The pack of timberwolves ran through the winding, snowy paths of the Everfree Forest, completely oblivious to the Slayer watching them from behind a nearby snowdrift.
Tracking the beasts down proved to be almost an insultingly easy task for Rarity— the creatures’ clawed feet leaving easily traceable tracks in the heavy snow—but she wasn’t about to complain. Especially not when she could complain about the pack’s size instead.
Rarity knew going into this mission that this pack was unusually large, but it still left a sinking feeling in her stomach to have her worst fears confirmed and see over thirty timberwolves rampaging through the forest.
Rarity had almost gotten her leg torn off in a battle with three timberwolves; she shuddered to think of the state she’d be left in if she tried to stage a full-frontal assault on a group of thirty.
Luckily for Rarity, such a grisly scenario would not be necessary! While confronting the beasts head-on was quite simply out of the question, she knew that if she started picking them off from a distance with her arrows, the rest of the pack would be alerted and come charging toward her in a bloodthirsty fury.
Normally, that would lead to a rather ugly situation, but if Rarity placed magical traps along the path the wolves were sure to take, she could take down the entire pack in one fell swoop and make it back to Ponyville in time for luncheon!
Rarity watched the timberwolves’ movements for a little while longer, getting a feel for the area in which they travelled. Setting up the traps would be something of a tedious effort, so she wanted to be sure she was placing them in a location where she could reliably wait for the wolves to return to.
Once she was certain of her desired position— a narrow pathway absolutely choked with large, leafless trees—Rarity took out one of her knives and began carving runes into the base of a tree.
She quietly said a prayer of respect as she carved, more out of habit than anything, though she had learned that the people of Ponyville believed there was a powerful spirit who watched over the Everfree, and the last thing Rarity wanted was to get on such a spirit’s bad side.
If Rarity could have simply carved the runes into the ground, she would have done so, but the snow made that impossible, so these trees would have to do.
After carving only the second rune, Rarity groaned and rested her weary back against a tree, wiping snow out of her way so she could sit on the ground without getting too wet.
It had been a while since Rarity had used actual magic—as opposed to simply the enchantments on her weapons, which required considerably less effort—and she had forgotten how tedious it was to delicately etch the runes.
Oh well, she thought, no sense in simply lying around here. These timberwolves aren’t going to slay themsel—
A piercing scream tore through the air and Rarity was on her hooves instantly. She darted her head around in any direction, trying to find some sense of where the scream had come from, and another scream answered her question handily.
Without even thinking, Rarity took off in the direction of the scream, charging through the woods and snow as fast as her legs would carry her. The most important thing to a Slayer, to Rarity, was protecting the ponies, and she would be damned if she let an innocent woman be killed in these woods on her watch.
It wasn’t long before Rarity caught sight of a woman, blood trailing from the open wounds in her leg and arm, leaned up against a tree while a pack of at least a dozen timberwolves closed in on her. Rarity grit her teeth as she recognized the gray pegasus mare, but this was no time for her to start thinking about how she was going to scold Bubbles for following her.
Rarity jumped in front of Bubbles with her shield bared, just in time for a timberwolf to lunge right into it and be knocked back. Another wolf attempted to scratch at Rarity’s leg but her floating sword came down and pierced right through its skull, killing it instantly.
“Can you stand?” Rarity asked as she stared down the remaining wolves, who were all watching her warily and preparing to attack.
“I-I don’t think so!” Bubbles sobbed.
Rarity groaned and threw two of her knives into the ground at her feet, the magical explosion disorienting the pack of timberwolves just long enough for Rarity to grab Bubbles by her collar with her magic—which forced her to drop her sword on the ground— and throw her onto Rarity’s back, Bubbles wrapping her arms tightly around Rarity as she bolted away from the wolves.
Rarity’s one advantage as she ran, injured pony on her back, through the Everfree with at least nine timberwolves on her trail, was that the pathways of the forest were incredibly narrow.
The wolves had to clamber around each other and charge her in a straight line as they pursued, which made them quite vulnerable to another of Rarity’s knives as she threw it right at the leading timberwolf’s head, a smile gracing her lips as she saw the bodies of the timberwolves blown away by the resulting explosion.
Rarity quickly ducked into a thicket of trees while the explosion covered her tracks, and she breathed a silent sigh of relief as the remainders of her pursuers ran obliviously past her and her wounded charge.
Speaking of said charge, Rarity dropped Bubbles to the ground on her rump with a painful thud before turning around and giving the woman a piercing glare that could crack stone.
“Rarity, I’m so—”
“Shush,” Rarity knelt and applied a touch of her healing ointment to Bubbles’ arm and leg, letting out a deep sigh as she did so. “Why did you follow me? I told you, over and over, that this is dangerous and I needed to do it alone.”
