First Encounter
"Uhh!" Apple Bloom groaned her way back to consciousness, and wished she hadn't bothered. She felt as if she'd been pulled backwards through a bit-sized hole. As she twitched, various aches and pains introduced themselves and settled in for a long stay without so much as a by your leave.
"What you said!" Sweetie Belle's voice moaned, then she squeaked, "Ahh! I've gone blind!"
Apple Bloom opened her eyes to see the white unicorn sprawled in front of her, cloak tail flipped forward over her head and wrapped up in her disarrayed saddlebags. Further exploration, based purely on moving her eyeballs around because they were the only things that didn't hurt when she did so, revealed the pair of them were in a forest glade, dappled sunlight streaming down through the trees and making interesting patterns on the leaf mould and occasional half hearted clumps of grass.
She jumped up, and immediately wished she hadn't, but ignoring the muscle pains, she stepped forward and pulled the cloak back from the head of the panicking unicorn.
"Help mee!... oh." Sweetie Belle calmed down as her head was uncovered.
Apple Bloom was also wearing her Crusader cloak and saddlebags. The farm-filly looked around but couldn't see far in any direction, as she quite literally couldn't see the forest for the trees. What she also didn't see in any direction was the third member of their trio. "Scootaloo! Scootaloo! Where are you!"
"I'm up here, you guys!" The two of them looked up to see the pegasus filly sprawled on a branch. "My everything hurts!"
She started to move, and Apple Bloom called out, "No, wait! You might..." There was a squawk and a thump. "... fall down."
"Did anybody get the cutie-mark of that cart driver?" Scootaloo asked as she peeled herself out of the dent she'd made in the leaf-mould.
Apple Bloom said, "That's not the problem, I think that spell sent us somewhere else, just like when Twilight winks from one place to another. These ain't apple trees!"
The farm filly felt the earth beneath her hooves. Some people might think that even a nifty strength and toughness boost was a pretty feeble special ability compared to pegasus flight or unicorn magic, but earth ponies also had this. Ultimately, both strength and toughness came from a connection with the earth beneath them, and that connection went both ways.
An earth pony on natural ground rarely got lost, and could sense the lay of the land in the immediate area, knowing where the water sources were, and the high and low ground. Every place had it's own special feel, but this was alien, unlike anything she'd felt before. The closest she could come to it was when she'd been in the Everfree forest. More importantly, she couldn't get a direction back to Ponyville. They must be really far away. The only good part was that her aches and pains were starting to fade, seeming to flow away into the ground.
Her musings had only taken only moment, but they were soon interrupted. Scootaloo rounded on Sweetie Belle. "This is all your fault! If you hadn't found that stupid spell...!"
"Me!" Sweetie Belle replied heatedly. "I didn't know it was going to do this! Besides you wanted to do it too!"
"That was when I figured it would show us our cutie-marks, not send us off on a wild goose chase!"
"That's crazy! There aren't even any geese here to chase, and besides we tried that already, remember last Tuesday?"
"Do I! I was washing duckweed out of my mane all evening!"
"Wash?" Sweetie Belle glared at the leaf mould covered pegasus. "Well you could do with another one!"
They were halted by a loud thumping rattle, and some nuts dropping around them. Apple Bloom had kicked one of the trees to get their attention. She wasn't up to Applejack's standard, but Sweetie Belle wasn't the only one practising with her big sister. Her aches had faded away, and she felt pretty much okay, apart from the sense of differentness in the land under her feet. She could still draw on it's strength though.
She called out, "Now both of you just simmer down, either all of us are to blame or none of us are! Sweetie Belle found the spell, true, but we all wanted to try it, and Scootaloo, you were the most eager. I let myself think it would work out too, despite sayin' we shouldn't mess with magic again... It makes no matter anyhow, we're here now, and our task is to get home."
The interruption had cooled the other two's tempers. They looked at each other, and then Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo said, "But we don't even know where here is!"
"Then I figure we'd best find out," Apple Bloom replied. She wasn't going to tell them yet just how lost they were, but she gave them her best guess. "Maybe we ended up in the Everfree again, this place feels kinda like it. I reckon the ground slopes upwards, that-a-way, so we should go have a look at the lay of the land."
