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// Fight and Flight 
// Story: A Camping We Will Go 
// by Trinary 
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A/N: I decided to edit the last chapter, so now the end of the last chapter is the start of this one. Sorry to make you all have to re-read it.
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A FEW MINUTES EARLIER…
For a pony most reckoned to be slow, Snails was surprisingly a bit of a morning pony. For Snails he’d be delighted if he woke up at six every morning just to watch the sun rise, the town start to awake and best of all, for him to be left alone with plenty of time for the thoughts that occupied his mind.
Even though he had only been asleep for a few hours, he felt bright and refreshed enough to get up. There was no tiredness in his limbs and his mind felt clear. He turned his head to see Pip still curled up in his sleeping bag, looking as if the after-effects of Rainbow Dash’s story were continuing to be felt.
Cautiously, Snails unzipped the tent flap and walked outside. He didn’t move to do anything in particular, to sit or stand or even to walk around. But then, Snails wasn’t a pony who ever did much. He wasn’t an athletic pony—he still tended to trip over his rather gangly legs from time to time—nor was he much of an academic. Just getting started on his homework was a chore in and of itself, usually necessitating much prodding by his parents or Cheerilee or Snips.
Despite this, Snails spent most of his time doing something that other ponies didn’t believe him capable of: thinking. He thought all the time about big things and small things and all the stuff that didn’t quite make sense to him. Being young, this tended to include many things. So when he thought he would end up staring into space. Not, (as other ponies assumed) because he didn’t have a thought in his head, but because he simply had too many. 
Usually, to rose himself from his self-induced stupor, Snips would have to come along and get him interested in something to do, like that traveling show mare some months back.
[He thought back to Snips, beginning his philosophical questioning and self answering. Ever since he was on this trip, he slowly realized that he was on his own. Snips wasn't there to propel him into action. He had to do more than just thinking, and he was too slow to act on them, leaving him behind on many of the ordeals that went around him. 
The whole flowers and poison ivy ordeal had still been a blur to him, and it had already been resolved the previous day. Rifts were mended and the foals were back on the right track, even their counselors had been feeling more at ease. Which was good. Snails didn't want Rainbow Dash being upset with something she couldn't handle by being awesome. 
His thoughts soon derailed onto the pegasus. He idolized her, because ponies idolized her. She was the kind of hero ponies wanted to be, and wanted to befriend. Like the rainbows she wore, she was the hope of light after rainy storms, and she definitely knew how to make ponies happier. He hadn't thought that it would work on any pony, but after the joyride she gave Silver Spoon, all doubt had been erased from his mind.]
Enjoying the cold, crisp nighttime air, Snails looked up at the moon. It looked so big and bright…he wondered if Princess Luna moved it or if Princess Celestia still did it. What was it like to move the moon? Could you raise it too high or low? Could they drop it? Snails thought about asking if they could lower the moon so he could try walking on it. It looked like it would be fun.
A stray wisp of cloud moved in front of moon, probably some bit of cloud that the weather pegasi had missed. Snails thought that if Rainbow Dash was still in town, then that wouldn’t have been allowed to happen. Still, it had happened and he decided to try to move around to see if he could observe the moon from another angle. Soon he was walking into the woods around the camp, his eyes trained on the sky.
The sound of a twig snapping brought his attention dirt side as he saw himself staring at Rainbow Dash as she stood in the middle of a small clearing, illuminated (if only just) by the partially blocked moon. Rainbow Dash looked as radiant as she always did in Snails’ mind, but the bright smile and red cheeks were a new addition.
The cause was hard to miss as Big Macintosh rubbed his head against hers and flicked her side with his short tail.
Snails blinked several times, attempting to process the image before him. They were standing far too close to each other to be just friends. In fact, they looked like his mother and father did when they were feeling happy. He had woken up one morning early and walked in on his parents in a similar position, and when he brought it up, his father replied that it was natural for ponies in love. 
