//------------------------------// // Where We've Gone // Story: Super Camp // by Rudefeline //------------------------------// “Miss Jack?” Johnny trailed behind Applejack, as Jessie bounced over to the girl’s cabin alone. “Get to the cabin, me and the other counselor’s are dealing with something.” “What is it?” “A problem, it’s only temporary.” She stomped into the armory, leaving Johnny outside. The weapons rack had held four recycle rifles, now there was only two. Applejack narrowed down easily who could’ve took them. The two were going to spoken to very sternly when she returned. She snatched her Gun-Gear from a cubby, a black bullet vest with a few folded up steel limbs, she put the vest-back on her’s and stuck a leg through one of it’s holes, and repeated the process with her other hoof. She tightened a few more fabric cords, and made one last inspection in the mirror. The two nerves were in line with her shoulder blades, and when she tensed or loosened up the limbs of the Gun-Gear moved too. She grabbed the recycler guns and left. Shades go aglow with bright blue lines that traced the earth around her. The heads up display calibrated, showing the temperature, direction of wind, time, and the nearest breathing creature(filtering herself out). It was 2:56 PM. AJ turned around, “Can y’all see the light from the front?” Plonka had just tossed a aluminum vegetable can into her rifle, and The Golden Stallion was hovering. In unison they answered “No.” “Doesn’t somebody have to stay behind with them?” “The kids, I guess, yeah…” Plonka shrugged and returned to camp. They prowled into the oasis, piercing the treeline, and eyeing between the large trees. She trotted down the path slowly, the sun hotly pressing the back of her neck, sweat dripping down her neck onto her collar. Rifle tilted to the side, allowing her down its sight. The birds in the tree chipped, and chirped. She spotted a blue four winged one hop from one branch to another. But farther something shifted in the underbrush. The gun was fixed to the spot where she had seen the brush shift, blindly backing up. She could hear the water lightly being blown by the wind, the canopy above rustling along. AJ felt choked up, as her tired eyes teared up, she blinked swiftly to clear the fluids. She backed under a thick root before glancing around the little lake, she spotted Joseph’s mangled remains on the water-edge opposite of her. She turned her snout skyward and whistled. A few quiet moments passed and the canopy opened above her, The Golden Stallion sticking his head through. “What’s it?” “Can you carry carry me to the other side?” “Yep.” He floated down and scooped her up with his forehooves wrapping around her ribcage. He had to keep his grasp tight to keep from falling. “What the hay, take it easy.” AJ complained. “I gotta hold ya, lemme do it.” He volleyed back. His face awkwardly half-smushed into her neck. He flew over the shimmering water, purposely landing several meters away from the fly-swarmed fresh corpse. “By Celestia…” AJ sighed “We’re going to have to move it.” “Whaddya mean?” His stomach turned. “He’s not really dead. He just needs a few hours to, uh, recharge. But now someone has to move him.” She side eyed him. “Excuse my English, but screw that.” “You’re not a superstar here, Stallion, you’re just gonna have to do it.” Applejack scanned the treeline. “And comeback with a combat vest.” “Why?” “We’re all expected to wear one. You’re are not exempt from this too.” He kicked the dust at the lake’s edge “Are ya sure you want to be here alone?” She thought about it. “I can handle myself.” “Fine!” The Stallion galloped over to the corpse, picked it up with his hoof, took to the air, and gagged once before he was out of sight, and earshot. Applejack shifted her eyes to her shade’s display. It sensed another breathing creature, forty-seven meters to the north. Applejack shifted her hooves and brought the sights to her eye. Into the forest to the north was a bassy THWUMP. AJ strafed to her left, and hugged the sandy tree roots, some drab, tan sediment crumbling onto her mane and snout. She shook it off, waited, eyes watching intently where it had moved. The brush parted, revealing ruby-colored eyes in the gloomy underneath. A hiss rose from the green bush, as it’s mouth opened wide, charcoal beak poking above the mini-canopy. “Alright, just another moment, bud.” Applejack pulled the gun’s hammer back. A warm sting of air left the recycler’s cylinder. It left the bush quickly, a lightning hop elevated it several feet up into the trees, clinging to a branch, it made multiple little jumps from branch to branch, soon being swallowed by the green leaves