Down the river from the two building town that Applejack had just been in, whose name she just now realized she never learned, trees were starting to pop up. Not having any idea on where to go initially, since none of the ponies cleaning up the mess back there had any idea where this fire pony went, Applejack decided to just go the same way she was going beforehand. Following the river was always a good idea and now it was leading her into another big forest full of tall redwoods.
A forest full of apple trees would’ve been preferable but for the moment something like that wasn’t at the forefront of her mind. There wasn’t any higher ground for her to see any more burnt spots in the valley and she didn’t smell anything weird either. But just like the hill she had been on previously this forest was unusually quiet and devoid of animals. It must mean she was on the right track. Applejack was certain she’d see more signs or find a trail leading to this fire pony, or at least another place she had set fire to, soon.
For now the flowing of the river was a calming source for Applejack. In the past she wouldn’t care about something like that, she’d single-mindedly push ahead just thinking about finding and stopping the fire pony, but enough time with Fluttershy made her appreciate what slowing down and just thinking about something good could do for you. She was upset about what she had seen but she didn’t want to be all strung out and aggravated when she eventually found the culprit. Her temper had caused more than one problem in the past. In a situation like this it would probably prove a lot better to not be hot-headed.
Did I just make a darn pun? Applejack rolled her eyes and groaned at herself.
Applejack grabbed a carrot out of her saddlebag and ate the whole thing in one bite, no need to worry about sand worms in the forest. She filled up plenty before she had left, there were a couple oranges and some radishes in there too. There were supposedly some other villages in the direction Applejack was going but nopony back at those buildings had a map or solid directions. Just knowledge that there was a town of ponies that lived in treehouses among the tallest redwoods and another that lived in a canyon formed by the river as it went further downstream. Helpful.
If there were other villages they may have already been attacked too, possibly even before where she had just come from. Applejack tried to look through the trees at the sky to see if there was any smoke but it just looked like normal clouds and blue sky that she could see through the branches and leaves. Maybe she’d have to climb one of the redwoods.
“We’ll leave that for plan B, ugh.” Climbing one of these huge, densely branched, trees would’ve been a lot more trouble than the ones she climbed before. “Knowing my luck there’ll be a beehive in one of em too.”
As she continued her walk down the side of the river, kind of wishing there was a real road, Applejack saw that a short distance away it turned hard left and started going west in the direction of those endless plains she had seen. Now she didn’t know if she still wanted to follow it or keep going straight, there weren’t any burnt spots out in the plains but it was possible the river turned again.
Frowning a bit Applejack stuck to her gut instinct and left the river, she knew the direction she was going felt right and this part of the forest was quiet and devoid of animals, still the only sign she had that the fire pony was or had been around here. That might change if she suddenly started going another direction.
Applejack turned up her nose to see if she could smell anything but still didn’t get any scents that weren’t just normal forest smells. She could see the sun above the trees, it was well past noon now and a steady breeze was blowing in from the east. She should be able to smell any smoke or anything burnt if it was around, maybe she should’ve taken better note of where all the black spots were in the valley when she was up on that hill. As of now after walking in the forest for so long she was starting to get discouraged at the lack of any more progress.
No real trail or any other signs other than it just being too darn quiet all around her. This was just getting annoying.
“Can’t come up with a song or anything to pass the time either, wish Twilight or Pinkie were here.” Applejack snorted and rubbed her nose. “Apples, apples, apples, wish I could find some apples...”
That passed the time time for about five minutes.
The forest of redwoods was starting to thin out a bit, she was likely coming to the end of it. Maybe there was a village nearby that cleared out some of the forest or it was naturally ending. She knew that somewhere to her right was that huge mountain wall and there was no forest near the foot of it. Applejack started to see large granite boulders in the ground, maybe she was coming to a rockier area, there could always be big rock formations hidden in the forest that she couldn’t have seen from far away. The Everfree was like that too.
