//------------------------------// // Chapter I - "This stuff will rip you from the universe..." // Story: Tainted // by Dinius //------------------------------// Sorry for the double-post. I had to revoke it. Quite some editing were made. As always, enjoy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tainted by Dinius Chapter I - "This stuff will rip you from the universe..." I yawned with a great stretch. 'God... I will never do a 24-hour drinking marathon again... True, only my head is aching... I don't have that cold feeling in my stomach at least... I go back to sleep for a few hours... Oh... I slept in my clothes and shoes again... Balls to it! For the first time in months, I finally feel rested! The feeling of the warm sun shining at my back, the sound of birds and the wind among the trees, the touch of grass between my fingers makes me sleepy again,' my thoughts slowed. 'I just don't want,' I mentally hesitated, 'to wake' and finally realization hit me, 'up?' "Wait a minute... WHAT THE FU-" My train of though was interrupted as my head smashed against something. “FFFFFFFFUUUUUUGHH" I cried out. I was lying in the grass just beside a huge tree. I woke up so suddenly that I wasn't even noticed the tree branch above me. When my head stopped spinning, and the pain was fairly gone I pulled myself together and stood up... carefully. I scratched the back of my head and realised it was bleeding. Quickly unfolded my long black hair and tried to palpate the scar. It wasn't a great wound, so I put my hand on it for a minute to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, I looked at the ground for my glasses. 'Where the heck... Eureka!' It was in the large grass, near where my head was. I put it on and looked around. My jaw dropped as I watched the familiar -yet vaguely alien- scenery. 'How the hell did I ended up in the MIDDLE OF THE FOREST?!... I would have noticed an hour long walk from the city.' "Huh?" I noted that I was in a different outfit than the one I wore yesterday. I looked at my wristwatch. "8:15 A.M... Wait a minute! The sun is in the middle of the sky!" I looked up towards the sun, then back at my watch."Oh, it stopped working. Well fuck, this is dandy!" I opened the strap of my watch and pulled it off from my hand. I put it next to my ear. Much to my chagrin couldn't hear it ticking. I started to examine the exterior. It was a stainless-steel Citizen watch that my father gave me a while ago. I loved it. It was an elegant, high-class watch. 'Not a single scratch...Must be something inside then.' I thought as my fingers slide down my goatee. As I was about to put it away in my pocket, I noticed something. It wasn't anything huge, but made me think. I watched the front of the wristwatch again, then turned it. "Made In ... Hmm, odd." I shrugged my shoulders and slipped the watch into my right pocket. 'So, my watch is dead’ I thew up my hands in exasperation. ‘Great!' While I tried to think, I noticed the huge mountains to the right from me. It was the type of picturesque landscape you really only see in pictures or paintings. They were exceptionally tall. If I had to guess I’d say it was about a mile or two high. I just stood there in awe of the sight. "I think I'm not 'home' anymore." I twitched. My left hand shook as I slid it into my pocket on a quest to find something near and dear to me. However, all I could find was air. "No... Where is my phone?" After that, I realised that something else was missing. "Hey, where the bloody hell is my backpack?" I asked myself. 'It cannot be. I couldn't possibly left both of them at the bar by accident. Had I been abducted? Think damn it, think! No that can't be the case. I distinctly remembered that I had opened the front gate last night, walked in my house, and my backpack was most certainly with me. There wasn't any sign of burglary if I recall correctly. Cookie,’ my dog ’,was there to greeting me. She didn't appear nervous and wasn't barking and I’m pretty sure I slept in my bed.' I couldn't remember anything else after that. Without my phone, I wasn't sure what day it was. I was practically useless. "Fuck! Why can't I remember?" By that point I was getting very nervous and my head began to throb in pain. Lot of different things rushed across my mind. Mostly, speculations of what had happened. My smile was gone long ago and could feel cold sweat dripping down from my forehead. "Okay...Pull yourself together... deep breaths... deep breaths... balls to it! HEELLOOOOOOO!SOMEBODYYYYY?! ANYBODYYYY!?" I've waited about a full minute for some reply, but nothing. "Okay, one more time” I inhaled as much air as my lungs could manage. “HEELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo!! God, my throat,” I coughed. I've give it my best shot this time, then waited. I waited two minutes and still nothing. I couldn't hear anything, just the sound of the wind as it dances between the leaves. 