Chapter 13: Fear Outside the Forest
Another brilliant flash of light sparked across to the eastern side of the river’s ring. Twilight quickly stood up, shaking her head to clear the minor headache. The professor had landed squarely on his backside on a pile of leaves, whilst poor Luke arrived face-first into a flower bed.
“Sorry, you two,” the unicorn professed shyly. “Perhaps I haven’t got it completely figured out yet.”
“That’s quite alright, Twilight,” the professor was quick to calm the mare’s jangling nerves. “Are you alright, Luke?” The boy in question was busy spitting out loose earth.
“Ugh, I certainly hope that teleportation is a bit more sophisticated all-around than that landing...”
“Manners, Luke.”
“Oh. Sorry, Twilight.” The lavender mare couldn’t help but chuckle at this. However, any sort of hilarity was stopped dead in its tracks by the sight in front of Fluttershy’s cottage. The house itself was perfectly intact, but the bridge leading up the pathway and the railing at the front door had been obliterated, with chunks of wood thrown every which way.
“What happened?!” The unicorn mare was incredulous at the sight.
“It seems,” Layton deduced, “that whoever did this was here for Miss Fluttershy."
“How do you figure?”
“How did this area look when you collected her for the journey to Canterlot?”
“The place was immaculate, but that means that this happened while Fluttershy was away.”
“It is possible that this happened whilst she was here, but highly doubtful.” The professor pressed his hand to his chin in trademark fashion. “What you see here is a product of frustration, most likely by the one who trapped you, Applejack and Rarity.”
A whimper. A very gentle whimper carried on the wind. It was picked up quickly by Luke.
“Hey. That sounds like Fluttershy!”
“She must be around the back,” Twilight figured. “Let’s go!” The trio made their way around the rear of the building. The sight before them wrenched at their hearts. A chicken coop and a couple of hutches lay in ruin, splintered in much the same way as the bridge and the railing. In the middle of the destruction lay a quivering yellow pegasus, hiding beneath her front hooves and light pink mane.
“Fluttershy! Oh my goodness, are you alright?” Twilight galloped urgently to her friend. “Are you hurt?”
“N-n-no...” The pony had been crying. “H-how can somepony be s-so c-c-cr-cruel?” She continued to empty her tear ducts. “All those animals... I-I promised to look after them... and I... l-let them down...” She was nearly inconsolable. The professor turned to his apprentice.
“Luke, I need you to perform a head count of animals for Miss Fluttershy.”
“Yes, Professor!” Luke saluted, before gathering the animals for the task.
Puzzle 035
“Let’s see... I have 3 different types of animals, all with different numbers of legs, and no insects or spiders. I count 31 heads and 76 legs in total. I count 10 chickens, and I can tell that there are more hedgehogs than chickens, although I don’t know how many exactly, as they keep burying their heads for worms. As none of the animals seem to be missing any legs, how many hedgehogs should I have?”
“Hmmm... Aha!” Luke ran back to the others, jotting his numbers on his notepad. At this point, Fluttershy had perked up, thanks once again to Professor Layton’s legendary tea-brewing skill. A weak smile appeared on her face.
“Fluttershy! I did a head count on the animals from the broken hutches. Is this right?” He placed his writing pad at the pegasus’ hooves. She took a glance at the figures and sighed contentedly.
“Yes... thank you, Luke.” Fluttershy got slowly to her hooves. Thank you all. I’m... I’m glad I have you as friends. I really am.” Twilight, the professor and the child allowed themselves a comforting smile. “Oh! I completely forgot about Angel!”
“Angel?” Luke was somewhat perplexed.
“My pet bunny. He means a lot to me...”
“I see,” Layton replied, taking the event in stride. “Would you know where he would have gone in a situation such as this?”
“Well... he would probably have gone to a group of trees he likes on the verge of the Everfree Forest. Hold on a sec.” The mousey mare flapped her wings daintily, carrying herself into her cottage, before returning with a strip of tree bark. “Maybe this will help...”
Puzzle 036
“The scratchings on the bark say:
N-E-S-S-W-W-S-E-S-W-W-W-N-E-E-N-N-W.
“I don’t know how we’ll find him. We don’t even have a starting point. What should we do, Professor? Which tree is he hiding in?”
“We need to think about it deductively. In fact, I think I have my answer already.”
