//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 - Run with the Wind 
// Story: Master 
// by NejinOniwa 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 4 – Run with the Wind




Applejack cursed loudly as she finally got something that wasn't saltwater under her hooves. Not because of that, but because the change broke her out of the apathy she'd been stuck in for the last hour or so. She was an earth pony – not a bloody seahorse! – and yet she had spent every minute since she mysteriously vanished from Twilight's basement swimming. In saltwater. And on top of everything else her hat was gone, probably having flown off while she was falling.

Without a doubt, this was the worst morning she'd had ever since the time Discord turned her corn field into a chocolate milk-covered exploding disaster – and considering that the year that had passed since then hadn't exactly been peaceful, that was saying something.

Mounting the low sand bank carefully to ensure she kept her footing – her head was out of the water, but nothing else – she took a few moments to gauge her surroundings. All things said they were still pretty much the same as they'd been when she landed, but there was one big difference to be had that broke the monotony of azure sea and unclimbable jagged spires of rock poking out of it. Not too far off in the distance she could clearly make out a beach, even dotted with a few blue slate-roofed houses. She thought she could make out some movement in the water in the distance separating them, but as far as she cared that didn't matter squat.

“Thank Celestia,” Applejack murmured, before giving her sodden ponytail a shake and resuming her swim with renewed vigor.

It took her about an hour or so before she finally reached the shore, however, and by then the absurdly strong water currents had swept her completely off course. The town she had seen was on the other side of the island – for an island it was, she was pretty damn sure of that – and in her way was a wickedly jagged cliffside that she wouldn't have a snowball's chance in Tartarus of climbing across safely.

Still, at least she had solid ground under her feet, and she wasn't dunked in saltwater anymore. That was a start, at least.

Just as she thought she had managed to lose all of her immediate troubles, however, a small tickling sensation around her neck drew her attention. Craning her neck around she spotted a big, red claw sticking out of her mane, and a pained expression found its way onto her face. “Why you darned little...”

Several minutes of torture later, she finally threw the giant red crab back into the sea. “An' don't let me see yer consarned face ever again, ya hear!?” she yelled after it, before letting out a string of curses that Granny Smith would've spanked her for as she sat down on a rock and started going through her painfully crab-molested, salty mess of a mane.

-/-/-/

“You...won't escape me this time...mark my words...”

Eusine kept ranting with every step he took, just to keep his motivation up. Today was an important day – the most important day of his life! – and this stupid bloody cliff was not going to get the better of him. It was not!

Pausing to regain his breath, he leaned against one of the jagged pillars jutting out of the ground. He was trying desperately to control his breath – few knew it, but he was an asthmatic – and black spots swam through his field of vision whenever he made the slightest movement. Finally accepting that he may be overdoing things a bit, he sat down and let the darkness take him.

As soon as he regained consciousness he checked his watch, which revealed he'd only been out for a few minutes. Not as bad as he'd feared, but a few minutes here and there could spell the failure of his expedition if he was down on his luck; and judging by how the last week had been, he wasn't expecting any sort of good fortune to come his way any time soon. Ever since he'd met the boy in the Burned Tower, ever since he'd seen them with his own eyes, the world itself seemed to have turned against him.

Perhaps it is their doing, he thought for a moment. Perhaps they are bringing this misfortune upon me, in order to make me fail.

That thought sent him jumping to his feet, and now that he'd rested for a bit he didn't have to worry about the dizzy spells anymore. “I won't let you stop me,” he hissed as he resumed his trekking. “Just you wait. I'll take everything you can throw at me – I'll take it, and then I'll catch you! Just you wait, Suicune!”

A small flock of Pidgey that had gathered around him scattered at his sudden shout, but he paid them no heed. Compared to a legendary pokémon, they didn't matter at all.

Some ten minutes later he was starting to feel the signs of his weakness returning, but just as he was about to slip into another rant cursing his abominable fate of being born with a defective respiratory system, he heard a strange call from the direction of the shoreline. Immediately all his exhaustion was gone with the wind, and with renewed effort he quickly scrambled across the last few lines of jagged rocks separating him from his quarry. Finally, he was going to come face to face with Suicune!

Or at least, so he thought.

What awaited him at the rocky beach he wound up on, however, was something different entirely. At first he thought it was a Ponyta – aside from its odd color, the resemblance was fairly obvious – but only a moment after he started wondering how a Ponyta could get all the way out here on its own, he realized it was absolutely drenched in water.

