This competition sure has gotten off to a rocky start, quite literally in my case. So far, it's had cliffs and spiders and sea serpents. Oh my! Eh, but we've had much worse. Surprisingly everypony is still in one piece, if a shaky piece at that.
So, who do we have next up on our list of twelve crazy teams to check up on? Well, you may be disappointed to find it's the team that's probably the least crazy out of all of us: Rhino and Fluttershy.
But just because they're not crazy doesn't mean crazy things can't happen. That would be too easy, after all.
Rhino walks behind Fluttershy, allowing her to take the lead as they try to find their way to the castle. Fluttershy looks around attentively as she tries to recount her past visits into the forest in an attempt to figure out the right way.
Rhino watches her curiously. "Are you certain this is the right way, Fluttershy?" he asks.
"I believe so." she answers. "I don't go this deep into the forest very often, but the times I have I've tried to pay attention to the environment so that I never got lost."
"Heh, clever girl."
Her face turns a bright crimson as she turns and smiles at him. "Well, you're why I have the courage to be out here. I may still be a bit nervous, but I'm confident my big, strong stallion will keep me safe." she walks up to him and gives him a peck on the cheek, making both cheeks shine red through his green coat.
He rubs the spot on his face and chuckles a bit. "No problem, Fluttershy. Now come on, we gotta keep going."
"Right. Now I believe next we should head this way." she pokes through some bushes and eeps a bit at what she finds.
"What is it, Fluttershy?" Rhino asks as he comes over. His eyes widen a bit as he sees an entire pack of timberwolves sleeping on the other side of the shrub. "Woah."
"Shh. Keep quiet. We wouldn't want to wake them." Fluttershy whispers.
"You're right. I think it'd be best if we turn back around."
She agrees as they turn back around, but stop as they see more timberwolves sleeping soundly. "Were they always there?"
"I don't think so. How is that even remotely possible?" he says in a bit of a whispered panic.
"I don't know, but ther's nothing we can do about it now. We'll just have to keep moving forward and make sure to not wake them up."
He looks at her with a hesistant look, but nods as he turns around. "Okay, but let me take the lead on this one to try and scout for the best route."
She nods as Rhino begins to carefully maneuver over the sleeping beasts. Eh, they're not so bad. Believe me when I say their bark is worse then their bite.
*ba dum bump tsh* Get it? Timberwolves? Bark? Ah? You know you love it.
Anyway, Rhino very diligantly steps over and around all of the sleeping wolves, Fluttershy not far behind him as she copies his movements. There are a few close calls as they accidentally step on some twigs and dry leaves, but luckily they're not big enough to wake up any of the creatures.
The couple sighs as they rach the other side and look back to the wolves and then to each other in relief.
That relief doesn't last long though as Fluttershy feels a tickle in her nose and she sneezes. The two of them begin panicking before realizing that Fluttershy's sneeze was so quiet that none of the wolves heard it.
"Well, that was pretty lu-ACHOO!" Rhino says before he cuts off with a loud sneeze.
At first they ignore it as they attend to Rhino's nose, but they then freeze as they hear loud growling from behind them. They look back to see that Rhino's sneeze had woken up the timberwolves, who now look both angry and hungry.
Fluttershy stands with her mouth wide open as Rhino tugs on her foreleg. "Fluttershy, we gotta get out of here! Come on, there's no time to lose!"
Fluttershy remains silent before narrowing her eyes in anger at the bark-ridden beasts. "No..."
Rhino looks at her, completely dumbfounded. "What?"
She pulls her foreleg away. "I said no." she walks right up to the closest timberwolf and gets in its face. "You should all be ashamed of yourselves." the wolves begin to give her a confused look, as if saying "what?". "That's right, ashamed. We were trying to be nice snd not disturb you from your naps, and we're sorry we did, but this is no way to behave." the wolves begin backing down as Fluttershy's eyes open incredibly wide, activating her infamous Stare.
"Now I want you all to leave us alone and go back to sleep somewhere else. Is that clear?" the wolves only whimper a bit, not even moving. Fluttershy gets closer and raises her voice. "I said, is that clear!"
They nod furiously before darting off in the other direction as fast as they can. Fluttershy smiles proudly as she turns around to Rhino. "Are you all right?"
Rhino stands there in amazement for a moment before shaking it off. "Uh, yeah, I'm fine." he says, at a bit of a loss for words
"Good. Now let's get going."
"Sure, I'm right behind you."
The couple continues on, Fluttershy acting as if nothing happened and Rhino having a much higher respect for Fluttershy for sticking up to the wolves.
So much for him being the big, strong stallion who has to take care of her, huh?
And now we move on from a couple that isn't crazy to a couple that is half crazy and half intellectual. You guessed it. Dark and Twilight.
Dark slumps in boredom as he walks besides Twilight, who is observing the area around them as she thinks about the correct path to take.
