//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: Water Break 
// Story: Shadow Boxer 
// by commander sweetie belle 
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If Lyra had hands, she would give two thumbs up to ICantThinkOfAName. Thanks for editing this chapter.

                                                                                                                                        


I started coughing violently when I got splashed in the face; my entire body hurt. I grabbed at the warm mud I was laying in, struggling to move, my fingers broke into the soft ground. I felt so weak,  I barely got my head out of the water before I felt pain shoot through my back and down my right arm. The sudden shock made me take in a sharp breath of air as I winced. 

Deciding to just lay there, I opened my eyes to find out where I was. Luckily, thick clouds were rolling in, blocking the sun from hitting my eyes. But it was still hard to see as I tried to blink. When my vision cleared I could see that I was lying in a pocket of water that shot off from a smoothly flowing river. 

As I continued to look around, I noticed tufts of smoke over the treetops. I watched the smoke for a bit in the distance, as I tried to think why it gave me a feeling of urgency.

Like flipping on a light switch, All at once everything clicked and I remembered everything that just happened. Being sold as a pet, the building with the smoke coming out of the top, the other humans in the cages, and ponies. 

I looked down at my arm; the flesh was burned off in a pattern that looked like a blooming rose bud, as if there was never any skin there at all. I didn’t even want to think about what my back looked like. “The ponies did this to me,” I mentally say. “They may look cute and friendly, but they’re monsters.”

“They’ll be after me soon I’m sure, I need to get out of here,” I think as I pull my knees under me and push myself up. I had to ignore the pain as much as I could for now. Hopefully most of the ponies will stop to help the ones I hurt before coming after me. I didn’t want to be around when they started looking, though.

Getting to my feet I stumbled away from the river. I didn’t get far before I felt my burns starting to sting, I tried to ignore it as the pain continued to grow. But I never felt anything like this before; sure, I burned my hand cooking once or twice, but this was something new altogether. Finally the burning on my arm and back were too much and I had to run back to the water, trying not to trip as I lowered myself into the cold, soothing river.

I looked around for the bag with my things, but didn’t see it anywhere. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s gone. I can’t believe that I had it with me this long with all the crap I dealt with these last, what, two days. “Oh well, it’s not like I could put any of it on with my back like this.”

Every time I try to get out of the water my burns act up, so I decide that the best thing I can do is stay in the river and go down stream. Mostly because I don’t have the energy to try and swim upstream and the river is running at a calm but steady pace, so it should do most of the work for me. So I pull myself into the main stream of the river and let the current take me.

I can’t reach the bottom when I’m in the middle of the river so I stay a little over to the side so I can walk almost fully up right. I find out that if I try and float I don’t have to do much, just give a little jump every now and then because my Gi pants absorbed too much water and is weighing me down just a little. 

As I make my way down the river, the sun started hitting my back, causing it to burn even though I was in the water. I look up to see that the clouds from before have stopped moving altogether. “Why does the universe hate me so much?” I whine to myself.  “It’s not like I ran over its dog or something.”

There were some trees that hung over the river, so I quickly made my way over to the shade for protection. Just as I’m about to make it under the tree, I see a shadow dance over the surface of the water. I quickly look up and see a pegasus flying overhead. “It’s far enough up, maybe it didn’t see me yet.” I think, as I quickly try and blend in with the shadows.

It swoops down just a little upstream, looking back and forth. When it got close to the tree I was hiding under, I held my breath. Now I realize that was a bad idea, knowing that eventually I would have to breathe, making even more noise than if I just kept calm. But I still did it. It was something that, even though I knew in my mind was bad, stopping myself from doing it was a different story.

I took a silent breath and sunk deeper into the shadowy water. The Pegasus flew just past me, before another one that I didn’t see coming showed up and started talking. “Find anything?”

“No,” the first Pegasus said. “It’s like after going crazy he just disappeared into thin air.”

“Okay. I don’t think anypony else has had any other luck.” said the second to the first. “Oh well, if it’s as dangerous as everypony at the work shop says it is, then maybe it’s better if we don’t find it.”

The first one looked shocked at that, “We can’t just leave it out in the wild though …can we?”

“It’s not our problem, so I don’t see why not, let’s just finish moving this storm in and get back to the others.” said the second.

“Okay I guess.” said the first, before both of them flow away from where they were. 

I waited for as long as I could before I burst up out of the water, gasping for air. I quickly put a hand over my mouth hoping that they didn’t hear that, but after a few seconds they didn’t come back so I figured that I was clear.

