//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Camp Equestria // by mojomcm //------------------------------// Twilight stood up as she looked out on the camp around her. She could see dozens of campers, and every single one seemed to have a brightly colored hair-do that was a rare sight in the “outside world”. Twilight fingered a strand of her own purple-pink “mane” as she walked towards the closest camper. This just so happened to be a hyper child the same age as Twilight, with frizzy pink pigtails that bounced around as their owner did. “Excuse me,” Twilight tapped the girl on the shoulder, which was her first mistake. The bouncy pink-haired girl jumped literally three feet in the air before spinning around and gasping the gasp of all gasps. “Ohmygoshomigoshomeigosh! Are you new here? I mean, of course you’re new! I know everybody in Ponyville and everybody in Ponyville knows me! So you’ve got to be new, because I don’t know you yet! But I will. I always do! So, are you new?!” Twilight’s eyes went wide. The pink-haired girl never seemed to shut up! “My name’s Pinkie Pie, which is short for Pinkemena Diane Pie, but nobody calls me that, except for my parents, and only when I’m in trouble.” Pinkie grabbed Twilight’s hand and shook it rapidly at the same speed at which she spoke. “What’s your name? Can I guess? I love guessing games! I’m the grand champion of all of Ponyville when it comes to guessing games. Is your name Violet? How about Midnight? No, you seem more like a dusk-y type of person to me. Is that your name? Dusk? Hmmm?” “N-no,” Twilight said, with her arm still jerking up and down, even though Pinkie had let go. “M-my name’s Twilight Sparkle. Yes, I am new, although I can’t stay.” With that, Pinkie seemed to deflate a little. “But if you don’t stay, how can I throw you the extra-special-super-duper-welcome-to-Ponyville party that I had planned?” “When did you plan a party?” Twilight asked. “Just now!” Twilight rolled her eyes at Pinkie’s antics. “Do you know which cabin you’re staying in? If not, I can help you find out!” Twilight pondered this for a second. She really wanted to find out if her brother was alright. Perhaps he had found some way to escape the hydra and had walked to camp along a different route. She could easily find out at the same place that Pinkie wanted to drag her to. “Sure! I mean, no, I don’t know which cabin I’m in,” Twilight sighed. “Can you help me?” “Okey dokey lokey!” Pinkie skipped towards the center of the closest group of buildings. “How long have you known about Camp Equestria?” Twilight walked behind Pinkie as she thought about the question, “My brother came here when he was younger, but he would never tell me anything about it. Come to think of it, he always said that I would ‘just have to wait and see’.” Pinkie nodded, “Camp Equestria isn’t actually supposed to exist in this world, nor any of its campers. It’s because we have something the rest of the world wants, but can’t have. They’re downright jealous!” “And that is?” “Magic!” Pinkie grinned at Twilight, who stared at her in disbelief. “That isn’t possible.” Twilight frowned. “Magic doesn’t exist. Magic is only a term for anything we don’t understand.” “Does too exist.” “Does not.” Pinkie giggled, “Then how do you explain Shining Armor’s shimmering pink shield that he conjured up to block the hydra?” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Bu-bu-but how?! How did you know about that?!” “Uh, duh!” Pinkie grinned as she began to skip off, causing Twilight to follow. “I read the last chapter, silly.” “Huh?” Pinkie didn’t reply immediately; instead, she stopped suddenly. She was grinning from ear to ear as she hurriedly ran to a rainbow-haired girl who was standing at an apple cart. “Dash!” Pinkie hugged the girl and began to talk at a million miles an hour. “I’m so glad to see you! I can’t hardly believe you’re back from Cloudsdale already!” Rainbow Dash, for that was the girl’s name smiled. “Hey, Pinkie. How’s it hangin’ here in Ponyville?” “Great! I met a new camper!” “Oh?” Rainbow looked up at Twilight, who had just walked up. “So you’re the newbie? Can’t say you’re a very exciting kid, unless…” She leaned up to Twilight. “Have you got wings?” “Wings? No, I can’t say that I do.” “Bummer.” Rainbow sighed. “I was hoping for a few new skyborn campers, but all that seems to come in are dirtborn and magicborn.” “Rainbow!” The blond girl who sat at the apple cart scolded. “Et’s earthborn, and both Pinkie and Ah are plenty happy with our feet on the ground and not somewhere up in the clouds.” “Actually, I do sometimes wonder what cloud-walking feels like.” Rainbow chuckled, “Sorry, Applejack. It’s just, wings make anything about twenty percent cooler!” Applejack rolled her eyes. “Ten bits say yer wrong, RD.” “Oh, yeah?” Rainbow taunted, a wide grin spreading across her face. “How about it, AJ” “Yer on!” Applejack smirked. Rainbow spread her wings, bright cyan feathers settled into place before she shot into the sky. Her last words were “Race ya!” “Woo ho!” Pinkie cheered while Twilight simply stared open-mouthed at the speedy skyborn. “What was that?” Twilight muttered once she was able to spit out a coherent sentence. “That?” Pinkie grinned. “That was Rainbow Dash! She’s, like, the fastest flier in all of camp!” Twilight shook her head, “People can’t fly! This doesn’t make any sense!” “Of course it does, silly! You just don’t know how it does yet.” Pinkie then pulled down a projector screen with a map of Camp Equestria on it. “There are three ‘tribes’ of people. Four if you count the normal, non-magical people. I won’t. The three tribes are the skyborn, the earthborn, and the magicborn. Applejack and I are both earthborn. We carry our magic in our feet, and it helps us grow things like plants. Rainbow Dash is a skyborn, which are people with wings. They can also walk on clouds and control the weather. Magicborn people can harness all kinds of magic in spells and such. Levitation and teleportation are two spells I know of. “There are also three sections of cabins: Ponyville, Canterlot, and Cloudsdale. The Skyborn live in Cloudsdale, the magicborn in Canterlot, and the earthborn in Ponyville, which is here. “Any questions?” Twilight slowly raised her hand. “Just one. Where on earth did you get that map?”