A good amount of time had past since everyone had a terrifying encounter with a murder of mysterious crows. The dead had a proper burial, and the logging camp was back to full capacity thanks to the large influx of willing ponies that were coming into the Everfree. Progress was going way ahead of schedule, trees were being fell at a rate comparable to Pinkie Pie snacking in a candy cane forest. Things were going smoothly for the time being.
The large base camp that was at the entryway later expanded directly into the Everfree itself, eventually becoming a small fortress that housed everyone that participated in the project. The outer area of the logging site had been completely fenced off for protection and had guards diligently patrolling the various gates on an around the clock basis. Not a single thing gets in without first meeting with the guards, and not a single thing got out either.
The lumberjacks and loggers were hard at work on the other side of the fence, using every saw that they had at their disposal to cut down the trees as quickly and as cleanly as they can. The audible sound of literally hundreds of saws cutting multiple trees down at once filled the dimly lit clearing not unlike a room full of sleeping guards.
In their stalwart effort, they had cleared up at least more than ten acres of trees in the time they had all moved into the forest like they own the place, which in everyone’s mind, they technically did. In the process of deforestation, countless animals and insects lost their homes and had to fled deeper into the forest, much to Fluttershy’s chagrin.
All she wanted to do was help the animals and to give them all a good home away from the Everfree, but the animals refused her kindness every step of the way. Every time she came across a passing squirrel, lizard, or even a hercules beetle, they only threatened her with a show of force before running away into the darkness. One can only imagine how the yellow pegasus might be feeling, especially since she’s received this kind of treatment before at a certain gala...
Nonetheless, the walls that provided security for everyone there stood tall and proud in the dark depths of the forest. Standing as a shining beacon of hope in the Everfree, an indomitable fortress that represented the unbreakable will of ponykind, and the future site of the glorious settlement of Scientia.
* * *
In the center of it all stood Twilight, who had a yellow hard hat on and was currently occupied with directing everypony on what they should do. She barked orders like there was no tomorrow, there wasn’t a single pony in the fort that wasn’t doing something at the moment that was related to the cause. She made sure of that personally with a well thought out schedule that maximized all of their efforts without sacrificing everyday needs like eating or sleeping.
Even when parts of the schedule sounded ridiculously meticulous such as breaks that lasted precisely thirty minutes on the dot, no one objected to Twilight. Though she had only been a princess for a short period of time, she was still their princess nonetheless. She was very intelligent (although not particularly wise in many cases) and given how she has handled everything of late, there was absolutely no room for doubt that everyone trusted her with their live, just like they have with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Well, almost everyone.
Zecora was the only one who was a smidge doubtful when it came to Twilight. She knew that Twilight wasn’t born yesterday, but she does know that her rationale can quickly become clouded at times and it could affect her better judgement. Which can lead to some rather unsavory outcomes that’s left ponies with their mouths hanging more or less.
Princess or not, Zecora had to guess that one of her reasons for the deforestation was for more than just good of all. A personal vendetta was involved, as evident in her strict and almost militant choices of scheduling. A vendetta, of course, that involved ecological conflicts regarding all things Equestrian, and all of her brushes with death with the creatures of the forest.
The Everfree forest was the very antithesis of life in Equestria. Everything that the ponies were, the forest wasn’t. Everything that Twilight believed to be fact was quashed by the mere sight of the Everfree. It mocked her at how different it was from the rest of Equestria. Mocked her to the point where her own scientific curiosity of it was eventually replaced with nothing but blind scorn.
Though she didn't show it, she has held a grudge deep within her that she has always held close to her heart about the Everfree. The darkness that it held, the lives that it took, the nightmares that it has incited in her dreams ever since she first stepped into it with her friends. It was practically destined for the ponies to remove the Everfree, and Twilight was the one to lead her subjects towards a new age of prosperity.
Now Twilight has been a dutiful pony whenever she needed to, similar to her brother in fact. But her shortcomings do tend show up at the worst of times, especially when stress was involved. Had this been something entirely different, she may be less susceptible to having a nervous breakdown. Given the circumstances, however, and the fact that she is a beloved princess now, the weight of her responsibilities hung upon her shoulders with the weight of the moon.
Eventually, all of this work will slowly chip away at her mental barriers until it reached the core of her psyche. Alicorn or earth pony, god or mortal, anyone can lose track of what they believe in with the right catalyst and some time.
Zecora silently wished to herself that it wouldn't happen anytime soon during her time in the expedition. Regardless, she intended to speak with her about the current state of affairs.