It didn’t take long before the rain started to fall, it was weird, the pegasi started moving the clouds together with their hooves. I was worried they were going to have to stay with the storm, but once it started going, it became self-sufficient and the ponies left. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but enough that if I would have been back at home I would have stayed inside.

Home, it was the first time I thought about it sense I got sucked into this crazy adventure. It’s ironic, when I was back home I always dreamed about going on epic adventures, where I would have to fight to save some poor soul and become a hero. Now I was the poor soul, and I didn’t feel like a hero. 

I have been slowly going down the river for a while. The sun was starting to set over the mountains and my skin was all wrinkly at this point. “I need to get out of the water.” I think to myself, then make my way over to the bank of the river and pull myself out of the water. With the sun going down the temperature started to drop, and with the rain my burns didn’t act up. So I went under a tree and set down. 

As I set there in the rain, I started to cry softly to myself. I just wanted to go home, where the world didn’t hate me.

Out of nowhere I remembered a story one of my masters told me:




A young boy traveled cross japan to the school of a famous martial artist. When he arrived at the dojo he was given an audience by the sensei.
“What do you wish from me?” the master asked.
“I wish to be your student and become the finest karateka in the land.” the boy replied. “How long must I study?”
“Ten years at least.” the master answered.
“Ten years is a long time,” said the boy. “What if I studied twice as hard as all your other students?”
“Twenty years.” replied the master.
“Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?”
“Thirty years.” was the master’s reply.
“How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will take longer?” the boy asked.
“The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the way.”




I don’t know why my brain works like this, but sometimes I remember the weirdest things. I laugh to myself as I think about this, “Sensei’s not even from Japan, he’s from California.”] I think to myself. But the story did help me know what I need to do. If I only think about getting home then I know I’m going to do something stupid, but if I find a way to role with the punches, then maybe I can figure something out.

