Location: Heatherfield
Dimension: W.I.T.C.H.
“Heatherfield?” asked Kim as she looked around at their new environment again, “It’s not ringing any bells.”
“Me neither,” said Twilight as she looked at the gray skies overhead.
Sailor Moon simply shrugged her shoulders while Mew cocked his head to one side, giving a confused look at the blue hedgehog.
Crossing his arms, Sonic looked at the dead trees all around them and said, “Well, I’ve never heard of it either but, apparently, it exists.”
“How can it exist when none of us have ever heard of it?” asked Sailor Moon.
“I don’t know,” said Kim, a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “But if blue hedgehogs and mythological talking horses exist, then a place like this is no surprise.”
Twilight rolled her eyes as Sonic face-palmed. They knew she was right, but she didn’t have to be so blunt about it.
“So, what do we do now?” asked Sailor Moon, “Should we look for someone or something to help us?”
“That depends on if we need help or not,” said Sonic, “First things first, we should try and find some food and water.”
“I agree,” said Twilight, “We might be able to find something here that’s edible, wherever here is.”
“What about the ship?” asked Kim, “What if it tries to release that purple-white energy again?”
“Then we’d better hurry,” said Sonic as he turned and began to walk down the dirt path before him. Exchanging unsure glances at one another, the others began to follow the hedgehog as he began heading no one knows where.
“What if this place is nothing but a dead forest, like the other place was nothing but a desert?” asked Sailor Moon. “What if this journey is a waste of time like before?”
“So not helping,” said Kim.
“She’s right,” said Sonic, “We should try and be a little more optimistic about this. Besides, no jungle has this much garbage strewn about. Where there’s garbage around, there’s got to be a...a...a...”
Sonic trailed off when the five of them reached the apparent end of the dirt path. When they did, all five of them went wide-eyed at what they saw. Before them were the remains of what looked like a city. There were streets and buildings and cars all around. However, many of the buildings were destroyed; windows and walls were broken while a few of them had been crumpled down to their foundations. The cars in the street were either toppled over, inside of buildings or cut into many different pieces. The roads were littered with building bricks, upturned gravel and other assortments of rubble. In short, the city they were looking at was nothing short of destroyed.
The five of them looked down the three-way road before them and saw that the majority of the city was in the same situation. Everything was practically destroyed by something; the only question that remained was what.
“It’s a city,” said Kim as she panned her head back and forth, “Or what’s left of a city.”
“What could have caused this?” Sonic asked in a hushed whisper.
“Something strong and powerful,” said Twilight, answering the question he didn’t intend on asking the others.
“Do you think those things did this?” asked Sailor Moon as she gestured a thumb back to the ship that had brought them here.
“Maybe,” said Sonic as he crossed his arms.
“I don’t think so,” said Kim, as she began taking a few steps towards the side of one of the buildings that was right in front of them.
As precariously as they could, the others followed her to the side of the building where she was heading. When they got there, they saw that one of the sides had deep claw-like marks going along it, carving into the concrete sides of the building. Kim ran a hand on the jagged edges of the building, letting her fingers go into the deep gash marks in the building.
“What is that?” asked Sonic.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it was strong enough to cut right into solid concrete,” she said, lowering her hands from the building, “What in the world are we dealing with here?”
“Whatever it is, it’s strong, smart and technologically advanced. If they are able to do this, then they are capable of doing just about anything,” said Sonic as he crossed his arms, “Still we should try and find some sort of sustenance before that ship opens that energy again.”
“What if whatever did this is still out there?” asked Sailor Moon, worry still in her voice, “For all we know, it could be waiting for us!”
“All the more reason to hurry,” said Twilight, “Now, where should we go from here?”
“How about that way?” asked Kim, as she pointed to the road in front of them.
When they all saw the road she was pointing to, they all had to raise their eyes up to see the end of the extremely steep incline that was the road.
“That...is one...steep...road,” said Sonic as he tilted his head up, “Are you sure that you want to go that way?”
“No big,” she said with a smile. Then, she began walking up what remained of the sidewalk, “Besides, it’ll give us a good view of this place, that way we can keep an eye on the ship and anything else for that matter.”
