Back at Sunset Shimmer’s apartment, Discord recovered from his dance-related injury enough to participate in new adventures alongside the seven girls. Today was going to be a nice trip to a camping site, which should be amusing to see how the lord of chaos would fare against the wild.
“You sure you’re okay, Discord? I don’t want to worsen your injury.” Sunset asked gingerly.
Discord stretched his back and let out a relieved sigh from up the stairs. “I thought I already told you; I’m fit as a fiddle. Plus, the last thing I’d want to do is to be stuck sitting here, wallowing in self-pity while you girls have all the fun.” He said as he made his way towards the kitchen.
“Okay then, but if you get hurt badly once more, we’ll take you back home, er, my home I meant.”
“It won’t happen again; I now know my limits as a mortal.” Which sucks!
“Hey watch the stairs!”
“Oops.” One misstep was all it took for him to take a mean tumble down the stairs. As they often say; watch your step!
For their trip to the camping grounds, they’ll be taking their favorite camping van to drive over there. Applejack was in charge of driving them there, to which she took advantage of this position to put on some good old country tunes.
“C’mon, Discord. Give campin’ a shot! You’ll surely come to like it, sugar cube.”
Crossing his arms, the old lord of chaos seemed rather disinterested in this activity but came simply because of Fluttershy.
“The most I did back in Equestria was a picnic with a bunch of critters. I very much prefer to stay in a warm and fuzzy cottage.”
Sunset sighed. “You only like cottages because Fluttershy lives in one. I don’t believe anybody’s ever seen you in one without her.”
“Okay, maybe I lied about liking cottages but doesn’t feel a bit undignified for someone like me to sleep in a tent? I am Discord, the lord of chaos! I, in some ways, am technically royalty.”
“Now hold on there, sugar cube. I’m fairly sure that even royalties would like to leave their stone walls in favor of spending a flippin’ good time with nature!” Applejack said in hopes that it would convince Discord to lighten up a bit.
“I like spending some time in the woods. It’s really soothing.” Fluttershy added.
“Fine then, I’ll sleep in tents alongside you girls.” Discord said, having finally caved in.
Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her head. “Gee, you really have a lot of power over this guy, Fluttershy.”
“A hypnotising power, hoooo!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she waved her hands around like a ghost.
“You’re exaggerating it. I’m not completely gaga over her.” Discord proclaimed as he rested his head on the window behind him.
“Speed bump, look out!” Applejack announced but it was too late.
The van hit the speed bump and despite not going really fast still shook it up, causing Discord to slam his head on the window.
Forsaken road trip! If only I could just bail out of this... Wait, I can! I’ll just pretend to be hurt! But then, I’d give up on Fluttershy. Hgn! What should I choose?
Rarity noticed the old man pondering about something and couldn’t herself but to ask what he was thinking about: “What are you thinking about, Discord? Surely about something fashionable, I hope?”
“Surprising that you’re here too, you were the last person I’d expect to see camping. After all, aren’t the woods not fashionista friendly?” Discord replied.
“I know that all too well, dear. I’m already well prepared to deal with the dreadfulness of the wilderness.”
Twi sighed and shook her head. “You’re not sleeping in the van, and we’re not going to let you sneak inside, Rarity.”
“Woe is me! Now what am I going to do?”
“Bring an inflatable sleeping bag?” sarcastically proposed Sunset Shimmer.
“That’s a good idea, darling!”
Rainbow Dash threw her arms in the air. “Rarity! Going out camping with luxuries like that is cheating! You’re only doing half of the fun of camping!”
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she reached out in her hair and pulled out an empty glass. “It’s like if I drink a glass of milk... without the milk!” The pink-haired girl took a bite out of her glass, shocking all of her friends including Discord.
“Pinkie Pie! Are you okay?!” asked a panicked Twi.
“Of course I am silly! Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked with a large, jolly smile on her face.
“Because you can’t just eat glass! You’ll only cut yourself and cause a lot of bleeding! It’s dangerous, Pinkie!”
“Oh? I thought everyone could do it...”
What are you? Thought a horrified Discord.
“There it is, girls! We’re turning left!” Applejack announced to the rest of the group.
The van took a turn to the left and entered the camping site. All that was left was a short distance to travel at a greatly reduced speed since there were a lot of speed bumps placed here to prevent any unfortunate accidents as they were many bike tracks often used by children. The girls inside decided to look outside and admire the beautiful forest and the critters as well.