Its mane wasn't the fiery blaze he'd expected, either. Instead it appeared to be quite normal hair of a bright blonde color, and like the rest of the creature it was soaking wet. It seemed to be grooming itself, somehow managing to run its hooves through the hairs without breaking its legs; a feat that on its own would've astonished any decently accomplished pokémon researcher.

Eusine may not have been a professor, but he damn well knew a new species when he saw one. For a second the thought of his original quarry escaping made him consider leaving it alone, but ultimately he decided that would be a most stupid decision indeed; while Suicune would never cease being important, there was also no guarantee whatsoever that he would actually have found him here today.

Admitting that to himself hurt a bit, but even with the technology he had in the field to track the great beasts there was plenty of room for error when it came to when they'd actually turn up at any given place. Like the winds themselves, their movements were erratic indeed, and impossible to understand or follow – only predict, and even that was only to a severely limited degree.

So he decided that while Suicune would inevitably keep running if he did not catch it today, it would also inevitably continue to be tracked by his systems. Whatever this pokémon was, however, would not. No matter how he looked at it, this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; and no matter what, he had no reason to miss something like that.

Considering his actions for a second, he produced the ball containing his Drowzee from his pocket, and let it out as quietly as possible.

Of course, being a pokéball, it wasn't very quiet at all. The only real difference was that he didn't bother with the oh so counterproductive, tacky and ultimately startling cry of 'I challenge you!' or whatever that most trainers insisted on these days. They behaved as if they thought capturing a wild pokémon was an official league match or something! Eusine, master hunter of pokémon mysteries, would never stoop to such levels of stupidity himself.

The pokémon gave a startled noise and got to its hooves, spinning around to face him almost immediately. This creature was a seasoned fighter, he could tell.

Now, the hunt begins, strange pokémon, he mused quietly before giving his Drowzee its first orders. And Eusine will not let you escape. “Drowzee, Confusion!” he cried out, and his pokémon happily complied with his request.

-/-/-/

Applejack was about to ask the strange, pig-like creature what the hay was going on when a strange nausea hit her, and made her want to throw up every last bit of breakfast she'd had before leaving the farm many hours ago. She forced herself to stay on her hooves, however, and staggered forward. Focusing her eyes took several seconds, but she finally managed to get them both locked onto the snout-nosed creature's own tiny black orbs. When she did, there was no doubt.

“Yer' doin' this.”

Shaking her head made the wet, unkempt mess that was mane even messier, but she didn't care much at this point – if anything, the feeling of hair coiled together in sticky, wet strands lying across her back like a bucket of eels made her head very clear of any sort of creepy magic-induced illness.

“Just so ya know,” she growled as she took a step forward, and then another, “I don' like it when ponies are messin' around with mah head!” She broke into a sprint, and in a second she reached the strange creature, who now bore a very surprised expression on its face. “So take yer darn snout and buck off!” Spinning around on her forehooves, she delivered her patented Applebuck straight to the creature's face, and it was sent flying through the air.

Admittedly that was not the end of the fight, but it sure was decided at that point. She figured the strange bipedal creature must've been using some magic to keep bringing out new monsters out of nowhere – conjuring them up and then putting them straight back into whatever void they came from like a magician plucking rabbits out of a hat – but neither the strange, hovering mass of black with a wicked grin on its face nor the big red-white ball critter was able to put up much of a challenge against her.

She bucked, bucked and kept bucking. Her kicks had gone straight through the hovering face's, well, face, but apparently whatever ghostly powers it had to make it ethereal didn't protect it from being impaled by an Applebuck in any real way. The ball-creature had spun so fast it almost made her dizzy and she could've sworn she saw it give off a few sparks of lightning at some point, but once her kick did connect it went bouncing off the rocky cliffs, and didn't move again.

The bipedal magician made its red-lit spell one last time, making the ball-creature vanish in a ray of crimson light before scurrying away as fast as it could. Applejack didn't mind – she'd had enough of senseless violence this morning as it was, and didn't even think of giving chase as it scrambled across the cliff side with an agility she could never hope to replicate. As it finally disappeared across the ledge, she sighed heavily and sat down on a rock.

“What in tarnation is goin' on here? Where am ah? What are all these...”

