“Aw, isn't she precious!” A mother whispered to her husband for the third time a row behind Luminous. She reflected that she probably should not have girded herself for battle before getting on the train to Dodge City. It was the furthest southeastern place she knew, and the feeling in her head was lessening daily in a way that gave her a slightly alarmed feeling. She didn't know what was causing it, but Luminous had a feeling it was related to Twilight in some way.
She had been attracting funny looks since she had trotted up to the counter and ordered her ticket to Dodge City, which was understandable given that she had bought it right at the opening of the station dressed like an eccentric member of a historical re-enactment group. The mare behind her had been cooing over her like a mother hen to her husband, who was snoring softly, and there was a colt a few rows ahead with a dribbling nose who was staring at her since he'd woken, his tongue occasionally venturing into his own nostril in an absentminded way, while he stared and his parents slept.
Granted, there weren't many ponies on the train in the very early morning, but it was still uncomfortable. To distract herself, she took to looking over a map she had borrowed from Twilight's study. She felt a little bad about liberating it, but she reasoned she was taking it to Twilight anyway so it would balance out.
She had planned her route from the Dodge City Station, which was in the very center, to the various shops and restaurants she would visit. She had carefully apportioned bits for a nutritious breakfast and lunch, which would supplant the trail rations she had taken from the Citadel, and enough water jugs to see her across the badlands if necessary. A stickler for details, Luminous had not only planned how much she would eat, but had packed enough rations for a month of travel.
She almost face-planted into her map as the train stopped at Dodge Junction briefly. A few ponies who would be continuing on to Apple Loosa left the train at that point, and a few more embarked, including a red unicorn who gave Luminous a strange look and nudged the pony next to him, who stared and snickered.
“Hey,” the other pony said. He was a brown earth pony, with a large Stetson hat, tan eyes, and a pronounced nasal twang to his words. “Hey is the circus in town, little filly?” He asked teasingly as Luminous looked up politely.
“No.” Luminous said shortly, annoyed. Before she could go back to the map however, the stallion continued, laughter in his tone.
“Oh, historical re-enactment then? Kinda young for that ain'tcha?” He was grinning, Luminous saw, and the pony next to him was snickering not entirely kindly.
“No.” Luminous repeated, her tone firm and dry, like a slammed book.
The stallion would not be stopped however, and continued, “Well where are your parents then? You shouldn't be off on yer own if yer playin' dress-up little filly, if ah were to call them up an' tell em-”
“I'm an orphan,” Luminous interrupted honestly, her head whipping up to look the stallion in the eyes, “Such a conversation would be uncomfortable. For everypony.” An awkward silence fell on the train as Luminous locked eyes with the no longer smiling stallion, who was trying not to go cross-eyed as Luminous's blue and green orbs bored into his eyes. Other ponies were staring in shock at Luminous or tittering at the brown stallion, who was starting to sweat a little. He looked so uncomfortable, Luminous almost felt bad as she continued in a flat tone, “I'm in the care of the crown, so I'm going to the pony who's looking after me.” She held up the map helpfully, “Don't want to get lost.” Luminous then pointedly shook out the map and looked back down at it.
After that, nopony said anything to Luminous the rest of the way to Dodge City. The family with the colt that had been staring at her had moved up a car after her little outburst, and most of the others just whispered softly to each other. At the station, the brown stallion was the first off the car, followed quickly by his red unicorn companion who, strangely, nodded respectfully to Luminous with a slight smirk and then left before she could react to the gesture.
Luminous stepped off the train onto the busy platform with her saddlebags, and looked around Dodge City. Most of the streets were hard-packed earth, which was understandable in such a dry climate, but the so-called city was only a little larger than Ponyville, with most of the buildings made of wood, which looked to have been harvested from the forest in the background. The open sky above Luminous after so long in the Citadel or its lands, which were always surrounded with trees made her a touch nervous, and she moved from the platform out to the city proper, following her planned route.
She was so intent on her schedule that Luminous entirely missed the small earth pony following her, wearing her own set of saddlebags, and a monocle around her neck hanging on a golden chain.
Dammit, the owner of the Salty Dog Inn, was renowned as an excellent barkeep and inn keeper for a variety of reasons. For one, he was a Diamond Dog, and intimidated even the hardest salt licker looking for a fight with one deep-throated growl. For another, he never partook of his own stock, on account of, to him, salt was merely a condiment. He also understood the need for a good, soft bed at the end of the day, and while all his beds were round and set on the floor, they were all exceptionally soft and comfortable, and the rooms were all warm and cozy.
He was washing plates behind the bar when a silence amongst his usual clientele made him turn. There, in the doorway, was the smallest, sparkliest pony he had ever seen. For a moment, he thought it was some sort of pony made of crystal, but then he saw it was simply a little white filly, dressed in a crystal helmet, and the oddest assortment of other armors and garments he'd ever seen. She seemed utterly unfazed by the soft snickers at her appearance, and the blatant stares and whispers. She looked up at Dammit, who was mildly disappointed that she wasn't in fact made of crystal, and the filly pulled out a list.
“I want to buy some water,” the filly said clearly, locking eyes with Dammit like she expected a fight over her request. Dammit kept eye contact instinctively, and the canine poured the filly a glass of water without breaking his eyes away from the mismatched gaze of the filly.
“Water's free,” he growled. The eye contact was making Dammit's hackles rise instinctively, but he kept it up, though the filly's differently-colored eyes were making his own start to water unpleasantly. She continued to stare him down as she sipped the water, and several of the patrons started to watch.
It wasn't often that somepony locked eyes with Dammit for more than it took for the canid to growl. This filly however seemed to be impervious to the intimidating rumble rising in the back of Dammit's throat, and the canine was starting to sweat. She finished her water without breaking eye contact and said clearly, “I'm going to need more than that.”
