//------------------------------// // Unusual Power // Story: A Filly's New Life // by BananaPeeler //------------------------------// A few days later, walking through the forest. "When you live in the forest you need to know what plants are edible and what plants aren't. You could get seriously sick, or even die." Rose is explaining to me different things about plants; what's edible, what's sweet, and what's bitter. She reaches her head down and grabs some grapes, then puts them in her bag for when we get back from camp. Over the last few days we've been running low on supplies. Even though we haven't been doing anything active, we were still very hungry. Rose says it's because I'm growing, but I don't believe her. "So is there anything specific we're going to get?" I say "Ummm...not really. I'm just looking for things we could use. Food, firewood, basically anything that's useful." "Well, I guess we'll just have to see what we find then." There was a slightly awkward silence whilst she was picking and prodding at some plants, but my thoughts fill the silence. Well, filled them for me at least. I was still thinking about what happened 10 months ago...Would she ever tell me? Maybe I could learn a spell to find out. Then again I'm not that skilled in magic, or even in reading. I should probably just ask her, that would be a good approach, right? "Hey, Rose?" "Yeah Cherry?" "Well I was wondering...what happened 10 mon-" My sentence was cut off by a terrible scream! Both of us turned in that direction, then looked at each other. I could tell we both had the same sense of danger. We both dropped out things and started sprinting towards where we heard the sound. Passing trees we heard more struggling from what sounded like a woman, the same women who screamed second before. We begin to run faster and faster, wanting to get to the woman before something bad happened! As we finally come to the edge of the forest we were staying in, we look around to find the woman, being mugged by three ponybandits! "Stay here, I don't want you to get hurt!" Rose says, running off to help the woman. I ignore her, knowing that even with my help, they may not be able to fight off the bandits! I start running after her and towards the bandits to help the woman. I'm not quite sure what I'll do to them, but I am too angry to care. Reaching them, I jump on one, chewing on his ear. He immediately threw me off, growling at me whilst he did so. I noticed Rose was using her magic to try and throw things at the bandit, things like large rocks, branches, even a large log! I continue to fight the other bandit, biting his ankle and trying to pull him away from the commotion, which unfortunately didn't work. All I could do was stand back and shout at them. "Stop! Come on! She doesn't deserve this!" I don't even think they hear me as they raid the woman's things. "Seriously!" I screamed I was furious, I didn't even notice my horn was starting to glow a pale blue! There was absolutely nothing I could do. One of the bandits is raiding the Woman's things, Rose and the Woman were being occupied by the two other bandits, and I was just stuck in the middle. My horn was shooting off sparks, creating an area around me that was nearly on fire! It glowed in different tiers of blue; light blue, sky blue, even navy blue. In one last attempt to help, I scream "STOP!!!" at the top of my lungs, and right at that moment, the wind picked up, the sky started to go dark, creating a very epic scene. The Bandits, Rose and the Woman all stopped in awe, amazed at what was happening. I felt myself start to levitate above the ground gaining power, as though it was given to me by some strange source! At that very moment, there was a blast, sending the Bandits to go flying, carrying them far from us. Strangely, it didn't even harm Rose OR the Woman. You might even say they looked better then before. The hair wasn't rustled and the Woman's things weren't all over the place. Instead they were all folded and organized! I fell back down onto the ground, fatigued. My eyes start to blur, and my hearing starts to go, the last thing I see is the Woman and Rose racing towards me, trying to help. Everything goes black. Later that night "uuhhhh...Where am I?" "Don't worry Cherry, you're home now." The voice is soothing and sweet, yet, it didn't seem quite familiar. "What happened?" I said. "Well after you passed out Rose and I carried you back here. We thought you had a fever because your temperature was soaring, but after about 15 minutes it was back to normal. We thought it was really strange." She replied After thinking shortly, I came to the conclusion that this was the Woman getting mugged, but where was my mother? "Where's Rose?" "After seeing you in your...state, she ran off crying. It must have brought up some bad memories I guess." She must have been hiding something from me, because I could tell she put on a bad poker face, hoping I didn't notice it. "Did she say anything?" I said "Not directly to me, but I heard her say something." "Well since your taking care of me, what's your name?" "For you, you can call me 'Ms. Cheerilee'. I teach at the school down in ponyville." She says. "Has Rose told you about Ponyville?" "Yes, she also told me she doesn't enjoy living there anymore. I'm not quite sure why in fact..." "Well that's a story for her to tell. When she's ready, something happened that she doesn't like talking about." Ms. Cheerilee said. "Anyways, it's getting late so we should probably" -CRASH Rain starts to pour down heavily- "go find her..." "Yeah" I immediately jumped up, preparing to go find Rose and tell her I'm alright. "Let's go" I say. We start off, slightly jogging through the forest, shouting "Rose!" every now and then. We search for about and hour or two, but to no success. We couldn't find any trace of her or her tracks. I suspect she was using some sort of spell to hide them. I thought of the time a few days ago. She explained some spells to me, but she didn't show any of them to me...Then it hit me, could there be a spell to find her? Why didn't I think of that before? "Excuse me, Ms. Cheerilee, I know your an earth pony, but do you perchance have a spell book? Something that can help us to find Rose?" I try to act excited, although it was hard because of the sadness that was drifting over my head knowing that Rose is gone. "Well, I don't think so, but I'll check when we get back to your home. I was carrying some books for one of my Unicorn friends." We start heading back home, disappointed and empty hooved. I am really hoping that we will find that spell book...and that Rose is okay. Finally getting back, I lie down on the bed of grass, along with Ms. Cheerilee, tired from a long and exciting day. I wonder to myself what happened today. I was especially confused about that thing I did today. Was it a spell? Can I repeat it? Once again, questions are racing through my head, similar to the way when awoke nearly a week ago. While all this is happening, I slowly drift to sleep, forgetting my responsibilities and my worries.