“Really? That’s wonderful.” Fluttershy was as happy as she could be, considering her current situation. “Let’s go find Angel.”
A short walk later, the group stopped at the base of one of the trees.
“Are you sure this is the right one, Professor?” Twilight was a touch sceptical of the man’s reasoning technique. He smiled in return.
“Every puzzle has an answer, Twilight. It is a matter of separating what is important from what is meaningless or what is designed to throw your reasoning. In this case, the path is important, whereas the starting point is revealed at the same time as the answer, making it meaningless.” The animal carer knocked a hoof gently on the trunk.
“Angel! It’s safe to come out now.” This was responded to by a deftly ejected half-carrot from a hole in the tree. If Layton had failed to dodge the volley, his prized hat would have been knocked clean off of his head. “Now, Angel, that’s no way to behave. Come out, before I Stare you out.” The mystery rabbit could sense that something was wrong with his keeper, so he stuck his head out from the gap, looking the strange pale creatures in the eye. He frowned visibly.
“Uh, hello, Angel,” the boy stepped forward. “I’m Luke.” Angel should very little interest in this communicative stranger. He’d spent so many years being able to understand Fluttershy that another animal talker in his life would just be more challenging. Angel promptly pulled out a full carrot and threw it like a dart at Luke’s head.
“Whoa!” the blue-clad youngster exclaimed, avoiding being clobbered by the orange missile by a hair’s breadth. “Angel certainly doesn’t like us! Hold on...” Luke reached into his bag and pulled out a couple of sweet treats for a rabbit to eat. “Here you go, Angel.” The white bunny gave a sniff to this new food, before wolfing down every morsel. He sighed endearingly, before giving a belch most unbecoming.
“I take it you enjoyed that, Angel,” the timid pony observed. Angel nodded frantically, a grin spread across his cheeks. “I’ll have to get the recipe from you. Angel’s a very picky eater from time to time...”
“Of course!” Luke was happy to share her secrets.
“Perhaps another time, Luke,” the professor put slightly deflated Luke’s eagerness. “Take a look at this.” Layton stood over a particular wooden piece that had caught his attention.
“What do you see, Professor?” asked a curious Fluttershy.
“This particular wooden slat is cracked straight down the middle, but the two parts have not completely separated.” Luke looked to his mentor, perplexed as to its relevance.
“What does it mean, Professor?”
“I believe,” Layton resumed, “that it is safe to say that mess was caused by sheer impact or moderate levels of magic. From what Miss Sparkle has told me from her personal experience, if an adult unicorn was to turn to rage, then all you would see here is somewhere between splinters and sawdust, or sub-atoms in Miss Sparkle’s case.”
“So that means all of these hutches were destroyed physically...”
“So far as I can tell. I think we will need a little assistance to repair what has been done. Miss Fluttershy, we shall head into town to get help.”
“Um... okay, I’ll just... go lie down... Earth ponies can’t be that cruel...” The pegasus walked back to her cottage, her dropping mane dragging on the ground as she went.
“Okay, you two,” Twilight prepared herself. “Get ready!” The familiar flash of light illuminated the grisly scene, removing them to Ponyville.
This time around, the professor fared better on landing, legs bent in the proper fashion. Luke, on the other hand, landed on an empty market cart, bouncing on impact before hitting the ground.
“Augggggghhhhhh... Please, Twilight! Please be more careful!”
“Oops... sorry. Again. It must be because you’re not from this world. Hey, look, we’ve landed right outside Town Hall!” Surely enough, there it was, taking pride of place amongst the buildings around it and towering over the square. As they readjusted themselves, they could see a milky-coffee-coloured mare lying on a reclining chair on the porch. The earth pony wore a white collar and what appeared to be a stick of celery hanging where the tie should be. Her hair and mane were two shades of grey, she bore an open scroll as her cutie mark and wore half-moon spectacles, glaring in the sunshine. Upon noticing the commotion, she sat bolt upright.
“I WASN’T SLEEPING!... Oh, hello, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Hello, Miss Mayor, What’re you doing?” Twilight’s voice was of curiosity rather than suspicion.
“Oh, I’ve had such a busy week! My eyes are utterly strained from staring at paperwork for hours on end. Speaking of which, you haven’t come by in the past couple of days.”