These facts slowly added up into Snails mind and soon settled on the only plausible, irrefutable answer. 
“Big Macintosh and Rainbow Dash are...married?” he thought. For a pony prone to thinking so many things at once that it often seemed like he was thinking of nothing, his brain suddenly refused to budge from the image before him and the conclusion it had drawn.
Rainbow Dash and Big Macintosh. Big Macintosh and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash and…
Snails didn’t even realize when he started running, much less where he was going. He just knew he had to get away from there and the single loud thought that threatened to overwhelm his brain. Rainbow Dash didn’t love him. She probably barely knew he existed. She loved Big Macintosh. Of course she did. Big Macintosh was big and strong and brave…he was everything that Snails wasn’t.
A strangled sob wrenched its way out of his throat. Snails knew that he wasn’t fast, that he took a long time to think of stuff and that it was really hard for him…no wonder no pony at school liked him, except for Snips but Snails didn’t think that was the same thing.
He’d heard of the expression a “broken heart” but never really understood it until now. There was the sharp ache in his chest that seemed to pierce clear through him. For a moment Snails wondered if the expression was literal, if his heart really was broken and if he was going to die now. He sure felt like he was about to.
Unable to go back to camp, Snails looked for the first sign of shelter nearby. Spying a cave through his teary eyes, he ran inside and collapsed against the wall, still crying. It wasn’t until his sobs started to lessen that he heard a low rumbling noise. Snails looked at his stomach. He was hungry, but it wasn’t rumbling. The noise sounded vaguely familiar but he wasn’t sure where he had heard a noise like that before. It wasn’t until he looked up and saw a pair of blazing yellow eyes looking at him hovering above a jaw full of glistening white teeth that he figured out what that noise reminded him of.
There was an angry growl followed by a roar. With a startled yell, Snails turned tail and started to run away. A sudden crashing noise behind him confirmed that he was being followed.
&	&	&	
A quartet of tired fillies slowly made their way back to camp, determined to actually spend some part of the night asleep. The fun and glee of watching Rainbow Dash and Big Macintosh being in love was somewhat offset by knowing that Snails had his heart broken in front of him.
Dinky bit her lip as she walked past the campfire. When she thought Pip didn’t like her was the worst thing ever, so she knew what Snails was probably feeling. She poked her head inside the boy’s tent. Pip was still curled up, fast asleep. Snails was nowhere to be seen. “Dinky?” Turning around, Dinky saw Sweetie Belle poking her own head in. “What are you doing?”
“Shh!” She whispered to her. “Pip’s still sleeping!”
“Oh, sorry!” Sweetie winced. She lowered her voice. “But what are you doing?”
“I wanted to see if Snails had come back.” Dinky answered. “Where’s Silver Spoon and Archer?”
Sweetie Belle shrugged. “I’m not sure…I think they were bringing a pot of water or something to Rainbow Dash’s tent.”
“…Oh.” Dinky shrugged. She looked back to Pip.
Sweetie couldn’t help smiling. “You really like him, don’t you?” She giggled. Dinky blushed.
“Well, yeah.” Her tail swished. “I mean, he’s just so…so…” At that moment Pipsqueak let out a tiny yawn and rolled over in his sleep. Dinky let out a Fluttershy-like squee.
Giggling, Sweetie Belle nudged her. “Times like I almost wish I still had my ‘Gabby Gums’ column.” She teased Dinky, seeing her face light up even in the pitch black.
“You wouldn’t dare--!” Dinky couldn’t help giggling as she shoved Sweetie playfully. Then a sudden booming noise interrupted them. Then they heard it again. And then again.
Dinky and Sweetie Belle exchanged a horrified look as they felt the ground reverberating underneath the hooves. It was a rhythmic pounding that seemed to beat in rhythm with their hearts. All of a sudden a panicked familiar sounding shout filled the air.
