//------------------------------// // Chapter 4- The Missing Mares // Story: Genderflip // by Darkillusion1 //------------------------------// Twilight looks down at the statue of Spike and she said “How am I supposed to free you from this stone trap.....”. Bolt walked towards Twilight and put his hoof on her shoulder and said “Don't worry about Spike right now! I’m sure if we get the kidnappers they will know how to turn everything back to normal and to get my beloved Moonbeam! But first we need to find that tracking spell that you’re talking about?” Twilight looked up at Bolt and replied, “Yeah that is true...” She walked towards one of the bookshelves and searched for the book that contained the required spell. Twilight found the book and opened it, “Okay, found it, lets start chanting the spell” Twilight placed the muffin on the table and aimed her horn and started chanting the spell “Aysafa sheti fa, toe nika lo fana muffin nictoh.” The muffin started floating in the middle of the room, Bolt’s eyes turned big, amazed and entranced by the muffin that was now floating and glowing brightly. Suddenly everything stopped, the muffin fell to the ground, crumbs flying everywhere. Bolt shook his head and curiously asked “Whoa, what happened? D-did it work!?” Twilight just shook her head and told him, “No, it didn't work. Something is interfering with the tracking spell!” she examined the muffin a bit and noticed some nasty, gooey, sticky drool from Bolt’s... ‘examination,’ earlier. Bolt looked closely at the muffin, too confused on what Twilight was pondering, so he asked, “What wrong?!” Twilight just looked at Bolt with anger, then pointed a hoof at the muffin, then to him, all while saying in an agitated manner, “Your drool is interfering with the tracking spell! Now we can't find Moonbeam!” Bolt was shocked because of Twilight’s sudden outburst of anger. His head lowered as he moved his hoof around at the ground guiltily, apologizing in a very sad way, “I’m sorry Twilight... I... I didn’t mean for that to happen...” Twilight just looked at Bolt with teary eyes and sobbed lightly, “What should we do!?” Bolt started to slowly walk backwards and mistakenly hit statue of Spike. When it was about to fall over though, something was holding it up. Twilight examined the statue closely and saw a transparent string connected to the statue and ran all over the library. Twilight pulled one of the strings off and looked at it, which had a smile crack onto her face as she exclaimed, “We Still have a chance to find the kidnappers with this string!” --- Meanwhile, Moonbeam woke up in a dark, moist cave. Her hooves were handcuffed to the wall of the cave, but still had the coat on that Twilight had given her not long ago, “W-where am I?” she was still feeling weak from the impact earlier. She scanned her surroundings and saw nopony in sight, just the dreadful, eerie sound of water dripping onto the cold stone floor. Moonbeam started to panic “Twilight, you there? Spike? Bolt?” suddenly, she heard somepony walk into the cave. A dark outline of a muscular, well built stallion came into the light of the torch where Moonbeam was. The figure cracked a huge, devious smile and greeted his prisoner, “Well hello there sweetie pie, I’m glad you finally woke up!” he put his hoof on Moonbeam’s chin and brought his head to eye level with her. Moonbeam thought quickly and headbutted the pony, causing him to jump back. As he rubbed his head with his hoof, Moonbeam got a chance to examine him. The stallion had vanilla colored fur, his chin had a small black patch of hair in the fashion of a goatee. He had a sort of blue muscle shirt with a black vest over it. The shirt was pulled open to show his unnatural pony abs. His eyes were a deep, dark blue, while his mane was long and tied into a ponytail. His cutie mark showed a telescope with a dollar sign behind it and a revolver. When he spoke, he had a light, spanish accent to compliment him. He finished rubbing his head and grabbed Moonbeam’s chin again, bringing her face back to meet his as he chuckled lightly, “Heh, quite the feisty one you are.” Moonbeam just growled at him, “You should probably know that I am a stallion not a mare!” This magnificently built pony just laughed “AH HA HA HA! Sure you are!” He slapped her on the flank, resulting in a squeak of fright. The stallion smiled at the obviously uncomfortable mare, “Well, if you’re a stallion, then I am a peacock!” Moonbeam snarled like a rabid dog at this mockery from the stallion, “What do you want from me!? What are your motives?” The stallion just walked towards her and had a smile on his face, “Well I was just looking for a nice mare to shine my hooves for me! But looks like you found me out!” he joked as walked away from her towards the door. He stopped and said real quietly, yet still loud enough for her to hear, “Well, and a mare to be my wife...” “Wait, WHAT!?” “Toodaloo my sweet!” he called as he waved a hoof to her mockingly and walked out. Moonbeam sat up against the wall, tears flowing down her cheeks at this situation, “Twilight... Spike... where are you two?” While Moonbeam’s dilemma occurred, Twilight got the string and gently placed it on the table, she got her horn ready and started chanting the spell once again. Twilight’s eyes glowed bright and she had a vision of Moonbeam in the cave crying as she whimpered for her friends to help. Before she could carefully examine where this took place, her vision zoomed out suddenly. It showed a familiar mountain that Twilight had seen before, but where? She scratched her chin while she paced back and forth, trying to remember where she had seen those