Chapter Two, Part Four
The mind is a rather strange thing. On the one hoof, it does a fantastic job of properly processing reality and all that comes with it. It allows ponies to interact with the world around them and live their usually peaceful lives. Indeed, it is essential to one's well being and happiness. With that being so, what then if one's mind is no longer their own? What if it becomes detached from its owner? Thus, we have poor Berry. Unbeknownst to her, the scene she thought had played out was not so. Her mind, fuddled with so many years of constant intoxication, and now dying for a reprieve from any sort or resemblance of sobriety, lied to her. The bottle had indeed been tossed out the window, but after it had been emptied.
And thus, Berry had broken her promise to Colgate. Though, in her defense, she did not realize this until much, much later. She did not realize it when she managed to rip the seat from the floor of the train car. Nor did it dawn on her when she had picked up both a rather shocked Bon-Bon and an unconscious Lyra and placed both on her back with great ease. And still it did not occur to her that anything was amiss when she had kicked the side of the train and blew a wide hole open. It wasn't until she had leapt from the hole, onto the speeding ground mid-stride, and managed to keep pace with the train that she felt something wasn't quite right. Though, given what was happening around her, she wasn't about to question what seemed to her to be a turn of good fortune. Rather, she simply decided to roll with it. Though it was hard to roll with the part where she had raised her two front hooves, slammed them on the ground, caused the train to lift up off the tracks from the impact, and then dashed through the resulting gap under the poor train after Colgate's kidnappers. Still, she wasn't going to question where this truly massive amount of power came from, for it gave her the ability to hopefully save her friend.
As for the foalnappers, it was a truly frighting scene. After all, it's not everyday you see a stallion almost twice the size of a buffalo burst out the side of a train, send it flying up in the air, and manage to duck under it before it came slamming down on the tracks once more. It was about then they got the idea to split up. Half of them would try and divert the newcomer, and the other half would head on to the rendezvous point. Luckily for them, they had succeeded and Berry gave chase to the wrong group. And it was this group that she had chased for hours on end. And it wasn't until the group of bandits had left the badlands, and thus had stopped kicking up such a massive cloud of dust, that Berry had seen that they had been chasing the wrong group.
Needless to say, this made Berry very angry. With explosive force (quite literally actually, She flattened the grass around her), she dashed ahead with greater speed then she had ever ran with before. The foalnappers looked back at her, and Berry saw their faces change from evil grins to wide-eyed terror. They tried to pick up their pace, but their fatigue was catching up with them. It wouldn't be long until Berry caught up wit-
“WHERE IS SHE?” Berry roared, the force of her voice bending the grass and moving small rocks aside.
“SPLIT!” one of the ponies she was chasing shouted, causing the small group to suddenly splinter in all directions.
“COME BACK HERE!” Berry roared again. Taking a quick look around, she counted 6 ponies. Most of them had split off and had begun running off alone, but there was one pair that stayed close to each other. One of them was the shouter.
Good enough.
Berry began to chase after them. The two of them looking back with increased fear as she closed the distance. “What're you doing? Go away! Go!” the shouter said to the other one. “Get away from me!” It tried to push the other one way, but decided against it when it remembered that galloping at full speed with only three legs is rather difficult.
“STOP. RUNNING!” Berry shouted once more, almost within reaching distance of the two.
The shouter looked back at her. It was a mare. Her eyes were huge, and her pupils were tiny. Sweat had begun to run freely down her face as she begun to look between Berry and the pony running next to her. “You heard him, Stop!” she shouted to the colt next to her, as she stuck out a hoof and tripped him, sending him tumbling head over hooves right into Berry's path. With a loud crash, Berry and pony became tangled together in a rolling ball of pain.
The mare looked back with a smile of satisfaction; that promptly died when she suddenly noticed a cream-colored pony flying through the air directly at her.
“I don't think so.” it said.
With yet another crash, both mares began tumbling though the grass, biting, pulling, and pushing at each other. Though it didn't take long for the cream one to win. With one of her forelegs bent behind her back, the mare was pinned at last on the ground.
“Get off of me! Ow! Who are you?!” it protested as it tried to break free. With one swift and deliberate push, the cream one sent a wave of pain through her body that shut her up and made her stop struggling. Behind the two of them, she could hear the sounds of the other two still struggling. Bending her head to look, she saw that the huge stallion and the poor pony she tripped had both finally gotten to their hooves.
Berry looked into the eyes of the stallion that stood before her. Her eyes burning with anger. “P-please don't hurt me!” he said in a rather pitiful voice.
“Give me one reason...” Berry growled.
The poor pony turned a few shades whiter, and his voice became an incoherent blubbering of non-sense.
“Because he doesn't know anything!” shouted the mare.
Berry looked at her, then back at him. He gave a nervous smile, or tried to. Unfortunately for him, it came across Berry's raging mind (which was also rather deluded with drink) as a smug smirk.
Berry did not like that smug smirk.
Berry did not like it at all.