"Or I can do this!" Scootaloo pulled out the bottle from her saddlebags and popped it open, and seconds later was standing on her training cloud. She dipped her muzzle into her saddle bag again and came out wearing her flying goggles. She slid them down over her eyes, her wings beat rapidly, and the cloud ascended into the sky, or rather into the tree-tops.
"Huh, I'd forgotten she could do that." Apple Bloom said. "That could come in kinda useful for finding our way back to Ponyville."
"You think we're really far away?" Sweetie Belle looked nervous.
"Aw, I'm sure we're just a couple of miles away, and we'll be home in time for tea," the earth pony filly reassured her, not wanting to make her feel worse with what she really thought.
"Even if we ain't, I've still got an apple pie and some bottles of juice that need seeing to! With your magic, my strength and Scootaloo's new flying ability, we can handle anything that happens."
"Aaaah!" The pegasus in question dropped out of the sky, looking panicked. "The sky! It's all wrong! There's a moon up there, two of them, and neither of them is Luna's!"
Apple Bloom looked up at the pegasus, confused. "I think you hit your head on a branch on the way up. What would the moon be doing up in the daytime anyway?"
"No! Go see for yourself!" Scootaloo pointed in the direction of the rising land. There's some kind of break in the forest that way, I saw it before I saw the freaky moons!"
Apple Bloom sighed. "Okay, let's go."
She led the way through the trees, seeing occasional signs of animal tracks and the distant chirping of birds. This place was more like a wilder version of White Tail Woods than the Everfree forest, though she wasn't going to take any chances. Sweetie Belle followed her closely, while Scootaloo hovered overhead.
They broke out of the tree-line onto a promontory over a steep sided ravine that cut the ground in front of them. It was a beautiful day, a blue sky with small puffs of white cloud floating lazily in it. The sun was high up behind them, casting short shadows at their hooves, though whether it was late morning or early afternoon they didn't know.
Beyond the ravine the forest started again, covering rising hills that stretched to higher ones on the horizon. But that wasn't what held their attention. There were two crescents in the sky above it, horns facing downwards and to one side. One was slightly bigger than Luna's moon, the other half again as big. The smaller one had a slightly crimson tinge to it, faded by the blue of the atmosphere to a pale purple.
Apple Bloom's jaw dropped, and Sweetie Belle collapsed as her legs gave way under her. The earth pony pulled herself together and made one of the most unnecessary comments of her short career. "Looks like you were right! I don't think we're in Equestria any more, Scootaloo..."
"Told ya!" The floating pegasus said smugly, pushing her goggles back up on her forehead. That was quashed by the sound of someone starting to cry. Sweetie Belle had her hooves to her face, and was bawling.
"I... I... did this! How will we ever get back to Equestria now! I don't care if she grounds me for ever, I just want to see Rarity again!"
Scootaloo would have had to be far less sensitive than Rainbow Dash at her worst to ignore her friend's distress. She landed and laid down beside her, putting a comforting wing across her. "Hey! It's okay, we'll figure something out..."
Apple Bloom felt like crying herself as she was hit by a massive surge of homesickness, but she needed to be strong for her friends, she needed ideas, she needed... "Princesses!"
"What you sayin'?" Scootaloo looked up from where she was comforting Sweetie Belle.
Apple Bloom grinned. "If Princess Celestia was here, she'd be able to send us home, right? Or Princess Luna, I mean you saw her on Nightmare Night, scary but awesome, and really nice once she got into the swing of things."
"Yeah, but they ain't here!" Scootaloo responded.
Suddenly Sweetie Belle pulled herself up, still sniffling but looking far happier. "I understand, this this place has it's own sun and moons! All we need to do is find the Princesses who control them and ask _them_ to send us back!"
"Just what I was thinkin'!" Apple Bloom beamed.
Scootaloo got up herself. "Yeah, me too... which still leaves us with finding those Princesses."
Apple Bloom stepped forward to the very edge of the promontory. "Well, first we find a town, which means we need to find a road... Like that one down there."
At the bottom of the ravine was a road of sorts, a track of pounded down earth that had been paved after a fashion with pebbles and rocks, not properly cobbled, but definitely cared for, and well used, if the wagon tracks that showed along the edges were any indication.
