//------------------------------// // 01 - Bad Things Happen // Story: The GATE // by scifipony //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle Before... Between thundering breaths, Big Mac got out, "Bloom, Grannie, okay, at vet." I said, "AppleJack?" "Captured." Before that... Princess Celestia always told me during her lengthy exposition lessons that you really ought to write what you feel. If you don't do that, you'll never learn all about yourself. So... so, I will! Some of this will be what I thought, what I felt. Some I'll relate in time order from other ponies and creatures, though I learned exactly what had happened afterwards. # Just a minute ago, in the library, I'd heard the sound of running hooves down the hall, large ones from the sound of it. No, no, no... I'd thought selfishly, but I dropped my red pencil on my standing desk and sighed. That had ended possibly my longest and nicest uninterrupted time to myself since the end of the term. It had allowed me to mark up all the changes to my lesson plan for the second years and I really hadn't needed to look again at the first year one. Friendship magic really was on the ascendance. Spike would transcribe my work, I told myself. I didn't need to. And, no, the visitor who'd pounded on the castle doors wasn't an interruption. He wasn't. Not much. Part of my being princess was being available. Spike's voice dopplered towards me, yelling, "Something bad happened at Sweet Apple Acres!" Spike glided through the open doors seconds before Big Mac galloped in, a red one-stallion stampede who skidded to a stop on the crystal tiles until we were almost muzzle to muzzle, him huffing and puffing. Starlight Glimmer teleported beside me with a loud bang. I shot a hoof to my papers to keep them from being buffeted away by the vacuum pop. She had a frightened look, frost steaming momentarily from her lavender coat. My subconscious mind deduced ponies were hurt. My heart lurched in my chest. I broke out in a cold sweat. Applejack! # It took four teleports; almost three total seconds in the absolute cold vacuum of in-between. When I popped into the vet's exam room, Granny Smith yelled, "Tarnation!" Apple Bloom squeaked. I shook my coat and scattered flash-frozen bits of perspiration and frost snow across the floor. Doctor Fauna proved steely-nerved as she wielded a suture needle held in her lips, working on a slowly breathing mountain of pink flesh on her metal examination table. Her muzzle was covered... Wads of bloody cotton littered the floor, and the vet pressed on the pig's side as she sewed together an outrageously ragged hoof-sized wound with black thread. Apple Bloom had turned a slight shade of green that resembled her grandmother's coat. The foal's jaw trembled as she held her mouth tightly clamped shut. I realized her squeak probably hadn't been due to the sound of my in-teleport. "Dagnabit! Had I'd been a might younger, I'd have bucked me some giant flank!" As the elder went on in that vein, adding new more colorful country cussing, I looked from Granny to Apple Bloom. "Do you know what happened?" Apple Bloom nodded. "Sure." Her red bow lay flattened and askew across her head. I walked over and lay on the floor before her so I could look directly into her fire opal eyes. "Try." I also blocked her view of the operation. "Okay, Twilight. It's just hard. Don't understand what happened or who they was, but suddenly there were these tremendous roars and this big metal box on wheels. Scared everypony, da pigs too and they broke outta their pens. These, don't know what they was, but they run on two legs when they burst outta the rolling box, after havin spun around and kicked dirt all over tha heck. They, the best I can describe is they, they look like tall thin pigs. They've got no fur and look pinkish and got beady eyes like a pig, no offense to Chester here." I glanced at Chester as Dr. Fauna worked. Pigs did have small eyes, but also a large cylindrical snout. "No snout. And they wore clothes. All of um." Wait. That sounded like they resembled the girls from Canterlot High. But the mirror hadn't activated. I asked anyway. "Nothin colorful bout them. All pinkish- or brownish-skinned, with black or brown manes. Even their clothes. Faded blue farm pants and gray or brown flannel shirts." "And your sister?" "AJ, she yelled at them to stop, but they ran after the pigs and me and granny. AJ bucked one, broke his leg. That's when they took out these long black spears with wood fletching at the end. The things started barking and dirt started exploding around us. AJ told us to run, but that's when Chester exploded like the dirt, on his haunch. Big Mac, he gathered us up while AJ kept the pig-things occupied. Last I saw, they threw a big blanket on her and it took six of them to pin her down." Apple Bloom sobbed. "That's how we got away." I found myself hyperventilating through my nose and found my right rear leg shaking on its own, clattering the horseshoe against the wood floor. I'd fought enough times to not freak at the sight of blood, even my own, but I aways saw AJ as uniquely capable and strong, and the image of the blanket in my mind just negated any thoughts of her being safe. Rising adrenaline would need answers soon, but I turned to Dr. Fauna and willed myself to breathe slowly, though that got me gulping. With deft moves of her neck, she wove a final knot and bit the suture through with her teeth. In my mind, I tasted the memory of the iron flavor of blood, my own, and the salt. Her dedication impressed me. I asked, "What caused that? A spiked mace? An arrow?" Dr. Fauna shuddered. She ran a hoof through her sweaty mane, which didn't help much and smeared it. She grabbed a cologne spray bottle and pumped out little puffs of acrid-smelling antiseptic over the wound. She went to the opposite side of the sprawled unconscious animal and sprayed again. She put down the sprayer and pointed at the animal's lower flank. "Four wounds. In here." She pointed, then lifted a leg to reveal a big reddened bandage stuck to the other side. "Out here. In there and the fourth one you saw." "Not an arrow or a spear." "It hit nothing major, with so much fat and muscle there compared to the width of bone and location of the big blood vessels. But the exit wounds are big and the entry wounds small." I imagined Chester standing under his own power and visualized the trajectory in three dimensions. The wounds lined up in a perfect, slightly down facing line. Something small and powerful did it. How powerful varied with exactly how small and the mass of said small item. I didn't like what I imagined at all, nor the thought that the barking long arrow weapons had considerably more range than regular arrows, though the laws of ballistics would still apply. Had anypony been stuck in the chest or face... I looked at Apple Bloom, still looking green as she held on to Granny Smith. She was lucky to be alive. Both of them. And Big Mac. Anything that could make Big Mac run... that scared me, too. I thought, Range... Spike burst into the room. "Twilight!" he cried, his wings flapping vigorously. "You've got to do something. Big Mac's going back to the farm." "Celestia, no!" I said. "The pig-things are dangerous. Send a note to Princess Celestia about this. Tell her not to come close. And tell Mayor Mare to order everypony to stay away from Sweet Apple Acres. It's quarantined!" Starlight Glimmer came skidding in. She, too, had bits of frost on her coat, but while she could easily teleport, she didn't have my range and hadn't been here before, so hadn't been able to target the place. She said between breaths, "You've got to... let me help. You can't... do this alone." "Yes. Tell everypony to stay away. And no, I can get there fastest." And, with that, I teleported out. Alone.