//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: My little pony: Soul of gold // by Zanaffer //------------------------------// Sweet Apple Acres, home of the best apples in all of Equestria and current destination of Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends, as they neared the front door a heated argument could be heard coming from the inside. -“Ah' tell ya I'm going”. Said the familiar voice of Applejack, the final member of the group. -“And ah' tell ya it's too dangerous to go alone at night” came the voice of a male that could only be Big Mackintosh, Applejack's brother. Twilight and company had stopped just outside the door to the farmhouse and we're now eavesdropping on their argument. “What's going on?”. Asked Rainbow Dash in a hushed voice. “Uhm, is Applejack planning to go out somewhere?”. Asked Fluttersy with a hint of concern. -“What? But we need her for the mission, where could she be going at this time of the night?”. Twilight said with impatience written on her face. –“Pinkie! Stop doodling in other ponies faces”. Twilight reprimanded Pinkie Pie while whipping away the marker ink with her magic. -“Oooh oh oh, maybe it's a slumber party, or even better a awake party at night, because you can’t have fun in a party if everypony's sleepy, why would you even call that a party if there's no streamers or cake or partycannons, WHATKINDOFPARTYDOESENTHAVEPARTYCANNONS!!!?. Pinky Pie's hyper rant was interrupted when the front door burst open revealing Applejack. “Ah’m goin' and that's final.” Applejack stormed out of her house but froze in place when she found herself muzzle to muzzle with her five best friends. “Hiii Aplejack, are you going somewhere?” Twilight asked with a forced smile. “Uh, hello girls, watcha doin’ here?” Applejack asked nervously. “Well, we got a mission from the princess and we need you to come with us.” Twilight said as her forced smile grew even larger. “What!? Ah can't, not right now, ah… ah got important business to do” Applejack said without looking Twilight in the eye, witch would have been difficult given how Twilight's eyes had begun twitching as she said that. “Applejack dear, are you all right?” Rarity asked concerned for her friend, “If anything is bothering you, you know you can tell us.” Applejack looked at Rarity and felt her resolve crumble under her gaze. “All right, ah guess ah have to tell you” she said with a defeated sigh. “Applebloom and the girls went missing.” “WHAT!!?” Rarity was immediately in Applejack's face panicking when she heard the revelation. “Sweetie Bell! Where is Sweetie bell!?” “Rarity calm down, let her explain” Twilight side restraining Rarity. “Applejack what happened?” “The girls were havin' a slumber party at their clubhouse,” Applejack explained. “Everything was fine till' the sky lit up and that golden comet thing fell in the Everfree, ah' went to check on the girls after that but they weren't there no more, ah' already checked all over the farm, only other thing ah' can think of is that they went crusadin' to find that thing in the Everfree” Applejack explained with a mortified demeanor. “THE EVERFREE FOREST!!!?” Rarity let out an earpiercing shriek as she reared on her hindlegs promptly fainting as a familiar couch came racing just in time to catch her. “Oh dear” Fluttershy went immediately beside Rarity. “Rarity wake up, oh dear.” Fluttershy began fanning Rarity with her wings while Rainbow Dash shook her head in disapproval. “Drama queen” She said not quite hiding her own concern for the missing fillies. “Aha! I knew it!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed suddenly occupying the space in front of Applejack. “slumber parties are no fun, if they had a partycannon they wouldn’t have left to look for fun elsewhere.” She finished her statement with a victory pose right out of Rainbow Dash's repertoire of poses. “Pinkie not now.” Rainbow scolded. “Also you gotta do that pose at an angle, that’ll make it about 20% cooler.” She said adding a demonstration. “They went looking for the fallen light in the Everfree? That's great!” Twilight said excited. “Beg yer'pardon.” Said Aplejack with a deadpan expression. “What I mean is that the mission the princess gave us is to go investigate that same thing.” Twilight explained herself. “We can complete the mission and look for the girls at the same time.” “Now that sounds like a plan, also I get this big lug off ma' back nagging about how ah' can’t go alone cuz the forest too dangerous to go alone” Applejack then signaled to her brother who had been standing in the doorframe quietly watching the exchange, he tipped his head in acknowledgment but otherwise didn’t say a word. “What're we waitin' for let’s get a move on.” Applejack jumped to the charge followed swiftly by her friends including