//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Reevaluate 
// Story: What Separates 
// by Zurock 
//------------------------------//

	"It looks like they'll all be good on food and water for awhile," Spike said in reference to Fluttershy's many animals.  The dragon approached James and sat himself down next to the man, carefully sweeping his own tail to the side as he dropped to the soft grass of the gentle slope.  "I don't think we're going to have to do much of anything until later."
James wasn't responding.  He sat quietly, knees raised with an arm draped over them, watching nothing in particular.  The details of his disagreement with Twilight were turning over and over again in his head.
"So, we've never really had the chance to talk," Spike opened up after a moment of silence.  "But there's plenty of time now I guess, so..."
"Hm?  Oh."  James snapped out of his ruminations.  "No, I guess we haven't had the chance yet."  He relaxed his body, stretching his legs out, trying to briefly forget some of the concerns occupying him.  "Is there something you wanted to talk about about?"
Spike shrugged his shoulders.  "Actually, I just wanted to get to know you," he said plainly.
"Oh!  Yeah," James said apologetically.  He was letting the affairs of the moment get to him too much.  This little guy sitting here was one of the individuals he was now living with and they had never taken the time to formally get acquainted with one another.  "Sorry, I've just been a bit distracted is all.  There's been a lot going on... it has been almost too much to deal with these past few days."  He leaned back, planting his hands behind himself to keep steady, looking once more at the tree line of the Everfree Forest.  "But you're right.  We've got the time now."
"I remember when I first came to Ponyville with Twilight," Spike told him.  "I had basically lived in Canterlot my whole life so coming here was a big new experience.  There were all sorts of new faces, so many ponies to get to know.  And also so many new things to experience too."  He held out a scaly palm in solidarity.  "I can understand how it can keep you so busy."
The relative comparison produced a small, innocent laugh from James.  While Spike was speaking true to his own experience, it wasn't exactly the same thing that he was going through.  "I think in my case there's quite a bit more to it than moving to a new town," he said.
The lime scales jutting off the sides of the dragon's head twitched as he looked over in curiosity.  "Where are you from?" he asked.
"Much further away than Canterlot to be sure," James answered.  "Way outside of Equestria.  Not just farther even, but somewhere much more... different as well.  In a lot of ways."  It would be easy to get lost in a jumbled run down of the specifics on a topic like this.  That's why there was these metaphors with islands and oceans, to make it all more understandable.  But first, he needed to know what he was working with here.  "How much do you know about what happened?" he asked his small companion.  "I mean, three days ago.  Were you out with Twilight and the others?"  He didn't recall seeing Spike there but, compared to the ponies, the dragon had a reduced silhouette and was less noticeable.
"Well, I don't know much I guess," Spike speculated.  "I was doing chores at the library when Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy came in saying I needed to send a message to Princess Celestia.  Something about a metal tower that was shooting lighting or something everywhere."  A thoughtful squint came to his eyes.  "That's what caused this whole mess with the animals, right?" he asked.
That specific reminder sparked some discontent in James' face.  "Yeah," he murmured in a low growl.  "Anyway, that metal tower was the thing that brought me here from outside of Equestria.  It dragged me along with it when it came over."
"It... came over?" Spike questioned in confusion.  "Could the tower walk or something?"
"No, no.  Sorry.  I mean... hmm..."  There had to be a simplistic way to put this.  One that didn't involve the metaphorical hoops and shenanigans that he gave to the Princess and Twilight.  "It basically disappeared from where it was and rematerialized here."
There was an immediate flash of understanding in the dragon's eyes.  "Oh, I get it," he stated.  "It teleported.  More or less."
Now why hadn't James thought of explaining it like that?  "That's one way to look at it.  Actually... that's a pretty accurate description in a lot of ways," he realized.  And after all, why not?  It was moving something from one spot to another seemingly instantaneously.  That's the definition of a teleport.  Whose to say that there had to be an established rule that it must be exclusively in-universe movement in order to be teleportation?  "More or less," he echoed back with laugh.
Spike seemed sufficiently stunned in processing the new details.  "Wow.  I don't know if I've ever heard of a teleport coming in from somewhere outside of Equestria.  That seems like a long way to go."  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said, "It does answer why I've never seen anyone like you before.  But then again, I mean, I haven't traveled a whole lot so if there are others like you in Equestria I wouldn't know."
"I've been told I'm the only one," James replied, confident in his information.  One would think the Princess of all ponies should have a fair handle on the kinds of intelligent species that could be found in her kingdom.
