//------------------------------// // IV - One Step Forward... // Story: Golden Crusaders // by Greatazuredragon //------------------------------// One Step Forward… As she walked down the dirt road, the morning sun shining upon her yellow coat, passing through rows upon rows of apple trees as she calmly trotted towards her destination, Ganondorf couldn’t help but ponder how weird it was for her to live amidst so much greenery. Forests had always been far more Link’s thing than hers, after all. Barren wastelands, inhospitable mountains, treacherous bogs, those were the places she was used to finding upon re-awakening to a new life. And yet, as far as this new life as Apple Bloom was concerned, apple trees as far as the eye could see were home. It was an odd dichotomy, to say the least. As the view of the small schoolhouse appeared around a corner of the road, the Wielder of Power couldn’t help but let out an annoyed sigh, her attempts of distracting herself by thinking about her new odd living arrangements fell short of the cruel reality that she had to go to school. If she could ditch, she would do so in a heartbeat. But, sadly, she was quite certain neither of her new older siblings, or the clan’s ancient matriarch for that matter, would allow it. What a bother. With a despondent shake of her head, the yellow-coated filly resumed her march towards the school building with all the eagerness of a convict walking towards the gallows. At least Link and Zelda had to suffer this indignity with her. The moment the thought passed her mind she stopped. Tilting her head slightly to the side, Ganondorf considered the likelihood of the unashamed bookworm that was the little Princess feeling any kind of negative emotion regarding a place of learning, no matter how basic or beneath her vaunted standards, and scoffed as she corrected her earlier thoughts. At least Link would suffer alongside her. “You are Apple Bloom, aren’t you?” a young confident voice asked from her side, breaking Ganondorf out of her musings as part of her mind acknowledged the name as also her own and caused her to turn her head to see who was speaking. “Nice to meet you, my name is Diamond Tiara,” a pink-coated filly with a purple and white mane eagerly said as she approached Ganondorf alongside a grey-coated filly with a silver mane wearing glasses. The fact that the gleam in her eyes and the smile the pink filly was wearing were something that the Wielder of Power was far more used to seeing upon the face of her more conniving viziers immediately captured her attention. “I’m not sure if you are aware, but my father Filthy Rich is the owner of Barnyard Bargains, and has a business partnership with your family, and as such, I thought it would be nice for me to introduce myself.” Ganondorf simply stared at the filly giving her a picture-perfect politician’s smile, before she had a small epiphany about what she was talking about. “Oh, right, the zap apple jam,” the Wielder of Power said while giving a single firm nod as she acknowledged the very odd and magically charged produce her family made. “And the name is Apple Bloom, a pleasure.” Truth be told, she only remembered that was a thing because of how odd the whole process to make said jam was. Not to mention that the fact that the matriarch of her new family had actually managed to find how to successfully weave wild chaos magic into apple growing was downright impressive, what with how said magic had the very annoying tendency of doing everything except what you wanted it to do at even the best of times. And the less said about what could happen when things went wrong when using the darned stuff, the better. There was a reason why it was so rare to see a chaos mage, after all, and it wasn’t due to the fact that they were shy. “Excellent! Well, there is another thing that I would like to talk about,” the pink-coated filly said in faux-nonchalance while purposefully fixing her mane in order to make it look like the topic was minor and unimportant. “In two days’ time my family will be celebrating my cuteceañera, and it would be a delight if you and the other two fillies you share a cutie mark with could come.” Fighting back the urge to shiver at the cutesy name the silly ponies had given to their little coming of age ceremony, Ganondorf let out an amused huff as what the little filly was planning became clear. Their little light display a few days ago had drawn a considerable amount of interest, after all. “Sure, why not, we will make an appearance,” she replied with a tiny smirk. “I will let the other two know.” “Excellent! I mean, that’s good,” Diamond excitedly exclaimed before remembering herself and adopting a more aloof and controlled tone of voice. “I will expect you there. Have a nice day.” As she watched the young apprentice manipulator start away towards the school entrance with her little grey-coated underling, immediately starting to talk to a few other young ponies that were in a group, acting confident and self-assured as she slowly increased her political capital with the group and converted the young ones to her camp without them even noticing it was happening, she had to acknowledge her burgeoning skills. Oh, sure, she was still rough around the edges and making the occasional blunder in her approach, not that her young targets were noticing it, but all in all a more than adequate show of skill, especially considering her age. Diamond Tiara, huh? the Wielder of Power thought as she too continued towards the school, she would have to remember that name for later. After all, good, competent minions actually capable of taking command positions were always so hard to find! “Why did we think the middle of the huge freaking forest was a good place for the castle back then?” Ganondorf grumbled as she followed Zelda’s tiny white-coated form, Link’s orange-coated form calmly following by her side as they trotted down the barely discernible path deep into the Everfree forest. “Easily