If only for the time, I finally felt some determination that I was going to get through this. With that I found a tree and leaned my good shoulder on it as I tried to get some sleep.


~~~~><~~~~


I didn’t get much sleep; it felt like every ten minutes something bumped my burns waking me. And with the sun coming up the summer air started to burn again. So I got back into the river and started making my way downstream again.

As I floated along the sun started to hit my back again, no matter how I turned it always found a way to get me. Eventually the river started to go into a forest; the tree line just stopped like something was holding it back. But it blocked the sun and that is all I cared about right now.

Only a half a mile in, the forest turned on me. The trees stopped feeling like a saving sunblock and took on a menacing feel to it. It felt like things where watching me from the sides of the river, making me try to stay in the middle as far from the banks as possible. 

As I looked in between the trees, I swear I could see packs of dogs following me, only to see that the ferocious looking shapes where only pieces of wood. Sometimes I even did a double take when I thought I notice some of the dog shaped trees moving to keep up with me. But whatever it was, it was staying out of the water, so I was going to make sure to stay in.

The river started to narrow up ahead, for some reason I just felt… exposed at that point. The river only had one way to go though so I thought that if I just try and get through it fast that I should be okay. 

When I made it to the narrower part of the river I didn’t know what to think when the trees started to run along with me. I looked over to see that the trees where walking like a pack of wolfs lining both sides of the river. Their eyes glowed a sickly yellow and I could smell this horrible stench as they started to howl and snarl at me. I got the feeling that even as puppies no one would want to have one near them, and I was no exception.

I could hardly move, let alone try and fight off wooden wolves. Suddenly they all looked up, before running off with their tail in between their legs. Leaving everything still and calm where I was. “That can’t be good.” I think, before the water started to circle around me.  Forming a ring that was just longer then I could reach. 

The water around me started to rise, before giant purple scales broke out of the water. The scales rapped around picking up not only me but the whole pocket of water around me. As I was swept up I looked to where it was taking me to see the face of a purple sea monster, bigger than most of the trees around it, it had long well-kept dirty blond hair. It also had a mustache, half of which was the same color as its hair while the other half was purple.

“I’m going to die.” 

It opened its massive jaws, then I heard it speak, “Well hello there, and what’s a human doing out here in the Everfree all by yourself?” 

I just looked up at it with a confused look, I could even feel my left eye twitching. And then it happened.  Inward crazy panic.  A jumble of thoughts!  A cornucopia of mental chaos erupted from within!  I’m going to list out the insanity rather than try to translate how it actually went

The monster is talking to me?

Why does it sound like that?

Everfree is that what this place is called?

What’s wrong with its voice?

It hasn’t eaten me yet, cool!

Seriously what’s with that voice!? Is it gay or something? Do they even make gay sea monsters?
What am I thinking, you don’t MAKE sea monsters. 

As I float there paralyzed by my own mind, it said “Oh this is just amazing! I didn’t think humans could swim.” as it lifts me over to the side of the river with its tail. I was still in shock when it let go of me, so I wasn’t ready for the drop. When I hit the floor I landed on my back, making me scream before quickly rolling over.

“Oh my, you pore thing your hurt! Don’t worry my little human, I know somepony that can help.” the serpent said, before putting its fingers to its lips and letting out a loud whistle. 

I was trying to crawl away when it wasn’t looking, but the monster noticed me before I could get too far and used its tail to keep me close. Then it looked at me and said, “I love your pants, where ever did you get them?”

I felt uncomfortable with the monster checking me out, as I continued trying to escape, “Oh it looks just like the clothes I found the other day.” It said, “They were just floating down the river in a plastic bag, can you believe it? Some of it was just straps of fabric, but I did make the most fabulous gloves out of the shirt.”

It then reached down into the river and pulled out something before handing it to me. I stopped trying to run as it handed me my Gi top, belt and hand wraps. The black uniform had hair line white strips running through it, making it look like black marble. My pants where the same way, which was typical for heavy uniforms that soaked in water for too long.

After I gathered my things, I sat there and tried to think of something I could do. I didn’t stay out of obligation or gratitude, I could hardly move and was just too tired, trying to escape took the last bit of energy I had. Not to mention that the sea monster was watching me intently.

We set like this for way longer then I felt comfortable with before something came out of the forest and I heard the monster say “Zecora!” I turned to see what he – I decided that it is a he – was talking to. 

It looked like a miniature zebra carrying a bunch of different gourds with quark lids on its back. “Greetings my purple friend, I hear you have wounds to mend.” said Zecora,

“Yes well, not me, but he desperately needs your attention,” said the serpent, as he used his tail to make a circle around me, the only opening being right in front of the zebra. 

My heart jumped into my throat and every muscle in my body tensed up. It was another pony-thing, it had to be another pony-thing, didn’t it. I looked up at the sea monster then let out a breath. There’s nothing I can do with that thing here. So I set down and closed my eyes. I didn’t have the strength to fight them off so I had to just go with whatever they are going to do. Besides their talking about treating my burns so maybe it will be okay.

The zebra slowly walked around me, looking over every inch of my body with a slight smile.  When she could see my back she gasped and said, “Oh dear, your burns are quite severe” I cracked my neck around to see what she was doing. 

Zecora used her mouth to grab a greenish yellow gourd from her back and popped it open with her hoof.  "Human, hold still. This is no pill.” she said, before poring some goop on her hoof and rubbing it into the burn on my back.  “You must let me apply my ointment, for I cannot make a later appointment.”

I prepared myself, expecting to feel pain shoot through me, but it never came. Instead I felt my body start to tingle for a bit, then slowly start to go numb. The feeling started to spread throughout my body, all the pain and stress of the day flowing out of me. It felt so soothing that I couldn’t keep my eye lids open and I started to slowly slip in to a long needed sleep.


~~~~><~~~~


It felt like I just closed my eyes for a minute when I woke up, I was lying spread out, face down in the dirt. If I were to guess I would say it was somewhere around 5:00 am. I was so tired and wanted to just roll over and go back to bed, I needed the rest anyways. 
I was just about to return to my dreamless sleep, when I noticed the wall of purple scales. The sea monster had its body wrapped around where I lay, enclosing me. Part of his body was still in the river, and judging by the bubbles breaking the service every now and then, he was still sleeping. 

When I tried to move my right arm I couldn’t feel anything. I turned my head to see that the zebra from last night was cuddled up next to me, my arm resting over her. She had a small smile on her face as she lay there. “Did I sleep with a horse and sea snake last night?” 

Using my other hand I lifted my arm off of the zebra, it started to tingle when I touched it, proving that it just fell asleep from being at a weird angle all night. I tried to make a fist to get some blood flowing, the burn was almost completely scabbed over at this point. Whatever Zecora used on it worked great! 

If my back was doing half as good as my arm was then I shouldn’t have anything more than a scar by tomorrow. My focus was broken when I heard a faint howl come from far off, reminding me where I was. 

“If I’m going to get away from here then this is my chance.”] I think. As I put on my Gi top, belt and hand wraps, careful not to wake ether of the two creatures I spent the night with. Part of me felt a little bad to leave like this. I mean, they helped me, heck they stayed the night with me, which is probably the only reason that nothing in the forest tried anything over night.