“Hello there, Twilight. How do you do? I would like to have a word with you” she rhymed.
“Zecora! Good timing, you were just the zebra I was looking for!” Twilight exclaimed fervently in spite of the Everfree’s gloomy atmosphere.
“Oh, really? For what reason is it that you need me?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrow.
“Please, follow me. We can talk while we reach the logging site” said Twilight as she motioned for Zecora to follow her. Together, they left the massive fortress and ventured off onto the beaten path and towards the sound of loud grinding and metallic screeching.
As they entered the woods, beady little yellow eyes the size of pin pricks from below the brush watched intently with each step that the mares took. Quiet rustlings of the leaves and the faint echoes of near silent footsteps stealthily trailed the two ponies, never taking their sights off of them even once...
* * *
“Now, while we’re on our way to the logging site, what was it that you wanted to ask me?” Twilight asked.
“It is about our presence here in the woods, I’m beginning to wonder if what we do is truly good” Zecora rhymed, her eyes cautiously shifting back and forth through the thick foliage of the forest. Twilight shot Zecora an incredulous look, and merely scoffed in response for what she was implying.
“Really, you of all ponies, are having doubts about this wretched place?” said Twilight “What we’re doing is good” she rebutted “And I think that the animals here are starting to realize it as well. We haven’t had an attack or a casualty for a while now, perhaps they’re finally warming up to us, unlike those freaky crows from last time”
“I apologize, I mean no offense to you or your cause. I only question the possible consequences for all that we will soon wrought” said Zecora “But please, hear me out. Listen to what I’m talking about. This forest, I feel it’s eyes. I believe the predators have time to bide. They show no sign of giving up their home, nor do they wish to be owned. They are willing to fight to the last breath, or until they have assured all of our deaths. I warn you, be wary of this place. Should you be threatened by it, please escape!”
“Zecora, enough!” Twilight shouted “It’s already bad enough that the atmosphere here is absolutely dreadful and depressing. We don’t need to hear all of these negative thoughts, especially since so many have died because of this place! Now please, just try to think about more positive things, such as the sights and sounds of the Everfree being deforested” Zecora conceded with her friend’s request and let out an exasperated sigh as a sign of her defeat.
“Very well, I concede. Just tell me, what was it was you need?” she asked, still unable to shake off the feeling of being watch. Her question was immediately answered by the view of the nearby logging camp.
There were a number of lumberjacks out and about with their work in a desolate clearing that was entirely devoid of trees, each armed with a saw and hard hats to protect their noggin from being turned into nice bowl of creamy brain soup. Bright sunlight gleamed all around the area, only to be interrupted by the creeping blackness that was the shadow’s edge of the Everfree’s treeline.
A massive lumber mill had been hastily established from all of the trees that had been chopped down. With it in place, hundreds of logs from the Everfree can be quickly processed into planks of wood within a single afternoon.
This lumber mill was the cornerstone of the logging operations in and around the Everfree. Plans to mass produce more of them had already been authenticated as they entered deeper in the forest. In only a few months, there will possibly be more than a dozen lumber mills churning out planks of processed wood at an alarming rate.
But that was not the disturbing aspect about the clearing, well, to the pony’s perspective at least. There was some sort of epidemic going around. A small medical tent was pitched right next to the lumber mill. There were at least eleven ponies who were suffering some kind of illness, and were lying on their stretchers, groaning it agonizing pain.
“Zecora, this was what I wanted to show you” said Twilight as they approached the medical tent “Apparently, some of the workers here had contracted some sort of unknown disease while they were working. I’d like you to see if can whip up some sort of cure for them. We need everypony to be at peak physical condition if we want to clear this quadrant by the end of the week”
Zecora walked up to one of patients and thoroughly examined him. The pony in question was pale, so pale in fact that his coat lost all of it’s shine. He was struggling to breath, upon closer inspection it appears that his throat had swollen to the point where it was difficult to get air through. His pupils were dilated, and he appeared to be in a daze given his half lidded eyes. He was busy mumbling something incoherent beneath his breath despite having trouble breathing.
Zecora pulled away from the sick stallion and scratched her head in confusion. No matter how hard she thinks, she could not come up with a plausible explanation for whatever this disease was. All of the symptoms were normal for one disease, but these stallions were exhibiting symptoms that would come from multiple illnesses.