This site was different from Camp Everfree as there were no buildings around, just them and the wilderness. As they drove by, they spotted a couple of happy campers setting up their tents, some would even wave at them. Amongst them, there were some recognisable faces; Sandalwood and Derpy were there. Oh, and there was also Photo Finish and her usual gang, though they looked more occupied with taking pictures than actually camping.
Finally, the van stopped and everybody was thrilled to start their weekend. An old gentleman dressed in purple came to greet the newcomers.
“Ah! It’s a pleasure to see you girls again!” said the old gentleman as he reached out a hand to Applejack.
The country girl shook his hand. “And it’s good to see that this place is still popular, even after the many rumors.”
“You’d surprised to learn just how much it actually helped keeping this place open. People hear these kinds of stories and then want to camp here just to see if they’re true or not. I like to entertain the idea of undead pirates living in these woods.”
The elderly man then set his gaze on Discord. “Oh? Who’s this charming fellow? I’ve never seen him before.”
“That’s Discord.” Sunset presented. “He’s staying with us for the week so we thought it would be a fun idea to bring him here before he left.”
The old gentleman took off his hat and saluted Discord. “Nice to meet you, Discord. I am Kind Heart and I hope you’ll like this place. It’s my life’s work you see.”
“Oh and it’s a beautiful work at that.” complimented Discord with his “otherworldly” charm, or so he likes to say.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it then. I’ll be in the watchtower if you ever need me.” finished Kind Heart as he pointed towards the tower overlooking the lake.
After he left their view, Pinkie turned to face the group. “Now it’s time to set up camp and party!”
After arriving at their camping site, it was now time for the group to set up their tents, the fun part really if you’d ask Discord. The place they had chosen was quite nice, close to the lake so they had plenty of water and with a good view of the watchtower just in case they needed to reach the old mister Kind Heart.
“Do you know how to set up your tent?” Sunset asked Discord.
The old man crossed his arms. “I’m much older than you are, of course I can do it!” he said in an undignified tone before bending over to pick up his tent.
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it.”
The others slowly prepared their tent while Discord simply stared, realising that for all the time he has spent outside of being a statue; he never actually set up a tent. After all, when you have magic that can do literally anything you want, why would you learn to do things the hard way?
Spike noticed this issue and trotted over to Discord. “Let me guess; you don’t know how to do it.” he said with a smug smile.
The old teacher groaned. “If only I had my powers, I wouldn’t look so incompetent at everything.”
“He he, your powers are a crutch.” informed the young pup.
He sighed. “This is misery.”
“It only is if you don’t try to set your tent up.”
Muttering something under his breath, Discord went to work and tried really, really hard. In no time, his strange method attracted the attention of the others.
He was basically wrestling the tent at this point, rolling on the ground with it while mumbling strange Equestrian swears. While he was stuck inside the tent, the wind blew with enough force to blow him away momentarily.
“What is he doing?” Twi asked.
“He’s beginning to believe.” Spike responded.
Frustrated, Discord started beating his tent with a tree branch.
“He’s tenderizing the ground! Genius!” Pinkie exclaimed as she noted it in her notebook.
While fumbling around it with his hands, the old man accidentally tore a portion of it like a sheet of paper. “Oops.”
“Customisation!” Pinkie Pie gasped.
Enraged, Discord kicked his tent who conveniently landed perfectly on the ground, now fully prepared. Needless to say, he was flabbergasted.
“...Wow. That’s very unconventional, but I can’t judge it if it works.” admitted Sunset Shimmer.
“Yes, I told you I could do it, didn’t I?” Discord said, having just now regained his composure. A stroke of luck for sure, but it won’t last for the whole weekend.
After this little spectacle, the others went back to their tents. They still had to place their sleeping bags and other belongings inside.
As the old man was putting his stuff inside, he heard Rarity raise her voice.
“Oh? A blowhole?” Then, her whole tent crumbled as something big suddenly appeared.
“Rarity! I thought we said no inflatable sleeping bags!” Twi scolded.
“I’m sorry darling; I forgot I even brought it here in the first place?” sheepishly responded the fashionista.
I’d sure like to have it... but nobody will want me to have such luxuries. Discord thought, disappointed to see what he’s going to sleep on. Just a boring old sleeping bag, not really fit for the lord of chaos. I’ll make you pay for this Spike... the dragon. Messing with this pup isn’t really making me feel better. But perhaps looking further on these rumours might help?
Sitting atop his watchtower, Kind Heart watched the beautiful forest in peace. He had a nice view of the lake, of the hills and of some of the sites the campers have set in. He never was a big fan of the cities, which is why he always spend his summers here, in the one place he truly feels at peace. Having retired from his previous job, his work here in this forest was the last activity he had left.
