The table (such as it was) was littered with gear. Twilight paced back and forth, scrap paper and ballpoint pen dancing in the air in front of her. She checked off an item.
Marshall shook his head discretely and grinned inwardly. Damn that little pony loved checklists. She'd have made a good plane captain. All the best ones had a touch or more of OCD.
"One and one quarter pound C4, cube, unprimed."
Only in Twilight's case, it was more like CDO, because that put the letters in alphabetical order. Christ.
A small clop of frustration sounded against the stone floor.
"Marshall!"
He grunted, clicked his heels, straightened and saluted with his hand held sharply outward. "Jawohl, List Nazi!"
She gave him an unimpressed look. He shifted to a sharp, mechanical parade rest stance and assumed the middle distance stare of attention.
"Verzeihen sie mir, mein Führer. Distraction ist unacceptable!"
"Marshall!"
He eased his stance and grinned at her. "Relax, Sparks. I'm just joshin' ya."
She narrowed her eyes at him. This was usually a sign that her patience was at an end.
"One and one quarter pounds C4, cube, unprimed. Check." He tapped the inoffensive white cube of putty-like substance.
She checked it off the list and frowned. "What is C4 exactly, and why do we need it?"
He scanned the remaining items on the table and considered how best to pack all of this stuff, seeing as he was probably going to end up carrying most of it. Twilight was probably capable of carrying a lot more than she looked, but every time he considered loading her out like a pack mule, he felt like a jerk. He generally just let her grab whatever she thought to bring with them, figuring she knew how much she could carry; which was considerably more since they'd rigged those saddlebags.
He wouldn't say it, but they were damn cute too. Kinda like putting an alice-frame military pack on a toddler, and egregious child exploitation was always good for a laugh. She probably wouldn't find that analogy amusing, though.
"C4 is an extremely stable form of explosive, Sparks." He mentioned. "Which is why we have to keep it separate from this."
Marshall picked up the already checked off IED (instantaneous electrical detonator) with its crimped safety fuse, and wrapped it carefully in a dry sock. Then he double wrapped it with the sock's mate.
"C4 is what's called a secondary explosive, meaning that it is extremely stable and requires another type of explosive, a primary explosive, to set it off. That's this bad boy. I'm being extremely paranoid, seeing as I'm no demo expert. Everything I know I got out of one of those training manuals they packed."
She frowned and looked at his meager book shelf. "Dang. I haven't gotten to that one yet." She mused.
Twilight was a voracious reader, but even a die hard infophile would find it difficult to get through a military training manual. The books were no frills "this is what you need to know and no more" stereo instruction-like monsters. She was still slogging her way through Battlefield Expedient Medicine, last he checked. Still, Twilight Sparkle was the sort of mare who would READ stereo instructions, the labels off of medicine bottles; anything, really. She had one of those minds that wasn't happy unless it was absorbing something new. She read almost constantly when not busy with something else. One improvement she'd already made to their living conditions were her little floaty light orbs. Much more efficient than his alcohol lamps, and definitely safer. He'd lost count of the number of small fires he'd started by knocking one over by accident.
"Actually that's a good point, Sparks. Add an item to the checklist. Field Manual 5-250: Explosives and Demolitions. It's been awhile since I've had to use that one, and it's better to be safe than sorry."
She quickly scribbled the item, floated the manual in question over to her saddlebags, a fact which caused him to smirk and her to primly ignore him, and checked it off the list.
She paused, cocking an ear at him curiously. "What do we need explosives for?"
He grinned slightly. "You'll see."
She glared at him and flattened her ears slightly, then bounced up on her hind-legs and made voodoo waving motions with her forelegs.
"Mysterious monkey is mysterioooous."
Marshall chuckled at her antics, any gap between them where pop-culture references were concerned disappeared almost as soon as he zinged her with them. The pony had a mind like a steel trap... in a singularity. No info, not even the most vacuous fact was able to escape its pull. He grinned at her and made the voodoo waving motions back at her.
"Curious pony is curioooous."
She clopped back to all four hooves and gave the pony equivalent of a shrug. Not all that different than the human version, actually.
"You don't honestly think there will be something dangerous enough out there that you'll need to use explosives, do you?"
He chuckled again, and began packing the items into his pack.
"Stop digging, Twilight. You'll know when we get there."
He made sure that the old crank megohmmeter was well wrapped before he put it in a side pouch, along with its trailing probes. He caught her frustrated curious look and decided to throw her a bone.
"It's a megohmmeter. It's basically for testing the insulation on wiring. You're familiar with capacitance, right?" At her nod of agreement he continued.
