//------------------------------// // Chapter 18 // Story: Linkin Pony - Recharge: Revamped // by Kaciekk //------------------------------// Work continued in the camp as the next day came. CharmingRhythm took a quick break from painting in the late morning. He slipped inside of the base to get out of the heat. As usual, SpinningNote was working on the desk. “So what was in that safe?” Rhythm asked SpinningNote. He had forgotten to ask the day before. “Eh, just the usual stuff. Money, paperwork, a watch, a necklace. But what I did find interesting is this camera,” Spinning remarked. He levitated the camera a few centimeters off the desk, close to his face. “Look at this beauty. And in perfect condition as well.” Rhythm smiled, amused by how interested Spinning was in the camera. “And what are we supposed to do with it?” “I’ve always wanted a good camera,” Spinning stated. “I’ve had cheap ones in the past, but nothing like this. It’s probably worth… who knows how many bits.” “If it’s expensive, that makes sense why it was in the safe. Where did you put the money? We should keep that somewhere, in case we need it.” “In there.” Spinning pointed to a drawer without turning his head. Rhythm opened up the drawer. Inside, along with the money, was the watch and necklace Spinning had mentioned. He levitated the necklace up and examined it. It had a gold chain with a pendant that held a deep blue gemstone. A sapphire? Rhythm wondered, reminding him of his mother. Despite that, he thought, maybe I could give it to Heartfelt. The blue stone could represent himself. Yeah, she might like that.  “Could I take this?” Rhythm checked with Spinning first. Spinning took a glimpse of the necklace and said, “Yeah, sure. I’m not gonna use it.” Rhythm placed the pendant on the nightstand in his room. He reentered the main room. “Maybe we could use that safe,” The thought aloud. “Maybe,” Spinning echoed.  Rhythm left the base to get back to work. As he stepped in front of the wall he was painting, HyperBlitz fluttered up the street.  “I removed the broken glass from the windows on this street,” Hyper announced, gesturing to the houses with a wing. “And you didn’t cut yourself?” Rhythm teased. “No! I’m perfectly clean, look!” Hyper replied, showing one foreleg at a time. “What do you want me to do next?” “Well, you could check the windows in the next street…” Hyper groaned in annoyance. “Okay, okay. I get it. You’re getting bored doing the same thing. Let me think.”  Rhythm’s brain traveled back to the list of duties they needed to address. He wished he had that list with him at the moment, because all the words seemed to fly away. Finally one came to his mind. “We still need to check old generators to see if they work. You could put some crystals in a few and test it out,” Rhythm suggested. “Sounds simple enough,” Hyper agreed. “And you don’t have to keep the crystals in them. Just used them to test. And you don’t have to do all the generators you find. We’ll get around to it. Pick out a few and then separate them between operational and broken,” Rhythm clarified. Hyper continued to stare at Rhythm, the words still processing in his mind. At last he nodded and said, “Alright. You got it.” Hyper bounded away. Rhythm watched his teammate dart towards the base building. He couldn’t help but feel concerned about him. While Hyper was obediently working, as efficient as ever, there was something off about him. It was like the sparkle in his eyes and the spirit in his actions was missing. Rhythm only hoped that it was because he was still healing emotionally from his wing.  Rhythm tried to put Hyper out of his mind for the moment. Before he could make it back to his painting, he heard EchoBeat calling in distress. He turned to the left and saw the frazzled stallion running toward him. “What’s wrong?” Rhythm inquired. “I was in the woods studying the plants and- and I saw something. I don’t know what it was, but it was fucking huge. It looked like a lion, I think. That’s all I could see before I ran,” Echo spilled out between his heavy breaths.  “A lion? It must have been what I heard in that den,” Rhythm surmised. “Was it a manticore?”  “No, I didn’t see any wings. It looked like a mix of animals, but mostly a lion. But no mane…” Echo tried to recall what he had seen.  “Alright. Why don’t you go to the base and calm down? I’ll try to think what to do about this,” Rhythm addressed.  Echo nodded and gaited to the base. Rhythm decided to look through the camp for FeatherTune. He was a lot more difficult to find than Rhythm liked. He found Feather near the houses at the west edge of the village. He was escorting a large generator on a push cart. “Hey, Feather, got a second?” Rhythm said as he approached. “Uh,” Feather’s red eyes darted between Rhythm and the generator. “I guess.” “I need you to do a favor for me. Can you scan the forest? Echo said he saw some big creature in there. It’s probably best to look around from the air,” Rhythm told him. “But… I’m kinda busy,” Feather protested. “I told Hyper I’d help him.” “C’mon. Your work will still be here when you get back.” “Ugh, fine,” Feather muttered. He stomped away and then took flight. Rhythm waited until Feather returned from his assignment. He fluttered down towards Rhythm. “I didn’t see anything,” he reported. “Are you sure? Or are you just being difficult with me?” Rhythm joked. “I’m serious. I looked around the whole forest, well, not the outermost trees, they’re too far. But everything closest to the base I scouted. I didn’t see any big animals,” Feather assured. “Alright. I guess we just keep a lookout. We don’t want trouble with any monsters,” Rhythm said.  The next two days there was no sign of the mysterious beast. CharmingRhythm had warned the rest of his team to look out, and be cautious of the woods.  