Dammit didn't break eye contact as the door swung open again, and he fought down the urge to snap for the filly's face. “Filly,” Dammit said sternly, his growl making “If you think you can-” the canine's attention was diverted by another filly leaping up to the bar, whose sudden appearance forced the white filly to turn and break eye contact in surprise.
“Applebloom?!”
“So ah saw you leavin' all dressed up like you were goin' off to battle, an' ah jus' had to follow.” Applebloom explained, carrying two kegs of water as she and Luminous continued shopping around Dodge City. “So what're you doin' out here without Twilight?” Applebloom was wearing the monocle Twilight had given her as they trotted around, and would occasionally look hard at certain individuals.
“I'm...” Luminous broke off, unsure for a moment, while Applebloom watched a stallion walk past with such intensity that he hurried away. “I'm meeting Twilight,” Luminous said lamely after a moment. It was mostly true, but if Twilight could be a fake, she still wasn't sure who she could trust. Anypony in town could be one of the insectoid imposters, and she still wasn't sure if this was really Applebloom. “But what were you doing out so late?”
“Ah, um...” Applebloom blushed a bit, “Ah was meetin' a pony.” At Luminous's surprised look, she added defensively, “We've been goin' out for a while now, ah just didn' want mah sister getting' all worked up if it wasn't gonna work out.” At her younger friend's blushing disapproval, Applebloom snorted, “Oh an' you haven't kept somethin' from Twilight once in a while.”
“I haven't.” Luminous said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly, before she changed the topic with a telekinetic wave of the shopping list, “But we need to get all these things before we meet Twilight.”
“All the way out here?” Applebloom asked skeptically, “What could there possibly be out here that-” Applebloom abruptly broke off and tackled Luminous into an alleyway. The kegs of water sloshed alarmingly, while groceries and supplies went everywhere. Luminous half-expected Applebloom to turn out to be an imposter at that moment, but the filly pulled Luminous behind some barrels in the alley instead, while the stallion Applebloom had stared hard at earlier walked past.
“That's one of those buggy things,” Applebloom whispered urgently, and Luminous' eyes widened as Applebloom continued, “Been seein' em all around the city. They can take the shape of ponies,” she squinted through her enchanted monocle, “That'un's been following you since the train.” Applebloom and Luminous held their breaths as the stallion peered into the alley, then let them out as he walked past.
The two fillies scooped up their purchases as quietly as they could, and while they were, Luminous whispered to Applebloom, “We need to get out of the city as fast as possible,” the older filly nodded as Luminous continued, “And without any of those bug things seeing us. Twilight really needs me to reach her as soon as possible.” Luminous felt wretched about even the slight deception, but she reminded herself that anything could be listening.
“Alright,” Applebloom said, nodding as well, “Well ah reckon ah can keep an eye out for those critters. But when we get out,” Luminous flinched a little as Applebloom turned her monocled gaze towards her, “You've gotta tell me what's really goin' on.” Luminous nodded her assent, and the two snuck deeper into the alleyway.
A pair of yellow eyes followed them as they left, and a slinking shadow snuck after.
In the movies, avoiding detection always looks relatively straightforward. But for Applebloom and Luminous, it really wasn't. Bug-like eyes watched from behinds illusions of normalcy everywhere the youngest Apple looked, so she and Luminous, still weighed down with supplies, had to play a game of cat and mouse. The only difference was there were dozens of cats, and they were the only two little mice.
It was a complicated and terrifying game, and the fillies were both almost spotted twice, but they managed to evade detection all the way to the edge of Dodge City. There, they were presented with a final problem: there was no traffic on the road going southeast. It ran along the edge of the Hayseed Swamps, before turning south through the Badlands, and Dodge City was the last civilized stop before it continued on into those inhospitable lands.
Applebloom and Luminous watched the road anxiously from their vantage point in an alley on the edge of the city, waiting for some trader or traveler to come along who would happen to be going south. “We can't stay here forever,” Applebloom hissed to Luminous, as they both flinched from the shadow of a pegasus flying over.
“Someone's bound to come by,” Luminous whispered back, staring hard at the road as if willing herself to be right, “Then we can hide on the wagon, and leave it when it gets dark.” Applebloom looked unconvinced, but Luminous was so stubbornly stuck on her plan, it'd take a catastrophic failure to convince her otherwise. Applebloom trusted her, and equally stubbornly decided to stay by the filly's side, whether the plan worked or not.
As if her decision had made something click in the universe, a sudden stillness seemed to take the air. Luminous felt goosebumps rise across her body as something started her adrenaline pumping, unconsciously noticed by her brain. Applebloom continued staring out at the road, oblivious, until she smelled something that sparked her own fear response. Before either of them could say something, the howl of the Beast's pack shattered the late afternoon, and the hideous, massive wolf-creatures poured out of the edges of the Hayseed Swamps. They pounded straight for the town, from which cries of alarm and the ringing of a great bell sounded, mingling with the howls of the wolves.
Dodge City was under attack, Luminous realized with a shock, and no sooner had she reached that conclusion than a wolf pounded towards their alleyway. Its jaws were agape and strung with drool as it spotted Luminous' bright coat and sparkling helmet.
For a long moment, Luminous froze, until her experience and training kicked in and she dashed past Applebloom. Applebloom fell back as Luminous interposed herself between the orange filly and the lupine attacker. Time seemed to slow as Luminous set herself, and Applebloom watched in horror as the little filly braced herself, her bladed helmet glowing as she started to cast. It would be too late, Applebloom realized, the wolf-creature would be moving too fast, and Luminous would be buried beneath a mountain of ravenous fur.