The ravine was more of a massive cutting in the earth off to their right, going off into the distance. The forest stopped at the top on both sides, which had to be at least forty five degree slopes, with only tough grass and the occasional shrub growing on them. Rock outcrops jutted out at intervals, like the one they were on which was almost a wall stretching out from the hill side.
Off to the other side, the ravine widened out considerably to gentler slopes, with the forest coming down far closer to the road way, except where tree stumps showing an avenue directly on either side had been cleared. The road there had been partly corduroyed with the felled and split timber, giving it a yellowish hue from their vantage point. They could see the forest gave way to more open plains a few miles further on.
Apple Bloom mused, "If I wanted to build a town, I'd do it in the open. So, I'm guessing we follow the yellow plank road."
"Follow the yellow plank road?" asked Scootaloo.
"Follow the yellow plank road!" replied Sweetie Belle. "Hmm... Why do I feel there's a song to be made about that?"
Scootaloo had noticed some movement in the trees down there on their side and moved up on her cloud to get a better look. "Uh, I don't think those guys would be an appreciative audience."
She pointed with a hoof, and the other fillies saw what she was talking about. Back from the road, there were clear patches in the forest, indeed at one point there was a small tarn, a still pool formed by a dip in the earth, which under other circumstances would have seemed inviting. However, at the moment on the far shore they could just see a group of creatures that looked a little like Diamond Dogs, only possibly even uglier and with green skin.
They wore patched together rags and clothing, if they wore anything at all, but they did mostly have helmets of a sort, and some form of worn leather armour. Some were carrying spears, while others had big knives. Several of them were rolling roughly spherical boulders as big as themselves through the clearing towards the roadway. To Apple Bloom they seemed familiar for some reason, though she could swear on a stack of apples higher than her head that she hadn't ever seen them before.
"I don't like the look of them!" Sweetie Belle shivered. "They look mean!"
"Just because they look mean, doesn't mean they are," Apple Bloom replied, trying to calm things down. She'd told her sister once that she wasn't a baby any more, and now was the time to prove it. "Remember how everyone was scared of Zecora, and how she turned out to be real nice?"
"She wasn't carrying big sharp pointy things," said Scootaloo feelingly.
"Well they're down there and we're up here, so that ain't a problem!" Apple Bloom stated confidently.
Just then two of the creatures burst out of the tree-line behind them, one carrying a spear, the other a club. Sweetie Belle jumped away with a squeak.
It was clear the pair were almost as surprised by the existence of the three ponies as they were about the newcomers. However, they recovered from their shock quickly and with a few phrases full of harsh consonants that passed for a conversation, they started moving forward, weapons ready.
"Hey now, we don't want any trouble," Apple Bloom said, standing her ground but not trying to act offensive. "We only just got here ourselves, can you... whoa!"
The one with the spear suddenly dashed forwards and thrust at her with it. Despite her earlier comment she'd fortunately been ready to move if they weren't friendly. She easily dodged the thrust, though the edge of her cape caught on the tip and ripped.
Apple Bloom had kept up with her martial arts, even after it had become clear that she'd never get her cutie mark in it. She'd shown no particular talent for it, in fact her first attempts at martial arts with Rainbow Dash had been pretty disastrous. However, she'd stuck at it, and gotten pretty good just through continuing to practice.
It was good exercise, and after the pegasus oriented Wing Chun style Rainbow Dash had tried to teach her proved to be a poor fit for an earth pony, she'd found the more ground based Northern Shire-lin style being taught at the same training hall. It focussed a lot on using the earth as a fulcrum and hind hoof moves, which were something she could practise by helping her big sister buck apple trees.
All this meant that when she was attacked, her training took over and she dropped under the thrust, spinning on her fore-hooves to present her hind legs to the creature. It didn't stand much taller than a full grown pony up on their hind hooves, so with a "Hyah!" she kicked out with a rising double hoof strike that caught it right in the bread basket. It choked and folded forward over her, dropping it's spear as she followed up with a rearing backwards head strike, catching it under the chin and sending it tumbling over backwards.
The other one turned to help his ally, raising his club to strike down on the fighting earth pony. However, he suddenly found that his club was stuck up there as a light green glow formed around it. He was so busy heaving at it, he didn't see Scootaloo drop from her cloud to land with all four hooves on his head, giving his helmet a good hoof clopping, making it ring like a fire bell.
