//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: The Clover Chronicles // by Sollace //------------------------------// 3000 YEARS EARLIER (give or take a few hours) By this point Clover the Clever was starting to think Discord’s directions were a load of hogwash. He’d spent several hours searching that pony’s hoard top to bottom for anything that might be a clue as to how he might get out. He tried jumping, leaping, twisting, even yoga— which had done very little for his still aching back mind you— but nothing proved useful. It’s when he slipped and almost impaled himself on a javelin— a chill ran up Clover’s spine as an image of the piece of metal poking through his side conjured itself up in his mind. It didn’t hurt, thank Celestia, but it still felt wrong having it pass through him like that. A faint rumble sounded over the horizon, bringing Clover back to the present. It was getting dark and the sky had become thick with deep crimson clouds that lit up and roared brilliantly every so often. There was a faint breeze picking up as well, and Clover could feel the distinct tingling near the end of his horn that indicated a storm was brewing. Whatever weather this place had, Clover knew he didn’t want to be caught in the middle of it. He checked back the way he’d come. Most of what he’d passed in the last hour was nothing but empty dirt, and the mounds were but a hazy silhouette on the horizon now. He certainly won’t be going back, but there was one place he could go. The landmark he’d originally set out towards, a mountain only a few hundred feet ahead. There he should be able to find shelter in a cave. There was another clap of thunder, and the faint pattering of drops reached his ears. A few more minutes of walking and Clover was almost to his destination. The thunder was becoming more frequent and the constant roar of rain sounded all around him, though all he could feel of it was the tingling as the water passed through his coat and splashed to the ground beneath him. He bolted into the cave and collapsed heaving in the entrance, then turned over to watch as the storm assaulted the world outside, “Okay,” Clover’s voice echoed loudly throughout the cave. He winced, and continued in a softer tone, “Let’s try this again.” He sat up on his haunches and began recounting Discord’s directions, “It was three lefts, a right, a left, right twice more, and then a ‘snazzle’.” Clover frowned, “But I don’t know what a ‘snazzle’ is.” A crack of lightning flashed through the cave, and the rain redoubled its efforts. Clover tried to block the noise out, folding his ears down and shifting a few paces further into the cave, “But he did say something about it being a direction, so maybe it’s something in a higher dimension?” Clover’s frown deepened and he shook his head, “But then how am I supposed to move in a direction not my own? No, if I know anything about Discord, he wouldn’t have it make that much sense.” “... although.” Clover lit his horn and cast out his magic to sense the surroundings, something Starswirl taught him to do often. One can never know enough about the hidden reams, after all. He began by inspecting the top level mana, the ones most commonly used by Unicorns. Everything seemed normal at this level, it was mostly flowing westward, with the occasional eddy forming in the cave due to his own presence. He then moved on the next level, the trae-mana, the life giving force. It, too, seemed normal given the situation. This place seemed thoroughly devoid of any life forms. Finally, he skipped the third and fourth levels, and went straight to the quart-mana. This is where he noticed something off. The flow was completely wrong; portions were flowing rapidly to the south, whilst other large regions were being sucked straight up, and there were waves of some force rumbling through— The sound of the rain turned from a constant low roar, to a deep rumble that reached Clover even in his meditation. He opened his eyes to find the entire cave shaking and a gale force wind blowing through from the storm outside. Several rocks had also fallen on him, though he hadn’t noticed due to his condition. Clover galloped out into the open. As he approached the opening to the cave, he was instantly hit by the strong winds, and stumbled and stopped to brace himself. He shielded his eyes from the storm and tried to form a spell to protect him. He settled on a simple shielding spell, though it would take a lot of his energy to maintain. He quickly formed the parts in his mind and cast the spell. A thin green membrane took form covering the front half of his body, with flaking edges around its perimeter. Not much, but it would have to do. He headed out into the storm, being sure to keep the shield between himself and the winds, and turned around to look up at the mountain. It had already grown dark outside, but, in the brief flashes of lightning, he could make out several cracks forming near the peaks. Clover gulped and backed away from the cave, moments before another tremor shook the mountain and threw the entrance down upon itself in a deafening crash. But the quakes didn’t stop there. The ground shook more violently and cracks started to spread from the mountain into the surrounding area. As Clover watched in horror, patches of ground broke loose and began tilting. Other areas dropped away around him revealing a black abyss below. He backed away slowly as the cracks progressed, then started moving faster, then slightly faster. Pretty soon Clover found himself running full tilt from a wave of breaking up and disappearing land. The destruction quickly overtook Clover and he had to teleport on multiple occasions to keep ahead of it. Over the course of fifteen minutes, Clover had covered the space he’d done before in an hour and was already approaching where the mounds should be though he didn’t pay much attention to that as he watched over his shoulder every few seconds to check the progress of the deterioration. Eventually, Clover arrived at the location he’d originally fallen through the portal, but was surprised to find large areas of the plane hollowed out and the mounds completely missing. He stopped at the edge of a cliff and looked around in add directions. Behind him the ground was shaking and tilting, and breaking apart. Before him was a large gap, and to the left and right were thing pieces of ground that wrapped around for several hundred paces. He didn’t have time to double around though. “Clover! Over here!” A familiar voice called out from behind Clover. He looked back over the gap. Far off, near the centre, he though he saw something flicker. There was the flitter of light, and a hoof poked through a hole floating in the air. A head followed, and