'Okay, chill, chill! Calm down.' I thought to myself as I paced about a tree. I honestly didn’t believe myself, but it was comforting to try to lie in the very least. After my legs began to tire of pointless pacing I sat down back at square one. 'Dammit, now what?' My eyes glazed over as I leered at a nearby bush, deep in thought. A strong breeze began to shift the leaves, in between the branch’s of the bush I saw the trunk of a tree. There was a familiar object that caught my attention right quick. 'Wait a second. Could it possibly be what I think it is?' I stood up and walked towards the bush. I reached under the bush and pulled out my grey backpack. "THERE IS A GOD!" I cried to the highest halls of heaven. I hugged it, opened it and started the search right away. I put my hand in it, then immediately come across something weird. The touch of this thing was strange and fragile, so I pulled it out really carefully. "It's a... A pergament?" It was very old, but not made out from animal skin like most of it in the old times. I could even see the fibre of this material. This was a paper scroll wrapped around with a black string. ‘Why is this here? I don't remember this thing either. Who gave this to me and... why is it so heavy?’ I looked at it with a curious expression and started to slowly unravel it. As I finally undid the knot on the string the scroll rolled itself open and something black fell out and onto the ground. It was some sort of rock. No, scratch that, it was more like coal. Pure black, flat bottom and a round top. As I picked it up to examine it, I saw that it was a brilliantly polished gemstone. Like some sort of diamond or sapphire; on this had a perfectly flat bottom and a perfectly round top. It was more like a square-shaped object than just a semicircle; it had some smaller cracks on every side. I couldn't tell how long I stared at the stone. 'I never seen anything like this. Oh yeah I forgot about the scroll.' I snapped back to reality and slipped the gem into my left pocket. I opened the scroll again and tried to read it right away. There was nothing to read. Frowning, I turned it upside down. "...What the hell? I can't read this." It was a mish-mash of symbols and formations that I couldn't even begin to understand in the least bit. Probably no one either in this modern world read this except if he or she's working in a museum or studying the ancient culture of the people who made this or something to that effect. I collected my thoughts of every writing in languages I might have seen on the internet or studied it once. 'Rune and Script writing, no; Japanese writing, no; Chinese, no; Greek, no; Hindi, no, ancient Egyptian, no; Hebrew, no; Arabic, no.' Try as I might I couldn't find a single similarity between any of those writings and this one. It was like it wasn’t even a language at all and was just a series of mad scribbles. 'I can't even read the name - or perhaps monogram - at the bottom.' No matter how hard I tried or which angle I looked at it, I couldn't read out a single word from the paper. I rolled up the scroll and put it on the ground, giving up entirely. "Well that was helpful! I was so looking forward to get drafted into some new fucked-up, survival reality show. Come see the man lost in the middle of fuck-all, nowhere!" I mused. “So, where is my phone?" I put my hand in the backpack again. Inside I found my black wind jacket. 'Great. It's a bit cold actually.' I got excited while I put on my jacket. 'Well that's something after all. Let see what I’ve got in my pockets.' As I searched the pockets of the jacket, I found my Zippo lighter, my mp3 player with the ear-buds, and finally my cigarette maker. Then realized how badly I needed a smoke. 'No wonder I'm not calm! I hope my cigarette tobacco, and the cigarette-case with the filters are here as well.' As I reached to the lower part of the backpack as a smile crept its way onto my face. "YES!" I cheered wit a fist pump. I had found them. My hands were shaking as I tried to make a cig’. I put some tobacco in the cigarette maker, put the tube with the filter at the end, and pulled it to make myself a cigarette. I sat down on the grass and lit it. *Click* Inhaled huge doses of smoke until I got calmed after three or four puffs. "Finally," I sighed. I started to feel the hit from the chemicals in the smoke as they worked their way in my system, but it stopped after a few seconds, and I finally felt calm and collected again. I put the cig’ between my lips and kneeled beside the backpack again. There was a spare white/red T-shirt inside the pack now with my black sport gloves and sport mask. 