defensible and the area was plentiful with resources,” Link promptly replied while observing the throng of plants and ancient trees surrounding them from all sides with the air of someone taking a stroll through a park. “The fact that the wild magic suffusing the woods interfered with all three tribes’ magic equally was also a factor.” “Point,” Ganondorf grumbled, as she remembered how precarious the situation had been in those early days of the alicorn sisters’ rule. It had been actually kinda funny, in a headache-inducing sort of way, how the fact that the Everfree’s natural wild magic ebbs and flows actively disrupting pony magic had ended up being a selling point, since it meant that the still distrustful tribes had a guarantee that the other two tribes weren’t using their magic upon the ruling body to control things. “But that doesn’t make the trek any less annoying. Are we there yet?” “No, Apple Bloom, we are not there yet,” Zelda replied with an aggravated sigh, eyes stubbornly locked forward refusing to look at her fellow Triforce Wielders. “Ten minutes ago I informed you that we were thirty minutes away from the castle’s ruins, meaning we are still twenty minutes away from it.” “How annoying,” she grunted, kicking a pebble into the underbrush. It was really annoying that any kind of precision teleportation was downright impossible within this forest, meaning they had to walk there. “Seriously, Apple Bloom, we all agreed that surveying the ruins for more clues about the Elements was a good idea, so no point in complaining about it now!” Zelda sniped back, finally turning her head backwards and looking at the Wielder of Power with a fierce glare. “You are going there to search for these Element doohickeys. I’m going there to scavenge and see if there is anything worth salvaging in the ruins.” Ganondorf shot back, perking up slightly upon seeing Zelda’s current annoyance. She hadn’t tested her new body in a fight yet, after all! And a nice spar would do wonders to alleviate her boredom! Though, the scavenging bit was also true. She needed some quality metal to fix Big Mac’s plow, after all. Not to mention making some temporary weapons for both herself and her fellow Triforce Wielders. And the ruins were as good a place as any to try and find some. “And the Kid… why are you coming again?” the Wielder of Power asked, tilting her head in curiosity upon realizing she had no idea why the no longer green wonder was coming too. Though, knowing Link and her wanderlust, she may have simply come to see the sights. “The Master Sword,” the young pegasus simply replied, eyes still calmly enjoying the mass of trees all around them, despite the fact they looked much like the trees they had passed by half an hour ago. Ganondorf blinked once in confusion, before she understood what the Wielder of Courage meant with her very succinct reply. “Point,” she conceded once more, nodding her head once with finality, actually approving of Link’s reasoning. “Right, inhospitable, hazardous, spooky forest, your little diva of a sword is probably here somewhere.” “What?” Zelda asked, now confused rather than angry, much to Ganondorf’s disappointment. “Not sure how you haven’t noticed by now, Princess, but the Kid’s sword most definitely has a theme and isn’t afraid to stick to it!” Ganondorf drawled while giving Zelda an infuriating smirk, hoping that a spar could still be salvaged. “And if there is one thing that blade likes, it is picking forests as its resting place! The more hazardous and inhospitable the better! And if that isn’t an option, then an ancient temple-like structure is a good substitute!” Zelda raised a hoof as if to protest Ganondorf’s words before a look of deep contemplation crossed her features, and then she proceeded to slowly lower it back down. “That is… not inaccurate,” she finally conceded in a wondering tone of voice, clearly pondering how she had missed that little odd quirk of the Kid’s blade. A loud roar echoed through the shadowed woods, stopping their wonderings about the Master Sword’s little idiosyncrasies. Turning her head towards the source of the roar, Ganondorf watched with a hint of interest as a manticore burst past the underbrush and into the dilapidated path. The chimeric beast, which out-massed the three fillies put together by several orders of magnitude, roared once more as it towered over them, clearly thinking it had found an easy meal. “Oh, this is going to be fun!” Ganondorf joyfully proclaimed, cracking her neck to one side and then another as she walked past a deeply unimpressed-looking Zelda and a placidly waiting Link. A look of confusion appeared upon the massive apex-predator’s features as it realized that there was absolutely no fear whatsoever emanating from the three tiny fillies. Taking a deep breath, Ganondorf dug deep into her magic and pulled it forward, enhancing and empowering her body far past what should’ve been its natural limits, and then pushed it again far past that. A massive fanged grin upon her features, she kept approaching the now worried-looking beast. The Wielder of Power stomped with one of her forward hooves, the limb cracking the path with a muted thump, giving her a stable launching point so she could better lunge at her new impromptu sparring partner. Grin growing even larger, Ganondorf felt some of her magical might start to leak out into the air due to her excitement. This was going to be fun! And then, before her wide disbelieving eyes, the massive manticore turned tail and launched itself back into the underbrush with a panicked yowl, its large bat-like wings frantically beating at its back in order to eke out just a little extra speed as it frantically ran away. “Good instincts,” Link idly commented with a small nod as Ganondorf watched, mouth agape, as the manticore disappeared. “Get back here, you overgrown cat!” the tiny filly yelled in rage, jumping away from the trail after the fleeing beast. Zelda simply let out a very tired sigh.