"I guess I can see how that's different than moving from Canterlot to Ponyville," Spike lamented.  He picked up the end of his tail and awkwardly fiddled with it, sympathizing with the implications that this brought on.  "I think I can kind of understand it still," he mentioned quietly.  "I'm pretty much the only dragon in all of Ponyville.  I haven't actually gotten to know any other dragons very well."
Having never thought about it before, the news surprised James.  "There aren't other dragons around?  No adult dragons?"
"Well," Spike explained, "most dragons who grow up live outside of pony society.  They'll live in caves or on mountains, things like that, and they spend their time storing away gemstones and treasures that they collect."  His nose wriggled recalling some of his own few sightings of other dragons, largely unpleasant experiences.  "Generally they're... they're not very nice dragons.  In fact, most ponies don't get involved with them since they can be just as dangerous as the things you can find in the Everfree Forest."  He gestured over to the wall of trees, ominous as ever.  There was an uneasy discomfort that reflected off his eyes as he stared at the forest.
It was a restlessness that James immediately noted.  "The forest is really that bad, huh?" he stated, folding his knuckles together in thought.
"Yeah," Spike emphasized.  "There's something off about that place, and it definitely isn't safe, that's for sure."  The black shadows of the trees shuffled and waved as if they wished to show their support for his assertion.  Spike was thanking his lucky stars he didn't have to go in there before he suddenly realized what he had said and flipped around to become more reassuring.  "B-but don't worry about the girls!  They'll be fine, they know what they're doing.  It's risky, but if anypony can handle it then it's them."
That wasn't the problem.  It was good to know there was belief in their ability to succeed and everything.  But... "I should be there sharing that risk," James said.
"I know what you mean, but you shouldn't worry about them.  I'm sure Twilight has figured out how to make it work out best for everypony and that's why she's split us up like she has," Spike said.  Maybe it was just a little itty bit selfish to enjoy not being the one to go into the forest while the others put themselves in danger, but he wouldn't have been asked to stay behind if it wasn't important that someone did.
James sighed and rotated to engage Spike more directly.  It's time somebody should hear about this now that Twilight isn't here to keep it under wraps, and this small dragon was proving himself to be attentive and thoughtful enough.  "No, that's not what I was trying to say.  I'm saying that I share the greater part of the responsibility in fixing this."
But Spike didn't understand.  His eyelids rolled up as he tilted his head and tried to figure out what exactly the words meant, asking, "Why?  What do you mean by that?"
"It's my responsibility.  Or rather, I'm taking responsibility for what happened," James responded, firmly placing his hand on his chest.  He tightly gripped the dirt and grass with his other hand.  "So it's just... aggravating that the others are going to all the trouble to correct things and Twilight just wants me sitting around here waiting for them."  Sometimes there are measures that are simply necessary in order to make things right.  Sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do.
"Are you saying that the whole thing with that metal tower was your fault?" Spike asked, worried.
"Well..." James said with uncertainty.  "The whole thing was an accident.  The tower wasn't supposed to... 'teleport' this far.  I don't even know who turned the thing on to begin with," he admitted.  "But that's all besides the point!"  He brushed the air to wave away his prior statements.  "It happened regardless and people... er, ponies and animals have been hurt.  Somebody needs to step up and take responsibility for it."
Making his own interpretation, Spike began to relax and told James, "It really doesn't sound like it was your fault at all."
"It's not.  Not directly," he stuttered with his answer.  The concept was so clear and right in his head, but it was the effort to bring the words to it that was failing.  In moving from those ideas and ideals into a reality through his expression, they were breaking apart.  First in his actions, by resigning to Twilight's direction, and now in his words.  He tried to explain it all again as much for his own benefit as for Spike's.  "I didn't do something to cause it to happen, and I certainly didn't mean or want for it to happen.  But..."  What was this all about?  What made it important?  He searched himself for the answer as the dragon watched in silent waiting.
"Spike, listen," James finally began again, "sometimes, unfortunately, awful things happen and people get hurt.  Not always physically, but... you know what I mean, I think.  That's just a fact of life, right?  Sometimes bad things happen."
Although he nodded in understanding the premise, the befuddlement in Spike's eyes expressed that he wasn't quite following the direction this was taking.
"Alright," James continued, "and it's worse when something terrible happens to someone and it's outside of their control.  When the actions of one person cause harm to someone else, someone who had no hand in the matter.  When someone's life suddenly and unexpectedly takes a negative turn due to the decisions of another person.  When someone gets hurt by something that completely isn't their fault, something that they had no ability to influence.  That's not fair at all."  That was the heart of the matter.  It was what was most important to him about the whole situation: justice.
