//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: The Case of the Missing Tortoise // Story: The Wackiness of Unofficial Life // by edward18 //------------------------------// Chapter 4: The Case of the Missing Tortoise "Hey sis, I'm headed out to do the usual with the CMC," Apple Bloom hollered across the orchard. "Have fun!" Applejack called back with a wave. Thinking her kin gone, the yellowish-orange Earth Pony kicked a tree with her rear legs causing a bushel of apples to topple into a basket beneath it. Just as she was about to hoist the container up and head on to the next tree though she let out a yelp. "Apple Bloom!" Applejack exclaimed spotting the young filly popping seemingly out of nowhere from behind the basket, "What the hay do you thinks your doin'?" "I just done wanted to ask ya something sis," Apple Bloom said with a sad face. Applejack winced at the impact the demeanor had on her. "Well shoot," she managed to say, "Go right ahead silly. What's on your mind?" "Why don't you get nearly as much screentime as the other Ponies?" Apple Gloom asked. Applejack blinked for a moment. "Now deary you know that fourth wall horseapples is fer Pinkie Pie and Discord-" "I know, but it just bugs me," Apple Bloom pouted, "Yous is the best Pony I know." Applejack blushed. "Well shucks, I wouldn't say I'm all that-" "You are though!" Apple Bloom excitedly persisted, "Yous is the best buckin' an hoppin' sweety face this side o Equestria!" The blush only intensified. Applejack sheepishly rubbed the back of her front leg with her other. "Well...ya see there...the thing is...authors just see me as borin' unless they make a romance situation outta Rainbow or Pinkie or some other crap with me." "But you ain't no lesbian!" Apple Bloom gasped, "And how dare they! You has some o the most potential I ever did see! You're a great character! " Applejack just chuckled and rubbed the back of her sibling's head. "Ah sis, everyone's got their opinions. Just that the majority usually overshadows the rest. Now hows about you skeedadle on over to the clubhouse? I'm sure your friends are waitin' fer ya." In almost an instant Apple Bloom's atmosphere lightened and with a nod she was off into the horizon of the orchard. "What I would give to say the majority likes me more than anyone else," Applejack shook her head as she got back to work, "Ah the curse of Honesty..." --- "Alright Twilight I'm going out," Spike informed as he passed the unicorn with her face deep inside the binding of a book, as per usual, "Anything you need other than what's on the checklist?" "Oh, be sure to get the supplies to make a checklist," Twilight told him. Spike rolled his eyes. "But of course ever so OCDish mistress, how much of a disaster it would be if we didn't have the supplies to make one when I'm already buying fully built-ones by the dozens," the dragon accepted. "That's the spirit!" Twilight encouraged, "Never know when all those checklists might burn up on a day that the store decides to either catch on fire or close down!" Spike smiled in defeat upon shutting the door. Sure it may seem annoying to the typical inhabitant of Ponyville, but he just could not see Twilight any other way than how he'd grown up with her, nor would he want to. Part of what made him the assistant he was was that he'd learned early on to accept the pony for who she was instead of labeling her as a freak as so many others had done. Though he did wish they'd gone to the donut bakery more when they were living in Canterlot instead of spending all day in books. --- "Alright, sorry I'm late girls, so what are we doing-" "Not crusading," Scootaloo's voice immediately cut Apple Bloom's off. The response shocked all the words out of the crusader that had just entered. "Whatcha..." Apple Bloom's eyes drifted to Sweetie Belle. Her face was drenched in worry and confusion. Scootaloo, as predictably, was more stern in her expression, but still the sense of worry and foreboding hung in the air. Something was not right...at all... "Did...did I do somethin?..." Apple Bloom eventually gulped. Sweetie Belle shook her head. "I'm not repeating myself," Scootaloo sighed recollecting how hard it'd been to describe the situation to Sweetie Belle, "Best just to show you two." Both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had a dozen questions sweeping through their minds, but before either could speak the self appointed leader of the pack was on the ground below the club house. For most of the time after no one talked. The two that hadn't witnessed what Scootaloo had still wanted more badly than anything to question her, but neither dared. The air around her was just too hung with an ominous feeling that they had never felt before. Now that Sweetie Belle took the time to notice she realized it truly was silent. There wasn't a single bird in the air chirping. No wildlife hummed any of the tunes that normally wheeved the landscape together in such harmony. It was as