'Why are these here?... I don't usually bring these when I go drinking.' I set everything on the ground. 'Okay, well that’s settled. Now what's in this pocket?' I unzipped the smaller pocket and started to searching through it. First, I pulled out my army-knife. I was a bit surprised because I always wear it on my belt whenever I go somewhere. I pulled the knife from the leather case and checked the blade. "Perfectly sharp as always," I mumbled as I strapped the case on my belt. “Not a single step without you." I chuckled before putting it right back in the case. Second, I pulled out a flat flask and immediately felt, that there's something still inside. I opened it and gave it a whiff. "BUUUH! Its look like I still got some Pálinka left. Well we only live once... Egészség!" With that last word, I took a swig from my flask. "Burr... That's hit the spot. Truly, a medicine for everything." The fiery liquid flowed down to my stomach and slowly started to burn out. "Always a lifesaver," I muttered as I put the flask back in my bag. Thirdly, I found my "medicine pouch" with painkillers, sleeping-peels and a small, still untouched plastic bag inside it. The bag was about the size of a coin. I opened the bag carefully and smelled it. "Yep, still the finest," I nickered. I smoked a “lucky strike” once in a blue moon to help me relax, or just chill and think if I don’t have anything important to do. I've always been a very philosophical person so I can think about seemingly anything for everything and thus can keep myself occupied for hours on end. I bought this particular brand at the bar, from a friend yesterday. "This stuff will rip you from the universe," I chuckled as a friend’s words came into my mind. Lastly, I pulled out my wallet. Inside it was all the coins I had left from last night, my ID card and my tram pass. I quickly counted the money. "Well,” I said as my mental gears began to process, “ from this meager amount I could at least buy a Twix bar from a vending machine!" I looked around."Now if only I found one, of course," I sighed and put the money and my wristwatch ,which I got out from my pocket, back in my wallet. I adjusted my silver ring, searched the backpack once again and sit back down. 'I better make more cigarettes.' "Well, my mobile phone isn't here... Shit! Though, I got some stuff with me at least. But I could have called the emergency or watched the GPS to see where the fuck I am." 'Wait a sec.' With that an idea flashed in my mind. 'Let see... this deciduous forest and the mountains are strangely familiar, dough the forest is really dense. Huh, not much sunlight gets to the ground from here. I guess I'm still on the northern half of the globe at least, that’s comforting. Probably still in Europe or somewhere in North-America or, maybe, Russia.’ I looked up. 'The sun now already moved from the middle of the sky, so I guess it's one or perhaps two pm, and it's right in front of me so that way is south. From a little left from the sun.' I pointed my hand in the direction of south. Then I turned around. 'So this way is north...Great! I'm going this way which will lead me deeper into these damned woods.' Of course, I didn't have a single clue which direction would be perfect for me. I could have tossed the coin up and let that decide. But something inside told me that going north will be my best choice. "Bear Grylls would be so proud," I snickered. I made two days worth of cigarettes, put them in the case and slid it in my pocket with the lighter. After that I put everything back inside the backpack, put the wallet in my back-pocket, stood up, smoked one last from the cig and flipped it in a small pool of water. "Alright, it's time to head home." With that I put the bag on my back and started to head northward while whistling The Lord of the Rings tunes. I looked back at the sun every minute or so to be sure that I'm still going in the right direction, and while I'm here, looking around in the forest for this beautiful scenery. After half an hour, I find a stream flowing north as well. 