"The crank builds an electrical charge in a big capacitor, then you attach one probe to one end of the wire and start running the other probe up and down the insulation to test for breakdown of that insulation. Damaged insulation will get a reaction from the analog needle here. If you just touch the probes together you get a spark from all the built up voltage in the cap. I use it to produce a high voltage low current spark inside the blasting cap, which will set it off, and in turn set off the C4. Basically it's a jury-rigged detonator switch."
Her ears flattened. "That sounds dangerous."
It was his turn to shrug. "Needs must when the devil drives, Sparkanator."
She kicked his shin, and he laughed.
Even with the saddlebags there were limits to what she could carry. He really didn't mind, in any case. There were some things he HAD to carry. He'd casually broached the subject of her learning how to shoot, but she wasn't receptive to the idea. It was one of the few subjects they absolutely didn't agree on. He'd dropped it in the name of diplomacy, figuring she'd learn eventually.
He frowned at that thought. He was somewhat mystified to find that a large part of him didn't want her to learn that lesson.
"What's wrong, Marshall?" Her inquiry snapped him out of his introspection and he gave her a wry lopsided grin.
"Goin' soft in my old age, Sparks, I..." He paused, watching her idly pick up a bag of fruit with her hoof.
He shuddered. Man that creeped him out. He couldn't even really convey what it was about it that so bothered him. Maybe it was the thought of weird little ghost fingers at the end of those hooves, even though she'd told him several times that that wasn't really what they were anyway. That initial image stuck with him, little ghost fingers on the ends of hooves, so fundamentally wrong it was like... like a nose growing out the side of someone's arm.
"Ah man, I hate it when you do that, Sparks."
"Hmm?" She rotated the bag slightly, shifting it from one hoof to the other, her face a study of innocence. "Do what?"
He glared at her. "You know what I'm talking about, that... that hoof thing. It's creepy."
She rolled her eyes, but grinned at him. "I don't get you, Marshall. All day you watch me use my magic to move objects about in what has to be a blatant disregard for the physical laws of your world, but the little bit of innate... I hesitate to even call it magic, that all ponies are capable of is what creeps you out?"
He gave her a sheepish sort of grin. "To be fair, I've always been kinda creeped out by magnets, too. I mean seriously, how the fuck does that work?"
She sighed, knowing perfectly well that he knew EXACTLY how magnets worked, and yet what he'd said was also still true, and furthermore, knew that he knew that she knew. This sort of willful, obstinate, fundamental argumentativeness of thought, word, and deed characterized Marshall. He was just too stubborn to let things lie.
She shook her head, and rolled her eyes, and he was a bit surprised to see a hint of fondness about that gesture.
"Superstitious monkey." She grumbled cutely.
Still, she put the bag into one of the bulging side-pouches of her saddlebag.
The rest of the packing game went in silence, and while he was correct in that he ended up carrying the lion's share of the gear, her own load was not inconsiderable.
Twilight Sparkle would be lying if she said that the prospect of leaving their fortress of solitude didn't scare her a bit.
Part of this was simple familiarity. It had been home and schoolyard for the crash-course that was survival in this place, taught by an alien and occasionally capricious taskmaster who would sometimes let her make embarrassing (though harmless) mistakes because he thought that pain and embarrassment could be a good teacher, yes, but also because it was damn funny, and entertainment was at a premium, hereabouts.
This was NOT the sort of teaching method she was used to. Twilight Sparkle had always been a gifted unicorn. Her instructors in Princess Celestia's Academy for Gifted Unicorns had always been a bit wary of her enthusiasm for learning, maybe a little fearful, truth be told. Equestrian history had its fair share of powerful unicorn wizards who were brought low by hubris.
By contrast, Princess Celestia, who had never been intimidated in the least, was very much the sort of mentor who nudged, guided, and let the learner come to their own conclusions and share them.
Marshall was neither subtle, nor particularly sympathetic. His teaching method could best be described as, "Hurts, don't it? Bet you won't do THAT again."
This bothered her a bit until he showed her some of the scars.
She trusted his experience, but more importantly, she thought she had the human's measure. He was contrary, argumentative, and completely unapologetic where his survival methods clashed with her sensibilities, but... he listened to reason. His somewhat quirky sense of humor, a direct result of his contrariness, was a survival mechanism, and a coping mechanism, which he turned on himself more often than he turned on her. In this he was a lot like Pinkie Pie, in a way. Oh, no where near as random, or giggly, but then again, he didn't have much to giggle about. It was when he stopped joking that one had to pay attention.
When Marshall began to brood, it was an extremely bad sign.
The change in his personality when something actually dangerous was being contemplated was startling and total. He did NOT screw around when real threat of injury existed.