There was no way I was going to stay and become something’s pet again though, but I didn’t have to be an ungrateful jerk. So I decided to write out a little thank you message in the dirt before I left. I didn’t know if they would find it but it was the only thing I could think of.

With everything set, I lowered myself back into the water. I was able to swim over the top of the sleeping serpent, getting out of his self-made holding pen. I didn’t want to test my luck out in the forest, so I stayed in the river. Now that I can swim though, I was able to go much faster than yesterday. 

Nothing tried to stop me as I kept a steady pace. I did see some more of those wolf things along the way but they were content with staying on the bank of the river and not trying to come after me in the deeper part. 

Then all at once the tree line came up. Just like entering the forest the trees stopped in a perfect line and I could see the sun again. From where it was in the sky I would say it was somewhere around 4:30pm. 

My stomach started to growl, reminding me that I didn’t eat anything since that apple that Nickel gave me. “Shut up stomach, I know it sucks but I have been busy.” I tell myself as I look around for something I could eat.

Then I saw it, a little white bunny was chilling by a wooden bridge, it had sunglasses on and was holding a sun reflector like it was trying to get a tan. And at that moment I knew that there was a god out there, and he did love me after all. 

I said a prayer of thanks for the meal I was going to eat, as I quietly swam closer to the bunny. I was taken out of my thoughts as I heard a soft gentle voice call out. “Angel? Angel there you are,” I looked up to see a yellow Pegasus with long pink hair and bright blue eyes come trotting up to the rabbit. It was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen.

“I have some nice tasty carrots for you angel, your favorite,” she said, as she set down a plate next to my prey. “Now you enjoy will I go feed the others.” The rabbit just waved a paw like it was dismissing a servant, before picking up the plate and starting to eat.

I waited in the water for the yellow pony to go behind a tree that looked like it was carved out to be a cottage. When I was sure she was gone I found a smooth rock, with the rabbit right by the bridge, I could just nail it was a rock, then take the body down river to cook it. 

I was already drooling, when I lifted the rock over my head and throe it at my soon to be dinner. Unfortunately my aim was off, sending the rock just left of the rabbits head. Startled by the flying stone, the bunny jumped to its feet and turned to see me. I was already out of the river and charging after it when it started to run to the tree.

The rabbit made it to the front door before I could, then turned to stick its tongue out at me before running inside. You think that I would have learned from Alice in Wonderland not to chase white rabbits, but taunting me like that only made me more determent to consume his fluffy white flesh.

As I burst through the front door I instantly found my target, hugging the front leg of the yellow pony that was supposed to be out back. The Pegasus gasped as I noticed that the whole building had bird houses everywhere. Animals where littered all over the place, staring at me with varying levels of shock and fear. 

I started to panic a little when I realized that in my mad quest for food, I had just run into another pet store!

My eyes met the white rabbit that led me here to see that he was giving me the smuggest smile he could muster, like he just beat me in a game of intellect. The Pegasus started to say something but it was too quiet for me to hear, and besides I needed to get out of there. I wasn’t going to be somepony’s pet! So I quickly grabbed for something to throw. Finding a book I threw it at the little white rabbit, making the pony sweep up the bunny so it wouldn’t get hit. I ran out the door and back to the river. 


~~~~><~~~~


The yellow Pegasus didn’t come after me when I ran. It was nice to not be chased for ones. However there was a town of ponies not too far from where I was, and the only cover to hide in was in the river. There was even a point in the river where it split into two paths. One looked like it went straight through the town though so I decided to go the other way. I was trying to avoid being seen by any pony so much that I spent the better part of the day neck deep in cold water.

Now as I look up I can see the sun is starting to set. “I need somewhere to spend the night.” I think to myself. I started to look around for something I could use for shelter. But at this point the only thing I could see were rocks. They were everywhere, one rock, two rock, red rock, blue rock. The only trees around were dead and the land itself looked devoid of life. 

I spotted a barn that stood out from the wasteland, it was a dull gray and looked old, which was perfect for me! I got out of the water and started making my way over to the barn. I didn’t see any ponies coming out this far so I should be safe. “If they are still looking for me, I bet they’re going to look in the barn.” I realize. “But the silo could work.”

I opened the door to the silo to see that it was empty except for a table that had a cloth on it and shelves that lined the inside walls all the way up. It was nice and warm inside the silo, witch felt so nice after being in cold water all day. I grabbed the table cloth and used it as a makeshift blanket, then I curled up on the floor and I fell asleep for the night.
                                                                                                                            


“A man who has attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action.”  –Samurai Maxim