He collapsed unconscious alongside his playmate, as Scootaloo bounded off his falling form. She did a neat somersault in mid-air as she dropped to land with all four hooves spread wide, panting and looking for more enemies. "You okay Apple Bloom?"
"Fine apart from a cloak that'll never be the same again." Apple Bloom stood over her attacker. In practical fact she was feeling a little unsteady on her legs. That creature had tried to _kill_ her! However, she wasn't going to show it to the others, they needed confidence. "That was some pretty fast thinking and a smooth move! I guess these guys aren't friendly after all."
"They aren't now, that's for sure!" Scootaloo replied. She pulled out her storage bottle and used it to summon the cloud down, but re-stoppered the bottle before it was actually sucked in. "I did what I could, but it was Sweetie Belle who kept his club from swinging."
Apple Bloom looked over at the sweating unicorn who looked as if she'd gone through an even tougher workout than Scootaloo. "I didn't know you could do that."
"Neither did I!" admitted the young unicorn. "I just couldn't let it hurt you, and I guess my magic did what I told it."
"Lucky for us it did..." Apple Bloom was beginning to come down off her own adrenaline high. "... but I gotta wonder, what were these two goons up here to do anyway? It wasn't to attack us, they were as surprised as we was."
Scootaloo had gotten back on the cloud, and looked down towards the ravine. "I don't know, but some-pony else's coming!"
Apple Bloom started looking round for another attack, then moved over to the lip of the outcrop and looked down where Scootaloo was already staring. A group of big carts, canvas topped cargo wagons drawn by pairs of horses, was making it's way in single file along the road.
Her heart lifted, there were civilised folk here! They must be like the Saddle Arabians, they had trading caravans that travelled around, didn't they? Maybe one of the cart pullers could direct them to the Princess. While she noted there were other creatures sitting up on the carts, like taller, thinner and above all pinker versions of the bipeds she'd just fought, she wasn't interested in any pets the local horses had.
Then she connected the dots, and they formed a most ominous picture. "That's what those green goons were here for, as look-outs! They were going to warn their friends down below when those wagons came!"
"But why?" Sweetie Belle asked, "Are they hoping to surprise them?"
"Yep, but not in a good way! You roll one of them rocks down that slope, it'll hit a wagon with a fair smack, wreck the wheels, or someone's legs depending on what's under it."
"But why would they be that cruel?" The unicorn looked shocked and confused in equal measure.
"Hello!" Scootaloo exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "They just tried to skewer us! Duh!"
Apple Bloom answered more clearly, "I think they want to steal what's in the carts, well, they ain't playing hide and seek anyhow. We can't just let them get away with it!"
"How do you suggest we stop them?" asked Scootaloo, sarcastically.
Apple Bloom decided to take the question seriously. It was all coming together in her head, like fixing one of the farm's apple carts. Planning it made her able to ignore how scared she was of _what_ she was planning. But the same courage and determination that had sent her into the Everfree to find out the truth about Zecora was at work here, and she tried not to show her fear.
"Sweetie Belle, you get down to those carts and warn them what's coming. Get 'em moving as fast as you can! And take my saddlebags, I'll be travelling light! Scootaloo and I will head on down there and try to stop those green guys rolling the rocks down on them."
"Are you out of your apple picking mind?" Scootaloo waved a hoof at the two unconscious ones. "We barely beat two of them, and you're expecting us to fight the whole gang?"
"Uh huh, I ain't that crazy, but if we can just distract them for long enough for the carts to get past, we can run for it. You've got your cloud, and I reckon I can outrun anything that's only got two legs. That's why Sweetie Belle's carrying the warning, we're both faster than she is. Besides, if Applejack was here, there's no way she'd let this happen without trying to stop it."
"Apple Bloom, you're not Applejack!" Scootaloo yelled out, "You're just a filly, and so am I!"
"I KNOW!" Apple Bloom looked right at the pegasus, her confident demeanour finally cracking a bit. A small part of her wanting to call her friend a chicken, but knowing she was just as scared as Scootaloo must be, she couldn't. "I know... but I can't stand aside and let it happen neither, and I'm all I've got to do this with..."