Still, all digression aside, she was a little nervous about the prospect of this trip. Marshall had assured her that the amount of time they would spend out and about at night, barring incident, was relatively small, and their planning had been meant to minimize these risks. Marshall even had a word for the practice, coming from Naval doctrine.
Operational Risk Management.
Which was really just a fancy term for what Twilight Sparkle had been doing her whole life.
She loved fancy terms.
Especially fancy terms that explained a new way of thinking about something she'd done without thought previously.
Which was the second point really. Yes, she was scared, any sane pony would be, but she was also excited.
This mysterious island, this sinister, threatening island, was about to get a little less enigmatic.
She was sure of it.
Marshall snapped his fingers and she shook loose of her musings and looked up into his face.
"You with me, Sparks?"
"Yes."
He frowned. "How's the bags? They too heavy? Lopsided? Chaffing?"
She shifted slightly, ran a few steps, back-trotted and spun quickly left and right. "Fine. It's a little heavier than I'm used to, but not too heavy. Seems balanced. As for chaffing, it's fine now, but when I start sweating we'll have to see."
He nodded. "Right. You ready?"
She took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded affirmative.
Marshall looked very different today. He still had that frumpy tan range hat, a style she was told was actually called a "boonie hat", and his rifle, but he'd made a few additions to his everyday gear. He was wearing full pants and a BDU top, for one. Still that same odd choice of camouflage colors. When she'd asked him about them, he'd said that the pattern had been optimized for the desert terrain the troops he was delivering it to were supposed to be operating in, and that he'd been hundreds of miles from any jungle that would have made a woodland pattern even remotely effective. The alternative was some pilot coveralls, which weren't much better.
Adding to this a heavy military pack, and the most ingenious thing, a tactical vest, which had a large number of little pockets and spots for things to be clipped if they were needed for easy reach up and down his long torso. Twilight had already made note of the thing as something to adapt for her own usage, the idea of having so many tools organized within easy reach anywhere she went was just...
Wow.
He snapped his fingers.
"Oh, almost forgot. One more thing..." He ran into the cave and she followed him with her eyes, puzzled. They'd gone over the checklist, and nothing was missing. At least, she THOUGHT nothing was missing. She suddenly itched to double-check the list again.
In this agony of OCD indecision he came back with a light green book about the size of a good sized graphic novel. He held it out to her.
She looked at it curiously. The cover read, in handwritten block lettering,
"Flight Log, LOT 166480 VR-62 "The Nomads" Opened: 23Apr2012"
He nodded to it, his expression curiously distant. "You've been bitching about not having any notes since you got here, Sparks. I remembered yesterday that we'd just started a new flight log before... this place, and we'd only used about four pages out of it." He grinned wryly.
"It won't last forever, so you'd better write small, but..." He shrugged.
She took it from him with her magic and opened it, noting that several pages had been cut out of the beginning, but nothing else. She looked up at him.
"Marshall... this... thank you."
He lost that distant look and waved his hand idly. "Pah. It's not like that old bird is ever gonna fly again, and what would I have written in it, these past five years? Woke up, killed something. Ate it. Maintained camp. Whittled another naked chick. Went to sleep." He grimaced.
She smirked at this. That explained his bizarre collection of vaguely sexually suggestive (at least, she assumed, for a primate) female human sculptures. Like the dinnerware, they also had varying levels of quality and... detail. She hadn't said anything because the way they were stacked in an alcove in the back of the cave had the air of a sort of holy shrine.
When he'd caught her examining the alcove once, he'd vaguely mumbled something about "yoga" and changed the subject.
He either didn't notice her smirk, or chose to ignore it. "That's pretty sad, now that I think of it. Anyway, you'll get some real use out of it, and who knows? Maybe one day you can give it to your Princess to show you've still been learning, eh?"
She tucked the green book and the pen clipped to it reverently in her saddlebag and approached him, nuzzling his hip gently. "This means a lot to me, Marshall. Thank you. Really."
He looked embarrassed, but he patted her head gently, just the same. "Like I said, it's nothin', Sparks. Come on. Daylight's wastin'."
She backed up, took a deep breath, and let it out. "Right."
Twilight had certain expectations where jungle travel were concerned. Having grown up with the adventures of Daring Do, she'd always pictured porters and machetes, blazing trails through the dense, virgin jungle. Sadly, reality did not match up with this.
For one, the jungle was most definitely NOT a virgin. She was a complete bitch-whore goddess who tried in any way possible to get into your pants, and once she had a claw in, refused to let go. You couldn't go more than five feet without something trying to mate in your face, or worse, burrow a hole into your flesh and make sweet sweet lurve to that. Parasites, Bot flies, fungus, poisonous insects, heat, humidity, everything wanted a piece of you.