though the land died a bit more and more with each step they followed Scootaloo. Apple Bloom would've turned around and ran if she wasn't so curious or fascinated. It was like watching her brother try again and again to get the last apple off the highest tree when she knew he couldn't manage it. A disaster that couldn't be turned away from. "Hey, isn't this just about where we left the-" "Yes," Scootaloo answered her. With that statement she came to a stop signalling for the others to do so as well. What they now saw Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom would never forget. It most certainly was where they had left the twisted statue when they'd attempted to be Statue Hunters. Only now around it there was no life. Instead all the plants that had been on the side of the road it was on were withered. Various bunnies and rodents that had normally gone there to go about their daily business lay dead amongst the gray faded setting. And in the center of the chaos was the statue. The silence felt like it lasted for years. "...what...what's that thing on its neck?" Sweetie Belle now noticed the glowing red emblem that had been placed on it. It looked like a diamond-shaped letter M with another diamond shaped ring around it. "You guys' guess is as good as mine," Scootaloo replied. When she looked back to see Apple Bloom's reaction she gasped. The filly was halfway across the gray setting! "What the hell do you think you're doing!" Scootaloo yelled. "Findin' out what that...there..thing is o...cou...c...coouhhhh..." "Apple Bloom!" both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo cried as they saw the form of their friend fall over in the dying meadow. Even her color's had begun to fade! Hesitantly Sweetie Belle tore into the perimeter of the grayness. "Now what are you up to!" Scootaloo called. "We can't just leave her here!" Sweetie replied. "Damnit," Scootaloo hissed. Knowing she couldn't leave either of them, the pegasus of the group flew above the withered environment and met Sweetie Belle at Apple Bloom's body. It took some effort but they managed to hoist her up onto their backs and started back towards where they had initially viewed the statue from. It wasn't until about three quarters of the way back that Sweetie Belle fell as well, her breath coming in gasps. Even Scootaloo could feel her head swimming as Apple Bloom slunked off her back. It felt like her head was going to explode from how much it was pounding. She was dying. Her friends were dying. "No..." she muttered, "no...we are the Cutie Mark Crusaders...we'll never stop the journey...not until...until...ugh..." The last thing Scootaloo saw was the look on the statue's face. --- "Well, that should be just about it..." Spike said to himself marking the last thing off the checklist. Twilight had even had him include the checkbox for when he'd refuse to get a sofa with the quills. She really did think of everything. For all nerdy her faults, Twilight certainly did have her share of good points and funny ones. Thinking about them just put a smile on the dragon's face. That's when his path changed. "Maybe me'll get her a little something from Sugarcube Corner...wonder if Pinkie's in tod-oof!" The small resident of Ponyville went somesaulting across the ground from the blow he recieved. It took a few moments for his eyes to focus on the attacker. "Oh my head..." Spike mumbled as he wobbled back to his feet and began to approach the light blue pegasus. "Oh, sorry bout that Spike," Rainbow Dash coughed shaking off the effects of the impact, "I'm just having a bit of trouble right now." "It's alright. What's up?" "Oh it's just Tank and-" "Wait a sec," Spike waved his arms around, "You're debuting in a story with no hint at all of being a lesbian or going after a homosexual goal?" "I know right? It's so bizarre," Rainbow Dash admitted, "But yeah, I'm looking for Tank. Woke up today and he was just gone. Flying mechanism and all." The female gave a few scans around the area she'd bumped into Spike in. She really did seem a lot more...uneasy than normal. Even the Mysterious Mare Do Well hadn't gotten her all that worked up compared to how worried she looked. "Well, if you want I can help ya look," Spike offered. "Really!