A whimpering “I’m sorry” is all Bubbles had to offer.
Rarity took a deep breath and stood to her hooves. The howling of the timberwolves echoing through the forest made the fur on her neck stand on end, but at least it gave her an idea of how far away her enemies were, and based on that she was confident she had another minute or two before they found her.
“Thank you,” Bubbles said, “for saving me.”
“Of course,” Rarity shrugged. “I wasn’t going to abandon you. That’s not what I’m about. That’s not what the Celestial Slayers are about.”
“Really?” Bubbles looked up at Rarity with eyes that glistened with unshed tears. “That hasn’t been my experience with the Slayers.”
Before Rarity could properly absorb that sentence and ask Bubbles what she meant, a fast-moving object caught her eye, approaching from her left. Rarity threw her shield up, and if she had been even a half-second slower, the lunging timberwolf would have gouged her eye, but instead it scratched harmlessly at her shield.
Rarity clicked her tongue and grabbed Bubbles with her magic, dragging the mare to her hooves. Rarity cursed herself for being wrong in her time calculation as she slammed her shield into the timberwolf’s skull and saw a group of five more fast approaching.
“We need to go!” Rarity shouted to Bubbles, grabbing the woman’s wrist and running from the pursuing wolves.
“Go where?!” Bubbles hollered.
“Just trust me!” Rarity didn’t have the time to explain the traps she had already set, and how they needed to reach them before the rest of the pack caught up to them.
She didn’t have time because it was already too late.
As Rarity and Bubbles dived out of the thicket and back onto the narrow pathway, another timberwolf lunged at Rarity, and while she was able to defend herself with her shield, the blow still knocked her off balance, enough for a scraping claw against her shin to send her tumbling downward.
She grabbed her axe and hacked through one wolf’s head, and slammed her shield down onto the one that had scraped her leg. She gritted her teeth and ignored the pain as four more wolves quickly rushed her from down the path.
She couldn’t stand up in time, so she just barricaded herself behind her shield as best she could, but four wolves charging into it all at once was more than enough force to send her on her back.
Two of the wolves grabbed her legs in their jaws and started pulling at her, trying to tear her hooves from the rest of her body, but she couldn’t focus on those two until she dealt with the one standing atop her shield and crushing her arm underneath it, and the one that was trying to claw her eye out, that was only being kept at bay by a few desperate swings of Rarity’s axe.
She needed to move fast though; if caught in this position by the rest of the pack—which, judging by the proximity of their howling, was fast approaching her—she wouldn’t survive.
Rarity grabbed one of her last two knives in her magic, throwing it into the head of one of the wolves on her legs; the magic exploded outward and, to Rarity’s glee and relief, annihilated both the monsters.
It also distracted the other two wolves, who turned away from Rarity to look at the explosion, giving Rarity ample opportunity to slash off a leg of the wolf standing on top of her, which brought its head down within the perfect distance to be crushed by her axe.
Taking out the last wolf was a simple matter of stunning it with a blow to the head from Rarity’s shield, then crushing its skull with the axe.
Rarity knew by the howling that she had no time to apply the ointment to her bloody legs; she needed to force herself up and keep going.
A hot sting of fear radiated in her stomach as she realized that Bubbles was now missing. Rarity hoped that Bubbles had taken advantage of the wolves’ distraction and made a run back to Ponyville—she still had wings after all, despite her bloodied leg— but she had to force herself to not think about it either way.
Rarity needed to focus on slaying the timberwolves. It was the only way to guarantee both her own and Bubbles’ safety, and if Rarity went chasing Bubbles into the depths of the forest and away from her traps, it would only spell disaster for them both.
Rarity did her best to run back to where she had placed the traps, a simple locator spell allowing her to detect them even in the labyrinthian forest, but she was forced to concede that the pain in her legs made her slower than she would have liked.
The howling was getting closer, but so too had Rarity almost reached where she had laid the traps. She let herself smile as she quickened her pace as much as her bloodied legs would allow, and soon became certain that she would reach her destination in time.
Until a wolf jumped out from the trees beside her, grabbing her arm in its jaws and taking her down to the ground with an abrupt tug.
Rarity quickly let go of her axe, using her magic to cleave it into the wolf’s head before its fangs could do too much damage to the soft fold inside Rarity’s elbow. She winced as she moved her arm, thankful she could still move it at all but electing to use her magic to hold the axe until this was over.
Regardless, she could still make it to the traps.
She struggled to get back on her wounded legs, but before she was even fully upright, the howling ceased; replaced instead by furious growling and snarling.
They had found her, and it was too late to run.