For another, and perhaps it was merely Marshall's approach, but jungle travel involved very little hacking a path out of the jungle and a lot of picking the path of least resistance, which sadly was NOT generally a straight line. Nature abhors straight lines, which is why straight lines are a pretty good indication of previous intelligent inhabitants.
Still, Marshall seemed to know where he was going. He didn't look worried, at least, not until they came upon several yards of torn up earth near a few palm trees.
Then he paled quickly.
"Shit." He swore, and motioned for Twilight to stop.
"What is it?" She asked nervously. Whatever had done that to the roots of that palm tree was BIG. The furrows in the earth were easily nine feet long, and four to five feet in depth.
His eyes followed the brush, then he moved quietly towards a small rise, dropping to his belly and low crawling up to peek over the edge.
Twilight followed, hesitantly.
"Stay down." He ordered, uncasing his binoculars and focusing. He cursed and spat.
"What is it, Marshall?"
He lowered the binos and motioned her up. His expression was a curious mix of disgust and trepidation. "Stay low, take a look out there. You can't miss the fucking things."
She did, and gasped quietly. Wordlessly, he passed the binos over and she took them telekinetically to get a closer look. It wasn't necessarily the size of the creatures. She'd seen larger animals before. Dragons came to mind, for one. These were no dragons, but they WERE big.
Easily twenty feet tall and probably somewhere in the neighborhood of ten tons. Her eyes drank in the details. Towering bulky bodies hunched in a queer, bipedal, swaying, birdlike gait. A long, ridiculously thin neck with a tiny head up top. The dominating feature were their arms. Powerfully muscled, ending in huge, scimitar-like three foot claws, perfect for digging. As she watched, one of the creatures dug ferociously at the earth near another palm tree, tearing up earth and roots alike at its base to get at the tasty palm heart.
"There must be at least..." She did a quick calculation. "Thirty of them. Forty counting the little ones. No wait, there's another..." She mused.
"Yup. Rootscrapers. At least, that's what I call 'em. Besides big pains in my ass, that is."
She focused on something that stood out, a movement that wasn't placid and swaying, jarring in its slinky smoothness, then gasped.
"Marshall, there's something else-"
He raised an eyebrow, then shaded his eyes and glared in the direction she was focused.
Several of the younger animals were bounding along, blissfully unaware that a black shape was crouched over them in the trees. It was an awful cross between a hexapodal panther and some sort of undersea creature, at least, that's what it looked like. A large, six-legged panther with a pair of tentacles growing from its shoulders ending in squid-like pads, ready to pounce.
She winced as it did just that with a ferocious yowl. The weight of the creature bore one of the baby Rootscrapers to the ground, but the animal had misjudged the size and speed of its prey and instead of a quick killing bite it had to latch its claws and tentacles into the animal's rump to draw it closer. The other babies began running back towards the rest of the herd letting out piercing whistle-like trills.
He sighed, considering, then inched back and lay with his back to the rise, consulting his crude, hand-drawn map.
"Fuck, it's like National Geographic in our backyard... son of a bitch. Well, there goes any chance of trying to thread through them. Damn it!"
Twilight stared at the tableau in front of her, riveted. One of the larger animals crashed through the underbrush towards the panicked young, the bulk of which scampered past trilling in distress the whole while. The rest of the herd gathered in a circle, coming to their full height to protect the vitals, claws hunched forward threateningly towards danger. The young continued their charge between the animals legs, squeaking the whole while, and the herd let them do so.
They did not stop calling until they were in the protective circle of adults.
When the shadow of the cow rushing towards it fell on the panther-thing it took one look back at the furious charging female and abandoned its mauling of the baby Rootscraper. Unfortunately for it, while slow to start, once moving the Rootscraper cow was a juggernaut, and trees did not really hinder it all that much. Oddly, the first swipe of those massive digging claws missed widely, but it just kept scything with left and right swipes, swaying forward at a terrifying rush like some gigantic threshing machine, and Twilight winced as it finally connected with the frantically dodging beast.
It was a valiant evasive effort, but the Rootscraper only really had to connect once. After that, the results were entirely predictable.
The putty tat went splat.
After clawing and pounding the unrecognizable, pathetically tattered bloody black rag that was the panther thing into the dirt for an entirely... actually, ridiculously gratuitous amount of time, the creature finally snorted and stomped away, nudging the badly wounded baby along with its head in a surprisingly gentle fashion, considering what it had just been doing.
Twilight hadn't stopped wincing the whole time. "Wow. That was... brutal."
Marshall sighed. "Nervous buggers. Pretty tame, normally, but come near their young or harass 'em and they get very mean, very quickly. Those are digging claws, but as you can see, they'll paste you or me quick enough. Worse, those things hold grudges like friggin' honey badgers. Damn cows will hunt you for miles while the bulls protect the kiddies. I had to spend a half a day and a whole night in a tree once because of those fuckers."