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Twilight's hug was nothing compared to the spine-crushing embrace the athlete scooped him into. "Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you Spike!" she practically cried. Then her emotions flip flopped to the complete opposite end of the spectrum. "But if you ever tell any of the others how I'm acting right now you are DEAD! Got it?" Spike was almost to scared to give the shaky nod he did. Even once he was set down he was shuddering. "Great!" Rainbow Dash thrust an arm into the air, "Let's meet up at Sugarcube Corner in two hours!" With that the blue blur vanished into the depths of Ponyville leaving Spike staring at the wind trail she left. --- The claws rapped across the table in annoyance. Rainbow Dash was supposed to meet back up with him in two hours. It'd at least been a half hour more. Spike sighed a munched on his donut. He'd never forget the ones in Canterlot, but Sugarcube Corner's certainly were nothing to look down upon. They always lifted the pony's spirit no matter the problem. But Spike's patience really was growing thin. "So Spike..." a higher pitched voice than the one he was waiting for spoke, "Had any...problems lately?..." Spike gave Pinkie Pie an odd look and decided to take another bite of his donut before answering. "No, not really. Other than Rarity. Why do-" "Oh my god, I'm so sorry I kept ya waiting!" Rainbow Dash panted practically appearing in the seat across from Spike with how fast she moved. Pinkie Pie obviously wasn't the one to jump from the newcomer with how unusual she was. "Just say sorry when you give me a heart attack," Spike took a few deep breaths, "I take it you didn't find him?" Rainbow Dash's face tilted down a bit. Pinkie Pie looked between the two. "Don't worry," she tried to comfort the other pony, "I'm sure you'll find Gummy if you look harder. Hide and Seek can't last forever." Spike and Rainbow Dash simply ignored the bizarre pink creature and kept their focus on the matter at hand. Spike could hardly stand looking at her with how her face had sunken. A sad Rainbow Dash was something he thought he'd never see. "Cheer up," he told her, "I've been doing some thinking while I was waiting for ya." Rainbow Dash eyed him curiously. "Just think for a minute and hear me out on this," Spike put a finger up to keep the other two, mainly Pinkie Pie, quiet, "Where did you get Tank from?" "Hasbro's orders?" Spike smacked his forehead. "Alright, who was the person you got him from?" "...Fluttershy..." "And if there's a problem that animals have, who do they automatically go to?" "Ace Ventura!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. Rainbow's eyes widened quite a bit as her face brightened with relief. Spike's donut was left twirling in the air where it was before Rainbow had flown him out the door with her. "Tell him that Gummy found his chew toy for me!" Pinkie Pie called after them. --- "H...huh?..." Scootaloo murmured. Her head was still throbbing, but not nearly as much as it had been. That's when she realized. She could see. She could move, even if it stung! Hastily she got to her feet and flapped her wings. They still worked. "She's awake!" Apple Bloom's voice exclaimed. The moment she finished her sentence she was tackled to the ground in a headlock. "You dumbass, you got us killed!" Scootaloo cursed, "Why if we ain't in our equivalent of hell I'm gonna kick your ass down there myself!" "What eagerness is in her extremities," a more foreign voice remarked, "That she should make these profanities." Scootaloo jumped a bit from the sudden remark. Though she hadn't ever met the mystical woman personally, she had indeed heard enough about her from Apple Bloom as well as remembered when she used to "terrorize" Ponyville. "Great, you even somehow managed to get Zecora killed off! Way to go Apple Brain!" Scootaloo scoffed. The zebra chuckled at the presumption. "What are you laughin' at?" Scootaloo spat, "We're dead!" "If we're dead how come the afterlife looks like Zecora's place?" Sweetie Belle asked. Scootaloo's head swiveled around to take in the surroundings. "She lives in a building?" Scootaloo thought aloud causing the zebra to give her a dissatisfied look. "While I indeed do live within a safe place," she started the rhyme, "Us being dead is not the case." Scootaloo inched a bit away from the uneasy foreigner. "Alright, someone needs to be a translator," she ordered. "She's saying we're not dead," Apple Bloom told her. "But...the statue...we fell...and..." "If not had I been traversing there, you may indeed have become that of little air," Zecora told them, "For that place has been calling for a few days, so I payed a visit and saw such graves." "...alright, seriously, speaka the normal language!" Scootaloo growled in frustration. She'd had enough tension from almost dying, she didn't need more from trying to figure out tongue twisters. "She sensed that statue we brought back," Apple Bloom told her, "It's been causing a bit o ruckus through the Everfree Forest's atmosphere or somethin'...sorry about earlier by the way..." Scootaloo sighed and closed her eyes. "It's alright," she muttered, "but we do need to find out just what's going on with that thing...WITHOUT going near it this time." Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom exchanged an uneasy grin. "Wait a second..." the pegasus muttered, "...Zecora, do you know what that thing is?" The zebra's eyes were the ones that closed now. "Indeed I know the chimerian creature," she sighed, "for the tale of Discord is woven through all Equestrian cultures. Yet this is not what ails the forest. That necklace upon him rings doom's chorus. The evil device, though alien here, is such from a demon that covers all in fear. Its very existence threatens all life, through malice and pain and suffering and strife. Till all are gone and wiped from this land, to give birth to destruction of all other sands. Reality itself is its sole victim, that which it preys upon for its purpose and mission." Scootaloo looked at Apple Bloom. "I got nothing," she too was stumped at the rhyme. --- "Now you just stay off that foot and it should heal right up!" Fluttershy assured the flamingo. The slamming of her door dove the yellow pegasus behind the nearest piece of furniture. "Don't worry," Spike apologized for the frantic Rainbow Dash beside him, "It's just us." Cautiously Fluttershy poked her head out from behind the overturned chair. "Oh!" she said happily, "You must be here for Tank." "YES!" Rainbow instantly exclaimed only to blush afterwards in embarrassment, "Uh...I mean yeah...I guess. I mean if the little runt ran off maybe I should just leave him. After all who wants a turtle-" "We get it, you were worried. We won't tell anyone," Spike decided to end the blue pony's futile effort to mask her emotions. Fluttershy smiled at the glare she gave Spike. "Wait here, I'll be right back," she told them. In order to avoid the awkward silence that encompassed most waiting rooms, Rainbow Dash decided to strike up a conversation. "So yeah...sorry about all this," she rubbed her arm bashfully, "But...well did I interrupt you from anything? You just seemed to be walking around town." "Oh you know, just the usual. Got done getting supplies and such for Twilight," he shrugged. Rainbow Dash thought for a moment. "Hold up," she said, "Where were the supplies? Your hands were empty." "Hammerspace," Spike answered. "Here he i-" "TANK!" Rainbow Dash cried tackling the tortoise out of the timid pegasus' clutches, "If you ever run off like that again I am going to beat you to a bloody pulp!" The reptile just stared up at its owner and blinked. A few seconds passed before Rainbow said anything else. "You deserve whatever happened to you!" she growled hoisting Tank up onto her back. Fluttershy just smiled and shook her head. "By the way Spike," the asked quietly, "How's your stomach doing?" The dragon looked down at his torso. Nothing was different about it. "Alright I guess," he replied. --- Quietly Sweetie Belle tiptoed into the Carousel Boutique. With any luck she'd- "And just where have you been?" her sister asked. 'Shit' she thought. "Um...uh...outside?..." Sweetie Belle answered sincerely. Rarity's flat expression did not change in the slightest. No matter how much of a drama queen she was, she certainly did know how to give a rather disappointed face. "Where outside?" she persisted. Sweetie Belle was beginning to sweat. She needed to think of something as an excuse for coming home so late at night. "Um...uh...I was...in the Everfree Forest..." Rarity flipped her sister over and looked her all around. "No bug bites or scrapes or cuts it seems...and most importantly no dirt to drag into my home. Alright. As long as you aren't hurt or messy. But you are staying in your room all day tomorrow as punishment for staying out so late and in such a dangerous place." "WHAT!" Sweetie Belle cried, "Why!" "I had to call the authorities to look for you," Rarity glared. "But that's not fair! It's not my fault they couldn't find-" The glare intensified to the point of that which Pinkie Pie had worn when she thought her friends no longer liked her parties. "Grounded for a day. Gotcha!" Sweetie Belle agreed and rushed upstairs. Rarity smiled. "Now I can finally get some work done in peace." --- "Thanks again for all your help Spike," Rainbow Dash said upon landing in front of the library, "You sure there's no way I can repay ya?" "The flight was enough," Spike laughed. Eagerly he hopped down. His legs felt a bit wobbly from the time they'd spent elevated. "Well how's about I try and patch things up between you and Rarity?" Rainbow Dash winked. The named made Spike's eye twitch for a second. "Heard you two didn't exactly have the best date ever after the little...incident you had. The Wonderbolts are still getting their wings straightened out after that." "Nah," Spike dismissed, "I'm with Twilight now." Rainbow Dash stared at Spike for a good forty seconds before finally reacting. With a deep breath the pegasus propelled herself into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Oh god," she cried clutching her stomach and pointing at the less-than-amused dragon, "You, Twilight? Oh that is a good one Spike! That is, oh Celestia I have to tell that one to Applejack! "Hey AJ, guess what, Twilight's sucking face with-"-bwahahahaa! Dear lord! Rarity is gonna drop over dead! I should have brought something to record with! That would make for such a good prank!" Spike doubted that Rainbow Dash even knew he'd slammed the door behind him and disappeared with how much she was laughing.