sup Rarity!" called Rainbow Dash.
"Finally I've found you" said Rarity, emerging from the brush, her mane completely soaked from the rain and full of leaves. "I heard that awful racket, and knew you must be close."
"You forget your raincoat?" jested Dash
"It has been difficult to adjust to not having certain," she sighed, "creature comforts. But I found an empty cave, it is better than sleeping in the rain, marginally. It will be dark soon, shall we be off?"
The two ponies and one Pokemon grabbed as much fruit as they could carry, and Rarity led them to their shelter.
The inside of the cave was chilly, but a relief nonetheless. Rarity had built a fire and was heating her bamboo rod over it.
"Herbal tea?" offered Rarity,
"Isn't that the flare Twilight gave you?" asked Rainbow Dash
"It was" said Rarity, "but it got soaked in the rain, as did the matches. I don't think they'll work anymore"
Rainbow Dash pulled out her own flare and matches, and indeed, they were dripping wet too. The flare had soaked through, and was now holding water. The powdered sugar had dissolved, and the mixture inside was now a sticky sludge. She dumped out the contents, and held the tube outside the cave threshold to wash it out, three times for good measure.
"Sure, why not? I'll have some tea." She never much cared for the taste, but the warmth was welcome. Rarity tipped her ad-hoc cup into Rainbow's, but her hoof slipped, and the liquid fell onto the fire, quenching it with a loud hiss.
"Great" moaned Rainbow Dash, "alright, I got this." She fished around the fire pit for the two least wet & charred sticks, and began rubbing them together frustratedly
"Rainbow, you needn't do that, I have a faster way. Sableye, use Will-of-the-Wisp!"
Sableye formed a blue flame with its hands and hurled it into the fire pit. Within seconds, they had a roaring fire again.
"Whoa! That was awesome! How'd you figure out he could do that?"
"Little Sableye used that move to fend off a wild Sandile. I didn't know what it was called, but I figured that the blue flame was either a blowtorch or a fairy light, and he doesn't look like a welder to me" she remarked, proud of her accomplishment.
"Sableye has proven quite a worthy travel companion," she continued, "I don't know how he does it, but he just runs off and brings back all sorts of lovely treasures. Oh and there he goes again," said Rarity amiably as Sableye took off into the cave. "He is such a talented scavenger. He found the tea leaves, some dry sticks, and..." she took her saddlebag and turned it upside down excitedly. A variety of sparkling gems and stones spilled out.
"Neat" said Rainbow Dash, "but shouldn't you be carrying food or water or something more useful?"
"We'll hit Pallet town eventually, and when we do we'll need money, This one should be worth a massage," she pointed to a sapphire, "And this one will get me a fresh hooficure. Ooh, and this one is for some new formal wear...."
"I hope you don't expect me to help carry those" said Rainbow Dash, facehoofing.
"Sableye!" The Pokemon had returned with a plain looking stone.
"I thought he brought you treasures" sneered Rainbow Dash.
"Don't be rude" said Rarity indignantly, "if he brought it back, it must have some sort of importance. Look, there's some sort of shape on it."
Rainbow took a closer look at the rock, and indeed, embedded in the stone was an egg shape with a ring around it. It was too smooth to have been caused by erosion.
"I think you should apologize to my Pokemon, Rainbow Dash."
"Seriously?" Rarity shot a glare in response
"Ok" she sighed, "Sableye, I'm sorry for saying your treasure wasn't good."
Sableye smiled, and pushed the rock into Rainbow Dash's hooves
"Umm, thank you" said Dash, trying to feign gratitude, "this... rock is super cool, and I'll... treasure it for ever and ever!" She halfheartedly dropped it into her saddlebag.
"Why don't we get some rest now, and in the morning, you can take a crack at clearing away the rainclouds." suggested Rarity.
"Yeah about that... I already tried. I couldn't get them to move."
"Oh dear" said Rarity, "and I thought I had troubles, I couldn't find any gems with my magic. Say, do you think it has to do with what Twilight mentioned about there being less magic in the world?"
"I dunno, can we save the heady stuff for the morning?"
*****
If the swamp was scary during the day, it was nothing compared to night. Fluttershy and Masquerain continued their journey north, using the North Star as guidance.
"J-just giggle at the ghosties" sang Fluttershy softly and nervously, "guffle at the.. um, grosslies." Fluttershy heard a twig snapping, and jumped about a mile
Masquerain cuddled close to her, trying its best to offer comfort.
"It was probably nothing" said Fluttershy reassuringly, more to herself than her Pokemon.
"guffaw at the spookies." The bushes rustled, but she continued, "whoop it... with the weepies."
"Aaaaaaaaaaand tell that big dumb scary thing to takeahikeeandleaveyoualonebecauseifhethinkshecanscareyou..."
"Pinkie!" said Fluttershy elated, as her friend popped out of the bushes, completing her song. Totodile danced and sang along with her, far from on-key but in the spirit nonentheless.
"I'm so, so proud of you for remembering to use my song!" praised Pinkie, patting Fluttershy on the head.
"Thanks?" said Fluttershy bashfully.
"I'm so glad we found each other! It wasn't much of a party with just me and Gummy 2. I've been telling him all about my friends, and he couldn't wait to meet you!"
"I'm glad too," replied Fluttershy, "I wish we hadn't split up in the first palce."
"You know what I love?" asked Pinkie, "Mint-chocolate ice cream. I loooooove mint chocolate ice cream so much I could eat it every day. But that's the weird thing. When I don't eat it every day, it tastes even better."
"You're right Pinkie. Friends need a break from each other sometimes, but that time apart makes the bond stronger. That's a really good metaphor."
"What's a metaphor?"
"Never mind. Where are we going to camp?"
"How about right here?" asked Pinkie, dropping onto her back, the grass is super soft, adn we've got a great view of the stars!"
"B-but there are scary Pokemon everywhere! I nearly got eaten by a dr-dr-dagon!" stuttered Fluttershy.
"Our Pokemon will stand guard and protect us, won't you?" she asked Totodile and Masquerain. The two of them saluted in response.
"Auntie Pinkie's gonna protect you Fluttershy, don't you worry." Fluttershy ignored the patronizing, she was grateful for the company, and genuinely felt safer with Pinkie Pie. She took one last admiring look at the two Pokemon standing vigilantly beside her, and lay down on the ground, drifting off to sleep.