Still unable to see the end this was leading to, Spike only again nodded in understanding the immediate value of the words.  "Okay... I'd say that it's not fair," he cautiously offered.
"Because of that injustice, they're owed an explanation for what happened.  Someone needs to come forward to tell the injured why, through no fault of their own, they had to suffer," James said passionately.  He recalled events in his own world and lifetime; horrible things happening to good, innocent people because of others' foolhardy or selfish actions.  The memories and feelings came forward to fuel the emotion of his argument.  "This whole thing Fluttershy has been dealing with, the animals with the lost homes, everything, it has all clearly hurt her and her animals.  Maybe I didn't cause it to happen, but in the end I'm the only one who has come through it all and is still left.  I'm the only one remaining who can legitimately tell her why she and the animals had to be hurt."  It was up to him to bring that justice, give the answers, and then make things right.
Spike rubbed his tail as he looked around, slightly confounded.  "I... guess I can get that?" he slowly said.  Something clicked in his head and he straightened himself out, continuing, "And I'm sure Fluttershy would really appreciate hearing the truth and everything, but... I think right now all she's REALLY worried about is the animals.  That they're alright and taken care of.  I think what's most important to her is that they get the help they need and it doesn't matter who helps then."
There was a sudden release of steam in the passion that had been driving James.  A popping of the balloon that had been inflating with his desire to see what he felt was right get accomplished.  "I...!" he began, but couldn't find anywhere to bring it.  Necessary measures... is justice always a necessary measure?  Does justice always make things right?
"We're all Fluttershy's friends," Spike said, "and what worries her, worries us.  We all want to do our part to make things better.  Even if, for you and me, that means waiting here and taking care of her other animals."
Again James fell into silence, slouching.  He wanted justice.  There was a time that a drunk driver had killed someone.  The driver's poor, careless choices lead down a road to death, wrecking another car and killing that car's young driver.  He wanted justice.  The drunkard was brought before the parents of the victim.  What did they want?  Did they want to be told why it had to happen?  Did they want justice?  Did they want... revenge?
Did they want their baby back?
The cold silence caused Spike to shiver and fidget.  "I... uh... I guess if you've never been to Equestria before or in the Everfree Forest or anything, then Twilight probably doesn't want you going in there... so that's why she has you here.  She's just trying to keep you safe."
James immediately nodded in agreement with the facts, brushing past some of his feelings.  It's not that he didn't always recognize the prudence of her decision.  Maybe he had just been clouding it with his own feelings more than before.  This whole chain of events has been a sequence of twists and turns and new, inconceivable experiences.  But as time has continued to pass he was slowly waking up from the shock.  There had been trust in Twilight's actions because he told himself it was the necessary measure to be taken for him to survive.  When that trust recently became opposition to him, to what he felt and what he wanted... did he really have to be so quick to assign antagonism to that?  Or now would he trust her because she has been given an assignment by her mentor and she's just doing her best possible job to try and fulfill it?  He thought quietly.  The forest, maybe, could wait for another day.
Running a hand through his hair once, James sighed hard.  "I think... I think I'm just... annoyed and frustrated by this whole situation, is all.  Not just the animals... everything.  Absolutely everything.  I'm slowly coming back into myself and adjusting to this experience, and it's bothersome to only be able to sit here and think about it and wait on it."
Standing up, Spike said to him, "Well, you don't have to feel bad about what happened.  We're all here to help, first with Fluttershy and then you if you need it."  He pointed over to some of the animal pens, sweeping across them.  "We don't have to sit here either.  Let's check on all the animals again."
Pushing off the ground, James threw his weight forward to stand up, bouncing into position.  "Sure," he said, "I want to see the rabbits again."
They walked off towards the rabbit pen as the shifting shadows of the Everfree Forest silently rustled, and the eyes in the darkness watched them go.





It was a whole sweeping crescent of the forest edge that had been devastated by the event.  Very little debris had been left behind in the field where the dimension hopping tower briefly stood before its own self-destruction.  Twilight supposed that Princess Celestia may have ordered a clean up, lest anything left behind could still prove dangerous in some way.  The vigorous discharges of energy that characterized most of the tower's cataclysm had left their scars in a circle surrounding the original location.  Gashes across the field winded every which way, leaving the once grassy plain resembling the aftermath of a bunch of hasty, panicked groundhogs shoveling dirt wildly.  The section of the disastrous circle which overlapped with the forest edge stood out as a visible swath of fallen or broken trees.