"We're gonna lose a lot of time because of this Sparks, but it can't be helped. I'm not risking trying to sneak through a herd of those things, especially when they've got so many younglings running around and their dander up."
"Hmm." She mused absently, following the activity of the herd through the optics with avid interest. A new species, a completely UNHEARD of species. It was a naturalist's dream. She was loathe to... wait a minute...
"If we cut west, we can probably skirt their territory. That's lowlands, they don't like that so much; they tend to stay towards those freaky giant primordial palm groves."
"Uh huh." She muttered, dialing in the focus. Something about that activity sparked something from her memory. Something important, something she'd read once. Was it Star Swirl? No, not magic related. For some reason Fluttershy was associated with the memory. Something she'd looked up out of curiosity once. Her ears flicked forward, straining to catch the calls from the animals.
Marshall slowly lowered the map and looked at her, raising an eyebrow. She was both watching the animals and telekinetically jotting notes without looking in her new journal.
He blinked slowly, then rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"So I was thinking, Sassy had some really sexy underwear in her day-bag, nice stuff, you know, lacy, black, fancy stuff. Victoria's Secret or something. Who knows what she was planning to do with it on an FOB, I certainly don't. Maybe she just liked to feel sexy, I don't know. Anyway, I figure if we cut a hole in it for your tail, you could model it for me, you know, as a favor. Not that I'm a pervert or anything, but let's be honest here, after a five year dry spell anything starts looking good... and you've got a nice flank."
She made "hmmming" noises again, one ear swiveled back at him almost absently, while the other remained focused on the herd.
He continued blithely along with a straight face, maintaining tone. "I'm a little teacup, short and stout... here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, then I shout, tip me over and pour me out. Why is it that cargo goes by plane, and a shipment goes by truck? Why is it we call them a pair of panties, but just one bra?"
"Marshall, would you shut up a minute? Something significant just happened, and I've almost got it. I get that you're trying to get my attention, in wildly inappropriate ways, but I'm kinda focused here."
He growled. "Oh good, you ARE paying attention. This is going to add time to our trip, my little purple unicorn, time we do not have. We're burning daylight here."
She turned from the binos with an exasperated look and sighed. "Marshall, I get that, generally speaking, you know better where survival is concerned, I get that, but I want you to wait a second, look at that herd, take a moment to think about the behavior that you've just witnessed, and tell me what that tells you?"
He blinked at her, looked over the edge again, then back at her, confused. His look of uncomprehending irritation was maddening.
"Um. Big claws swing at Marshall, go ouchie? Chase Marshall up tree, tree has fire ants... Wrong bad sting-y no sleepie night for Marshall?"
She sighed. So stubborn. "Ok genius, you like to whittle, so whittle me this."
She tore the quickly sketched diagram (with accompanying math and dimensional details) page out of the journal and telekinetically passed it to him. He glanced down at it.
Frowned.
Tilted his head slightly, then looked back at her, with a quizzical expression so innately primate based she almost burst out laughing.
"Okay... I think I can do this... but why?"
She grinned at him. "Oh no, after the way you've been lording over me all day about what we're going to go see, let's see how you like it."
He grimaced. "Twilight, I am not going to move forward with a plan that might get us both killed if I don't know exactly-"
She met his eyes seriously. "Just trust me, ok? This will work, and if it works, we're back on schedule, minus the prep time, AND we learn something new and possibly very valuable. Besides, if it doesn't, Plan B is I teleport the two of us a couple hundred feet backwards and we can run. I doubt they can follow us with no tracks and no scent, right?"
He frowned. "You can do that?"
She nodded, still staring into his eyes. "Do you trust me?" She repeated softly.
He didn't hesitate. "It'll take some time. Maybe twenty minutes?"
His immediate response both gratified and humbled her a bit. She nodded. "That's fine. I have some prep work to do anyway."
That and she kinda wanted to go poke the dead cat with a stick. For science, of course. She felt kind of bad for the animal, but it couldn't exactly get any deader than it already was, and she thought she'd noticed something interesting.
She sighed, gritted her teeth, then she dropped her saddle bags and proceeded to roll back and forth in the dirt.
He blinked at this odd new behavior, then shrugged and began hunting for some appropriate dead wood.
"Don't forget to get nice and dirty while you're at it." She called.
He sighed. "Right. Fuck baths."
"This is it, this is the plan?" Marshall said, as the two of them walked towards the herd, which had once again resumed a more relaxed posture.
"Yup." Twilight chirped confidently, carefully inspecting the freshly carved whistle. "This is good work, Marshall."