he instantly recognised the pony from before. She waved at him and called again, “Clover, get in here, quick!” Clover glanced around himself one more time. The destruction was almost upon him. He looked over the gap and picked out several stones still floating across the space. “Well, it’ll be now or never” He gulped, put all his magic into his shield to keep the wind off, and leapt for the first step. He left the edge moments before the last pieces of land broke away behind him, and scrambled with his hooves onto the floating piece of stone. He steadied himself, and jumped to the next, which immediately began to fall forcing Clover to hop to the next. He did this four times before he made the final jump for the portal. He held out his hoof as far as he could and grasped for safety as he plummeted into the abyss. Just as he thought it was too late, a pink hoof reached out and grabbed him by the fetlock, and pulled him inside. The portal zipped closed behind them, locking the storm out for good. Clover immediately pulled the mare into a rough hug, momentarily forgetting everything else, “Thank you; thank you so much!” He could almost feel himself tearing up as he nuzzled deep into the mare’s curly mane. He didn’t know how or why, but he didn’t care. Somehow this mare was able to touch him and it had saved his life, “I don’t know how I can repay you for this and I don’t even know your name.” “Hold on now, Casanova.” She pushed the distraught stallion away, “Firstly, it’s Pinkie Pie.” Clover nodded, adding that piece of information to his vault, “Second, where not out of the woods yet. We only have about ten minutes before this hammerspace starts to fracture as well, so we’d better move fast.” “Right, of course,” Clover nodded and looked around. Unlike the one from before, this space was a lot simpler. It didn’t have any landmarks or any sense of up or down. Both the ground and the sky were featureless seas of darkness, “So, where is this?” “This is one of my emergency hammerspaces. I keep them stashed all over the place in case of a hammerspace emergency.” “... so this is inside your regular hammerspace? Isn’t that dangerous?” “Nope” Pinkie shook her head, “Not at all! You only have to worry about things blowing up when you’re mixing different types of pocket dimensions, like putting a hammerspace into a bag of holding.” Pinkie paused, and Clover thought he saw the faintest hints of a blush come over the mare. She continued in a much quieter tone, “I, uh, kind of found that out the hard way.” Before Clover could ask any further the mare returned to her previous bubbly disposition, “So let’s get moving.” She pulled out a notebook from her mane and paged through it for a moment, before stopping on one page and prodding it with a hoof. “Okay, the first thing we have to do is teach you to Snazzle.” “How do you—“ “Shh,” Pinkie shoved a hoof in Clover’s mouth, silencing him, “I’m working here.” Then resumed reading her instructions, “It says you should take my hoof,” She held out a hoof to Clover. Clover stood still, his eyebrow raised, and staring at the pink mare looking to him expectantly with her hoof held out. In the short moment, Clover realised there was something different about this Pinkie Pie. She somehow seemed older, and there was a strong magical presence around her that he couldn’t place. Every few minutes another pulse would pass him making the end of his horn buzzed. Pinkie bobbed her eyes, hinting to her hoof, and held it out slightly further, “Come on now. I won’t bite.” Clover relented and grabbed onto her hoof, “Fine, but no— Woah!” Pinkie suddenly pulled Clover up to her, lifting them both up into a standing position on their hind legs. He felt the fur on their barrels brush together momentarily and Clover felt a blush coming over him. Pinkie Pie’s face was filling his vision and she gave him a quick wink before taking the lead into the most awkward version of the waltz that Clover had ever experience. She spoke out the steps as she went through them, “Left, left, left, right,” She turned them around and continued in the other direction, “Right, left, right, right, and—” Pinkie winked and pulled him to her side, then sent him spinning in a pirouette, “Snazzle!” The room spun around frantically, and Clover felt like his stomach had turned itself inside out. He stumbled, collapsed to his haunches, and stared at the ground as he tried to recover from his dizziness, “Wh—what was that?” “That, my dear Clover,” she produced a pipe and detective’s hat. Pinkie clenched the pipe between the teeth and eyed the fedora in her hooves, Hm... that was supposed to be a Searlock Holms hat, She shrugged and returned it to her hammer-hammerspace, Oh well, and continued, “That, my dear Clover, was a Snazzle. Don’t worry, the feeling will pass. Believe me when I say that my dance is the easiest way.” Pinkie motioned with her hoof, “Now, let’s get out of here,” and began trotting in a random direction. “Right, where are we going?” Clover hurried to keep up with Pinkie Pie. “Hold it” Pinkie stopped, holding up a hoof for Clover to do the same. She took a step forwards and began inspecting something Clover couldn’t see. “Um,” Clover stood back and watched as Pinkie waved her hooves around in the empty air. For the first moments, he was beginning to wonder whether he’d be better off outside, when there was a loud knock as Pinkie’s hoof came into contact with something solid. She trotted around to the other side, facing Clover, and knocked again. It was a low hollow sound, almost like something made of wood, “Here we go.” She continued patting down the invisible object, until her hoof found something to grab a hold of, and Pinkie pulled the door open. There was a rush of air, a sudden explosion of noise, and the waves or magic returned now much stronger than before. Reality itself seemed to split open before, revealing a doorway into another dark space. “Here you go,” Pinkie stepped around the portal, “This should take you closer to where you need to go,” she shouted. “What?” A loud thrashing was filling Clover’s ears, and he could barely make out what Pinkie was saying. Pinkie Pie wrapped a hoof around Clover and pulled him closer to the edge of the portal, pointing with the other hoof,“It’s getting closer, you have to go now.” “What about you?” “I’ll be fine,” she reached into her mane and pulled out a small satchel, that she pressed into Clover’s hoof, “Take this. A friend told me you’d need this.” “Will I see you again?” Pinkie giggled, “You already have.” And shoved Clover through the portal moments before the black void around them began to crack and fume, wisps of red clouds invading the space and obscuring Pinkie from view as he fell away.