She had been surrounded on nearly all sides, with several wolves poking their furious jaws out of the thickets on Rarity’s left and right, while the majority of the pack closed in behind her.
The path forward, toward the traps, was still uninhibited, but running for it would mean turning her back on a pack of angry timberwolves and there was no way she could outrun them on her torn up legs.
But she had to try.
She threw her last two knives to her left and right, and as the explosion covered her escape she sprinted toward the traps.
She felt the crushing jaw of a timberwolf biting into her leg an instant before the tug of its teeth tripped her and brought her crashing to the ground on her face, a feeling she was very quickly tiring of.
Rarity grabbed her axe with her magic and swung it into the wolf’s skull, shattering it, but three more wolves were already on her by then; one grabbing the same leg in its maw, another pinning her shield arm, and the other sinking its teeth into the soft flesh of Rarity’s inner knee.
Rarity wanted to scream but her pained throes came out as only a meager whimper.
No time to dwell on her pain, however. She tore her leg away from the gnawing timberwolf and cleaved through the one on her knee, before quickly sinking her axe into the skull of the beast standing on her arm.
She would crawl to those traps if she had to, but she would make it.
Three more wolves came rushing out of the forest and Rarity was about to swear there was no end to the damn things. She cornered herself against a tree and propped up her shield, but that didn’t protect her leg from getting yanked by a timberwolf’s jaw, nor her left hand from getting bitten and also painfully tugged.
The wolves were trying to drag her out of her defensive posture, but she needed to remain calm. She dug her axe into the wolf on her hand, but just as she was about to swing it at the next wolf, the third one leaped at the axe and took the weapon in its mouth, running away from Rarity with her last means of defense in its teeth, leaving her with only her shield and a bow to deal with the beast still gnawing on her hoof.
There was nothing for Rarity to do but to pound the timberwolf with her shield, though with fatigue rapidly grabbing hold of her she didn’t have enough strength to kill the beast in a single hit.
It took one hit for the timberwolf to acknowledge Rarity’s weapon and look up from the meal it was making of her foot. Two hits and it snarled at her and lunged forward, hitting the shield as she rose it to defend her face and chest.
As the beast scratched at the shield, she knew she would have to leave herself momentarily defenseless to attack again. If she didn’t time this right, the wolf would get a clear shot at her face and she didn’t even want to consider what a mess it would make of her then.
But she needed to hurry; no telling when more damn timberwolves might make their appearance.
Rarity lurched her shield-arm outward, thankfully knocking the wolf back a tad. She slammed the shield into the beast’s head, putting her entire bodyweight behind the attack and smashing against the wolf. But it wasn’t enough to kill it.
The timberwolf took a swipe at Rarity, ripping through skin and leaving three garish, bloody scratches across her face. But Rarity simply bashed the shield into the wolf once more, smashing the creature between the shield and a nearby tree, and that was enough to kill it.
Rarity lied on her back; her face was throbbing with a stinging pain and her legs had both become mostly numb to their injuries, likewise her left hand. Her elbow still resounded with a dull ache, though every movement of her arm sent a wave of pain crashing through her body, and the back of her right knee was in such searing agony that she wanted nothing more than to cry.
But she had to force herself to get up. The pack hadn’t been defeated yet, and she needed to reach those traps still.
Was there an opposite to the term ‘music to my ears’? If so, that’s what Rarity was feeling as she heard the snarl of a timberwolf from behind her.
Still prone on the ground, no weapons to defend herself, and bleeding from nearly every appendage, Rarity was in no position to fight yet another timberwolf, and god forbid if it brought friends.
But she had to move. She had to fight back.
Or at least, that’s what she thought before seeing the wolf’s head being sliced clean off by Rarity’s own sword, and a swirling torrent of mixed emotions welled in Rarity’s gut as she saw the little pink fingers wrapped around the hilt.
“You know, I really should scold you,” Rarity said to Pinkie Pie as the pink mare propped Rarity up, “but I’m glad you’re here.”
“That’s good,” Pinkie laughed awkwardly, “I was honestly worried this whole time that you were gonna yell at me.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Rarity said, retracting her shield into its bracer form and wrapping her one good arm around Pinkie Pie.
“It’s okay,” Pinkie giggled, holding Rarity in her arms, and Rarity felt more comfortable in that embrace than she did in her own bed, though her relaxing was abruptly cut short by Pinkie’s sharp gasp. “Rarity! You’re hurt!”
“Oh, am I?” Rarity said casually.
“Oh, oh! I can use your healy juice! Just tell me where it is!”
“It’s in the satchel,” Rarity patted a small satchel attached to her belt, “this one.”