a recently revived Rarity. “I’m coming Sweetie Bell.” “Oh dear, I hope the girls are all right” “Don’t worry, we'll catch up to them before you know it.” “If they had a partycannon they wouldn’t have gone in the first place.” “Pinkie we’ve talked about this, we're not letting those fillies anywhere close to artillery of any kind.” Big Mac watched them as they disappeared into the night on their way to the forest, without a word he went back in the house and closed the door. ~~~~~ In the Everfree Forest, three little fillies cantered giddily on their way towards adventure, although three of them wore matching capes identifying them as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a group dedicated to discovering their special talent and obtaining their Cutie Mark, and if that involved exploring a creepy forest in the middle of the night, then that forest would be explored. “I can't wait to find that star that fell from the sky, maybe we'll get our star-finding cutie marks, that would be so awesome, I bet Rainbow Dash would love it.” Said the orange filly with a purple mane at the head of the group. “Stars don't fall from the sky.” The white filly with a light purple mane corrected her friend. “Maybe it was a comet, or a meteor, yeah that’s it, we'll all get meteor cutie marks.” “Actually, when a meteor enters the atmosphere it burns up due to friction and it breaks up into smaller pieces called meteorites.” The yellow filly with a red bow on her head corrected them both. “Ugh, enough with the egghead stuff, also “rocks”, who would want a rock cutie mark, that's lame, rocks are lame.” Over at the Pie rock farm Maude Pie raised her head from her dinner plate and looked out the window towards Ponyville, her neutral expression everpresent in her face, while at the other end of the table Marble and Limestone Pie were frozen stiff eyes fixed on their older sister. “Uhh, what’s wrong Maude?” Marble dared to ask. “Nothing.” Was Maude's answer as she finished the last of her rock soup, cleared her plates and left for bed. “Scary” Whispered Limestone after Maude had left, Marble did not disagree. Back in the Everfree Forest the crusaders had managed to get themselves completely… where they meant to be, all the crusading activities related to exploration and survivalism, as well as regular treks to visit the resident zebra of the Everfree had made them surprisingly adept at navigating the forest, a clear view if their target as it fell, a good map and some calculations and they managed to reach their goal in a very short time, they could teach new tricks to the filly scouts, there was only one problem. “ITS EMPTY!” Scootaloo yelled in frustration, thy had managed to find crash site and has galloped up to it with unbridled glee, only to find a hole on the ground.” How can it be empty? What a waste of time.” “Well something fell here.” Sweetie Bell said posting at the large hole in the ground. “You think somepony took it?” “Girls over here, ah' found some hoofprints” Applebloom called from the other side of the hole. “Look, sumtin' got damage outta the hole over here, and that's hoofprints all over here, these are all fresh.” “It's the thief.” Scootaloo said accusingly. “It wasn’t ours Scoots, nutthin's been stolen” Applebloom cautioned her. “But we saw it first” Scootaloo complained. “Hey Applebloom, what about these prints?” Sweetie Bell asked pointing to some other prints in the dirt. “Oh those are from a manticore” Applebloom said casually. Silence. “So.. Those must be pretty old then” Scootaloo said nervously. “Uhm no, they’re pretty fresh.” Applebloom said as the realization of exactly what they were doing dawned on the three of them, they were alone, at night, in the middle of the most dangerous forest of Equestria. “Maybe we should go back.” Sweetie Bell suggested as the three fillies nervously came closer to each other scanning the dark forest for signs of danger. “I mean, there's nothing here so there's no point in staying.” “Yeah, and we better get back before Applejack finds out were gone or she might get worried.” Applebloom said as the three began to sidestep back to the path they came from. “Yeah, we should do that or she might panic, let's go back.” The three began galloping back but suddenly Applebloom who was at the front stopped in her tracks promoting her friend to bump into her. “Hey, what gives?” Scootaloo protested until she saw the look on Aplebloom's face, one of pure fear, following her line of sight she knew why. Yellow glowing eyes looked at them from the darkness of the forest, all around them at the edge of the clearing yellow eyes watched their every move. A canine howl pierced the wall of silence that had erected itself in the forest soon followed by many others. The girls may have become very good at navigating