“That’s Snails!” Sweetie Belle said as the gangly colt ran into view, eyes wide with panic and sweat dripping from his coat. His chest heaved as though his head was trying to outpace his legs. Behind came a…great furry bowling ball?
Well, given its large rolling gait, Sweetie can be forgiven for thinking that. But it wasn’t when it drew itself up to its full height that she recognized it for what it was: an enormous, angry grizzly bear.
Sweetie shrieked in terror.
The bear roared; foam flecked spittle spraying from its maw. The foals didn’t know it, but Snails had disturbed a mother bear while she was with her cub. And no matter how friendly to ponies some of the wildlife was, there was no bear mom in the history of the world that would ever tolerate a stranger getting close to her cub.
Sweetie Belle was frozen in place, screaming. She felt Dinky tugging on her hoof but was unable to move until a panicked Snails plowed into her and Dinky, the three of them rolling away in ball. Pip poked his head out of this tent, blinking away sleep.
“Whut’s going on?” He said around a yawn, just before a massive bear paw crashed through his tent. “Whoa!” The tiny pinto’s eyes widened as the bear loomed over him, claws outstretched and fangs bared.
“PIP!” Dinky screamed.
Suddenly, a bolt of blue crashed into the bear’s chest, knocking it on its back. The bear bellowed angrily and swatted at the pegasus hovering over her. “R-rainbow Dash?” Pipsqueak’s jaw dropped, still not sure what was going on. He mentally resolved to stop eating so many marshmallows before bed.
“Move your rump!” Rainbow yelled at him as a claw came within an inch of tearing her leg off. “NOW!”
Nodding numbly, Pip gulped and ran to where the other little ponies were; hiding behind a nearby tree. No sooner had Pip joined Sweetie Belle, Dinky, Snails, Archer and Silver Spoon when Big Macintosh came charging out of the woods. “Into the forest, go!” He barked at them as he ducked his head and plowed right on into the bear’s stomach just as it had gotten back up.
“Nice slam!” Rainbow Dash called, the bear grunting and snarling as it fought to get back to its paws.
“That goes for you too Dash!” Macintosh spared her a quick look. “Take the foals and run!”
“What?! Run and you leave here to fight a giant bear on your own?! No way!”
“Ah can take care of mahself. They can’t!” He grunted as he reared up on his hind legs and smacked them down into the bear’s gut.
Rainbow did a tight Immelman’s turn and bucked the angry bear with her hind legs. “Yeah right! You go! I can handle this.” She ducked down, avoiding an angry swipe that nearly took her tail off. “After manticores, dragons and Discord this bear is only rating a three out of ten on the menacing chart: A weak three!” A daredevil grin crossed her muzzle as she impishly stuck out her tongue at the raging bear and easily darting aside an angry claw swiped through the spot Dash had just occupied. “This bear won’t be a problem for me!” She sounded cocky as she introduced her hoof to the bear’s chest but her words rang somewhat hollow when the angry beast just seemed to shrug them off.
“Don’t be a foal!” Macintosh snorted as he reared again, forcing the bear to step back for fear of being hit by his massive hooves. “You cain’t handle this alone!”
“Oh and you can?!” Rainbow shouted. “I’m not leaving you!”
“Well I ain’t about to leave you!” Mac shouted back.
The bear, not wanting to be left out, shouted angrily as well.
In the darkened woods of Whitetail, the foals ran through the trees in a panicked abandon. Their clopping hooves and panting breaths were deadened by the sounding of their own thudding hearts. They ran without looking back, afraid to see or hear the bear coming after them—or worse, to confirm their worst fears about what was happening to Big Macintosh and Rainbow Dash.
Your average foal’s worst fears usually revolved around the dark. Bogeyponies, monsters under the bed, ghosts and other things that went bump in the night. But as a clever pony once said “You'll see that they can't hurt you, just laugh to make them disappear!”
But now that a real, actual, roaring, clawing giant beast in the dark had arrived more frightful in its realness than all the make-believe fantasies in the minds of foals, all sense had deserted them. Six little ponies ran without thought, without plan and without a clue of where they were going.