'Great, I will follow the creek...There has to be a small settlement downward. I need to find a phone there first. Then I’ll’ve to tell my neighbours to feed Cookie and phone my workplace and parents that I'm still alive.' I started to follow the creek and slide my hands in my pockets. Then I suddenly stopped. I started to move my left hand out from my pocket holding something that started to heat up. It was the black gem. I looked at it with an amazed face. I couldn't take my eyes from it... It bewitched me. I haven't noticed, but it started to heat up rapidly in my hand. "SHIT!" I yanked my hand by reflex when I noticed that it was starting to burn my palm. I could still feel the pain, because it was still in my palm. I have lost control of my left hand, and it grasped the gem with full force. "aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" I screamed. The pain was unbearable and the shout was loud as the stone started to glow. I couldn't decide that it was because of the heat or something else. I could felt that I am going to pass out from the pain and started to strike my left hand to a nearby tree in an attempt to make it drop the gem. But after two full force swings I kneeled down and fell to the ground unconscious while the gem still glowing in my hand. *Crack* A white flash, then blackness... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile in the nearby settlement downriver... "Brrrr," somepony whispered as they shivered. There was a sudden chill in a library, a library located within a huge tree. "Hm? Did you say something Twilight?" asked a small purple coloured dragon with green spikes a bit surprised. "Oh it's nothing, Spike." 'Hmm...What was that strange feeling?' Twilight thought. "Could you close the window for me, while I double-check the checklist?" asked a lavender unicorn pony with a dark indigo mane. "Sure Twilight and don't worry I already checked it. We got everything ready for the picnic. See?" said Spike while holding a saddlebag and a big basket. "Great. One step ahead of me, I see. You're surely my number one assistant." She moved to Spike and gave a small pat on his head. "Aww, come on Twilight. It's not a big deal at all. So are we ready to go or not?" Spike asked as he began to excitedly jump up n' down with a wide smile on his face. "One moment, spike,” she giggled “Let me see it one last time, and we're ready." They checked every basket, and Twilight put them on her back using her magic. "We're ready. Let's go!" Twilight declared. "Finally!" Spike eagerly replied as he opened the door for his friend. "Whoa!" They both said this simultaneously surprised, as they saw three ponies running and two flying for the library at full speed. "INCOMIIIIING!" shouted a cyan pegasus with a polychromatic mane not unlike a rainbow, but it was a bit too late. *CRASH* *BANG* Everypony was on the ground, buried under a huge pile of books. A few seconds later, after Twilight finally got one of the books dislodged from her mouth, she spoke, or perhaps, shouted, "Girls, what the hay are you all doing? Why the rush? We were supposed to meet up under the huge tree by the lake!" "Twilight! You're saying you didn't feel that...that thing?" asked a white unicorn with an indigo mane, a lighter hue then Twilight's, with a bit more drama and inflection then was necessary. "Thing? What thing, Rarity?" As Twilight looked at the group she could see that they all looked worried and two of them were shaking like jelly during an earthquake. "What's with Fluttershy and Pinkie?" asked Twilight an orange pony with a blonde mane, while pointing to a yellow pegasus with pink mane and a pink pony with a similar coloured mane, respectively. "Well...Ya see sugarcube.” started the orange pony with a southern accent. ”We all felt this strange, creepy feelin' when we got to the lake. We got worried and got 'ere as fast as we could, to see that maybe you can explain this. Fluttershy,” the earth pony said, pointing to the yellow pegasus, “got so scared that she can't stop shakin' and Pinkie,” her shrugged at the pink earth pony, “well..." "Twichy-Twichy-Twichy-Twichy-Twich" stammered Pinkie Pie with a surprised look on her face. The way she said it resembled some sort of chant. "Oh brother..." Twilight facehoofed "...Spike would you... What's the matter Spike?" "L-letter... f-from the ..." *BUUUUURP* Green, lurid flames came out from Spike's mouth and turned into a scroll. "A letter from Princess Celestia!" said Twilight with a smile on her face. "Open it, Twilight! Maybe the Princess know what was that feeling." said Rainbow Dash, while flying around in the room excitedly. Everypony gathered around Twilight and started to read the letter. To my most faithful student Twilight Sparkle