He nodded absently. "Yes, that will be of great comfort to me when we're homogenized red jelly between a Rootscraper cow's claws."
"Oh hush," Twilight said, taking the whistle between her lips. "Jus' get re'dy to run in the dires'sion of the herd."
Marshall sighed, shrugged, then approached with her. The baby Rootscrapers bounded about curiously, not recognizing the shapes in front of them, but smelling only dirt and the natural scents of the forest, they were only mildly curious.
Then Twilight sent a quick trilling blast through the whistle. She was quite correct, Marshall had done good work. The sound came out just as she'd predicted.
The exact pitch of the infant Rootscraper distress calls earlier.
The effect was immediate and impressive. As one the infants straightened, then all of the them took off and ran for the adults, trilling their little heads off. Marshall and Twilight ran with them, Twilight tooting the whistle like a mad thing all the way.
Marshall winced when one of the Rootscraper cows crashed through the underbrush, splintered a palm tree into flinders, and stepped into their path. He cast a frantic look at Twilight, who continued on her charge forward, eyes determined, blasting with the whistle. Fumbling with his own creation, he started blasting along with her, his eyes darting nervously towards the big claws scything left and right as the creature twisted to eye the group speculatively.
If his whistling had a hint of screaming desperation behind it, it probably only added to the illusion.
Probably.
They, along with the clutch of baby Rootscrapers, ran right between the behemoths legs and out into the clearing, where the herd had gathered in its "circle the wagons" defensive formation.
Trilling along with the rest of the group, they passed into the herds protected area and "safety". The babies all quieted, and Marshall and Twilight stopped blowing their whistles.
Twilight shot him a sly smirk. "Well?"
Marshall frowned. "Ok, I kinda think I get it, but... how did you know that would work?"
"I noticed that the babies made a very specific distress call when they were in danger, and the formation of the herds defensive posture suggested a completely instinctual response. Stimulus - response, see? Instinctive responses can be exploited. The rest was just a matter of educated guesswork, but with sound enough reasoning, all things considered. Considering the size of the head and positioning of the eyes, I figured that eyesight wasn't terribly important to them, but smell and sound probably were. Spoof their hearing, and give yourself a neutral scent, like pungent jungle muck for instance, which is ubiquitous, then trigger a "pull together - danger" response with the most hardwired instinct in the natural world, to protect the young, and the rest is just playing the part of a cute little baby Rootscraper in headlong flight."
He shook his head wonderingly. "I'll be damned."
She nodded happily. "The funny part is, this isn't even the craziest bit of animal mimicry I've ever pulled. I once spent two days and nights in a three pony dragon costume surrounded by hundreds of several hundred ton reptiles in the middle of a blasted wasteland complete with live volcano. After that, this was kinda tame in comparison."
Marshall gave her a dubious look. "Why in the hell would you want to do that?"
Twilight blinked. "Oh, my adopted baby dragon little brother had an identity crisis and decided to go on the Great Dragon Migration, and I wanted to make sure the other dragons didn't murder him."
Marshall nodded absently. "Oh well, since you put it that way, of course wandering into Mordor with a bunch of fire-breathing Godzilla wannabes in nothing but a flammable costume makes perfect sense. What was I thinking?"
Twilight flattened her ears and glared at him. "Your sarcasm is both petty and demeaning to us both, monkey."
He nodded. "It's what I do. So now what?"
She eyed the crowd of beasts speculatively. "Now we just hang out with the hatchlings until the adults stop looking for threats, then move on through, I guess. I'd really like to observe their behavior a bit more but I suppose we are on a time table. The great part is, because of the way herd dynamics work, we probably won't have to mask our scent anymore. They'll think we're just the really ugly stinky kids."
Marshall looked crestfallen. "Aw man, I don't wanna be the stinky kid. There was always one stinky kid in class, and he usually got made the butt of all the jokes."
Twilight widened her eyes. "Wow, humans too? I guess some things ARE universal!"
"Awww, Twilight, don't tell me YOU were the stinky kid!"
She snorted. "Please, I was obviously the nerdy kid. I probably would have gotten picked on too, but you'd be surprised how much of a deterrent it is when anypony who really messes with you finds out you can teleport them to the roof and leave them there."
He blinked. "Wow... that's... wow."
She grinned. "I like to think of it as teaching slow learners valuable life lessons about why it is important to treat others with dignity and respect."
They both chuckled at this.
After two hours Twilight Sparkle still had a bit of pep to her step and a cheerful expression. She'd even started humming occasionally. Marshall for his part just accepted his humble pie with wry amusement. She'd all but done everything but pranced a victory dance around him and shouted "in your face".
Which of course she wouldn't do, because she didn't have a petty bone in her body.
