Rainbow dash´s side:
The maze of trees made a path wide enough for the athlete to fly instead of just walking, which made crossing the maze an easy task for the fasters Pegasus, Rainbow dash, who was now celebrating her victory against the forces of nature that decided to play a trick on her and her friends.
“Ha!! Piece of cake!!”
Suddenly, something green knocked her from the air, making her little body to fall on the cold ground. Slowly opening her eyesstared at what looked like a green-colored Minotaur wielding an axe standing in front of her, its musculature would even make a certain motivator die from envy
“Leave, Pegasus, whatever you are looking is not here.”
With those words, the minotaur slowly sat on the grass, using its axe to make a safer landing. Rainbow dash did her best to stand up, cleaning the blood from her nostrils and glaring daggers at the creature that dared to punch her.
“What the hell are you talking about, freak!? You know what? I´ll beat you and then make you spit some answers!!! ”
The Pegasus, sure of her strength, flew as much as the roof let her, diving towards the Minotaur who seemed to not care about what she tried to do. Unluckily for our rainbow-maned friend, when she landed her hoof on the Minotaur, the minotaur did not only shrugged the attack like nothing, but also took her hoof, pulled her towards him and clenched his fist, throwing a punch that would knock most ponies yet Rainbow dash somehow was able to remain conscious.
“I-Is that your best shot, buddy?”
The minotaur´s eyes widened at the toughness of the rainbow-maned pony, but it quickly grew into an angered expression, even blowing some air from its nostrils
“Why do you want to enter even deeper into the forest!? What’s in the other side that you will risk your life to obtain!? There are no jewels nor wealth nor anything that you could use to trade in your world, so wh-“
“Friends…”
The beast quickly pulled the pony to meet face to face with her, its expression confused and bewildered.
“My friends and family needs me...I wont let a simple-minded Minotaur like you to stop me, heard me!?”
“So you are willing not only to sacrifice your body, but also your soul to them, to the last of your breaths?”
“You heard it punk, now let me go before I rain some pain into that stupid face you have!!” The Minotaur just laughed, only making the little pony even more irritated “What are you laughing about!? When i-“
“You…Hahahaha…win…” The Minotaur tried to calm himself down for a bit, looking at the Pegasus with a faint smile “ Well, little filly, how about you close your eyes for a moment?”
The Minotaur´s other hand slowly approached the Pegasus, no matter how much Rainbow dash struggled to free herself from its grasp, in the end, all she could see was darkness.
And then everything vanishing from existance
Even the pain
“Uh?”
Rainbow Dash halted for a second, descending to the ground and examined herself, there was no injuries nor pain, when there should be at least one or two broken ribs. The rainbow-maned pony tried to look for anything that looked like the green-colored Minotaur yet there wasn’t even a single hair or trace of any kind from the beast in the entire place.
“...What´s going on…?”
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Fluttershy´s side:
The yellow pony tried her best not to run away, but each time something cracked or something creepy howled, Fluttershy had to hid somewhere and shake for some time before continuing her way with careful steps.
Suddenly, she encountered what looked like a strange formation of yellow-colored rocks, gold ? probably. they resembled what looked like the face of some sort of primal, yet none she knew of had the same facial structure that the strange statue had. Fluttershy slowly approached the strange figure with shy steps.
“Greetings…”
The sudden lip movement from the statue freaked the hell out of Fluttershy, making her run as fast as her legs could. Sadly for her, when she thought she had ran away from the strange thing, all she had to do was turn around to see the Statue at mere centimeters from her
“What brings you h-…”
But again she had to run away, screaming for dear life.
“…This is going to be easier than I thought…”
No matter where Fluttershy ran or how far she tried to go without turning around, all she had to do was stop for a few seconds to hear its voice behind her back. In the end, the yellow mare´s only course of action was to curl herself into a ball and shake so hard that would make Pinkie Pie look static. Her eye met again with the statue…
“P-Please d-d-don’t hurt me…”
“Why would I ?” The mare looked at the statue, taking her neck from her packed position, still confused at what it just said “Of all the question you can ask to a giant beheaded head that can magically talk, you ask me if I would hurt you or not?”
The statue laughed as hard as it could, Fluttershy slowly got out of the curl, standing in front of the monolith that still tried its best to calm itself down
“Hahaha…ahhh…anyway what do you want?”
Fluttershy did her best to gather some courage and to answer the strange thing back, but every attempt was a failure, resulting into a Fluttershy gathering courage every time to talk to a rock. The moai wondered if the girl had any social life, but her reaction made him think that she was probably abused when she was a little filly.
“W-well…” Taking her time to answer the statue, Fluttershy was incredibly able to talk to the Moai without stuttering “I really don’t know, but princess Celestia told us that there was something here and well…I kinda need to go to the other side…if you don’t mind, that is…”
“Princess Celestia, uh?”
“Do you know her?”
“Sort of, but I doubt she remembers us. Also no, you cannot pass, sorry”
The look on the yellow Pegasus turned into a sweet, adorable one that would have surely melt the heart of even the most cold-hearted creature.
Sadly for her, the Moai seemed to be outside the “living” group.
“I said no, but I can make you a good offer just because I like you, I mean, I have visited many words yet you are probably the most awkward living creature I have met”
After laughing his lungs off and dropping Fluttershy´s self-stem at speed that could only be matched by Raindow Dash, the moai grinned at the pony that was now coiled again.
“How about this? You and your other friend stay with me, and even the animals can come too, I will save them all” Fluttershy peeked again at the statue, her gaze filled with hope and a smile “But only the friends that are here, in this forest, and your own animals, the rest will be annihilated”
Quickly standing up, Fluttershy answered at that proposition.
“Why? Why cant you save them all? Everypony is in great dan-“
“And why do you care?”
And suddenly, silence….
“…Why do I care? What do you mean, mister head?”
“If it weren’t for those friends, you would have been bullied, harassed or worse” Its face dropped the smile and assumed a serious expression “Why should you care about those other ponies who have done nothing but make you feel worse about yourself, let them die so you can finally have-“
“Stop!!”
The yellow-colored giant stone head stopped his speech in shock at the yellow mare´s sudden outburst.
“How can you be so cruel when everybody is in danger!?” Fluttershy gave the moai the stare, the moai was shocked at the sudden change on her eyes “Everypony….everypony deserves a second chance…and wishing those things are wrong. I thank you for the offer, mister big yellow head, but i´ll have to refuse…if im not bothering you too much…that is…”
And suddenly, the outburst burned down quite quick and became the little, shy and adorable pony again
“…So it wasnt a bad decision to choose you after all…I was getting scared”
The stone-head slowly opened its eyes, a light covering the entire place in brilliant white before vanishing.
Fluttershy was again, alone.