Stepping carefully amongst the ruins, Twilight and Fluttershy started their search for any missing animals.  All the animals who were helping with the search, the worried friends and relatives of the missing, stuck close to Fluttershy.  The little orphaned squirrel buried himself in her hair, hugging her tightly and closing his eyes on his lost home.
Twilight, despite her best meaning efforts, had a hard time keeping herself on track, instead observing and thinking about the chaos that had taken place here.  With so many trees lost, sunlight easily flooded this small section of the forest and, with it, the layer of fresh ash from an outbreak of fire stood in contrast to the dried and decaying leaves that normally made up the forest floor.  Most peculiar was the pattern of the fire's spread.  While it had clearly burned over quite a bit of the ravaged area, she noted that there were some parts of the desolation that it hadn't touched.  The remains of the unburned trees were broken branches, partial trunks, and now logs resting on the ground.  There was one detail that stood out to her immediately.  Where they had been severed by the bolts of energy weren't particularly burned through.  In fact, there wasn't much scorching on them at all.  Nor was the separation a snapping break.  It seemed like the whipping tendrils of energy had the power to cleanly cut through the trees, perhaps simply vaporizing the parts they sliced through.
She spoke some of her thoughts out loud.  "I'm not sure what would have started the fires.  The way the trees are cut through so smoothly with so few burns here..."
Fluttershy didn't have any words to offer.  She was distraught at seeing this location again, emphatically feeling the burden of the animals they had brought along.
"Maybe some heat or an explosion generated from accessory damage to the structure itself?" Twilight guessed.  James and herself had speculated that the tower's demise came about from an inability to properly regulate its own immense power, and the results of that were now before her.  It was frightening what unrestrained power was capable of in the wrong situations.  That's the kind of energy that was needed to open an interdimensional portal?
A bird whispered into Fluttershy's ear and she presented the translation to Twilight.  "They say that after the initial confusion they were able to organize enough to get the fires under control before they spread too much.  There wasn't anything they could do about the 'storm' though."
"There's not much anypony would be able to do against a force that could do something like this," Twilight replied, pushing over a thick, severed branch with her hoof.  "Not much except get out the way."
"I really hope the other animals did," Fluttershy somberly said.  Her little companions pulled themselves in close to her in support.  "I looked through here yesterday and didn't find anything.  It... doesn't look like any of the animals came back."  She swiveled her head around to look again, depressed.  "There's not much left to come back to..."
Analyzing the destruction around them, Twilight pointed further into the forest.  "If they ran, they probably went deeper into Everfree Forest in order to escape.  It was either face what's in there or face the terrible waves of energy that were razing their homes," she concluded.  "We should carefully move in and search."
Anxious but still committed, Fluttershy agreed.  "Right," she timidly said as she began to lead her following in the appropriate direction.
The shift between the ruins and the fresh forest was stark.  The canopy of the trees quickly formed together, consequently warding off the direct light of the sun.  The low echoes and grumbling of forest life became more present as background noise with each inch inwards the group moved.  Steadily, the breath of the untamed woodlands cycled stronger; an ecosystem alive and surviving on its own.
Eventually, once they felt they had penetrated deeply enough, Fluttershy began to encourage her entourage to cautiously start searching.  "Okay," she said while nudging a chipmunk off with her nose, "spread out just a little bit and look for places your friends or family might have gone, but be very, very careful.  Don't get too far out.  Always be close enough that you can return to me or Twilight immediately if you need to or if we call for you."  Her flock of critters dispersed, flying, climbing, crawling as necessary to seek out those that were missing.  All except for the little orphan squirrel who stayed hidden in her mane.  The pegasus herself stretched her wings and took off, looking amongst the tree tops while also surveying the area from above and gently calling out for lost animals.
Twilight used her magic to part bushes and branches, looking for any clue or trail of the wayward critters.  There didn't seem to be a way to reliably track any recent movement through the area but they could look for temporary homes the fleeing animals might have made.  Any friendly local animals they find could also be interrogated by Fluttershy.  The pulsing undercurrent of the forest life got her thinking.  Frightened as they might have been, the animals wouldn't have run too deeply into the forest.  They were well aware that things get more perilous the further in you plunge.  Perhaps the ponies should search in an arc heading back towards the forest edge, keeping themselves outside of the ruins.
Fluttershy's face peeked through a heavy wall of leaves as she whispered an apology for any intrusion she was making to whomever might dwell in that tree, but it was empty.  She nervously called out to get the attention of any animal, lost or otherwise.  When there was no answer, she withdrew from that tree and peered about tentatively, noticing Twilight's own careful search.  To try and ease some of her tattered nerves, she started talking to her friend while gliding over to the next tree to check.  "So... Rainbow Dash didn't seem to like James very much."