“This is very... weird, I don’t know what is going on here” said Zecora “Where did these workers get sick? Maybe there I can figure out what makes this disease tick”
Twilight nodded and began to guide Zecora to the site of the outbreak. A few dozen yards away from the mill was a section of the woods that had only just recently been reduced to to a sea of stumps. The stumps will soon be uprooted from the ground soon but for now, but that wasn’t the focal point of the view. There was an astounding number of bolete and amanita mushrooms that huddled around each stump like a close knit community of fungi.
“This is the place, although I don’t exactly see what they could’ve contracted this disease from. There’s only tree stumps and toadstools here” Twilight spoke as she wandered around the sunlit area “At least it feels nice to be in the sun” she commented.
The two walked around the clearing, thoroughly examining the stumps and the grass to see if there was anything out of place that would cause some kind of mysterious disease to break out.
* * *
So far, there had been nothing to peculiar to look for, there was only mushrooms, tree stumps, and small patches of grass. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and even if there was something hidden in plain sight, Twilight would’ve probably found it already using her magic.
Just when they thought that their search would bear no fruit, one wrong tilt of her legs and Twilight unknowingly struck something that let out an adorable high pitched grunt.
“OW! Hey, what was that for!?”
Twilight and Zecora jumped at the disembodied voice and jolted her head back and forth in an attempt to find the source. They looked all around themselves, checking to make sure that there was nothing hiding in the treeline, but they found nothing.
“I’m down here”
The two looked down to the ground with their eyes wide in disbelief as one of the mushrooms began to shake back and forth. Eventually after a few good seconds of shaking, the mushroom hopped off the side of the stump with a light *POP!* sound and landed on it’s stubby little feet.
The mushroom in question was around two inches tall, and was humanoid shaped, complete with five digit fingers on both hands and glowing yellow eyes. The top of it’s cap was brown while the rest of it body was a dusty white. It had no mouth, yet somehow it was able to communicate with Twilight and Zecora. Without missing a beat, the tiny little mushroom being quickly rushed to the side of the stump and climbed all the way to the top until he was as eye to eye with the mares as much as possible.
“What’s the big idea, kicking a fungus like me around while I’m asleep!” the mushroom man yelled angrily “Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?”
“My parents did teach me manners” Twilight retorted toward the mushroom “What they didn’t teach me was that there were sapient mushroom like you living around the Everfree” her own words sounded crazy, even in light of the current situation. It was hard to believe that she was communicating with a sapient mushroom, one that can scold her in a language that she understands no less.
“Wait, what am I saying? What are you? Some kind of living, walking, talking... mushroom... thingy?” she asked, recoiling from saying something non academic as thingy.
“Me? I’m a bolete, one of the many guardians of this great forest” he answered as a matter o’factly “And you!” he pointed one of his accusing, spindly digits at Twilight “I know all about you! You’re that pony who's been destroying my home! What drove you to do such a thing? Destroying the last pure place in the world!”
“Excuse me? Pure? I’m sure you’re mistaken you poor misunderstood fungus, but this unnatural place is evil, everything around here is tainted with black magic, and we can’t have it around any longer” Twilight explained it to the bolete with a saintly air around her, she was clearly adamant with her words and her decision.
“Listen, if you’re still worried about losing your home and everything, I’m sure that I can work out some kind of deal with you” she switched to her diplomatic sense of thinking “You see, I’m leading this environmental effort, and we, the ponies, are trying to give everything that lives here a new home in Equestria so that they don’t have to live in this place anymore”
“If there are any more of you then we can help find you a brand new place to live. Think about it, living away from all of this chaos in harmony with the rest of us. Now I’m sure you can understand all of that, right?”
“Oh, I understand alright” the bolete said as Twilight’s eyes lit up. She genuinely believed that she managed to get through to a new being in with her plans “I understand that you’re insane” and just like that, the bolete threw cold water on all of her happy thoughts.
“WHAT!” Twilight exclaimed “How dare you! I’ll have you know that I’m the most sane pony here” she sharply rebutted.
“You’re talking to a mushroom” the bolete bluntly pointed out “Not only that, you’re talking about destroying this forest and subjugating everything lives here to an unnatural lifestyle”
“H-how can you call our lifestyle unnatural!?” Twilight was positively fuming at this point.