She couldn't even find a good word to sum them all together – they were all so strange, so alien in concept and behavior to all that she knew of the world. Even the more unsavory species in the world she was aware of were well capable of at least communicating with ponies – the diamond dogs, dragons and all the other strange beings she'd met since befriending Twilight were proof of that, if nothing else – and the ones who weren't were not really much more than dumb beasts, in the end.

Thinking back on memories like that ultimately brought her own fears to the surface, fears which she'd been suppressing best she could ever since she'd arrived. The concept of being lost alone in a strange world where nopony understood her and without a way back home was, to the farm pony, a horror far too great for her to withstand. An image of Applebloom appeared in her head, standing alone by the barn and looking anxiously toward town, watching, waiting for a sister that would never come home.

Never, ever again.

Applejack sniffled, and as images started gathering in her mind the tears started flowing across her cheeks in a silent cascade that she could not possibly hope to stop alone. And alone she was – more so than she had ever been before. What's the point of me even livin', like this? What sort of Element of Honesty am I supposed ta be, when there ain't even nopony around to be honest with?

For almost a minute Applejack sat there, silently wallowing in the misery that had decided to haunt her this morning. Staring tear-eyed at the sand and rock beneath her as it grew wetter and wetter, until she was beginning to think that surely, she would soon run out of tears. And then–

“What gives you such sorrow, brother?”

Applejack hadn't heard anypony approaching, and she whipped up her eyes from the ground in surprise. Before her stood a magnificent creature of blue and white, much like a huge wolf on its light-blue paws. It was easily twice her own height, even larger than the Princess; and on that note, above its red eyes sat what she thought must be an immense, crystalline crown. Its violet mane flowed like Celestia's too, without a care for the lack of wind, and the two narrow, white bands making up its tail did much the same.

More important than any looks in the world, however, the gaze it gave her as their eyes met was one of wisdom and understanding. She couldn't get any words out of her own mouth, leaving it to flap uselessly for several seconds as she stood simply awestruck by its sudden appearance.

Then, she remembered what it'd actually said, and her brain slowly started kicking itself back to life.

“Now y'all listen, big fella...” She stopped for a second to sniffle a bit and wipe away what tears she could from her eyes before going on, “It's mighty kind of y'all to be concerned for a cryin' mare an' all, but bein' a mare, ah sure ain't ever been anyone's brother. Ya hear me?” she finished, sniffling again and finding herself extremely embarrassed for some reason she couldn't comprehend. A vivid crimson worked its way across her cheeks as the wolf's face took on a quite puzzled look.

“You have no brothers? You are alone? I would lament as well, were I, but...” He – judging by its voice the gender question seemed fairly obvious to her – tilted his head at her, apparently oblivious to her present emotional turmoil. “Are you well, brother? If I may refer to you as such, but I myself would welcome such a gesture, were I without my own.”

Applejack struggled to get control of herself, giving her head a violent shake as she fought to push the last of her tears back to where they'd come from. “Ah'm fine! Y'all just...surprised me, is all.” She shot a harsh look at the creature, fixing its eyes with a her own. “And ah never said anythin' about havin' no brothers, either – don't you go around sayin' like Big Mac doesn't exist, ya hear! He's just...not here right now.” She broke away from the stare, and ended up looking out towards the ocean; its immeasurable, endless width was just the same distance she felt like she was from anything else she knew in the world right now.

“And neither is anypony else. So ah guess... ah am alone. Fer now.”

The wolf gave Applejack a compassionate look as it walked up beside her, and for the first time this morning she felt like something was, at least, not going entirely wrong. That reminded her of the fact that he'd still referred to her as 'brother', however, so she thought to remedy that before he prompted to speak up again.

“An' call me Applejack, because that's what my name is. Ah don't mind the gesture, but it feels mighty awkward fer a mare to be called a brother all outta the blue. No offense.”

“None taken. I am Northern Winds. It is a pleasure to meet you, Applejack.”

They stood there quietly for a while, with the silence only being broken by the brief sea winds and the gentle churn of the waves rolling in. Eventually though, Applejack decided there was a question she very much needed an answer to.

“Now Northern Winds, about this here two-legged feller...”

In the hour that followed, she sat down with her new friend as he explained what he knew of the world to her. She was both shocked and amazed at many of the revelations – not least at the mention of this Emperor character, who apparently had returned Northern Winds and his two brothers from the dead! – but most of all, the rule of these strange two-legged magicians, who the wolf only referred to as Dwellers, disgusted her.