Pivoting on her front hooves, she lifted her rear legs up, and kicked the poor pony square in the face. The impact sent him flying as if he had been shot out of a cannon, sending him high into the air. The three ponies on the ground watched as the air-born Earth Pony soared gracefully through the sky. It was a flight path that almost any pegasus would be envious of. A nice clean arch, a trajectory as straight as an arrow. Indeed, if not for the fact that the pony was tumbling through the air like one having spasm wilts drunk, it would have most likely have gone down into the history books as the most beautiful flight ever taken by an earth pony. Well, that and the landing you see, for the poor fellow landed directly onto another one of his fellow ponies. Both ponies bounced into the air, landed, bounced once more, and then rolled to a stop. For a moment, all was still. Then the two ponies let out a distant moan, and twitched slightly.
The mare's jaw was on the ground.
Berry let out an angry breath, then turned to her. “Where is she?” she asked, her voice dangerous and low.
“I … I don't know who you're talking about.” the mare said. Bon-Bon pushed on her leg once more. “OW! REALLY! I DON'T KNOW!”
“One of you took my friend from the train. She's a unicorn named Colgate. Where did you take her?” Berry said, her voice causing even Bon-Bon to cast a nervous glance at her.
“I-I don't know who you're talking about, but I'd guess the other guys ran off with her!” she said, her voice quivering with fear.
“Where?” Berry said, her voice almost a shout.
“Almost directly south of where we hit the train. If you head east for almost a day, you should see some rocks poking out of the dirt!” her voice picking up volume as she saw Berry's very unhappy reaction at hearing 'almost a day'. “That's usually where we take a pit stop before heading south another day until we reach Deadmare Gully!” She was trying to shrink away from the growing storm in Berry's eyes. “That's where we base out of!”
“Are you the only ones there?” Bon-Bon asked coolly.
“Huh? Wha? Uh-no.” The question seemed to have caught her off guard. “We're just part of a bigger bandit outfit.”
“I see. Are the dragons still there?” She asked.
“Huh? How'd you know about that?” the mare asked. Bon-Bon remained silent, though an annoyed look flickered across her face. Berry would have loved to have asked about that as well, but was unable to think about much else beside saving Colgate.
“Why did you take her?” Berry asked.
“I-I don't know! Really, please, I don't know much else!” she pleaded.
Berry let out a snort. “Yeah right. Like I believe you.”
Bon-Bon looked at Berry, “She's been telling the truth so far.”
“How do you know?” Berry shot back.
“OH SURE, NOW YOU DECIDE YOU CAN HEAR ME!” Bon-Bon bellowed, standing up on top of the poor mare.
Berry took a step back. “W-what?”
“I'VE BEEN YELLING AT YOU FOR THE PAST 5 HOURS TO STOP, BUT IT WAS CLEAR THAT YOU COULDN'T, OR WOULDN'T, HEAR A THING I SAID!” Bon-Bon bellowed.
Berry took a few more steps back. She couldn't recall hearing Bon-Bon once the entire time the three of them were chasing the group. In speaking of which, where was Lyra? Berry took a quick look around.
“Notice something missing are we?” Bon-Bon said, rather irritated.
Uhh...” Berry said, trailing off uncomfortably.
“As you may have noticed, we are short one pony. I tried to tell you this, but apparently you decided that you were actually deaf until just now.” Berry swallowed hard. “Would you like to know where Lyra is?” Bon-Bon was clearly upset.
“W-where is she? Did she fall off?” Berry asked.
“No.” Bon-Bon began, taking a seat onto the still-pinned mare (who, by this point, had lost all feeling in her foreleg). “She got caught on the train.”
“Caught on the...train?” Berry was a bit confused. “But didn't I grab her?”
“Yes. Yes you did. However, after you felt the need to cross under the train, her mane got caught on one of the wheels. I tried to grab her by her horn, but apparently that cloth that they put on it gives a very powerful shock to whomever touches it.”
Berry didn't like where this was going. “So, she flew off? Is she still back at the tracks?”
“No Berry.” Bon-Bon said, looking directly into her eyes. “She swung around and back into the car. I'd imagine she's been at Dodge Junction for several hours now.”
“Oh...” was all she could manage.
“Also, why did you drink it? I thought you promised Colgate you wouldn't drink it anymore.”
“I didn't!” Berry protested, “I threw it out the window!”
“No Berry. You drank the whole thing. Look at yourself, you're a stallion again.” Bon-Bon said, pointing a hoof directly at Berry.
“And a huge one at that!” piped up the mare, followed by a sudden 'Ow!' as Bon-Bon twisted her leg in a new and rather inventive way.
Berry paused. Then she looked down at her hooves. They looked normal to her. At least, they did at first. Then, as if a sheet had been pulled off her eyes, she saw them for what they were. Massive, muscular, and very male. Slowly, with trembling hooves, she felt her face.
Squared.
Berry paused.
He had broken his promise. He had drunk the bottle...