mountains before. Bolt was busy focused on a book he was reading as Twilight’s voice suddenly shouted out and made Bolt jump nearly ten feet in the air. “SHE’S IN THE CRYSTAL MOUNTAINS!” Bolt nearly had a heart attack, but he didn’t care. He got up holding his chest and asked the mare, “Whoa, are you sure? Well then what are we waiting for Twilight, let’s go and save Moonbeam!” He began a gallop out of the room as Twilight grabbed him with her hoof, “Wait! We need to discuss this information with princess Celestia!” Bolt just looked at Twilight as if she was crazy and he stomped a hoof on the ground, “We don’t have time! We need to save Moonbeam, RIGHT NOW!” Twilight gave him the same look back that she had received, “We need to know more about this mysterious dark kidnapper! If we go now, we will be running into our own demise. We don’t even know who we are facing, for all we know it could be a follower of Sombra and I have a feeling that the princess will know just who he is!” Bolt just sighed and admitted that Twilight was correct. Twilight and Bolt decided that they needed to get to Celestia as quickly as possible, so Twilight had Bolt hold onto her tail with his mouth. She wasn’t used to teleporting with more than just herself. Bolt firmly held onto her tail with his teeth as Twilight concentrated and in a flash, they were outside Canterlot. Bolt’s ribcage tingled and he laughed from how much it tingled, “Yeah, it tickles the first time you teleport.” Twilight informed him, out of breathe from the spell. They sat there for a minute until they both felt normal again and before either can say a word, Twilight started a run towards the castle. They were totally oblivious to anypony they passed, bumping into pretty much any who got in their way, even accidentally knocking over a ladder with paint on it and it got all over the window of a dress and tuxedo shop. They just kept running because of the urgency of the situation, only calling ‘sorry’ back at anypony who they knock over or ruin something they have with them. They got to the castle and tried running past the guards at the entrance, but were stopped, “Please! We need to see the princess! It’s an emergency!” The guards just held up their spears to keep them back until Luna had called down from her watch tower for them to let her pass. “GUARDS! LET HER THROUGH! SHE’S TRUSTWORTHY!” This was a little weird to Twilight, usually the Royal Guard always let her through, but something bad must have happened to make them so alert. They were escorted into Celestia’s throne room where she greeted the two, “Hello Twilight, my faithful student! What happens to bring you all the way down to Canterlot?” “Princess! There’s been an emergency! My friend, Moonbeam, was taken in a raid by some evil dark pony! I-” “No need to say anymore Twilight, I already know about him. If you couldn’t tell, the security has been on high alert around here.” Celestia replied, no longer giving off a happy smile but instead, having a very serious expression. “But princess, how do you know about this pony?” Twilight replied quizzically. Celestia sighed, “Well my student, you remember Muleio, the kingdoms best demolishions engineer?” “Yes, but what does that have to do with Moonbeam, or this mysterious pony?” “Well, I caught him a few weeks ago snooping around the castle. I had told him that if the Royal Guard or I see him anywhere near the castle, he’d be sent into exile in the Everfree Forest. But before he had left the city, he vowed to exact revenge on the kingdom. Recently we have been seeing a figure appear all around the castle; When the figure would appear, soon after mares would disappear. The cook, maid, royal adviser, these are all examples of who has disappeared shortly after this figure would appear.” “Well, I guess that explains all the security then.” Bolt came into the conversation, but the two mares just ignored him. “Well I think I may know where he is hiding out. I used a tracking spell and my vision showed the Crystal Mountains. I have a feeling that not only will we find the villain in this, but Moonbeam and all the other mares who have turned up missing.” “Okay, I’ll send some guards to help you aprehend-” Celestia was cut off by Bolt who came into the conversation with passion. “Wait! Keep your guards, we can do this ourselves!” He said with a lot of passion in his voice. He just thought to himself about how much of a hero he would look like to Moonbeam when they showed up and saved her, no help being given from Celestia. Twilight grabbed him and whispered in his ear, “Bolt! Are you crazy!? We don’t even know how powerful this guy is, he could have an army for all we know!” “Please Twilight, I just want to look good for Moonbeam...” He gave a puppy dog face to Twilight to try and convince her. “Ugh, fine! But if we get hurt, I’m blaming you!” she turned to the princess, “Uh... yes princess... you may want to keep your guards here... for protection!” Okay...” Celestia replied with skepticism in her eyes, “But you may want to take some supplies for your journey.” Celestia’s horn started to glow as a bag of bits floated over to the two ponies, “Quickly, we don’t need any more ponies going missing!” Bolt and Twilight thanked the princess and headed towards a thrift store just outside of town, as they walked, they apologized to all the ponies who they had rudely bashed out of the way during their trip to the castle. They finally made it at the thrift store, where they had used the provided bits to acquire: two sleeping bags, two water canteens, 10 ready to eat meals, and a small metal sword for Bolt that had a unicorn crest on the handle. He held it