//------------------------------// // Chapter eight: howl of the forest // Story: The Equestrian Venture // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// THE EQUESTRIAN VENTURE Chapter eight: howl of the forest Written by TheCrimsonDM Rita woke up the next morning with Fluttershy’s legs still wrapped tightly around her. It was a little awkward and she couldn’t help but lay there arguing with herself about crawling out of bed, or staying here for a few more minutes. After all she didn’t’ want to wake up Fluttershy. After a while she decided it better to simply lie in bed and enjoy Fluttershy’s company, Rita really just needed to be cuddled sometimes. Rita was still a girl after all and that meant that crying and hugs were a part of life for her. Sometimes she just needed a good cry to flush all those pent up emotions out of her system. While cuddling next to Fluttershy she began to notice just how warm pony fur really was. It was almost like being wrapped up in a nice warm blanket fresh from the dryer. It was Rita’s firm belief that he simple things in life were truly worth cherishing. After about an hour Rita got the call of nature, and although she had tried fighting the urge for a while she finally gave up and moved out of Fluttershy’s embrace. To her surprise Fluttershy didn’t’ wake up after Rita moved out of bed, instead Fluttershy simply nickered happily. Rita couldn’t resist petting Fluttershy’s mane once before leaving the room. After having taken care of her morning procedures Rita walked down stairs and into the kitchen. She was hungry and needed some coffee to wake up with. To her surprise however she didn’t see any signs of the little white rabbit and his devilish little stare. With no pony to bother her, nor rabbit, Rita was able to start the coffee pot on the stove and fix herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in complete peace and quiet. She sat at the kitchen table and stared outside the kitchen window. Rita had missed this kind of quiet. It was clear that she was going to be stuck here for awhile, a few months maybe even longer. Heck at this point Rita didn’t know if she even could return home, or if she even wanted to. Her world was full of nothing but pain and loneliness for her, but this world was full of friends and happiness. She couldn’t stop thinking about the massive difference between the two worlds. That being said she still wanted to be with her own kind, and to meet up with Princess Estella again. Rita was going to need to find the right components in order to return home though. Several types of rare gems were required not to mention she would need to rebuild the portal’s frame from scratch. It was going to be a long endeavor. It had taken her nearly two years to complete the portal the first time around , there was no reason it should be any faster to build a second time. So Rita was going to have to settle in for the long haul. Rita remembered that she was going to start taking Equish lesions, hopefully she would learn to speak and read their language quickly. She hated being so dependent on this heart shaped magical necklace, the darn thing was so tight it was more like a dog collar. She was also having fun meeting up with Granny Smith and hearing all of her wonderful stories. Finally Rita was meeting up with Rarity pretty actively, Rarity kept doing measurements on Rita for some reason. It was a little awkward. That had been her recent schedule, or at least until today. The coffee pot began to hiss distracting her from her thoughts. Rita got up and poured herself a cup of black coffee. She sat back down at the table and after pouring some cream into her coffee she began adding a large amount of sugar. Rita grinned at her cup of sugary coffee and took a drink. After a moment Rita spat the coffee out on the floor with a sour expression. The coffee had tasted sour, and bitter and was absolutely disgusting. Rita investigated the cream first to find out if it had gone bad, but it was still fresh and tasted wonderful. She then looked questionably at the bowl of sugar sitting in front of her. Rita licked her finger and sampled the sugar that sat before her. This was not sugar, it was salt. That’s when Rita noticed that Angle Bunny the devil rabbit had been hiding around the corner and was snickering at her. Rita gave him an angry stare before turning away and proceeding to look for the sugar. It took her nearly ten minutes but she finally found where the real sugar had been hidden inside the cabinet and then she remade her coffee. This time she made real coffee and was able to enjoy it. Hopefully her hiking trip with Pinkie Pie would fare better than her dealings with Angel Bunny. *** Pinkie Pie arrived to meet Rita right on time early in the morning, and today was a special day for her. Rita had managed to recruit Pinkie Pie for a hiking expedition into the Everfree forest. After hearing about all the monsters, strange plants, and the ancient castle to loot-er repurpose, she knew it would be the prime location for some gem hunting. Rita wasn’t