Hm? Sounds like someone’s climbing up the ladder. With great effort, the old man got off his chair and walked up to the door. Soon after, someone knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” asked the jolly elder.
“I am Dr. Caballeron.” responded the stranger.
“Cabelleron? You mean, THE doctor Caballeron?” asked Kind Heart as he opened the door.
“Who else could it be?”
Sure enough, it was him alongside three of his hunting buddies. Now what could someone like this be doing here? There’s no big game here for sure, and it’s also forbidden to hunt here.
“Your antics with Daring Do certainly have given quite the awful reputation... What brings you to this old forest?” questioned the old man.
Dr. Caballeron crossed his arms. “The rumours. Surely, you’ve heard of them.”
“Pff, there are no zombified pirates in these woods. It’s all baloney! If there was one, I’d have known long ago.”
The hunters didn’t seem so convinced. “Whatever you say. We’re not leaving until we’ve got proof of their existence and their treasure. Plus, if we find out that they’re real; we’re hunting down their buried treasure even if it’s forbidden to do so.”
“Heh! You’d admit to my face that you four are pillagers?”
“Last I heard there’s no regulation for legends and lore.”
“Out of my watchtower! Out!” the old man waved his arm around to get them to leave and after receiving a few chuckles from them, they were gone. “Zombie pirates roaming my forest, bah! As if such a thing exists.”
Things aren’t looking good, especially for our nine (mostly) happy campers! Now unknowingly caught up in a looting(?) scheme, they’ll see their weekend unexpectedly spiced up.
Back at the camping site, Discord examined each of the tents. Everyone had their own color and motifs for their tent, each reflecting who they are as a person. Meanwhile, his was painfully average. Sunset explained that this was because they all customised their lovely tents while he only arrived a couple of days ago, so no time to give it a makeover.
“Fair enough, but what are we doing now?” he asked.
Fluttershy pointed at the ground they were standing. Their tents were all specifically placed to form a circle. In the middle of the circle currently lied... nothing. “We must make a campfire before it gets dark.”
“Oh yeah, that seems pretty obvious in hindsight.”
Twi pulled out a couple of baskets. “And let’s not forget about eating! We’ll need to find some edible fruits for supper.”
Thus, the girls split in two groups of four (and five if you count Spike). Discord chose to go with the campfire group to look for some woods that’ll start and keep the fire.
Applejack thought to bring an axe to cut down some old and weak trees to gather more wood and considering her power is super strength, who else could be more qualified for the job? They eventually settled on one that was shorter than the rest and the country girl got in place and lifted her axe.
“Might wanna get some distance. Y’all probably don’t wanna be crushed by a tree.”
Fluttershy turned around. “G-Go ahead, Applejack. I just don’t want to watch it happen.”
“Suit yourself sugar cube. Imma go for it.”
As she was looking away, Fluttershy noticed some movement behind the bushes and by the looks of it, it couldn’t belong to small critters. “G-girls? There’s something in the bushes!”
Immediately, Discord turned around, fly swatter in hand and approached the location of the shuffling. “I’ll see what’s up, my dear.” He reached out to push the leaves away and just as he did, someone slowly rose up from the bush.
It was Doctor Caballeron, soon followed by his three henchmen. “I beg your pardon, good sir. I was just resting in this comfortable spot for the moment.”
Discord raised an eyebrow, perplexed at this strange occurrence but felt that Fluttershy harbored some terribly negative feelings as she hid behind Pinkie Pie and glared at them. “Uh, do you know these guys?”
“Of course I do! They’re Doctor Caballeron and his henchmen! They’re looters, archaeologists and scumbag traders who sells precious artefacts for personal fortune! They have no respect for history!”
“Woah woah woah! Easy with the accusations.” responded Caballeron.
Discord crossed his arms out of distrust. “Tss, you’re a doctor?”
“Yeah, he’s got a PHD in butt-kicking!” exclaimed one of his goons.
The doctor in question looked to be in his late forties, early fifties perhaps. “Must be outdated then.” remarked Discord.
Caballeron laughed and hid his gun behind his back. “You’re quite the funny man, I’ll give you that. Anyway, we’re not here to trouble you, you see. We only have eyes for the legendary Captain Crooked Back and his crew that are said to be roaming this forest. It’s no poaching, it’s no stealing and it’s certainly not going to endanger anyone, we swear.”
“I have my dou-” Discord felt a slight pull on his clothes and saw that Pinkie Pie was shaking her head as in to tell him “let’s not stick around these guys”. “Well, it would seem that we have some work to do here, so I’ll leave you gentlemen be.”