in his mouth and the store owner let him test it out on a couple of rotting wood barrels. After cutting the wood barrels with ease, he decided to purchase it, for self defense purposes. Before they headed out, Twilight turned to Bolt and put her front two hooves on his shoulders, “Bolt before we go, I have to warn you that this journey will be dangerous. It is of the utmost importance that you be careful in the event we get separated, are you ready?” Bolt gave a noble stance, “Of course I’m ready, I was born for this moment!” The journey through the expanding forest took at least an hour; The scent of pine trees filled the air, it smelled lovely so Bolt took advantage of it, and smelled the scent of the forest, “Hmm., that sweet smell of fresh, clean, all natural air.” Twilight just looked at the relaxed stallion, “We are not here for vacation you know, we are on the journey to find Moonbeam and the missing mares!” Bolt just waved her off, as if he completely forgot about Moonbeam, “Yeah, yeah, I know that! Ooh my beloved Moonbeam is captured and waiting for her prince charming to come to her rescue!” Twilight just rolled her eyes at his cliched mindset and continued walking. Suddenly she heard something rustling around in the bushes. Twilight just looked towards where the bush was, “Bolt... did you just hear something? You know, in the bushes?” Bolt just shook his head, “Nope, must have just been a squirrel or something.” Twilight started biting her bottom lip and started getting paranoid and started looking back and forth as she hopped between her hooves in fear, “I swear I heard something...” The sun was setting quickly; Bolt knew they had to set camp and make the fires to keep themselves warm. Bolt set out to get some firewood while Twilight was setting the tents and the fireplace. The first time Bolt came back he only brought three twigs of wood and told Twilight to make a fire out of it. Twilight got frustrated and yelled at him to get usable firewood instead of three twigs. Bolt chuckled from this little joke he played on her and walked over to a tree, still laughing, and pulled a stack of six logs he stuck there. He laughed harder at Twilight’s impatience with his little display Bolt placed two logs of wood in the fireplace then brought out flint and steel and proceeded to try and make a fire while Twilight watched with a doubtful look on her face, “Are you sure you know how to use that?” Bolt just puffed up his chest with pride, “Yeah, I was in pony scouts when i was a colt and they taught me everything about surviving out in the wild!” Twilight just smiled and told him to prove it, “Okay then, show how you make a fire with a flint and steel then.” Bolt looked a bit worried and tried to look confident, “Uh, first we need to hit the flint on the steel... and... er, try to make a spark?” “I don’t know, do you? I wouldn’t know, you’re the survival expert.” Bolt tried his best, but the flint suddenly broke and Bolt just smiled sheepishly, “Umm... that was... that was supposed to happen...” Twilight just rolled her eyes, pushed Bolt aside, and used her magic to create the fire. Twilight and Bolt got the two sleeping bags out, made them comfortable, and they slept on the different side of the camp fire. The next day, Twilight was the first awake; She shook Bolt awake. He was drooling an ocean on the dirt floor as Twilight showed some disgust and shook him awake, “Wake up! Wake up!” Bolt started mumbling, as if still in his dream, “Is it breakfast mommy?” Twilight just slapped Bolt awake and Bolt’s face was shot with pain as he yelped out a scream of pain!. “Finally! you’re awake!” Bolt just looked up at her as if she were a dictator, “Oh sorry, master! But I’m awake now!” he tried to stand up, but fell back down asleep, forgetting completely about the pain in his face. Twilight just looked at Bolt impatiently, “Do you want to save Moonbeam or what? We don’t have much time left and we don’t know what they are doing with her right now!” Twilight started tearing up, regretting that this whole thing had happened. What saddened her the most was that she might never see the male counterpart, Moonwing, ever again. What if she can’t get her back to her male life? “This is my fault! Moonbeam is in trouble all because I turned her into...” Twilight just stopped herself right there. Bolt was curious on what she was about to say, but she just shrugged it off, acting cool about it, “Oh uh, just forget about it! It’s not important!” Twilight got everything back into the bag and gave it to Bolt, who decided to carry it. They started walking more into the woods, heading towards the crystal mountains where the dark pony, who was suspected to be Muleio, must be keeping Moonbeam. As they walked though, five ponies, two pegasi, three unicorns, came out of the bushes with knives and ambushed them. One of them got hold of Twilight and held her with a knife to her throat. Bolt unsheathed his blade with his mouth, waving it threateningly at each of the thug ponies who ambushed them. “GET BACK!” Bolt yelled at them through the handle of the blade, but he was outnumbered, so they just laughed at this pathetic attempt at defense. “Drop your sword or else this mare will be cut into pieces.” the pony restraining Twilight said, levitating his blade with magic as he still chuckled at Bolt. Bolt couldn’t do anything but drop his sword slowly, he didn’t want to get Twilight hurt, and he had no former training in fights, so he decided to just comply. As his blade fell to the ground, one of the unicorn ponies used his magic to throw some blunt instrument hard at Bolt, hitting his mark and knocking Bolt unconscious.