that hung above the shore. AJ kept her gun at the sky, trying to shrink herself under the roots to get as much distance as possible. The long black neck of the creature showed itself, beak following soon behind, then the entire shadowy head. It’s plumage, for the most, part was black, but there were puffier red feathers near its eyes, making it look like it wore a strange gothic headdress. AJ honed her sights to the center of its skull. She tensed her shoulders, the Gun-Gear’s trigger-strap squeezing tight. One great bang broke from the rifle’s muzzle, and in much less than a second, a bullet buried itself into the creature above. There was a terrible shriek and AJ opened the recycler's receiver to toss another can in from the Gun-Gear’s pack, but another THWUMP resounded from her front. There in the sand was the large black bird, crimson tongue lolling from its mouth. Blood pooling in the shore grooves beside it. Flies quickly swarming the carcass. AJ breathed a several sets of heavy breathes. Planting her bottom on a nearby smoothed tree stump. She picked the shades from her forehead and set them in the sand. Her heart still in a race with itself. She nearly cried from the adrenaline come-down. But she laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Applejack hauled the thing on her back, it was heavy, but she was strong. She trotted, picking up the two discarded rifles as she passed them. After a rounding the lake to where she had been lifted by The Golden Stallion. There The Stallion was passing over her, AJ called up to him “Got it!” And he wasn’t wearing his vest. He nodded and flew back to the camp. Applejack chuckled, breathed hard, and spoke to herself as her brow beaded “Jerk coulda helped me carry it...” The wheels turned, grinding the body into the dirt, causing Joseph inequitable pain. Like his very soul was being scratched against steel wool. His skin was black with mud, after several revolutions the wheel stopped. He took this moment to calm down, inhale, exhale. The carriage produced wooden sounding footfalls. The wheel shaking slightly. His face was almost buried in the ground, but had a few lucky inches from it. The footsteps closed in around the carriage to where the human sized wheel had been turning. He could barely get a peek at it. White, and shifting black colors just out of where he could focus. This had not happened before. It drew closer and knelt. A strange emerged from it, whispery and raspy. “You have payed the toll in pain, Joseph, but that is not enough.” His neck was inundated in sweat. Cruel voices snickered underneath the carriage. “They would love to consume you.” “W-what d-do ya want?” Joseph wanted to scream. “If I let you return to the living world, you will have to brings us both.” Its rasp worsened. “What are you?” “Already, these questions are tiring me.” “Will you hurt people?” “No. You may.” “Okay, whatever. Bring me back.” The stakes that pinned him to the wheel were removed by it, one by one. Pain surging through each marred wrist. Once the last one on his foot was done, he felt it be re-lodged in. He looked down to the awful pain, a toe bone had replaced it. The same thing happened to his other foot, no matter how much he struggled the new marrowy stakes just kept coming. Now through his hands came the bone thumbs. He was forced to be an X by all the strict spikes. Joseph cried for mercy, but it would not listen. Then his eyes closed. He was somewhere else, sun warming him. Dusty dirt annoying his barefeet. He could feel the jean shorts on him, he hadn’t worn those in years. Sleeveless t-shirt pressed against his sweaty back. He rolled his shoulder and reach behind his back to scratch an itch. “Wait.” He sat up. He was laying behind AJ’s cabin. The few electrical doohickeys in the back, whuzzing. A few voices spoke somewhere in front of the cabin. Joseph stood and curiously skirted the building to reach the front. AJ and The Golden Stallion were talking “Where’d ya leave him?” The Golden Stallion just about pointed to the back of this cabin’s porch, but he caught Joseph right in the eyes. “Oh, dang.” Applejack followed his hoof and noticed him “By Celestia’s grace, What were you doin’ by the lake? You knew it was dangerous.” “Fabio hadn’t come back.” “OK, next time keep me in the loop, and you took the rifles?” “Two of ‘em” “This is unacceptable. Get to your cabin, now.” Joseph turned and complied. Applejack rounded up the young ones a few hours later. As she stood in front of them, Jessie kept herself wrapped around Joseph. Her large eyes dilated to be bigger. Great yellow moons with a black star causing the tiniest eclipse. AJ spoke sternly, but she could scarcely