“Okay,” Pinkie opened the bag and procured the healing ointment, proudly holding it over her head. “Don’t move a muscle, Rarity, and just let Doctor Pinkie Pie take good care of you!”
Pinkie Pie dressed Rarity’s injuries like a pro— after propping her up against one of the trapped trees at Rarity’s insistence.
As Rarity sat there letting Pinkie treat her wounds, Rarity bit her lip and wondered if she should speak her mind, concerned that she might worry Pinkie further if she spoke up, but decided she needed an answer more than she needed to protect Pinkie’s peace of mind.
“Did you see Bubbles, by the way?” Rarity asked, and time felt like it slowed to a standstill as she waited for Pinkie’s answer.
“I told her not to charge ahead,” Pinkie huffed. “But she told me she knew what she was doing cuz I guess she knows the forest super well, and then she flew off to try and find you, even though I suggested we stick together to find you. Very rude.”
“That is rude,” Rarity said, electing to put a pin in the question of why they thought it was a good idea to follow her. “But did you see her after you got separated? I ran into her briefly, but then we got separated, and I was worried—”
“Oh, yeah I did,” Pinkie nodded happily and Rarity felt a weight being lifted off her chest. “She’s the one who told me what direction to find you in, so she’s the reason I made it in time to help you out, but she was headed back to Ponyville. Guess the forest was too spooky for her.”
“Did her leg and arm look okay?” Rarity asked; those injuries looked ghastly to her.
“Hm? I guess?” Pinkie shrugged as she finished dressing Rarity’s wounds, wearing a disappointed scowl as she looked in the now empty jar of ointment. “I didn’t see anything wrong with them, but we didn’t really stop to chat or anything.”
“That’s good then,” Rarity stood up and stretched her limbs over her head, “I’m sure she made it back to town okay.”
“Are you gonna be okay?” Pinkie asked, squinting into the jar of ointment to make, as she put it, ‘super duper extra certainly sure’ that it was empty. “Without your healy juice?”
“Don’t you worry, darling,” Rarity swung her sword and flexed her arms, making sure every limb was in working order again just to be safe, “I won’t need it.”
“Why do you say that?” Pinkie prompted perplexedly.
In lieu of an answer, Rarity cupped a hand against her ear, motioning for Pinkie to do the same. Rarity didn’t expect Pinkie to hear what she was hearing, but she thought it polite to give her a chance to hear for herself.
When Pinkie shot her a desperate and confused look, Rarity explained; “The howling of the timberwolves has gotten quieter.”
“Oh!” Pinkie jumped to her feet and pumped her little fists. “So that means mission accomplished?”
“No, sweetie,” Rarity chuckled, “it means they’re transforming.”
Pinkie tilted her head and frowned, like she was trying to put together a puzzle but didn’t have every piece.
“When a timberwolf pack becomes threatened,” Rarity explained, “they transform. The pack gathers in one area and the magic within them combines them into a single, giant creature: a timberwolf king.”
“That sounds scary as heck!” Pinkie shuddered, holding herself tightly and rubbing her forearms.
“It is,” Rarity sheathed her sword and took a deep breath. “But in a way, it’s a good sign. It means the pack is on their last legs and, more importantly, it means only a single target to worry about. No more guarding against one timberwolf while another bites my leg, so I don’t think I’ll have a problem taking it down.”
“What?! You’re gonna go after it?!” Pinkie exclaimed, throwing herself in front of Rarity and jutting her arms out to her sides. “You can’t do that, you’re still hurt!”
“I’m not, actually,” Rarity said. “You treated my wounds perfectly, Pinkie Pie.”
Rarity knelt before Pinkie Pie and took her cheeks in her hands.
“And I need to do this. I need to finish what I started. I can’t leave the people of Ponyville with a timberwolf king to deal with on their own.”
“I—I know,” Pinkie mumbled. “But I’m worried about you! Can’t I come too?”
“Absolutely not,” Rarity spoke sternly but she ran a hand through Pinkie’s hair to show that she was only concerned about her, not upset with her. “Please, Pinkie Pie, wait here for me to return. The traps on these trees will keep you safe, and I will be back as soon as I can.”
“What if you don’t come back?” Pinkie said with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I will come back,” Rarity embraced Pinkie in a hug, and Pinkie Pie wrapped her arms around Rarity so tight that Rarity was almost worried she wouldn’t be able to pry the dear off of her. “I promise you, I will not abandon the ponies of Equestria. I will not abandon you.”
“We still need to get a drink!” Pinkie sniffled, reluctantly letting her arms fall away from Rarity.
“Absolutely, darling.”
Rarity gave Pinkie Pie one small kiss on the forehead, before walking deeper into the forest with only her sword by her side.