//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Rest in a cottage. // Story: The World Of Cyber Species. // by Neutral Boy //------------------------------// Outside the Everfree Forest, Lucas finally makes it out as he panted heavily from running. He sits down on the ground and puts the unicorns from his shoulders to the ground as well. He takes some deep breaths and has been looking around to see if those monsters have either followed him or biding their time to strike again. After a few minutes, he sighs knowing that it's safe for now. "I think I lost them." Lucas quietly says, not to make too much noise. Unknown to him, one of the unicorn is squirming a little to wake up soon. "I better find a good hiding place before they find me again." So Lucas stands up and picks up the unicorns into his arms and heads off. Some minutes later, he stops by close to a strange tech of a cottage home. Thinking this might be a good place to lay low, he walks further and lays the two unicorns near the front door. Nodding to himself, he looks around to see the coast is clear and walks off to grab any food or drinks. "I better see if there's anything for today." While Lucas is off on his own, another cyber anthro pony named Fluttershy is seen on her way to her cottage home carrying an unconscious Spitfire. Some time ago, her little white bunny is panicking, hopping, and flailing his paws that there's trouble outside. So Fluttershy followed her furry friend on where it was and spots three ponies on the ground with only one barely alive. She looks over at one of them and immediately gasps upon recognizing the one. "S-S-Spitfire, oh no what happened to you?!" Now Fluttershy is carrying Spitfire to her home to get her fixed up. Upon arriving at her home, her eyes widen of seeing the two missing unicorns right by her front door "Lyra! Minuette!" She goes to check up on them to see if those two okay, thankfully they're just only sleeping. Fluttershy then takes each pony in her house one-by-one inside. She also grabs some stabilizing tools for Spitfire in order to make she doesn't die while her pet bunny is keeping an eye on and guarding the two unicorns. After making some adjustments, Fluttershy nods and proceeds to head outside & close her door before using her wings to fly high and goes to one of her friends for assistance. "I better go and ask Applejack for help." {Meanwhile, in Cyber Sweet Apple Acres. . .} Behind the farm, both Applejack and Rainbow Dash are busy fighting in their combat practice. Rainbow went to charge at Applejack with a left fist, but Applejack quickly ducks from the attack. She counter attacks with an upper right leg and Rainbow dodges that one with a front flip. She then turns around and spins uses her right leg towards Applejack, but she anticipated it and catches Rainbow's leg with both hands. She then jumps and uses both her foot hooves on Rainbow to the ground hard. Dash groans from the attack, responds by grabbing Applejack's legs and uses both hooves to kick her back. Applejack groans and gets off of Dash before planting face first into the ground. She rolls over and pauses to see her friend with a weapon aiming at her. She sighs in defeat and asks to help her up with her left hand. Dash smiles and grabs Applejack's hand with hers to pull her up and stand. Both shaking their hands in approving for their good fight. "Looks like I've won this round AJ." Rainbow said chuckling with a smirk. "Yeah, but next time I won't be losing to you Dash." Applejack said frowning before having a small grin. "Well I guess we better call it a night-" "Applejack! Applejack!" Their conversation were cut short when both the girls turn toward Fluttershy flying to them in a big hurry. So both Applejack and Rainbow run up to their friends to see what's up with her. "Hold up Fluttershy, just calm down and tell us what's wrong." Applejack says to her friend in concern. Fluttershy tries to calm down for a moment and looks up at her two friends. "Girls, I need your help. I found Captain Spitfire all damaged up and I also found both Lyra Heartstrings and Minuette unconscious at my cottage." {Back to Fluttershy's Cottage. . .} Lucas arrives back with only some fresh fruits and a bottle of water he found. He stops and sees the two unicorns who were last scene by the front door went missing. "Oh crap, where the hell are they?" He puts both the foods & bottle of water in his backpack and begins to find the unicorns. He sneakily looks over to every bush, hiding places, and up in the trees with no such luck. The only place he didn't check was inside the cottage. So he goes back to the front and sees if it's locked or not. Surprise to him, the door knob is unlocked as he slowly opens it up to not make a sound. He goes inside and slowly closes the door behind him. He tip toes with each step and finds the two unicorns resting on a couple of couches. He sighs in relief and decides to take some rest on a chair while eating a couple of good fruits. A few minutes later, Lucas hears multiple voices heading toward this cottage. 'Dammit, not now.' Lucas's minds says in worry. Panicking of getting caught, he decide to sneak upstairs and spots a couple of doors for bedrooms. He opens up one of them and closes the door before covering his mouth to not make any sound. He puts his left ear at the door upon hearing a mixed of voices downstairs. One was a chatty fast voice and the other one is like an exciting fan girl. He couldn't exactly hear of what they were all saying, but actually heard one speaking out loud. "She'll be alright girls, Spitfire probably needs a few days to rest until her body is fully repaired." Then the next thing, the voices went to silent as he rubs his left ear to see if something was wrong and why the voices became silent. He glances out the window and notices that it's getting close to midnight. 'I better hide up here and go to sleep. Then escape first thing in the morning.' So he decides to lock the door, go over to a comfy bed, and get some sleep for tomorrow. As Lucas is asleep, the silence suddenly went back to normal and the voices are heard again. "Okay girls, we'll go investigate tomorrow and find out whose prints were on both Lyra and Minuette." "Sounds wonderful darling." The next morning inside the Everfree, some chomping and crunches can be heard. A few gruesome unknown monsters are busy eating away at the four deceased Shadowbolt members, each one are fighting over the scraps and claiming all to their own. Then a loud roar halted their meals, each one turning their heads to see a giant one looking down upon them as those monsters quick back up and bows to the big one. The tall monster spoke in a different language tone and it's pack growls in understand as they head off to their new meals. The tall monster waits for a moment and looks around & sniff to see if it's being watched. Noticing that nothing's here, the tall one grumbles and heads back to it's pack.