a forest, but they had failed to take notice of their surroundings, because of that they didn’t notice that they were being stalked by a pack of timberwolves who had stealthily followed the girls to the clearing and preceded to surround them. The fillies screamed and stepped back as the first timberwolf emerged from the foliage as if a part of the forest itself had taken wolf form with in all honesty was probably true. This repeated itself all around the edge of the clearing, wolf after wolf closed in on the terrified fillies who had retreated to the edge of the crater with nowhere to run, tears ran freely trough their cheeks as they foresaw their inevitable demise. The leading wolf wasted no more time and pounced the little ponies. Then came the light. ~~~~~ Aioria was having a bad day, the fact that it had all started with the dead Rising from their Graves was testament to how bad it would come to be. Holy war, the world freezing over and death, it all seemed so distant now, as he wandered this new place in this new form. He had made quick work of the beasts, mythical or no they were no match for him once he got serious, however he still had to treat his manticore wound, but could he do such a thing, he was now a horse so he couldn’t treat himself, he was lost in a forest and he didn’t even know if there were humans in this place. His thoughts were interrupted by the howling of wolves, it seemed to come from the clearing he had awoken in. “And now wolves, what else will this forest throw at me?” His question was answered in the form of screams. Aioria was already racing towards the source before the high pitched streams died out, these weren’t noises made by mindless animals, this would be the first puzzle piece to solving this mystery he just needed to make it in time. Aioria burst into the clearing at full gallop, the scene before him played in slow motion, a pack of wolves had surrounded its prey and was closing in to deal the killing blow, one wolf was already descending on its defenseless prey witch was obscured to him by the wall of wolves, any other would be powerless to prevent this scene from unfolding but Aioria not willing to let this Chace slip by him Aioria burned his cosmo and unleashed his special technique, an attack from a golden saint that could move at the speed of light. “Lightning Bolt!!” The forest was illuminated as a golden lightning bolt tore trough the timberwolves reducing them to kindling, the destructive force reached the edge of the clearing leaving a trail of destruction further into the forest. By the end of the display Aioria had placed himself at the edge of the crater from witch he had initially emerged facing the remaining wolves. “Are you unharmed?” He asked looking back at the bottom of the hole and was legitimately surprised to see three little horses not unlike himself huddled together looking up at him,quivering in fear. A wolf had sized the opportunity and changed him while his head was turned, aiming for his neck. “Look out!” Came the alarmed warning from the white pony. Aioria quickly turned raising his upper body as the wolf's jaws closed on thin air, from this position he brought down his burning hoof on the wolf's head smashing it again the ground. The three fillies looked slack-jawed at their mysterious savior, he wasn’t even a unicorn and yet he was doing some powerful magic, he glowed in a golden light and had gotten rid of the timberwolves that had almost ate them, clearly he wasn’t a normal pony. Looking back at the remaining wolves Aioria noticed some things about them, mainly that they were made of wood, these were indeed storage creatures, puppets pulled together and given form by a strange energy, it felt ancient and twisted, they gave the same feeling as the rest of the forest. Waiting no longer the wolves attacked Aioria from all sides in a concentrated attack, Aioria smirked at them before charging the wolf right in front of him at high speed slamming hi right hoof right in its face, the change in form had taken some getting used to, but fortunately the joints in the shoulders allowed for an ample range of motion making it possible to throw punches, two wolves closed in from each side while a third jumped at him from behind, Aioria raised his backlegs and delivered a shattering buck the wolf at his rear, using sheer strength he jumped using his forelegs evading the other two by a hairs breadth, spinning in the air he slammed his backlegs on the wooden heads of the wolves smashing them as well. Only three wooden wolves remained after his assault showing no signs of fear or doubt. “Time to finish this, Lightning Bolt!” Aioria launched his attack at the wolves disintegrating them in a shower of splinters. Having eliminated all of the threats Aioria extinguished his cosmo and