and her dearest friends, Everypony looked at each other confused, then continued to read the letter. As you no doubt felt, there has been huge magical outburst in the northern part of The Everfree Forest. It’s origins or causes are currently unknown. My sister and I could even felt it here, in Canterlot. Princess Luna suggested that we should go and investigate it ourselves without delay, but we are in the middle of some political discussion with our neighbouring states. So I reget to inform you that I'm asking you, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Elements Of Harmony, to go into the Everfree forest and investigate what could have possibly caused this huge magical phenomenon. Furthermore, I request that you report back to us when you find something at your earliest convenience. I apologize for the brevity and vagueness of this letter, but everypony is waiting for me in the throne room. Good luck, my little ponies. Everypony was silent for a small time, then a hyperactive pony shouted, "A TRIP, YIPEE! I’ll go get my balloons." The pink party pony vanished in a cloud of Pinkie shaped just. "Pinkie! No, we have to-" protested Twilight. She quickly realised her efforts would be in vain. "Another epic quest! Awesome," Rainbow Dash practically cheered, having gone from nervousness to excitement in ten seconds flat. "Girls?" Nopony even heard Twilight. All of them were talking excitedly about the trip and this magical phenomenon. "Girls!" "I'll go get apples and some apple juice to the trip." said Applejack with a smile, while trotting out from the library with the others. She sighed,"Just be at the bridge in half an hour! Okay girls?" Everypony voiced their agreement at once. Twilight turned around and looked at the mess in the library. "Spike! Could you clean up the library, while I go with the girls to check things out?" "Sure Twilight." said the little dragon with a sad tone. "Oh, don't worry. We will be back by sunset, and I'm sure we can do the picnic tomorrow afternoon." "Really?" queried Spike with a huge smile on his face. "Yep," Twilight nodded. "Now it's time to prepare for the trip." Six packing montage later... At the bridge. "Okay...Are you ready girls?" Everypony replied with some form of confident nod. "Alright! Then let's move...Wait...Where's Fluttershy? They heard Fluttershy and three other voices, coming across the bridge. "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS MAGICAL DETECTIVES! shouted a yellow earth, pony, a white unicorn and an orange pegasus, all fillies, together with huge smiles plastered on each of their faces. "Oh no girls. I'm afraid it's too dangerous for you little fillies to come with us in the Everfree Forest," quietly replied Fluttershy with a slightly smile. "Besides, princess Celestia asked us to go there and..." If Fluttershy was about to say something her words were cut off as she looked at the five ponies waiting for her, wearing angry looks. "Oh... Hi girls, sorry for the wait, but... I come across with Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle on the way here and..." "CAN WE COME TOO?" asked the three fillies in unison, interrupting Fluttershy from her talk. "NO!" said Applejack instantly with a loud and angry voice. "B-but whyyyyyyyy?" they asked with puppy dog eyes. Nopony was moved by their sad display. "Because this trip might be dangerous." said Twilight while try to calm down Applejack. "We are going in the Everfree Forest because Princess Celestia gave us a task to check on something. It's definitely not a place for anypony right now. Especially not, for little fillies. " "Aww, okay," replied Apple Bloom in a heartbreaking tone as she pawed ground. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked at her surprised. Evidently they didn’t expect Apple Bloom to give up so easily. "Thank you, I hoped that you would understand. I will make it up for you tomorrow on the picnic. I promise," Twilight coed with a motherly smile before turning around. "Now, let's move girls!” With that the six mares started to gallop towards the forest. "What's the matter Apple Bloom?" asked Scootaloo "You usually don't give up this easily." "Don't worry girls. I have a plan," Apple Bloom replied with a devilish grin. "Follow them?" asked Sweetie Belle with a knowing smile. "Exactly." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Huge help and edited by Crushric Please leave a comment, tell your thoughts about it and/or do a review and a rating. Questions and criticism are welcomed. (Morale Booster :) ) MLP:FIM is owned by Hasbro and DHX Media Vancouver!