“With any luck there’s nothing crazy in here like the Everfree though. I don’t wanna stumble across some forgotten castle or any weird monsters, a pony on fire is trouble enough that I don’t want to deal with. Now I’m talking too much to myself.” Applejack sighed as she continued on.
Moss covered rocks were popping up everywhere now. At least it gave her something different to look at after all the redwoods, Applejack thought. And she could climb and hop over them if she was feeling bored instead of just walk around. As she did jump over a big one she wiped the sweat from her brow.
“Woah, when did I get so out of shape? Sweating just from a little of this.” Applejack hopped over another few rocks, feeling the heat get to her head a little. “What in tarnation?”
Applejack realized it wasn’t the exertion causing her to sweat, the temperature had risen. It was hotter out now. She looked up at the sun but that hadn’t changed at all.
“When did it get so darn hot?”
More sweat cascaded down her body, it was almost like there was a-
A fire. A fire right behind her.
Applejack’s eyes opened wide and she turned around. There hadn’t been any sound of crackling fire, or smell of smoke, but she was still standing right there. Applejack wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking at, but it was definitely not a Nirik.
A pony covered in fire, just like Lilac had said and that was the most accurate thing Applejack could think of. She was an earth pony just like Applejack but whatever her natural coat and mane looked like Applejack had no idea. Flames covered every portion of her body, her mane and tail themselves seemed to be solid fire, the yellow, orange and red tint from the licking flames made her look almost like a walking campfire in pony shape. Applejack could just barely spot a cutie mark that looked like a head of lettuce on her flank, the one thing that looked out of place.
The heat radiated off of her in waves, Applejack could feel the sweat on her face as she stared at the pony with mouth agape.
“Are you from the Spirit Shrine?”
Applejack blinked, the mare on fire had asked her some question but she didn’t know how to react to this situation.
The mare’s eyes narrowed at Applejack. “Answer me. You don’t look like you’re from one of the towns around here, are you from the Spirit Shrine or no?”
Applejack shook herself our of her stupor. “I aint never heard of any ‘Spirit Shrine’ or nothing. But I’ve heard about some fire pony who attacked a town I was just in. That was you right? Why’d you do that, and have you been the one starting forest fires all around here?”
“If you’re not from the Spirit Shrine I don’t care, get out of here before I decide I don’t like you.” The mare started to turn away from Applejack, her flaming hooves surprisingly not leaving any marks in the ground or grass beneath her.
“Now you hold on!” Applejack yelled and ran in front of her. “You may not have a problem with me but I got one with you! Why are you doing all this? You think you can just attack some ponies and set their town on fire?”
The mare stared hard at Applejack, her eyes started to twitch and she bared her teeth in anger. “Yes. All those ponies living carefree lives, happy with their families.” A tear of liquid fire dropped from the mare’s eye as she started to shake with rage. “They don’t deserve it. I don’t care about their stupid town, or their stupid lives. They don’t deserve to be happy.”
The flames started to grow in intensity, Applejack gulped and stepped back a little.
“Tell me, what about you? Do you have a family that loves you?” The mare asked her, more tears dripping from her eyes.
Applejack was afraid to answer, the fires covering the mare started to spread and burn away the grass around her.
“I can tell.” The pony said to Applejack, barely above a whisper. “You do. Why do you get to be happy?” A column of fire erupted from her back, the flames pouring from the air set fire to the redwoods around them. “You don’t deserve it!”
With a screaming snarl the fire pony jumped at Applejack.
“I’ll pay them back! I’ll get justice!”
Applejack leaped out of the way of the pony, right where she was standing was consumed in a fireball as the angry mare attacked her. Sparks of fire shot off from her body in every direction, setting more of the greenery in the area alight. The mare looked at Applejack with a face full of rage. She stomped her hooves on the ground and streams of fire came flowing from her body, snaking across the ground at Applejack.
“Oh boy.” Applejack jumped away from them, hopping onto a rock and then another one when the fire changed direction to follow her. The mare was definitely able to control what her fire did. Soon enough though it wouldn’t matter if she was able to directly hit Applejack with any fire or not, the air was heating up and the smoke was getting thick enough that soon it’d affect Applejack’s breathing and vision.