Finally after a particularly long bout of humming, Marshall snorted and shook his head.
"Oh sure, laugh it up, fuzzball. You'll come crawlin' back the next time you need an itch scratched that you can't reach."
Of course, she could be provoked into petty behavior. As a master of petty, Marshall reveled in the ability to drag others down to his level, where he had the home field advantage.
"What was that, Marshall? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the overwhelming sound of my victory. I think that should be another point, by the way."
"Oh hell no. That was clever, but it in no way constitutes an application of trolljutsu. It would only count in this instance if I was in some way inconvenienced and made to look foolish by a combination of your direct action and my ignorance."
She gave him an incredulous look. "Seriously? I made you roll around in the dirt for like, five minutes. It looked like you were having a seizure. That has to count for something."
"Nope. Sorry, doesn't count. The action was both necessary, and you had to do it, too. Now if you'd done something clever, like neglected to mention that the spot your equine companion had picked to roll in had a big patch of poison ivy or something, THAT-"
Twilight looked stricken. "Are you serious?! I can't believe-"
Marshall continued without stopping. "Like I said, if I'd done something like that, that'd be worth a point, but I didn't, because it would also be a pretty dick move, considering how far we have to travel and how painful it would be. Still, bet the thought puckered your asshole up pretty tight for a sec."
Twilight froze, then growled something under her breath and stalked forward, her stance now stiff and her tail twitching irritably.
Marshall grinned and blew her a kiss behind her back. "I love you too, Twilight."
Less then twenty minutes later, they literally burst from the heavy undergrowth onto the sunlight and sand of a boulder strewn beach. The source of the stone became apparent rather quickly, as the beach-line rapidly graduated into a steep cliff-side, with multiple cracks and dark holes that lapped with white foam with every charge and retreat of the tide. Water and wind had worn down the mighty edifice, leaving a natural promontory out into the clear blue expanse of seawater. Several midsized seal-like creatures scampered off into the water at the sight of the two of them, and a refreshingly cool breeze blew past Twilight, lifting her sweat and dirt streaked mane from her brow and teasing Marshall's beard into a rats nest of snarled curls. Marshall stretched to his full height and threw his arms out wide, letting out a magnificent yawn.
He cracked his neck, then looked over at Twilight Sparkle and grinned. "And we're here. Good time too, thanks to you, Twilight, giving credit where it's due. Wanna rest, or science first?"
Twilight gave him her patented "nigga please" look. He chuckled at the expression and nodded, then motioned her to follow, walking towards the promontory.
"I picked this spot because it's one of the few areas on our side of the island that sticks out enough that you can get close to what we're looking for without having to wade in seawater up to your ass. Neck, in your case, Sparks."
"Right." She said, eyes dancing over the details. It was a magnificent vista, certainly, but she didn't see anything that leapt out at her immediately.
He continued walking until he got to about half way out onto the promontory before he dropped the backpack and set the rifle next to it. Then he looked back to her.
"Ok, stay here a sec, Sparks."
She stopped, dropping her own saddlebags with relief before sitting back on her haunches and watching him with a puzzled look on her face. Marshall advanced forward cautiously, sweeping his hands widely in front of him and advancing in cautious, almost mincing steps. After continuing this odd behavior for about a minute or so he finally jerked, stopped, and reached forward deliberately, doing some strange, mime-like impression in the air in front of him.
Then he turned, leaned back...
And crossed his legs at the ankle, grinning back at her, his completely unbalanced posture supported by absolutely nothing.
"Neat, huh?"
Twilight stared at him for several seconds, as though in shock. Then she jerked into motion, trotting forward, looking at him with an incredulous expression. He jerked his hands up and gave her "wait a minute" motions.
"Hey, careful there, Twi. First time I found this thing, I broke my nose on it. You can't see it, but it's as solid as a stone wall."
She slowed, approached close to where he was, and reached a hoof out. She jerked in surprise when she hit unexpected resistance. There was no object to clop her hoof against. It made no noise, there wasn't even really a sensation of pressure, though perhaps Marshall's more sensitive fingers could detect something.
Just an immovable force.
An invisible wall that separated them from the rest of the promontory and the sea beyond. She looked back at Marshall.
"This is why a boat wasn't something I ever considered, Sparks." He said sadly. He rocked himself back to a standing posture and turned, pressing a calloused hand flat against nothing at all.
He looked wistfully out towards the far horizon, the wind blowing his hair back. "I spent a year walking around the outskirts, looking for a way out. The damn thing extends all the way around, high as I can reach. You can't swim or dig under it either... I tried. You wouldn't believe how long."