Shrugging his shoulders again, he began to follow her, the others close behind. Besides the sounds of them walking, there weren’t any other sounds, no hints that anyone or anything was around. As they walked up the extremely steep road, they kept their eyes and ears on a swivel, watching out for anything that could try and attack them.
Several moments later, the five of them reached the top of the road and looked around at their surroundings. When they turned to look down at the road behind them, they saw that what Kim had stated was correct; they had a pretty good view of the city they were in and it didn’t look much better.
They saw that the city was broken into two parts; both of which were connected by a bridge in the distance. There weren’t sure if there was more than one bridge from where they were standing, but all they saw was the one bridge. However, they saw that the bridge in question was in shambles, isolating the second half of the city. The other section of the city was leveled with only a few remaining fragments of buildings left over. The side they were on had more buildings intact, but they didn’t look all that different from each other.
“Oh my...” said Sonic, trailing off before he could finish his sentence.
For several seconds, the five of them stared at the remains of both halves of the city. As they looked at the destroyed city, they all shared the same expression of sadness, worry and confusion.
“This...” said Twilight, her voice no louder than a whisper. “This...this is awful.”
“What could have caused this?” asked Sailor Moon, sadness in her voice, “What could have caused an entire city like this to crumble into nothing?”
“I don’t know,” said Sonic, crossing his arms, “But whatever it is, we need to find it and put an end to this!”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” asked Kim, drawing her eyes away from the destruction to face the blue hedgehog, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with or where they are.”
Sonic let out a sigh and lowered his head. “I...I don’t know yet, but we will.”
A moment of silence had passed before Twilight said, “We’ll find who did this and bring them to justice when the time comes, but for now, we need to find food and water before the worst happens!”
“Mew, Mew,” said the pink creature as he rested on Twilight’s back. When he did, he began rubbing his stomach with his tiny arms, signaling that he was hungry.
Simply nodding his head, the blue hedgehog turned and began walking down the road that was before him. The others followed suit as they began making their way through the remains of the city. As they walked, they noticed that the roads weren’t as steep as the road they had walked on, but still headed in an upward direction.
When they saw that the roads were continuing to move upward, they decided to move along one of the level streets, giving themselves a break from trudging up in the same direction. So, the next chance they got, they turned right on the first side street they came to, which looked no different than the rest of the city, except that many of the buildings were more intact than the others.
“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Sailor Moon, as the five of them made their way down the road.
“We’re looking for a place we can get some food and water,” said Kim, “We need to move fast before the ship releases that energy again.”
“Hey, look over there,” said Sonic, pointing to what looked like a small convenient store that was a few yards away; it was hard to tell because any signs that were on the store had been broken off, the windows were shattered and a gaping hole was on the side of it. However, based on the look of it, they could have sworn that it was a small store that carried food.
“Looks like it’s been destroyed,” said Kim, raising his eyebrow, “I highly doubt there’s anything left in there.”
“It can’t hurt to look,” he said flatly, making his way towards the building.
Rubbing her temples with her hand, Kim began to follow Sonic, the others following close behind. When they got there, they saw that it was, in fact, a convenient store. Most of everything was destroyed, the electricity was out and rubble was strewn across the ground.
“Are you sure there’s something edible in a place like this?” asked Twilight as they all stared at the destroyed store.
“Only one way to find out,” said Sonic as he made his way to the gaping hole on the side of the building, “Just be careful where you step, there’s a lot of glass and debris everywhere.”
As carefully as they could, they entered the building and began looking around, trying to find anything they could salvage. The bad news was that the majority of the store had caved in, leaving only the front end of the store intact. However, the good news was that there was some packaged food in that front end, like chips and candy bars. Also, there was a small cooler with a few bottles of water and other beverages still intact.
“Well, looks like we found some sustenance,” said Sonic, a small flicker of a smile coming across his lips, “Let’s salvage what we can and get back to the ship.”