Scootaloo looked into her friends eyes and saw the fear she felt reflected in them. She gulped and said quietly, "Uh huh. You've got me as well."
Her expression turned determined, and she pulled down her goggles. "Alright, let's go show these green meanies what Equestria girls can do!"
Apple Bloom managed to grin back at her as she unslung her saddlebags and passed them to Sweetie Belle. "Yeah! Maybe distracting green guys is our special talent!"
The two took off down the slope to the right after Sweetie Belle, who'd peeled off as soon as she could find a way down to the roadway.
The other two ponies went on, weaving through the tree trunks at a gallop. As they ran, Apple Bloom tried to think of a way to stop the rocks. Big Macintosh would have been able to break them with a buck, and possibly even her sister could have done the trick, but even with all the strength she could draw from the earth, she wouldn't be able to duplicate it...
Of course, the rocks weren't rolling themselves, what she needed to do was stop the rollers! She called up to Scootaloo, "Keep them looking up!" as they approached the area where the green guys were pushing the rocks. There were nine of them, three to a rock, and they'd almost gotten to the edge of the forest, where the dip down to the pool formed a ridge with the slope down to the roadway.
Scootaloo went on ahead, wings buzzing madly and yelling "Hey bozos! I do the rock and roll around here!" She buzzed their heads, flying along the row of pushers at high speed. While they were still reacting, Apple Bloom raced out of the undergrowth and in front of their legs, kicking and stomping exposed feet and ankles with every step.
Her strategy worked to a point, the ones pushing the rocks collapsed howling and clutching their pained and even damaged feet. This was not a good idea as the carefully rounded rocks, deprived of their support, started rolling backwards. Apple Bloom even managed to circle back behind the last one in the row and give it a good buck in the right direction.
It rolled back down towards the pool enthusiastically, it's erstwhile masters yelling and howling and jumping or dragging themselves out of the way. She didn't stop, moving onto the second to give it the same treatment. But when she headed for the third, she had to avoid a sword slash that trimmed her mane and would have trimmed her head if she hadn't ducked at the right time.
The rest of the attackers had gotten there and swarmed around both sides of the remaining rock. Apple Bloom ran away, towards the road and open space, three of the leaders following her. She saw Scootaloo sweep across in front of her and catch a branch above her head height, hauling it off to one side.
Apple Bloom dived under the tree, and as her pursuers followed her, Scootaloo released the branch. "Catch!"
It snapped back and caught all three in their heads, sending them reeling backwards and dropping their weapons as they clutched their faces. Scootaloo cheered as she soared away on her cloud, "Woo hoo! The Cutie-Mark Crusaders! We have branches everywhere!"
The two ponies left them behind, and burst out of the trees onto the stump littered slope that led down to the road to see the wagon train just starting to make it's transit.
Apple Bloom looked behind her, only to see the rest of the group appear after them. Worse still, they were surrounding the last boulder, and heaved it over the ridge onto the downward slope. It started rolling, and Apple Bloom tried one last thing. New growth had sprung up upon the once logged slope, and a sapling had grown beside two stumps directly on the path the rock looked to be taking, which would drop it right onto the lead wagon. She dashed over and kicked it with all her might just above the base.
She hated to do it to a living tree, but it was the only thing she could think of. It snapped, and fell across between the two stumps, forming a natural barrier, just as the rock, now rolling at some speed, hit it. The springy sapling trunk bent and strained, then crunched as the rock rolled over it.
The rock rolled down unobstructed, though slower than it would have been, and smashed into the first cart's rear wheel. Sweetie Belle had been running alongside it and barely escaped becoming mashed unicorn. As Apple Bloom feared, the entire wagon train ground to a halt.
Her last ditch effort had cost her, as it gave time for the leading attackers to catch up with her. They surrounded her as she barely avoided a deadly swipe of a club. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Scootaloo swooping in and yelled, "No Scoots! Get away!"
But the pegasus was heedless, diving in and trying to strike one with a hoof. She missed, but as she rose away one of them dropped his spear and reached up, grabbing hold of her tail. She frantically beat her wings, but he slowly started dragging her down.