Too afraid to look back, they didn’t even notice when their paths started to separate and the children began to get separated from one another. The space between them seemed to widen with every step. It wasn’t long until the others started to pass completely out of sight.
Pipsqueak was the first to notice by virtue of his short legs making it harder for him to keep up. “Wait!” He called. “Don’t leave! Snails! Sweetie Belle? DINKY!”
It was Pip’s scared yell that cut through Dinky’s own terror. She stopped short, her tiny hooves furrowing in the dirt as she skidded to a sudden stop. “Pip?” She turned around and saw her friend huffing and puffing as he kept putting one tired, shaky hoof in front of the other. “Pip!” She shouted, running back.
“D-dinky?” Pipsqueak panted. She reached him and immediately hugged him and started crying.
“I’m sorry!” She cried suddenly, crushing him against her. “I was so scared, I didn’t mean to leave you behind!”
“It’s okay—”
“No it isn’t!” Dinky sniffed. “There’s a giant bear that’s fighting Rainbow Dash and Big Macintosh and now we’re lost and alone in the woods and its dark and I’m never gonna see my mom again!”
Pip hugged her tightly as she sobbed. “It’ll be okay…we’ll get out safe, I promise!”
“R-really?” Dinky hiccupped.
Pipsqueak smiled. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” He said solemnly, reminding her of Rainbow Dash’s scary story. That won a giggle from the scared filly as she hugged Pip.
“Thanks Pip…”
Elsewhere, Big Mac led out a whinny of pain as he felt something sharp rake against his sides, scouring long scratches that immediately started welling with blood—practically unnoticeable in the dark and against his already red hide.
But the sound of Macintosh in pain was enough to make Rainbow Dash see red. She charged headfirst at the rampaging bear, only to be knocked with a backpawed slap that sent her reeling into her own tent.
Rainbow, wrapped up in the fallen folds of her own tent, squirmed and struggled to kick herself free. That’s when she noticed that somepony had left a pot full of water in her tent, which had remained undisturbed when she crashed through it. Choosing not to look a gift horse in the mouth, she grabbed it with both hooves and flew back over to the fight. “HEY!” The bear looked up at the source of the shout to see a wickedly smiling Rainbow Dash. She upended the pot of water over the bear’s head and then immediately slammed the pot down and bucked it with her hooves, resulting in a loud clanging noise that rattled the bear’s ears.
As the bear struggled to remove the warped metal pot of it head, Big Macintosh lowered his head, pawed at the ground and snorted, then charged throwing his shoulder into the bear’s gut. All the while, Rainbow Dash flew around and around and peppered the bear’s body with quick punches and jabs, speeding off before the bear could swat at her. Strength and Speed together: it was an amazing combination.
But not an invincible one, as Rainbow Dash found out to her cost. Once the bear managed to remove the mangled pot on its head, it was mad. Throwing its massive arms widely apart, she swung and struck Rainbow more through luck than skill (as Rainbow Dash would have put it). Rainbow let out a loud yelp as a massive furry paw struck her and she skidded, hitting the ground and skipping like a flat rock across the surface of a pond. She finally came to a stop when she crashed against the side of a tree.
Her pained cry had the same effect on Big Macintosh that the sound of the disturbed cub had on its mother. Big Macintosh bellowed angrily and put all of his strength into his hooves as he spun on his forelegs and bucked the bear hard, with all his strength.
An angry roar of defiance by the bear turned into a pained wheeze as the air was forcefully expelled from its lungs. Finally convinced that fighting these ponies was more trouble than it was worth, she turned and started limping back to her cave.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Big Mac ran back to where Rainbow Dash lay groaning; practically wrapped around the trunk of a large oak tree. “Rainbow! You all right?”