BlazingFlair was moving recently repaired furniture into houses. When he stepped outside of a door, he saw a phoenix perched on the roof across the street. It tilted its head at Blazing. “Hey, little buddy. What’s going on?” Blazing greeted.  The phoenix fluttered away, and Blazing trotted after it. He didn’t realize his path led to the woods until too late. He was standing in the first trees, glancing around for the bird. Instead, he saw a massive shape rise up from behind a mound. It had the head and body of a lioness. Growling, its eyes glared at Blazing. Almost immediately he swirled around and darted for the camp. “I saw it!” Blazing yelled. HyperBlitz backed up, almost colliding into Blazing. “What?! The monster?” “Yes!” Blazing huffed. “It’s some sort of lion!” Hyper shot into the air and sped over Blazing. He landed on top of the roof on the east end of the base, above the meeting room. Peering into the trees, he too saw a moving figure. From his angle, he could not see a lion’s face, only it’s body. No, the head he saw was of a goat, with small horns. It’s beady eyes captured Hyper. Then its head turned. Its heads turned. To the right of the goat’s head was a lioness. It was clearly female.  “Holy fuck! What is that?!” Hyper cursed loudly. A few moments later, a pony exited the door below Hyper. It was SpinningNote, who craned his head up to see Hyper on the roof. “What are you talking about?” Spinning asked. “That!” Hyper pointed with his hoof. The creature had moved closer, intrigued by the commotion. She was more visible than ever. SpinningNote studied her for a minute. “A chimera!” Spinning let out. “Shit.” He backed up and slammed the door behind him. “Hey!” Hyper called out for him.  SpinningNote raced out of the door from the main room. FeatherTune was quickly galloping behind him. Feather sought out CharmingRhythm. “Maybe we could fight it,” Rhythm suggested as the stallions gathered. “Are you kidding? It’s fucking huge!” Hyper spat. “If our energy can take down Hybrids, then it could take on a chimera,” Rhythm responded confidently.  Feather, Hyper, Spinning and Rhythm ambled towards the forest. Blazing was slowly following. He peered around for EchoBeat, but couldn’t see the red Earth Pony anywhere. Hopefully he was working in a garden, far away from the action.  “Where’d it go?” Hyper blurted out.  “There,” Spinning pointed. The last bit of the chimera was visible behind the wall of the base. Her tail was a snake, with its head at the end.  “Fuck. It’s going behind the base,” Rhythm stated.  Blazing had heard Rhythm before he reached the end of the wall. Instead of following the group, he darted back around to the main entrance. He ran across the open room to the back door. Outside he saw EchoBeat in his self made garden. The chimera was staring at EchoBeat, her lion teeth bared. “Please, don’t come in here!” Echo begged, protecting his garden. The chimera still stepped forward, one of her paws smashing a plant. Blazing took charge and dashed in front of Echo. “Don’t hurt him!” Blazing commanded. “Or his plants!” The chimera appeared to have listened. Both of her heads jolted up and she took her paw off the stem. The rest of the team was behind her, staring in shock. “You trespass my territory,” The chimera spoke in a low rumble. “It talks?!” Hyper exclaimed. “She talks,” Blazing corrected. “Can’t you see she’s female?” He shifted his attention back to the beast.  “I’m sorry we trespassed. But we are living here now too. We will stay out of the woods, if that’s what you would like. But you can’t come here. There are ponies living here. And there will be many more ponies. They’ll be afraid of you.” “Should be afraid,” she snorted. “Even outside woods, you are too close.” “Then maybe you could move deeper into the woods. I know you probably don’t want to leave. We can help you build a new den,” Blazing offered. “We?!” Hyper squawked again. “Shh!” Rhythm silenced Hyper. He then casted a mute bubble spell around Hyper’s head. Hyper glared back at Rhythm in annoyance. “You will build home?” The chimera asked, her words sounding odd. Somehow she had learned how to speak Ponish.  “Sure. We are rebuilding a lot of homes for ponies. We could build one for a chimera too,” Blazing promised.  Her goat head stared at Blazing, while the lion head watched the ponies behind her. Her snake tail flicked it’s tongue at the row of ponies. After the goat head dipped in appreciation, the chimera backed off. Trailing around the group of stallions,she traveled back to the woods. The ponies were silent for a moment, dumbfounded by the scene. “Holy shit, Blazing!” Rhythm exclaimed. He and the other three bounded over to Blazing’s side. Hyper energetically wrapped his foreleg around Blazing’s back. Hyper had a huge grin, but when he spoke, there was no sound. His copper eyes shot an irritated glare at Rhythm. “Oh, sorry!” Rhythm said as he decasted the spell. “For fucks sake, why does the spell follow me?!” Hyper snapped. He shook his head and returned to Blazing. “That was fucking awesome! How'd you do that Blazing?!” “What do you mean?” Blazing wondered, still trying to process what happened. Spinning pushed forward and spoke. “You were able to convince her to leave! Echo even tried speaking to her but she wouldn’t listen.” “It was pretty impressive,” Feather admitted.  “I don’t know,” Blazing replied, looking abash. “I just followed my instincts.” “Looks like we got ourselves an animal whisperer here!” Hyper exclaimed. His feathered wing was spread behind Blazing, showcasing the orange stallion. “I guess you were right,” Echo told Blazing. “I am just a plant pony.” “That’s alright. Not everyone can do everything. You’re good at growing plants, and I’m good at talking to animals, apparently. I didn’t even know I could do that!” “Alright, I think that’s enough excitement for today,” Rhythm addressed, stifling a laugh, “But we have to keep our promise and relocate the chimera. Blazing, you alright with being in charge of that?” “No problem,” Blazing accepted.