"Hmm." she says before turning to Dark. "Dark, you lived in the forest for a lomg time. Any idea where the castle could be?"
He looks at her with a bored look. "Do I look the kinda guy who would bother to to memorize paths on locations? Besides, I've never even been to the castle."
"Fifteen years in here and you never just ran into the castle?"
"Not that I can remember. You've been there, though. Can you remember the way?"
"I've been trying to, but I've only been to it once, over a year ago. Back then I never thought I'd come back in here again, so I didn't bother trying to remember the way."
He facehoofs. "That's just great. It's not like some kind of mystical guide is gonna stroll by and give us the way."
"I'm telling you, Fleur, we've got this competition in the bag." a voice says faintly from off in the distance.
Dark's ears perk up as he hears that. "What was that?"
"It kind of sounded like Vine." Twilight says.
Dark starts rubbing his hooves together as he gets a mischievious smile on his face. "Oh irony, I do so love you and your trolling ways."
He runs through a few bushes and looks behind a try to see Vine and Fleur walking together. Twilight walks to him from behind and looks at him with a confused face.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Shh. Think about it, Twi. Vine and Fleur live in here, and Vine spends most of her free time in here. She probably knows this place like the back of her hoof."
"And?"
"And if we follow them, they can take us straight to the next clue."
"I don't know, Dark. Isn't that wrong?"
"It wasn't in the rules, so I say it doesn't count as cheating."
She sighs. "Fine, we'll play it your way, but if we're caught, I'll tell them it was your idea. And you know they'll believe me."
He shrugs. "That works just fine for me."
The black and purple ponies begin to follow quietly behind Vine and Fleur as they make their way to the castle.
"I mean, finding our way to the castle is so easy for us." Vine continues. "All we'll need to do after that is figure out the next clue from their and we'll be set."
"There is no doubt we have a good advantage over the others, but don't go getting ahead of yourself." Fleur says.
"Oh, you're no fun."
"I'm just trying to be realistic."
"Yeah, I know. But we should be coming right up on the castle soon."
And indeed Vinetion is right. After a good ten minutes of walking, they do indeed come up to the rundown ruins of the once mighty castle.
As they come up to the bridge that swings over the gorge surrounding the castle, Fleur tests it by resting a hoof on it and it finds it to be very rickety.
"I don't think I trust this bridge." she says.
"No worries, I've got this handled." Vine says as she summons multiple vines from the ground. She has the vines lift up the both of them and drop the off on the other side, safe and sound. The two head in as their follows watch from behind.
Dark and Twilight look at the bridge together. "Think it's sturdy enough, Twilight?"
"It should be. I doubt that it's been used much since the others and I were here." she carefully takes a step onto the first plank and tests it out a bit. "See? Perfectly safe."
Dark follows her as the two make it across the decrepit bridge and make it to the other side as they duck under a nearby window to spy on Vine and Fleur.
The other team gets inside and looks around to find a piece of paper in the center of the room. Vine walks over to it, picks it up, and begins reading it.
"My advantage over the rest is height
Though I have no power over flight
I stay out in the open, but you may see
I keep a shelter close to me."
Fleur looks at her as she finishes reading and sets it down. "Something tall, out in the open, and has a shelter."
Vine puts a hoof up to her chin as she thinks up an answer. "Hmm. Sounds maybe like some kind of tower, or a really big building, or-"
"A giant mountain." Fleur says as she points to a window with a view of a mountain with a cave entrance near the top.
Vine smiles at her. "Have I ever mentioned how much I love you?"
"You have, but it wouldn't hurt to hear it more often."
Dark smiles as he and Twilight look at each other from outside. "You hear that, Twi? We've got this competition won."
Vine continues looking out the window until she notices some purple, red, and black poking out from the bottom of the frame. "It appears we have some company."
Dark and Twilight scream as vines suddenly wrap around them and Vine and Fleur step outside. "I should've known you'd do this kind of thing, Dark."
"I swear he made me do it!" Twilight screams, pointing at Dark.
"I can believe that." she sets down Twilight, but keeps Dark suspended in the air. "You like flying, right, Dark?"
"When I can actually use my wings, yeah." he answers, a bit scared and annoyed.
"Well, too bad." she brings the vine back a bit as she slingahots Dark out of it and sends him flying over the forest, screaming the entire time. They look back at Twilight. "No hard feelings, Twi. Good luck."
"Yeah, I understand. Good luck to you too." she says as the two leave her by way of vines again.
The lavender unicorn begins crossing the bridge once more, but as she reaches the final plank, it breaks under her and falls into a river below, making her yelp as she looks back in terror. "Okay, so maybe it's not so perfectly safe. Hopefully nopony falls in."
Oh, don't worry, I'm sure no one will.
Now with the second clue found and figured out by some of the teams, the race to win becomes even more intense. But just who will get to the mountain top first?