The simple mention of the topic rapidly redirected all of Twilight thoughts.  She shifted her attention ungracefully and responded spasmodically, "What?  What makes you say that?  She's just... being..."  Her brain tore through pages of suddenly disorganized vocabulary in a desperate search for an appropriate word.  "Obstinate?" she finished, vaguely unsure.
"Oh... I... uh..." Fluttershy stammered, unhappy that her efforts seemed like they were only adding to the tension of the situation.  She awkwardly fumbled to clarify herself politely, too shaky to attempt to back out of what she just started.  "I mean, she seems to think that... maybe he's... not very nice?" she clumsily delivered and then thrust her head into another tree to hide her discomfort.
"Rainbow Dash has barely talked to him at all!" Twilight rationalized.  "She doesn't really know him yet.  She's just forming a reactionary opinion from..." but her excusing broke down while she continued, "... what little she does know about him."  The only things the brash pony had to go off of were what she had seen with her own eyes (notably something that Fluttershy hadn't seen) and what few words Twilight had exchanged with her.  But were Twilight's words enough?  Maybe they didn't mean as much to the others as the hopeful unicorn had imagined they would.
The leaves fell back into place as Fluttershy pulled her head out and moved on to the next tree.  "Oh.  That sounds like Rainbow Dash," she said softly.  "That's good to hear, though.  To tell you the truth, I was a little bit worried about it," she admitted, "but if you've been able to talk with James a lot, then I guess you know more about him and..."
Although the words continued, they trailed off in Twilight's mind as she fretted over the current state of affairs.  Did she really know more about him?  Technically yes, they had squeezed a lot of details out of their limited conversations, but it hadn't even been two full days yet since his arrival at the library.  He had given her the impression of being calmer and more erudite than she initially imagined, but at the same time he still had to somehow be that person she, and Rainbow Dash, had originally seen.  The person who took and wielded the knife.  All of the talking with him had established a line of reasoning that, horrible as it may be, was at least self-consistent in explaining everything.  But each new event was showing that it was never revealed to her who he truly was.  She was wishy-washy over Pinkie Pie's party because she didn't know how he would take it.  She had many unpredictable surprises in her friends' meetings with him.  And even more recently his words and actions have caught her completely off guard.  He had gotten angry and she didn't clearly understand why.  Maybe worse, she turned around and countered it forcefully, almost on an instinct.  The holes that seemed to exist in her knowledge made all the prospects scary.  Did she really know where this was heading as well as she thought she did?  Her head was full of ideas and plans that she had thought were moving along steadily but now it was more like running an obstacle course blindfolded, scrambling to hurriedly correct mistakes and change directions in ever shifting conditions.  What was Princess Celestia thinking, sending him here to her?
The voice of her friend faded back in.  "... and I hope that once this is all over, that party which Pinkie Pie has planned will help clear everything up," Fluttershy concluded optimistically.  Confidence was emerging in her now that she felt more relieved from their conversation and she steadily continued her search of the trees.
"Sure... the party," Twilight mumbled.  She moved to return to her own search, talking to herself.  "Everything will be fine.  You'll see.  We'll get back to the cottage after this and everything there will be fine."





The impact with the ground was hard and heavy as James landed right on his chest, his outstretched hands just barely missing out on grasping the legs of a running ferret as he fell.  Spike made his own jump and landed on James' back, immediately bouncing off him afterwards.  The dragon dove towards the weaselly critter and managed to wrap his fingers around one leg as he slammed into the ground.  He secured his hold as tight as he could and jumped to his feet, digging his heels into the dirt.  "Got you now!" Spike announced triumphantly.
It wasn't much of a victory however, as the ferret just took off again on his remaining limbs with enough sudden power to fling Spike forwards, face-planting into the soil.  The ferret ran erratically, thrashing about to loosen his captor's grip as he dragged the poor dragon along behind him.  At last, Spike could hold on no more and lost his hold on the leg, rolling to the side with the momentum he had leftover.  Free again, the ferret broke for the rabbit pen and climbed to the top of the fencing, bounding over towards the gate.  James was just getting up and shaking some of the dirt off when he saw the escaped animal fasten himself to the top of the gate and reach down for the latch, undoing it.  With a push against the stable portion of the fence, the sneaky rat rode the gate open.
"Oh, come on," James complained as all of the contained rabbits bolted.  He could have swore he heard the ferret chuckling at his own trickery.  Something out there was definitely laughing, anyway.