“Good day to you people!” waved off the doctor as he left with his goons.
“These guys reeked with the stench of an Indiana Jones villain! I don’t trust them at all with my Pinkie sense!”
“Indeed, it would be wise not to let our guards down.” The old man concluded. But for now, they needed to get some wood for the fire.
The sky had darkened, the sun now gone, it was time for some good old campfire stories! Now sitting around the campfire, the group of friends each took their turn to tell a spooky story. Normally you wouldn’t really be scared of these stories, but when you’re alone in the woods with nothing but darkness behind you, they tend to frighten you badly.
Twi looked especially thrilled to finally share her story, which piqued the interest of the others.
“Now what’s gotten you so excited, sugar cube? I hope you have a mighty good one.” Applejack asked.
While she was petting Spike, Twi explained herself. “While we were driving there, I read a bit about the undead pirates rumours and have found a very interesting story attached to it. Now seems like a perfect time to tell you about it.”
“Awesome! It’ll surely be better than Rarity’s fashionista boogeyman story!” Rainbow Dash added in excitement.
“Hey!”
Twi readjusted her glasses with a smirk. “Long ago, sometime during the era of pirates, there was a cruel band of pirate led by Captain Crooked Back who terrorised the region. They pillaged homes, threw bombs in carriages and stormed many ships. Their many attacks have garnered them a fearful reputation, but their success brought them a big problem; they were too wealthy. Their own ship wasn’t big enough to store the riches they have acquired and that risked the likelihood of their ship sinking to the bottom of the ocean so, they chose to move it somewhere... secluded, this forest to be exact.”
Discord chewed on some popcorn he brought for this occasion, not noticing that Pinkie Pie was secretly stealing some from him. The others were starting to feel nervous.
Twi continued “While searching around, they eventually found a place that they could deem as their new hiding spot for their fortune. It is not known where exactly. Before they left, however, one of them performed a forbidden ritual to protect their money stash. The ritual formed a guardian for the hidden loot under the form of their spirit, forever roaming the forest to ward off any pillagers from reclaiming the bandit’s treasure.”
“Oh great, all this time we were sleeping in a supposedly cursed forest.” Rarity nervously pointed out.
“It’s just a silly story, no way to know if it’s real, thought I personally wouldn’t believe it to be true.” Twi said to comfort her friend.
Discord noticed that Fluttershy was wincing. Remembering the strange encounter with Doctor Caballeron, the old man understood why these hunters were here. They must have heard of Crooked Back’s buried treasure, unsurprising considering he’s read Daring Do’s books. The bad doctor couldn’t resist the call of glory and fortune, even if it could all just be made up.
The shy girl was simply worried that these four bad people would ruin their fun outing with their treasure hunt. She’s heard of Daring Do’s stories from Rainbow Dash and thus, knew just how bad Caballeron and his goons can be.
“So, Fluttershy; got any spooky story you’d like to share?” Twi asked.
Suddenly snapped back to reality, Fluttershy nodded. “Wh- me? Oh, y-yes. I have a spooky story just for you, Twilight!”
“Oh really?”
The shy girl whistled and a ladybug landed on her finger. “Ladybug.”
“AAAAAA-”
Not long after they were done with their spooky campfire stories, the group went to sleep inside their tents. There wasn’t going to be school for Monday thanks to a public holiday, so they had at least two more days to enjoy the scenery... or so they thought for soon, their nice expedition in the woods would turn into quite the Scooby-Doo affair.
Two high-pitched screams woke them up in a cold sweat. These voices... they can only belong to...
“Derpy! And Sandalwood?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she jumped out of her tent. “They’re in danger!”
The rest exited the comfort of their sleeping bags and rushed to see what happened to these two.
“Time to hero up, girls!” Sunset said to her friends.
“Oh cool, now we’re roleplaying as superheroes.” pointed out the old god of chaos in a sarcastic manner.
Once they’ve arrived at the location of the screams, they saw a quivering Derpy and Sandalwood holding each other tightly.
“Huh, didn’t know you two were hitting it off.” Applejack said.
“This isn’t a love hug; it’s a comfort hug, bro!” Sandalwood corrected.
Sunset approached the cowering students. “Then what scared you two this badly?”
Derpy pointed a trembling finger in the distance and Sunset Shimmer turned to see a chilling sight.
Off in the distance, four zombie pirates were wandering through the woods, moaning in an unsettling soulless voice.
"Z-Z-Z-Zombies!" Spike screamed in terror.
“We’re in a zombie infested forest apparently. Great, just the best way to cap off my stay in this rotten world.”