//------------------------------// // Chapter Sixteen // Story: Familiar Faces // by GlitchyProductions //------------------------------// Chapter Sixteen: Soapy Demise 10 Minutes Later... A brisk blow of wind passed it way through the trees in the middle of the black night, leaves and bushes rustled around which could be heard for miles on end. Dinky and John walked down a large dirt path that went even deeper into the forest, Dinky walked besides Fluttershy, Ditzy and Luna as they were sheepishly pulled along by John and his leash which seemed to take the energy and air out of them as they made their way towards the Master, Scootaloo lay nestled in Dinky's little pale white arms trying to keep herself warm from the rising weather, the child couldn't help but think that something was not right in the back of her head. She saw the horses being pulled along like farm animals and she hasn't seen her mother since she left the house, now wondering if her mother was upset by her sudden disappearance was rather confusing. She had the choice to leave and go home, but something within her told her to keep on going to find out the source of the magic and find out what John was talking about. If what he was saying was true, then she could see the magic in all of its powers and glory and show her friends what it is like. John on the other hand took all the correct steps to go down the pathways deeper into the forest, still keeping his trusty shotgun in his hand and the golden tiara wrapped around his arm like an armband that is used for swimming. He turned his head to check on the mares and Dinky to see if they were okay every few seconds, making sure that none of them could not escape his grasp. As the group travelled down more dirt paths, John began to see a fork in the path up ahead. He knew which way to take, but he needed to pause for a moment and check up on the mares and little Dinky. As they all reached the fork in the road, there was a very old wooden sign in the middle of the fork, there was a small scroll attached to the sign with large black text on it saying. "TAKE A LEFT TO TRAVEL TO APPLE FAMILY FARM!" Said one part of the sign. And another sentence said in bright red text: "TAKE A RIGHT TO TRAVEL TO WILLOW TREE FOREST" Said the other. John sighed and slowly turned round to face the mares and the small child, he looked down at them to see that Dinky and the mares looked very hungry and tired. "Mister... can I sit down for a second?" Dinky coughed. "No." John coldly yelled back, his tone of voice caused Dinky to take a small step away from him. "But my legs hurt..." Dinky whined; feeling slightly scared now that she had made John yell at her. "Gah!" John put his hand up to his face in frustration; he needed to think up of something quickly to make her stop talking immediately. John instantly came up with a small idea that would solve the problem, he slowly walked over to Dinky and leaned down to pick her up, slowly taking her off from the ground and into the air so that he could place her down again on Luna's back, he gently placed her on Luna's backside and walked back to the front of the group and readjusted the golden tiara on his shoulder. "Jus' let Luna carry ya, hold on ta' her neck an' don't drop Scootaloo." John pointed at the child and instructed her to stay on the blue mare; he quickly re-read the signs out of frustration and then turned back to the ground again with a small smile on his face. "We go this way." John pointed towards the right fork in the road; this caused Dinky to strangely look back at John. "W-Wi-ll-l-low F-For-rr-ess-t..?" Dinky looked at the sign, squinted her eyes at the sign and attempted to read what John was pointing at, he watched in amusement at the child's very poor ability to read. But he knew that Him and the horses would be here forever if Dinky were to try and read out the whole sign including the warnings. "Yeah, Willow Forest, kid." John chuckled, he tightened his grip on the rope and began to quickly pull on it which caused Ditzy and Fluttershy to sheepishly start their way into the correct part of the path, Luna started last as she reluctantly stood her ground for a moment trying to make sure that Dinky was holding on tight. John pulled even harder and caused Luna to lose some of her air for a small moment before making a quick speed up to the rest of the horses with John still taking the lead towards the "Master". "Mister John... who is this Master guy?" Dinky tried to make some conversation with John to get some basic information out of him, she didn't like where he was taking her and the rest of the horses, the peaceful looking trees began to shape-shift in the back of her mind. Scary faces and monstrous roars that she once heard and seen from cartoons on TV were starting to pop up in her mind reminding her of the Halloween season that had just passed not long ago. "He's... well... many things..." John replied to Dinky, she didn't fully understand what he was trying to say. "Many things?" Dinky repeated. "Yeah, ya' don' really wanna see him angry." John turned his head to look back at Dinky while still walking down the right path. "Why?" Dinky asked. "He does things... they aren't pretty..." John spoke back to Dinky, just shivering about the things that he knew that his master was able to do to anyone or anything. Dinky took in the information and pressed this "Master" character to seem very scary, he sounds like he could get angry at any given time and he has powers that no one can do, the child didn't say anything after that, she kept quiet until the next time she was spoken to. "I don't understand Bon-Bon... why are we going into the forest? It's really scary!" Derpy whined out to her friends, not understanding or keeping up with the small plan that Lyra had come up with to try and search for Dinky one last time before heading home. She was being dragged along by Bon-Bon as she held her friends hand down a dark dirt path which leads deep into the