“Wait, is this a good idea?” asked Kim, looking at the debris within the store, “What if this place caves in on us?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Twilight, “I know a few spells that can keep us safe, it a situation like that was to occur, that is.”
With that, the five of them began going through the store, gathering everything that they could. The next several moments after that were spent chowing down on what they could. Granted, most of the food was either stale or crushed and the beverages were the worst kind of warm one could imagine, but given their circumstances, they weren’t going to complain.
Soon, the five of them had finished and were ready to make their way back to the ship. They weren’t at all full, but they were satisfied that they had any food in the first place.
“That wasn’t filling at all,” whined Sailor Moon, “I’m still hungry!”
“Makes the rest of us,” said Sonic, “But that’s all we could get, so let’s be grateful we found anything.”
As they began leaving the store, Twilight caught the sight of something in the cooler. Looking closer at the label on the item, a small smile formed on her lips. Then, using her magic, she opened the door and levitated the object out. Finally, she made her way towards the others, but more specifically, towards Kim.
When she caught up with the red-haired human, she tapped her shoulder with the item, drawing her attention to it. When she turned and looked at the object, Twilight levitated it into Kim’s hand, releasing her magic when she had a grip on it.
Kim looked at the small bottle and raised an eyebrow at the lavender unicorn. “What’s this for?” she asked her.
“Well, you said earlier that I ‘owed you a soda’, right?” Twilight asked, “Well, here’s that soda I owe you!”
Kim let out a small giggle, rolled her eyes and said, “Thanks, Twi.”
The lavender mare smiled and began making her way down the road with the others. As they walked, Kim opened the bottle and took a sip of the disgustingly warm soda that was inside of it. As she drank, she tilted her head back to chug the whole thing down; since it had been sitting there for who knows how long, it no longer had its carbonation.
When she finished, she tossed the bottle on the ground, causing it to roll down an alley. When it did, a loud sound echoed in the air, freezing all of them where they stood. It sounded like metal colliding with metal, like a piece of scrap metal hitting a metal garbage bin. They all looked to the origin of the sound, hearts pounding and muscles stiffened.
“Sorry,” Kim whispered, “That was my fault. I threw a bottle down the alley.”
Sonic furrowed his eyebrows and said above a whisper, “That didn’t sound like a bottle.”
They all remained frozen in fear as they looked at the alley that the sound came from. Several seconds went by and nothing seemed to happen; maybe the sound was the bottle, but it sounded way too heavy to be a small piece of plastic.
As quietly and swiftly as they could, the five of them turned away from the alley and began heading down they had traveled on before. However, they only took a few steps away when they began to hear another sound from behind them, causing them all to stop where they stood. It wasn’t the same sound as before, but sounded relatively close. This time, the sound was like an aluminum can being crushed, a metallic crinkling that kept repeating in intervals. As the sound kept going, their eyes became pinpoints and their hearts began to race.
Slowly, the five of them turned around to face the alley that the sound originated from. When they did this time, all of them let out an audible gasp at what they saw there.
It had the body of a grasshopper, but its legs were a metallic silver color. It had two long back legs that were reversed, smaller middle legs and longer front legs. Its head looked like a grasshopper, except the eyes were smaller and glowing red. It had no antennae on its head and no wings on its back. However, resting on its back were two long pieces of sharp metal. However, the thing that startled them the most was its size. A regular grasshopper was very small, but this grasshopper-like creature was almost the same size as Twilight.
The five of them stared at the creature as it slowly made its way out of the alley, its eyes fixated on them. When it reached the middle of the street, the creature turned its head to face them others, soon turning its whole body towards them.
Like what happened with the ship in the barren wastelands, the five of them stared frozen at the creature, not taking their eyes off of it.
“What is that thing?” asked Sailor Moon, trying to hold back tears again.
“I don’t know,” said Sonic, “It looks like an over-sized grasshopper.”
“I don’t think so,” whisper Twilight, her breath shallow, “A grasshopper, up close, looks nothing like that.”
“What do we do?” asked Kim, her voice also in a whisper.
Before any of them had time to answer, the mood all changed when the creature lunged at the five of them, letting out a loud screech as it did.