“Well, I, uh, I got a little behind in my studies.”
“Uh-huh. Your studies wouldn’t happen to involve these two humans, would they?” This revelation almost bowled the purple unicorn clean off her hooves.
“H-how did you...”
“Know they were humans? Don’t worry, Princess Celestia let me know ahead of time. It saved a lot of confusion from the townsfolk.”
“Oh. Well, we just looking for some ponies to help at Fluttershy’s cottage. Some angry pony went through there and laid some of the animals’ homes to waste. Do you know of anypony around who can help?” From this, the Mayor pressed her right front hoof to her chin.
“I’m afraid I don’t, Twilight. But I do know somepony who can work out who caused it. Just a sec.” The older mare hopped off the recliner and trotted inside the hall. A slightly gruff voice thudded out of the open door.
“This better be important, Miss Mayor. I don’t wanna have to go off on some wild goo-“ The voice stopped as soon as its owner peered out the door. It was not a pony, but a grey donkey. The male was knobbly-kneed, and bore stubble on his muzzle. He had two gleaming blue eyes and a very out-of-place blond hairstyle, swept back to an almost ridiculous height. “Huh. Well, that’s a new one.” He cocked an eyebrow at the upright strangers. “Has Lyra been teaching you to walk?”
“Well, no, but I can see that Lyra has an obsession with us...” The boy retorted
“Luke,” explained Layton, “it does not do well to speak ill of others.”
“S’alright, sir,” the donkey continued, an unmoving expression on his face. “Lyra’s a well-known conspiracy theorist around here. I’ve learned that after only a couple of months, though she wasn’t completely off the mark... Name’s Cranky... Doodle.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr Doodle!” Luke’s seemingly polite response elicited a mildly barbed response.
“Listen, kid. Nopony calls me Doodle. Nopony except my love. Nopony except Matilda.”
“Sorry, Mr Cranky.”
“It’s okay, you didn’t know. I’m the mayor’s personal detective. I guess I had the right credentials.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Cranky. My name is Hershel Layton.” The professor tipped his hat and smiled. “We came into town to find help for Miss Fluttershy.”
“What kind of help?”
“Construction, mainly that of wooden hutches.” Cranky thought to himself for a moment, but an answer made itself apparent, in the form of three airborne fillies. The Cutie Mark Crusaders fell from a nearby building and tumbled head first in the fountain. “A solution to every puzzle, it seems.”
“That’ll do,” Cranky replied to the situation, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll pop home to Matilda first. She makes beautiful cakes, having picked up a few tips from Sugarcube Corner. You should pay a visit sometime. If you’ll excuse me. Good day, Mayor.” With that, Cranky made his way impatiently towards the edge of the forest.
“Does he... seem to remind you of anyone we know, Professor?” Luke posed the question to his mentor. Layton chuckled, also noticing the uncanny resemblance in attitude.
“I’d say that he’s just a moustache away from being mistaken from a certain inspector,” he replied wryly. With that, Luke made his way to the soggy ponies in the fountain.
“Well, there go our cutie marks for free running,” Sweetie Belle was despondent.
“Ugh, I so was so sure,” Scootaloo groaned, picking herself up and straining water from her diminutive wings.
“Excuse me, girls,” Luke spoke into the air of unhappiness.
“Oh, howdy, Mr Luke,” Apple Bloom cheered up slightly at the sight of Luke and Layton. “How kin we help ya?”
“We need your help,” Layton joined his assistant.
“Whaddaya need?”
“Fluttershy’s hutches have been damaged. She needs help rebuilding them. Can you help?” The young lad looked at them with pleading eyes.
“Ah reckon so. Ready, Crusaders?”
“Of course!” Sweetie Belle squeaked. The three roused themselves to a chorus, Twilight covered her ears in preparation and the professor held onto the brim of his hat.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER HUTCH BUILDERS! YAY!” They were off, with a firm gallop between them. Luke’s ears rang loudly, and the Mayor fell off of her chair.
“I think,” Hershel announced, “that we should take Cranky’s advice and visit Sugarcube Corner.”
“I’ll lead the way, Professor.” Twilight took point of the trio leading them towards the town centre, leaving behind the Mayor, settling herself back into a comfortable position on her chair.
“I wish ponies would stop causing such a racket. I’m trying to enjoy the sunshine!”