“How? You control every aspect of nature, of life itself. Who do you think you are, some sort of god?” he asked “My other brothers saw what you ponies do. You control the weather, governing when it is that you need rainfall or droughts, how disturbing. You even go as far as to fabricate the very essence of nature itself, creating false clouds and rainbows to paint your world of illusions”
“And the plants and the trees, they never grow by themselves. They constantly have to be watched over by you like a voracious den mother guarding her pups. Even when the cold season comes around you have to control how and when the trees begin to change”
“The animals that live amongst you have been needlessly coddled to the point where they can’t even fend for themselves anymore. If they were to return to the forest from whence they came, they’ll be food for everything else that lives here before days end”
“And then there is the sun and the moon, perhaps your worst atrocity. Tell me, is there anything that doesn’t require your supervision?” he chided.
“ENOUGH!” Twilight snapped at the bolete “You’re just blind to everything that we Equestrians have worked for all these years. What right does a insignificant talking mushroom like you have to openly mock us! We have been around longer than you have!”
“Wrong” the bolete’s response was like a slap to the face for Twilight “This forest has been here long before you ponies even came into existence, and we have had time to evolve because of our environment. The animals that lived here grew strong because of that. We learn, we adapt, we survive, all on our own. Nature has always been here from the start, and in the end, it will always outlive everything” he pointed his finger to the mares again “Even you ponies”
Twilight was at a lost for words, she was losing an argument about moral values badly, and to a talking mushroom no less. She was infuriated, absolutely outraged that she had been told that she was wrong about everything up until now. Not only that, she has just been told off by a sapient bolete fungus about her way of life. He might as well have had a mouth just so that he could spit right in front of them.
“Grrr.. If you want to live here in this forsaken place like some sort of barbaric mongrel then fine! It doesn’t concern me. Consider yourself and every other like you an enemy of the ponies now. This forest will be destroyed, and nothing your precious nature can do to try and stop us” she practically screamed at the bolete “We have the tools, and we have magic. By the end of this year, this will become Scientia, the greatest accomplishment that ponies will ever achieve!"
“Wrong again” the bolete spoke out “I told you that I am one of the guardians of this forest. What makes you think that you’ll be able to destroy my home so easily?” he taunted “There are others, others that aren’t nearly as kind as I am, nor are they as tempered. This isn’t like your happy home where everything is alright. Everything here won’t hesitate to kill each and every single intruder in the Everfree without giving a second thought. Keep that in mind as you foolishly continue your mad endeavor, pony” he spat “Remember that. Everything, everything....everything”
And just like that, the bolete said no more as he audibly yawned and crawled back onto the ground where he rejoined the rest of his brethren for some much needed sleep. He wiggled back into the cluster and faded back into nature seamlessly, it was almost as if he wasn’t even tiny being to begin with.
Twilight had half the mind to just kick that mushroom cluster right off the side of the stump, but she was beyond that. Her face was a bright red from the utter humiliation that she had suffered at the hands of the mushroom. Being insulted, and then threatened by a fungus would make anyone's day go sour just like that. She didn't care anymore, the mushroom had made it’s choice, and she made hers. There was no going back now.
With every ounce of willpower that she had, she managed to shake off everything that has happened in the last half hour of her life. It wasn’t until she came back to her senses that she finally remembered that Zecora was with her the whole time. She only gave a pleading looking before turning away and leaving the stump filled clearing. Neither spoke to each other, a quiet trip back to the camp would be far better than talking about being put on blast by the bolete.
In the back of her mind, Twilight felt cold fear creep up behind her. This forest was starting to get to her, she was actually contemplating whether her talk with the mushroom was real or not. Theoretically speaking, she could’ve been suffering the side effect of some sort of psychotropic trip when she was walking around the mushrooms.
Her head felt light, all the anger that she felt earlier dissipated faster than when she was actually provoked. Back and forth the words of the bolete bounced around in her head, it was like poison to her. She didn’t want to think about it anymore, she just wanted some sleep to clear her head.
She turned back one last time to see if she really was hallucinating the whole thing. However, the view that she was granted showed to be a small army of sorts.
There were mushrooms just like the bolete, but there were also amanitas standing next to them. On each tree stump was all the mushrooms that were clustered upon it’s side. Some of them were long and spindly, with multiple caps on their head. Others were large, squarish and stocky, with a large umbrella like cap. But regardless, there must’ve have been hundreds of them.
Hundreds of beady little yellow eyes locked onto Twilight and Zecora with the intensity of a starry sky. They were armed with makeshift weapons that were built from sticks and basically anything that you can find in the forest. They continued to stare at the ponies, barely moving or even twitching.
Not once did even a single eyes blink.