Sweetie Belle watched in horror as she saw her two friends get captured. She desperately wanted to save them, but she wasn't any kind of fighting pony, and there were too many of the bad guys. She didn't notice that some of the people on the carts pull out bows and start shooting, all she was focussed on was her need to help her two fellow crusaders.
Suddenly she felt her magic pulse deep inside her horn, words coming to her mind unbidden, musical notes to a song that she'd never heard before, but somehow knew by heart. Her reflex fear of singing in front of a crowd made a brief appearance, but was quickly swept under by the memory of her big sister saying unicorn magic always happened for a reason, and her desire to save her friends.
She started singing, and music swelled around her as her horn started to glow like a beacon. The tune was a rock ballad to bring tears to Scootaloo's eyes, if they hadn't already been there from the yanking of her tail.
"You've got the touch!"
The two ponies glowed in response.
"You've got the power! Yeah!"
Sweetie Belle stopped worrying and let the music carry her along. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom's fear was suddenly swept away, replaced by a cool confidence. Apple Bloom was no longer surrounded, just in a target rich environment, and Scootaloo realised that the guy holding her had made himself defenceless. They both felt ready and able to fight an Ursa Major. They leapt into action as Sweetie Belle hit the first verse.
"After all is said and done,
You've never walked, you've never run,
You're a winner!"
Apple Bloom bounced into the air, weaving between the weapons and kicking off one creature's face to jump onto another one's head, while Scootaloo stopped resisting the one pulling her tail and let him drag her down, guiding her path to slam both hooves into his forehead.
"You got the moves, you know the streets
Break the rules, take the heat
You're nobody's fool!"
Apple Bloom leapt off her foe to do a diving hoof kick into the stomach of one of the following ones. As his head came down, her fore-hoof came up into an upper cut to his chin. Scootaloo used her opponent like a spring board and jumped up onto her cloud, only to dive it right into the centre of the group that had been surrounding Apple Bloom.
You're at your best when when the going gets rough
You've been put to the test, but it's never enough!"
Scootaloo weaved between heads and bodies through openings that you would have sworn were too narrow for her, drawing club swings and sword strikes that ended up hitting the guy next to them rather than the pegasus.
"You got the touch!
You got the power!"
Apple Bloom had also jumped up again, this time diving between two assailants who had swords ready. They struck but she spun in mid air to roll between them sideways, evading the hard driven swords and kicking out fore and back hooves to produce some hard driven strikes of her own.
"When it's all breaking loose
You'll be riding the eye of the storm."
Scootaloo was doing just that, dive bombing some of the other attackers with her cloud, jumping off to strike their heads and leaping back on before they fell over. Weapons tried to connect, but were either evaded or occasionally diverted by a mysterious purple glow. Sweetie Belle was in the groove and doing more than just singing.
"You got the heart!
You got the motion!
You know that when things get too tough
You got the touch!"
Apple Bloom slammed into another opponent, but mistimed her attack slightly as the music went instrumental. One hind hoof knocked his weapon out of his hand, but it's fellow only grazed his torso. She barrelled into him, twisting to get away but he grabbed her from behind, both arms around her belly. She struggled and tried to break free, and she did stop him doing anything other than hang on.
"You never bend, you never break
You seem to know just what it takes
You're a fighter!"
Apple Bloom saw another green guy with a spear coming at her while she was pinned, and her fore-hooves slammed down on the arms of her captor while her hind hooves raked down the insides of his legs. It let go and she pushed herself to the side just as the spear was thrust at her.
"It's in the blood, it's in the will
It's in the mighty hooves of steel
When you're standing your ground!"
Scootaloo had taken station between the attackers and the caravan, using her height and manoeuvrability to kick down upon anyone who tried to pass her. A spear point tried to stab her, but she simply vectored to the side and kicked out, snapping the spear head off. The guys trying to get past her were thinning out as arrows from the caravan started to hit their marks.
"And you never get hit when your back's to the wall
Gonna fight to the end and you're taking it all."
Apple Bloom had gotten backed up against a tree, three of the creatures with spears closing in on her. Unwilling to get too close to the hooves that had felled so many comrades, they chose to throw their spears. She rolled out of the way of one, flattening herself to the ground as a second one passed just over her.
"You got the touch!
You got the power!"
The trio closed in, thinking they had her down, but she sprung up onto the shafts of the spears, using them as a springboard to leap over their heads and kick the middle one in the back of the head as she went, slamming him face-first into the tree she'd just left.