relaxed his body, the physical effort requires to perform his “lightning bolt” had reopened his wound, he would need to have it looked at. “THAT WAS AWESOME!” Came a voice from right behind him, turning Aioria could see the three young ponies approaching him excitedly, the little girls immediately began bombarding him with questions. “How can you do magic without a horn?” “Are you a superhero?” “What’s yer' name?” “Where do you come from?” “Did'ya fall from the sky?, are you an alien?” “Can you teach me those moves? They were like “pow” and “whoosh” and “take that”. During the barrage of questions Aioria noticed some things about these children, the white one had a horn protruding from her forehead, and the lively orange one had wings flapping like a hummingbird as she did her impression of his moves “A unicorn and a pegasus.” He thought. “The mythological creatures keep appearing, what's next, a combination of the two?” Just as he was thinking this he heard voices calling from the forest, they were approaching. “Applebloom, where are ya?” “Sweetie Bell, I'm coming!” “Scootaloo, get over here!” “Uh oh” Chorused the little ponies as several grown ponies came into the clearing. “Applebloom! There ya are!” An orange pony with a cowboy hat said as she angrily approached the little yellow pony. “When I'm done with you yer' gonna have a getting grounded cutie mark.” "Sweet Bell, oh I was so worried.” A white pony with an elegant purple hairdo said as she hugged the little white unicorn. “Hey Scoots, disappearing on your own like that is not cool.” A blue pegasus with a mane colored like a rainbow reprimanded the little orange pegasus. “We're sorry.” They said in unison. Aioria was observing the situation when his vision turned to pure white with two blue dots in the center. “HI! I’m Pinkie Pie” Said a pink pony right in his face. “Gahhh!!!” Startled Aioria reared back letting out a very undignified yell, the pony had managed to get right in his face without him even noticing, not even the fastest of the golden saints could do such a thing. Pain shooting across his side quickly reminded Aioria that he had a large bleeding gash to tend to as he grunted in pain. “Oh dear, you’re hurt.” A yellow pegasus approached him with a look of concern looking over his wounded torso. “We need to bandage it quickly, but I didn’t bring any bandages.” The concerned pony declared as she examined him “No problemo, I keep first aid kits hidden all over the Everfree in case of “ouchie”related emergencies.” The pink pony said retrieving a white box from a hollow tree and hooffing it over to the yellow pegasus that proceeded to extract some bandages to treat his wound. “What happened, howd’ya get hurt?” Applejack ask concerned. “There were timberwolves, and he fought emm off” Applebloom explained. “Yeah, he blew them all to bits, it was awesome he was like “take that, and that” and he beat them all.” Scootaloo added. “And he can shoot lightning even though he's an earth pony.” Sweetie Bell chimed Inn The mares suddenly notices the scattered piles of wood all around the clearing standing as proof to the fillies tale. “First of all we still need to find whatever it is that fell in the Everfree.” A new voice said entering the conversation, Aioria was stunned, before him stood a purple pony with both wings and horn, remembering his previous toughts he bowed to be more carefully with his rhetoric. “It's him” Applebloom said. “he’s the one that fell from the sky.” “Yeah, he was glowing all golden and stuff.” Scootaloo said waving her hooves across her coat to illustrate what she meant. “And he was close-by, that there is where he landed.” Sweetie Bell pointed at the hole in the ground. The six mares had trouble wrapping their head around such outlandish declarations, clearly the girls were exaggerating what really happened, it was impossible that this lone earth pony stallion had fallen from the sky, used thunder magic and reduced a whole pack of timberwolves to sawdust all by himself. Applejack cautiously faced the stranger gauging him for any sign of lies. “Howdy stranger, thank ya' kindly for helpin' mah' sister.” Aioria nodded in acknowledgement. “Did'ja get that there fightin' them timberwolves?” She asked him skeptically. “No.” Aioria answered her, Applejack saw no lies in his answer, she was somewhat disappointed to hear that. “A manticore did this to me” Applejack did a doubletake, she still saw no lies in him. “Ya fought a manticore together with the timberwolves!?” Applejack asked shocked by his statement, the looks that the other mares were giving him mirrored Applejack's. “No, the wolves came later, i fought the manticore along with a hydra.” Aioria offhandedly commented, all around him were nothing but astonished stares. “What is going on!!!” Twilight yelled.