He flicked his gaze down to her and considered his equine companion for a moment before continuing. "Oh don't get me wrong, my efforts were in no way exhaustive. I guess it might have a hole somewhere, but you know what? I don't think so. You'll see why, in a bit."
He gestured at the sea, and at his own tousled and dirty hair. "It's selective, too. It seems to let in water and air just fine, and light and heat, obviously, but nothing else. I think animals can sense it, too, because I've never seen a bird hit it by accident either, otherwise you could probably spot it by the ring of dead birds and such."
She touched her more sensitive muzzle to it. The hairs of her coat flattened and she could feel her cheek deforming slightly as it was pressed up against the barrier, but there was still no sensation of pressure. It was like the air itself had turned solid.
She frowned, then tried pressing against it telekinetically. There just wasn't anything to grab hold of. She backed up several steps and fired a purple blast of magic at it. The energy washed out just like it had struck a wall and vanished, leaving no trace.
Marshall walked back to the bags and sat down, then opened his pack and fished through it. Twilight tried a couple more blasts at different angles, to no effect.
"Marshall, this is..." She mused.
He nodded. "I know. Imagine how I felt, the first time I encountered it. Well, aside from pain, I mean. I think I about knocked myself out, slamming into it face first like I did. Don't really want to imagine what kind of damage I'd have done to myself if I'd hit it at anything more than a brisk walk. Found out then, blood doesn't stick to it, or bead on it. It just runs down and pools at the base. Same with water if you try to splash it. It would seem to be permeable to large bodies of water, since I figure you'd see something kinda like a meniscus effect at the edge if it wasn't, but..."
Twilight frowned, then attempted to focus her magic on one of the rocks just beyond the barrier.
Tried and failed.
She felt nothing. She could see the rock in question, but her magic sense wouldn't focus on it.
"It's like there's nothing there." She mused.
"Hmm?" Marshall muttered, piecing something together.
"I tried to pick up a rock beyond the... whatever it is. It's like my magic just... stops. I can't sense anything beyond the barrier, but it's subtle, Marshall. If I didn't know what I was looking for, I don't think I would have noticed. That shouldn't be possible." She frowned, tapping the wall speculatively.
"You're taking this pretty well." He said, cautiously. "I was half expecting a freak out, like up on the deck."
"Well, it's like you said. You can't freak out like that out here. What good would it do? I mean, I can't imagine what it was like for you, Marshall. No experience with magic at all, and you had to encounter it with absolutely no preparation. Magically speaking, such a barrier is theoretically possible, so I at least have a basis to work from, but..." She paused.
"What?" He asked, softly.
"The amount of energy necessary to keep it stable indefinitely, the effort to make it completely invisible, the selectivity of it... and most importantly, its ability to just block magic... those things are... well, impossible. Or at the least, extremely unlikely."
She shivered. "Not even Princess Celestia could pull off something like this. Not for so long. Not... so complex. I don't think even Discord could... well, maybe he could, but it wouldn't be so... structured." She looked down, disturbed, but not panicking. After a moments thought, she turned back to him, her eyes concerned.
"Marshall, whatever we're dealing with, and I'm positive now that it has to be some intelligent agency, it's completely beyond us. I can't even begin to contrive a method by which something of this magnitude could be accomplished. Any one detail, sure... I might be able to pull it off myself. My brother can create a force field the size of a city, but that's his talent, his specialty... and it isn't unbreakable, completely undetectable, or... permanent."
"But assuming something that immeasurably powerful, Marshall... why? What could it possibly want with us?"
Marshall shrugged. "I don't have an answer for you, Sparks. Anything I could come up with would just be speculation, at this point."
Twilight looked back at the position of the barrier and stomped one hoof. "There are a few more things I'd like to try, magically speaking, but I don't have much hope of a breakthrough. If I can't sense it... if I can't sense beyond it... there's no way to teleport past it or dispel it. Even if I could disrupt it, assuming it is some sort of magical barrier, which I'm not entirely convinced that it is, the energy backlash from the spell matrix cascade failure of something that immense... nothing on this island would survive."
She shook her head, closing her eyes. "The island itself probably wouldn't survive. I have no idea how much energy is involved, so I can only guess."
He sighed. "Don't beat yourself up over it, Sparks. Even failed experiments are good experiments, if you gather data, right?"
She perked up a bit and nodded, gathering strength from his statement. "Right. Absolutely right. Just because I can't come to any conclusions now doesn't mean I won't ever be able to." She paused.
"So what now?" She asked.
He grinned tiredly. "I figure a wash in the sea on the side of the promontory is better than nothing, right? We take a rest, eat something, recuperate a bit, then we try a little experimentation. There's one more thing I have to show you."
He held up the demolitions field manual he'd pulled out of her saddlebags. "We're gonna set off some fireworks."