must up the energy to make it passionate, not that she had passion for reprimanding kids. Soon the night was thrust upon the land, the sands becoming cold and rigid. The kids settled into their cabins in warm sleeping bags. Well, that was the plan, Applejack thought. Using her hoof to rest her head. Light from her desk lamp keeping the whole cabin illuminated. The Golden Stallion sat in a wooden-rolly-chair just pushing himself back and forth on the carpet. He took glances at the bottle of whisky when he could, his throat was feeling dry. The front door opened and Plonka pushed through, looking exhausted, she settled in the chair adjacent The Golden Stallion. Applejack started “Now, Mr. Stallion, do ya have any ideas for what you could teach the kids?” “If this is Super Camp, I think it’d be best if they learned to be charismatic, learn how they will dress themselves, so the populace might adore them. As heroes.” He breathed out. AJ sighed at the rehearsed speech “That’s definitely something. But maybe you could also talk to them about being heroes, what’s it like.” “Heh, maybe, it’s been awhile. I think the best practice is doing heroic things. Save some people, defeat a villain.” “Alright, I guess the first step is to learn about each of their abilities.” “Tell me about ‘em.” Applejack dug through the files scattered on her desk, removing one file. “This is Jessie,” She turned it towards the two, “She’s an android of some sort, first of her kind, while she is a machine, she’s much more self-aware, and appears to display sentience. You’ve seen her emotions. There wasn’t much on where she came from. Her frame and servos have insane power.” The Golden Stallion and Plonka scanned the type letters on the page. Soon feeling satisfied. AJ opened a manilla envelope and laid out a dossier “Fabulous Francium. Pony from our homeworld, Terra Equis. He has an ability that seems very inapplicable at first, but has surprising utility. He’s reflective in most senses of the word. He gets along with just about everypony and he’s able to turn all light around. So when he wants to, in the sun, he can become a shining beacon. It’s quite blinding.” The Stallion piped up “That’s chuckle worth.” AJ shifted some more, and looked at the image of Sandshell, she sighed sadly. “This is Sandshell. She’s has some psycho abilities. Last time they went off, things ended worse than awful. She’s very fragile, so be easy with her.” Plonka chimed in “I think I found her ability, it is pyrokinesis. Allows her to make and control fire with her mind.” “Cool, can ya work with that?” Asked AJ. “Yep.” “There’s Joseph Juko, he’s been on this Ora for his whole life, his father was among the first to put his boots down here. Funny thing is, when his parents settled out to a quiet stead, they disappeared. His birth was barely recorded.” Applejack closed that file and moved onto the next. “Johnny Wabuxom. Was in a confrontation, he suddenly combusted into flames. There’s not much to go on about him other than that. Only reason he’s here is because he survived that combustion without a scratch. And that’s about it.” She paused and took a drink. She began again “Tomorrow we’ll begin introductions and I’m gonna want you Plonka, to work with Sandshell, we don’t want a repeat of her disaster.” “Chances are there’s not going to be. The first display of a psychic’s power is the strongest, unfortunately. Guess not unfortunately in her case.” “Alright, now Stallion, you’re going to go over ethics with them, got it?” They continued to plan the next day’s events till eleven. Joseph sat in the darkness, quietly listening to Jessie humming. Sorta resenting her being a machine. She had her arms around his right one. He shut his eyes, just hearing the sweet melody she crooned. His arm was pins and needles for second, so he shook them off. It started to hurt “Ow.” he grumbled. A Jessie’s voice spoke in the darkness “What’s it?” He quietly tried to shake off the pain, soon it did wear off. But he could see something glowing behind it, like bones in a forearm. His left arm reached and patted Jessie’s head. She fussed about it, but he was panicking internally. He didn’t do that himself. It reach over to her…. No. He squeezed his wrist, and tried pulling it back. It struggled to feel Jessie, but he brought back to where he had been resting it, and it punched once wildly. The wooden board cracked in half, and wood splintered, but it was all covered by darkness. Still, they had ears “What the hay is going on up there?” A voice called from below the two. Jessie whispered “Yeah, what?” “My arm, it moved without me.” Joseph whispered back. “Oh, god why?” “I think I’ve made a mistake.”