If this keeps up the whole forest will burn down.
“Stop all this right now!” Applejack yelled to the mare as she jumped onto another granite boulder to avoid the flames, they steadily began to climb the boulder, disintegrating the moss covering it.
“I have the power to get my revenge! Nothing will stop me!” The mare yelled back to her.
The flames climbing up the boulder stopped but Applejack had no time to relax. Instead her opponent pointed her hoof at Applejack and a huge snake of fire grew from it, zooming right towards Applejack.
“Oh boy again.” Applejack grit her teeth and jumped down the backside of the boulder, the fire snake following her, she quickly ran out of its way but even when it plowed into the ground it just reformed and came after her again, leaving a trail of wild flames in its wake.
Applejack ran between trees and rocks to try and get the thing to lose her but it just kept coming. She looked ahead of her and saw two large trees standing next to each other and got an idea. Running between them she sent out a tremor with Hoof of the Earth, right as the fire snake was going between them the ground and tress lurched together, smashing the fire snake between them and causing the fire to get stuck on the wood. Burning away the trees instead of reforming and coming after her again.
That was only one of several problems taken care of though. The fire was fully raging out of control now and eventually Applejack would be trapped with no way out. And the fire pony was still just standing right there, preparing to burn Applejack to a crisp herself.
Well I aint gonna let her do that.
Instead of letting herself be thrown on the defensive again Applejack ran towards the fire pony at full speed.
The pony seemed surprised for a second, but then just stood there, an impassive expression on her face.
Applejack was surprised at her reaction too but she wasn’t taking any chances. She was confident enough in herself to avoid any surprises the fire pony might throw at her, what she was about to do might end up hurting but she couldn’t worry about that now. Applejack sent out a tremor through the ground as she ran, designed to break the fire pony’s forelegs and also bounce around in her head to disorient her or knock her out.
The tremor reached her… and nothing happened.
That’s impossible!
Applejack skidded to a stop, her earlier enthusiasm for taking the mare head on gone.
“What’s wrong? Weren’t you going to attack me? I was giving you a free hit.” The fire pony tilted her head, looking at Applejack with derision, as if she was worth less than dirt.
“Grr.” Applejack growled, it looked like the fire pony didn’t even realize that Applejack had tried to attack her. “You better shut your mouth! I’m not letting somepony like you get away with doing whatever you want!” Applejack ran forward again, the fire pony still not showing any signs of defending herself.
She had a stronger tremor in her hoof, once she contacted with the mare’s chest it would break all of her legs and rattle her brain so much she’d be out cold.
Applejack’s hoof passed through the mare’s body.
She didn’t know how to react at first, it was so sudden, her swipe came out so quickly that at first she didn’t feel anything. She knew that punching something covered in flames would hurt, that’s why she was just going to touch her as quickly as possible and then pull away. But she didn’t feel herself make contact with a pony’s physical body.
And then the pain came. Agonizing pain on her right hoof, Applejack looked down to see it blackened and cracked with red hot flames covering it. She screamed in terror and pain and fell over backwards, tears streaming out of her eyes. She tried stamping it out on the dirt but even though she was able to smother the fire the pain didn’t lessen at all.
Applejack looked up through pain clenched eyes to see the mare standing in front of her, flames flickering on her chest… no, flames flickering from inside her chest as her whole body shimmered and warped where Applejack had touched.
She wasn’t a pony covered in fire, she was a pony made of fire.
The fire pony looked down at Applejack emotionlessly, her earlier aggression and anger gone as quick as her temper. “You’re just an outsider so I’ll give you a warning instead. Stay away from me. I’ll let you live this time but if you come after me again, if you try to stop me, you’ll burn.”
She left Applejack to lay there, the fire dying around her much faster than any natural fire would until only a few hot embers were left. Applejack wiped some tears from her eyes and cradled her injured hoof, sitting in the middle of a blackened circle of the forest. Now what was she supposed to do?