"When it's all breaking loose
You'll be riding the eye of the storm!"
Scootaloo zoomed forward to cover her friend as she grabbed a fallen club in her mouth and galloped down the slope towards the remaining creatures. Better than half of them were down, and others were injured, either by the efforts of the two ponies or the arrows from the caravan. Scootaloo dropped down beside her. "Hop on! I'll carry you!"
"You got the heart
You got the motion
You know that when things get too tough
You got the touch!"
Apple Bloom couldn't ride the cloud directly, but she could rest on her friends back without interfering with her wings so she bounded on. As they passed over the disintegrating front line, she dropped the club which smacked one of the remaining bad guys in the back. He wore a fancier helmet, and his collapse took what little heart the creatures had left out of them.
"You're fightin' fire with fire
You know you got the touch!"
Apple Bloom dropped off Scootaloo's cloud in front of them, landing on all fours and then rearing up on her hind hooves. She stood there and made a 'come on' motion with one fore-hoof, but none of her opponents seemed to want to play any more.
"You're at your best when when the road gets rough
You've been put to the test, but it's never enough!"
They looked at the lone earth pony ready to take on all comers, the pegasus flying over head and the arrows that were still flying from the caravan, and fled, dragging some of their wounded with them. Sweetie Belle could tell she was reaching the coda, but it seemed to have been enough.
"You got the touch
You got the power!"
"You got the touch,
You got the power."
The glow faded from around the two fighting ponies, and Apple Bloom dropped back down on all fours, while Scootaloo swooped down beside her. Sweetie Belle was running up the slope to join them.
"Wow!" The pegasus gasped, looking up and down her earth pony companion. "I never knew you could fight like that!"
Neither did I!" Apple Bloom looked just as surprised. "I think we had a little help from Sweetie Belle. You could hear her totally amazing singing?"
"And I felt like I could go toe to toe with a dragon with one wing tied behind my back."
Sweetie Belle arrived. "You're both okay?" she blurted out anxiously.
"Right as rain, and I'm guessing that your song had something to do with it!" Apple Bloom replied cheerfully.
Scootaloo grinned. "That was awesome! I knew you could sing, but casting magic with it? That was unbelievably cool! And in front of everyone too! Hey, maybe that's how you got the transport spell to work in the first place..."
Sweetie Belle blushed at the compliment, then her eyes widened and the pupils shrank as she had a sudden moment of comprehension. Her cloak wasn't covering her flank, so both her friends could clearly see it start to glow. The glow faded to reveal a design, a golden set of paired quavers, narrowly outlined in black to make them more visible against her white pelt, and a swirl of gold and silver six pointed sparkles surrounding them.
Both the other ponies' eyes bugged out at the appearance of their friend's cutie-mark. Apple Bloom stuttered out, "Sweets... Look..."
The unicorn looked at her flank, then did a double take, and then started bounding around like an insane space hopper. "YES! YES! I have a cutie-mark! Music is my talent!"
Scootaloo said, "We really should have guessed, considering your awesome singing voice!"
"Not just music, but using your singing to juice up your magic," Apple Bloom added. "Like Scootaloo said, that's unbelievably cool!"
Both of them instinctively checked their own flanks, and sagged a little when they saw only bare pelt.
Sweetie Belle landed, and noticed her friends' disappointment. She suddenly felt a bit guilty for being so happy, then realised something.
"Guys, it's okay, you'll get your marks too. Don't you see? The spell worked! That's why we were sent here, to find out our cutie-marks by having to _use_ our special talents! You two just haven't done whatever it is you're good at. "
"I thought I was, doing those flying fighting moves. Maybe I'm just not good enough..." Scootaloo sighed.
Apple Bloom shook her head. "Part of that was Sweetie's spell. I guess your cutie-mark is something you get through your own efforts, or not at all. But she's got to be right, maybe our tasks are at the wagon train."
"Then we better go see 'em!" Scootaloo replied eagerly.
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So Sweetie Bell is a Bard par Excellence!!! Very nice chapter, good team work from the crusaders. I can't wait to see their reactions to the horses not being what they were expecting.
dat bard belle comes equiped with some nice buffs