The cyan pegasus forced open one eye as she gave a grin that was more of a grimace. “W-who me? Never better.” She coughed. “Fluttershy hits harder…” Rainbow suddenly found herself enveloped in a tight embrace as Big Macintosh rubbed his head against hers.
“You stubborn, thick-skulled, mule-brained…! Next time I tell you to git, you better git your rainbow tail in gear and go, got that?!” He looked at her, his eyes warring between anger and fear, his voice thick with emotion.
Rainbow shook her head. “Not…happening. I don’t leave ponies hanging. You know that.” She coughed, hissing a bit. Coughing hurt. “Can’t do anything else.”
Mac’s shoulders heaved. “You better not be leaving me Rainbow…not when I just got you, you hear?”
“Geeze, have you been reading one of Rarity’s…hnrg…romances?” Rainbow Dash quirked an eyebrow, only to find that her aches and pains somehow now included her eyebrow. How was that even possible? “I’m not dying you dumb lunkhead. I’ve crashed into mountains and walked away. I’m fine!”
“…I knew that.” Mac said weakly.
“Of course you did.” Dash nodded patronizingly.
“…You ain’t ever gonna ever let me live that down, are you?”
Dash gave a small cherubic like grin that would’ve made just about any pony want to smack her. “Eenope.”
Anypony but Big Macintosh. “All right.” He ran his hoof through her forelock. “You really okay?”
“Duh! Like I said about a half-dozen times,” She gently nudged Big Mac away and started to sit up. “I’m f-ungh!!” She grimaced, clutching her side. Macintosh gently pried her hooves away and took a look. Even in the dark, he could see its discoloration.
“Looks like you gone bruised your ribs.” He concluded, gently testing her side for any signs of breakage. Rainbow Dash hissed and squirmed, but Mac was resolute. “Don’t look like you got anything broken.”
“Great.” She grunted. “Now let’s go get the kids before anything else happens.” Rainbow Dash moved to spread her wings out when Mac suddenly put his hooves over her wings, keeping them close to her body.
“Whoah there, nelly. You can’t go around flying with bruised ribs. Flapping those wings would just make it worse. You could end up breaking something, have a rib puncture a lung.” Macintosh felt his face pale just thinking about it. “You’re land-bound until we get back to Ponyville.”
Rainbow grumbled. “Ugh, fine. Whatever. Let’s just…” her eyes widened. “Wait a minute, what about YOUR injuries?” She frantically started feeling along Big Macintosh’s side until she felt her hooves dip in something wet. Mac winced. His coat on one side was matted and itchy with drying blood. “That tears it, first thing we’re gonna do is clean you up…”
“That kin wait until we find the foals.” Big Macintosh said stubbornly. “It ain’t that bad.”
Rainbow narrowed her eyes and none too gently jabbed him in the side. Macintosh’s face contorted as he raised a leg, trying to protect his wounded side. What was with fillies and doing that?
“Not that bad huh.” Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs. “You’re not going anywhere until we bandage you up.”
“Well, *ah* ain’t going nowhere until we bandage *you* up.” Big Macintosh retorted with a snort.
Rainbow Dash sat up and glowered at him, their foreheads pressing against one another in a competition of wills and strength. “Fine! Then I guess we’ll just BOTH have to bandage each other up!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
A pause.
“…Soooo, does this count as our first ‘couples’ fight or what?” Rainbow Dash asked sheepishly as they broke apart.
“Eeyup.” Big Mac said laconically, his face twitching. Soon they both couldn’t help collapsing into laughter which didn’t last that long as their aching sides reminded them of their pain. “C’mon,” he offered a hoof to help Rainbow Dash to her hooves. “Let’s try to make some bandages out of what’s left of our tents.”
“Right. Then we’ll look for the foals together.” She nodded. “After all, you and I taught them everything they know. They can take care of themselves for a little while, right?”
“Of course.” Big Macintosh nodded. Rainbow nodded back. Then they both set about tearing strips of bandages out of the tents with a sudden hurried effort.
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