forest, Derpy could hear the owls and various wildlife in the distance make their signature noises and it was really starting to scare her; she had never been this deep in the forest before. "We're going in the forest to look for Dinky, but if we can't find her then we are going home and then calling the authorities to search for her." Lyra shuddered; she couldn't get the image of Carrot Top's ugly face out of her head from what she had been doing early on in the trip to the park. She turned her head to look at her partner and Derpy to see that they were slowly lagging behind her. "B-but the forest is really scary!" Derpy whined back at Lyra, she frantically looked around at the trees to make sure that nothing scary or evil was going to pop out and attack her. "Who said?" Lyra laughed out loud. "Carrot Top says that an evil witch lives in the forest! And she kidnaps little girls and turns them into wooden dolls!" Derpy explained to her friends, Lyra continued to laugh at Derpy's theory of the so-called monsters that lived in the forest, Bon-Bon sighed and looked away from both of them and kept her eyes on the dirt path instead. "The only person that lives in the forest is Zecora; she isn't a witch or anything. She makes medicine for the local doctors in town, Carrot Top has been lying to you again, and she’s harmless." Lyra stopped her laughter and explained to Derpy, but it still didn't change the expression shown on Derpy's face at all. "And how do you exactly know that she is harmless?" Bon-Bon turned her head to her partner and asked. "Haven't you talked to her when she came into town last week?" Lyra replied to Bon-Bon. "No, I haven't." Bon-Bon sighed, feeling too tired to even listen to Lyra or Derpy. "She's pretty cool; she speaks in rhyme all the time." Lyra explained. "Oh, okay." Bon-Bon nodded her head and proceeded to yawn, soon after she started to rub her eyes. "What's wrong with you?" Lyra teased. "I'm just really tired, I think it's now three in the morning and we still haven't found Dinky... I just feel like I can't keep up anymore, I want to go home and get some rest." Bon-Bon yawned out; Lyra felt the same and understood what her wife was trying to say. "But look on the bright side, we're doing better than Ginger Top and she didn't even care about Dinky whereas we actually do." Lyra replied back. "I guess you're right... but I also still don't understand why that rancher would suddenly throw us out just because you wanted to see the horses..." Bon-Bon said. "It's probably because he is a pedophi- WHAA!" Lyra immediately yelped out as she lost grip of the ground beneath her and fell directly onto her backside, hitting her head against the ground landing on a slippery yet somewhat soft surface that swept her off her feet. Bon-Bon and Derpy immediately backed away from where Lyra fell and both quickly looked around to see what was going on around them. "Lyra are you alright?!" Bon-Bon quickly shouted; she stared at her partner to see that she was lying down on the ground with her hands wrapped around her head. "Gah! That hurt! What did I just slip over?!" Lyra loudly shouted out writhing in complete agony, rocking her body from side to side. "Soap." Bon-Bon simply replied; feeling a little shocked. "What?!" Lyra shouted back. "Soap." Bon-Bon repeated. Lyra used her remaining strength to lift her head off from the ground to take a good look at the strange soft substance that she was lying down upon to get a good understanding of what her partner had just said, she looked up and saw that the whole entire dirt path that she had been walking on had strangely turned into a road of bright blue soapy bubbles which seemed to stretch on forever. "H-How is that possible? What happened to the damn road?" Lyra cried out in pain, she turned her body round and tried to stand up without trying to slip up on the bubbles once again. Her feet and sense of grip felt so weak and trying to apply weight on the strange bubbles which had just randomly covered up the road. She turned her head to get a good look at her partner and Derpy to see that they were holding onto a tree branch trying their best not to slip up on the soapy road. "Bon-Bon! My feet are really slippery!" Derpy cried out, feeling scared as ever. "Yes, we know Derpy." Bon-Bon replied to Derpy. "Bon-Bon... hold still..." Lyra groaned, she took a light step forward to her friends and slowly felt the weight around her feet starting to lose grip of the ground under her. Keeping her body in a certain position so that she wouldn't fall back down and hurt herself even more than she should, she managed to take a good few steps before slipping up and landing back down onto her knees in a crawling position. "Aah! This bites!" Lyra spat. "Lyra darling... crawl over to us..." Bon-Bon held tight to the tree branch next, both of her feet were slipping away at the soapy bubbles while her free hand was holding tight onto Derpy who was straight crying out loud in fear and confusion. "Crawl?! I'm still wearing the maids outfit if you haven't forgotten!" Lyra looked up at her partner and shouted. "Just do it! No one will see your undies!" Bon-Bon groaned. "Ugh... okay..." Lyra shouted back, she began to slowly crawl across the bubble filled road over to Bon-Bon and Derpy, as she made it to her friends she immediately leaned upwards and grabbed one of the large tree branches next to Bon-Bon and Derpy, still having that slippery feeling under her feet. "Lyra are you alright?" Bon-Bon asked, leaning over to her partner. "Yeah sure, I just hit my head and my backside on the soapy bubbles." Lyra spat out, feeling terribly angry. "Just what exactly are all these bubbles doing here?" Bon-Bon looked up and down the dirt path and saw that the onslaught of slippery soap bubbles went on for what seemed to be miles on end, up ahead the bubbles continued and made their way down the path towards town, it was strange. "More importantly, who did this?" Lyra shouted out. To be continued...