“So let me get this straight. These Dwellers, they enslave innocent critters with their magic? And then pit them against each other in dogfights fer  fun? What sorta twisted mind came up with this dung?”

Northern Winds frowned at her, clearly not agreeing with her summary of his explanation. “Not quite. There are many cases of Beasts attacking Dwellers, as well, and from what I've understood the Dwellers use their Beasts, once tamed, in many ways other than combat. Some even form emotional bonds of sorts with them. While it is true that battling is a prime form of both entertainment and status among Dwellers, the situation is a great deal more complex that you give it credit for. Neither party is entirely without fault in the conflict – the Dwellers simply have the upper hand.”

Then, to Applejack's surprise, his frown deepened, and he looked away, with a doubtful expression clear on his face. “At least, that is what Emperor tells us. I am not so sure I can believe those words, at times, but I try.”

He kept gazing towards the sea for a few moments, then whipped his head back to her. His eyes were brimming with curiosity, now. “But enough of the Dwellers. Tell me, Applejack. How did you come to be here?”

Sighing, she told him a fairly condensed version of the events of the past week, this morning in particular. A glint of recognition showed in his red eyes whenever she mentioned Princess Celestia, and she assumed he was comparing her to whoever this Emperor character was.

After a drawn-out description of Twilight's device and the events that transpired after it was activated – he kept asking for more details, especially about the mysterious pale creatures that turned up toward the end – she finally got to her crashing down into the water, swimming to the shore and duking it out with what she now knew had been a Dweller. “An' then you showed up, and well, y'all know the rest already,” she finished, with a tentative look toward his canine face.

Northern Winds spent a good minute thinking after she had concluded her story, before giving her a reply. “You saw the Progenitor.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow at this statement. “The whatnow?”

The wolf fixated her with a stare, and for a moment she could not manage to look away no matter how hard she tried. “The Progenitor. All beings descend from it. It is the origin of life.” He dropped his intense stare and she pulled her eyes away, panting, but he kept talking as if nothing had happened. “I have never seen it myself, but your description sounds identical to what Emperor has told me of it.” He shook his head, and his violet mane billowed out like an enormous cloud, flaring out in the air and staying there in blatant disregard of the earth's pull. “If the Progenitor has something to do with bringing you here...” He frowned for a second, before giving her a resolute look. “You would do best to seek it out, I believe. Possibly, your brothers may have been brought here as well, even if they are not with you at this moment.”

A flame of hope lit up in her heart at his words, and for a moment she cursed herself for being so stupid. Of course the spell would've pulled us all over. I just have to find the others, and we can all go home. Can't be that hard! A stray thought pulled at her attention as she formed her reply. “They're mah friends, not– nevermind. Thank y'all kindly, Northern Winds. You have no idea how much this means to me. Though ah guess I'll have to swim all the way to whatever mainland there is before I can start searchin' – from how this mornin's been so far, ah doubt things would be as convenient as to leave us all jumbled up together on this here island.”

 A grim expression took hold of her face as she thought of the prospect of even more swimming, but Northern Winds only smiled back. “That will not be at all necessary, good Applejack. While I do of course have my own duties to perform and cannot help you search, I am certainly not averse to lending you a bit of...help, so to speak.”

Without warning he leaned his massive head down, and she felt the touch of his strange, crystalline crown against her forehead. A touch, a small, shining blue light, and...

And then, she had a horn.

That's what she thought it was, at least, and it took her a few frantic moments of thinking she'd been magicked into a unicorn somehow before she realized that wasn't quite the case. Running her hooves over it, she could tell it was different – the shape was off, for one, and it also leaned backwards, not jutting straight out like a unicorn's horn. Nevertheless, she could feel it. It was a part of her, not just another weird hat or anything.

After some searching she found a puddle, and looking in the reflection revealed she now bore an almost identical copy of Northern Winds' blue crystal crown thing on her own head, with only the size being different. Which, of course, meant that it wasn't a crown thing at all, but rather his own variety of a unicorn's horn. Or however that was supposed to work.

She gave the wolf a very alarmed look, and raised a demanding eyebrow, but the huge creature simply kept smiling at her. “What didja do to me, Northern Winds? You'd best tell me straight out, and mind you, the Element of Honesty don't like no liars.”

