//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: To Each Their Own // by Wheller //------------------------------// Chapter 6 The entire camp was thrown awake by Vinyl Scratch’s screaming, everypony (plus one kangaroo, who had drawn his submachine gun) exited their tents to find Vinyl Scratch looking at the wooden shipping box, her eyes twitched slightly as she looked at it. “We have to open the box,” Vinyl said, looking back at Trooper Willoughby. “Don’t have to tell me twice,” the kangaroo said, lowering the submachine gun and producing a crowbar from his rucksack, pack rat he was indeed. “No!” Derpy cried out, “You can’t open it!” She looked at Big Macintosh and Braeburn for support, but it soon became clear that she wouldn’t be getting any. “Ah kept gettin’ this funny feeling ‘bout that box when Ah was pullin’ it,” Big Macintosh said plainly. “Ah want to know what’s in it too.” Braeburn merely nodded in agreement. Derpy looked to Lyra and Bon Bon, they merely shook their heads. The more Lyra thought about it, she too had felt uneasy when she was around the box, but when stepping away from it, she’d seemed to forget, at least until now when everyone had called attention to it. Trixie too proclaimed a bad vibe from the box, the few times she’d gone near it. Derpy gave in; there was simply no way to stop it now that everyone in the group wanted to open it up. “All right... let’s see what you hold,” Willoughby said, placing the crowbar at the gap between the lid and the actual box itself, with a quick downward thrust, the lid of the box popped off, sending it clattering to the ground. They all heard a howling noise, and a cloud of grey smoke burst forward from the box, making a distinctive noise that none of them had ever heard before. Docka-docka-docka-docka-docka! The grey smoke dove back down, smashing the cart and throwing Willoughby clear. The smoke then did the unthinkable; it roared at them and flew off heading west towards the distant tree line of the Everfree forest. Derpy and Trixie both backed away from the rest of the group, who had rushed to help the fallen kangaroo. “Was that...?” Trixie asked, not needing to finish her sentence. “No,” Derpy said, shaking her head. “Similar... but just different enough. Now I want to know, who was sending a Smoke Monster to Manehattan?” ... Willoughby had ended up being fine, insisting that they continue on in spite of his minor injuries. Vinyl felt horribly guilty, but she wasn’t sure why, she wasn’t happy that Willoughby had been hurt, but he was fine. She couldn’t help but feel that she’d unleashed something that was better left locked away. “How does a cloud of smoke roar at somepony?!” Lyra exclaimed. “Better yet, how does it smash a cart?” Bon Bon asked. No one had any answers for them. Derpy and Trixie kept silent about the similar smoke creature that they had seen in the past. They had agreed that it was something best kept between the two of them. Only one other pony knew of it, and they had no idea where he even was. To Willoughby’s delight, their pace had quickened, they could walk much faster and further during the day, and they didn’t need to stop as much, likewise, they had been able to reduced their water and food consumption, they’d still have a week’s worth of food for all of them by the time they’d reached Manehattan, roughly estimated by some quick math, done by Big Macintosh to everyponies surprise. Though they probably should have expected it, Big Macintosh was a farmer; if anything he knew how to keep track of food. Discussion of the Grey Smoke continued, no one, not even Derpy or Trixie had any idea what it was, and even they threw in a few ideas of what it could be, casually leaving out any mention of the Black Smoke. Of course, it wasn’t as if either of them knew anything about the Black Smoke at all. Derpy had seen it twice; the first time was when it was chasing a future iteration of herself, Trixie, and her absent friend, the Doctor. The second time was when it healed Pinkie Pie, bringing the pink party pony back from brain death. Behaviours completely opposite of each other, so she had no idea what the Black Smoke was, or what its intentions were. Maybe it was peaceful, and their future selves had done something to agitate it? She had no way of knowing, it hadn’t happened yet. Trixie had not seen it personally, instead, having relied upon Derpy’s descriptions of it. Eventually, Vinyl Scratch declared that such talk was pointless, they had no idea what the Grey Smoke was, nor could they find out any time soon. “Sorry everypony,” Vinyl said apologetically. “Not trying to be the man here... but we’ve got more pressing concerns to deal with right now.” “She’s right,” Derpy said, she pointed a hoof to the clouds off in the distance. “There’s a big storm coming.” Off in the distance, dark clouds were forming, very unnatural for this time of the year. Trooper Willoughby took out his binoculars to take a closer look at them; they were a sort of greenish colour. “Fuck,” Willoughby swore, everyponies ears burned. “We do not want to be outside when those things start dumping. Those are hail clouds.” Derpy frowned; she was pegasi, and more familiar with weather patterns than the rest of the group. “This area is under the management of Cloudsdale, why in Equestria would they make hail?” Willoughby looked at the pegasi in confusion. “Oh... don’t tell me, ponies actually make the weather.” Derpy nodded in affirmation. “Fecking bullshite,” Willoughby muttered under his breath. “All right, clearly someone in Cloudsdale made a mistake. We need to find a cave or something and wait it out. Large hailstones have been able to rip holes in our tanks access hatches, so imagine what one would do to us.” This statement took most of them aback, only Vinyl Scratch had seen kangaroo tanks in action, everypony else had assumed that the metal monstrosity that had driven into Ponyville was indestructible. They formulated a plan of action, they would split up, each of them going out in various directions, and report back here in three hours about any prospects that could shelter them from the inbound hail. At the end of those three hours, almost everypony reported back that they had found nothing. It was Lyra and Bon Bon however; the two most unlikely to be useful on this trip, though nopony would have admitted it to them who reported finding a small cave a kilometre to the northeast. It also turned out that Lyra knew an exceedingly useful spell that allowed her to cast a beacon spell on a rock or something so that she could find it again. Trixie in particular was impressed, that was a very useful bit of magic. Lyra led the way to the cave, which actually turned out to be much larger than Lyra and Bon Bon had described, but it would certainly make do. They had arrived not a moment too soon, as it started hailing outside. Now it was time to sit and wait. They built a fire, Willoughby and Big Macintosh had thought ahead, and gathered up plenty of wood while they were out searching, they had enough to last them a few days, after that, well everyone just hoped that the hail wouldn’t last that long. Vinyl Scratch had taken to exploring, light from her horn shone brightly as she walked around the cave, looking at the walls and the high ceiling. “This cave is not a natural formation. Look at the walls; they’re too smooth, too even. Someone dug this.” Vinyl said. Willoughby brought out his submachine gun. “Which means someone might live here,” he said, he opened his bag, bringing out a roll of tape, and a small hand torch, attaching the torch to the barrel of the submachine gun, and he clicked it on, shining light into the cave. “Vinyl Scratch? I could really use that horn of yours. My light isn’t as good as yours,” Willoughby said. Vinyl agreed, and the two of them crept quietly through the cave system for the next several hours. Eventually returning to the group and reporting that they had found nothing. Willoughby had been worried about gryphons, they’d already run into one in Equestria, there were likely to be more. Vinyl on the other hand wanted to make sure that the cave wasn’t being used by a hibernating Ursa. “Good news everypony!” Vinyl reported with a grin. “Crisis averted!” Everypony slept easily that night.