Northern Winds smiled serenely at her, and shook his head as he walked up to her. For a moment she was a bit scared when he raised his giant paw, but he simply laid it to rest upon her newly decorated head. “Fear not, Applejack. I simply gifted you some of my powers. The water will heed your commands, and the wind will run by your side. You need not swim to the shore. If you wish to submerge yourself you may do so, but I seldom see the need to, myself.”

Applejack stared at him, trying to comprehend what he was saying. Eventually, a memory of her trip to Cloudsdale came to mind, and she thought she understood. “So it's like cloud walkin', then? Except on water? Ah suppose that'd be useful, and that's mighty helpful of y'all, but didja have to tack this thing on my head? Feels a bit...iffy.”

Northern Winds raised an eyebrow. “That would be my brother Storm Cloud's power. But I see the similarity, if you are familiar with that. And while I could have simply blessed you with that ability alone for a short while, you will need more time than I can give that way to reach the shore. So, yes. It was needed. I believe you will grow used to it as time goes by, however.” He gave her a confident smile, and put his paw back on the ground.

For the first time in what felt like ages, Applejack smiled. The candle of hope he'd lit was now a burning bonfire, and she felt the worries and fears in her heart start to melt away before its fiery light. A small question remained in her head, but for some reason she had no doubt the answer to that was as easy as they come. “How do I know where to go, then? The sea's a fairly large place, I reckon. Where is this Progenitor of yours hidin' out?”

Northern Winds nodded at her, gesturing with a paw at her crown. “With that, the winds will show you the way. There is a tower of light in the nearest Dweller settlement on the coast – it will be straight northeast of here. I do not know where the Progenitor sleeps, but I believe my brothers can show you one who does. Go to the tower, and one of my brothers will meet you. Now that you have my powers, they will sense your presence and seek you out. Tell them what you told me, and they will aid you in your quest. I am sure of it.” He said this with such conviction that she could not doubt him, and her own confidence was only bolstered further.

Realizing what inevitably had to follow next, however, she felt a hint of tears starting to well up in her eyes. Blinking them away furiously, she shook her head and raised a hoof towards the giant wolf. “Northern Winds...Thank y'all so much for this. All of it. Y'all have no idea how much this means to me. Not only helping me, but just being here to listen to me...” She shook her head again, trying not to get all too sappy, and steeled her resolve. The time had come to say her farewells, even if she very much dreaded the concept of being alone again. Like he'd said, she had a quest to complete.

“Ah hope I'll see you again someday, Northern Winds. Maybe when I've found my friends again – I think you'd like them, too. They're real good ponies, they are. Thank you, for everything.”

Northern Winds smiled back at her, and nodded sagely. “Fare well, Applejack, and I wish you the best of fortune in your search. Maybe one day I will meet your brothers, as well, and I thank you for the tales of them you gave me. It is not often I have others to speak to like this, either.” He met her hoof with his paw, and she felt something tingle in her crown just as his gave off a sparkling light. “Now go, and run with the wind.”

With a nod she turned around, steeling her resolve for the inevitable test of her new powers. Northern Winds was right beside her as she took her first, careful steps into the water, but her fear was ultimately ungrounded. It felt like stepping on mossy rock, and she thought it should've been a lot slipperier than it was, but the water held her aloft without question. She took another step, and then another. Her careful walk became confident, and turned into a light trot as she found her footing on the strange new surface. Soon she was galloping at full speed, and only kept on going faster and faster until she really was running with the wind, speeding across the ocean's blue water like a swift winter breeze. Small splashes of sparkling drops sprung up in her wake, and the world flew by before her eyes.

This must be why Rainbow likes flying so much, she concluded.

As the jagged spires of rock sped by her, she looked back on the morning's events so far, and felt strangely content with it all. I've got a strange crown thing on my head, I'm lost at sea mostly alone in a world full of weird creatures I can't talk to, and nopony knows where I am. That was countered with the inevitable reflection of what she was doing right now, and all her worries evaporated. But I can walk on water. I can run, heck, as fast as Rainbow can fly! I have a goshdarned compass in my head! She could feel the pull of the earth on the crystal crown, and besides having a pretty good sense of direction to begin with, she knew that this pull was the pull of the north pole. She knew, and all in all she felt quite happy about things for once.

Things coulda been quite a lot worse, I reckon! A bright smile bared her teeth against the dazzling white spray of the waves, and she raced across the sea laughing.