willing to go there alone though and so she had asked Pinkie Pie to join her. The Everfree forest was much closer to Ponyville and Fluttershy’s cottage then she had expected. For all the horror stories she kept hearing from Fluttershy about it, she found it unnerving just how close it really was. Together they walked ever deeper into the woods. There weren’t any roads or paths inside the woods, and with all the dense forest Rita found climbing to be a valuable skill. Pinkie Pie didn’t seem to be having much of an issue with the woods, she continued to simply avoid the branches and rocks and other things. After awhile Rita decided to fallow in Pinkie’s shadow and found it much more hospitable there. Rita began noticing some of the strange flowers growing from the trees to her left, they were orange and luminescent. Rita really wanted to grab one, but there was no telling if it was poisonous or not. With a sudden jolt of force Rita bumped into Pinkie Pie and fell back landing on her butt. As Rita stood up rubbing at her sore butt she muttered to herself, “Why is it always the butt.” Pinkie Pie was standing completely still, she was staring at a patch of blue flowers just ahead of them. They looked kinda pretty in Rita’s opinion but the fact they had caused Pinkie Pie to stop walking worried her. Rita decided to ask, “So…what are those?” Pinkie Pie looked back at her with a smile and explained. “Oh that’s Poison Joke, if you touch it you will be cursed. Me and my friends all got cursed by it once, it was silly. You might even become a pony if you get touched by it.” Rita looked skeptically at Pinkie Pie for a moment, but she decided it was best to take her warning to heart. Rita crossed her arms and said. “Bah, there’s no way I’d ever become a pony.” Pinkie Pie gave Rita an odd little smile before saying. “You wanted to see the old castle right. We should probably get a move on. We can’t stand around here all day. Well actually we can but it wouldn’t be very much fun.” Rita agreed with Pinkie Pie and then the two of them headed off towards the old castle. They continued walking for a while in quiet peace. The trees became more dense, and twisted. Strange plants were growing more frequently as they pressed deeper into the woods. And sounds of branches creaking became more common. Eventually Pinkie Pie stopped moving and Rita stopped along with her. Pinkie Pie’s tail began to shake a violently which looked very odd to Rita, and with a sudden jolt of force the pink pony jumped back and pushed Rita away. Just as Rita landed on her butt again a few feet away from Pinkie Pie a large wolf landed in between the two of them. This wolf was made of branches wound together, and had glowing green eyes. Its teeth were actually sharpened stakes of wood, similar to its claws. They looked very sharp. It looked at Pinkie Pie and then at Rita as it stood in between them. It gave out a low growl as it rested its view on Rita. Rita gulped as it snarled, the wood that made up its mouth shifted back to reveal just how many teeth it had. Pinkie Pie turned and gave the wooden construct a hard apple bucking to the rear. The wolf went flying over Rita’s head and slammed into a tree behind her. It landed in a pile of crumpled wood. Rita quickly got up and Pinkie Pie looked at her with a serious expression. Pinkie Pie then said, “We have to run, Timberwolves like to regenerate.” With that the two of them ran as fast as they could away from the Timber Wolf. Rita was quickly falling behind Pinkie Pie humans were simply not as fast as horses. Rita lost track of Pinkie Pie in the forest pretty quickly, but she could hear the Timberwolf somewhere behind her. Rita looked down at her gauntlet, the one holding the Lapis Lazuli gem inside it. She hadn’t used it yet, and wondered if she could use it in combat. She didn’t have any clue as to what it would do though. Rita nearly tripped on a branch as she ran, trying to chase after where Pinkie Pie had gone. Rita was terrified with the wolf behind her and no sure way to fight back. Suddenly she saw Pinkie Pie running at a much slower pace in front of her, Rita caught up quickly enough now. “Get on my back, I’ll get you to safety,” Pinkie Pie offered. Rita jumped on Pinkie’s back awkwardly and wrapped her arms tightly around Pinkie’s neck. Pinkie Pie took off in a gallop just in time as Rita saw the timberwolf catch up to them. Pinkie Pie was moving faster than the timberwolf and pretty soon the two of them were quite a bit ahead of it. But Rita knew it would only fallow there scent and get them when their defenses were down. Rita would have to deal with it quickly or else an entire pack may be on them soon. That was assuming that timberwolves acted anything like normal wolves. So Rita began to formulate a plan of action. Rita explained to Pinkie Pie. “I need you to not jump or bounce or anything too jolting for a moment. I’m going to jump off your back and into a tree.” Pinkie Pie sounded both excited and scared as she asked, “Are you sure?” Rita replied without a second’s hesitation, “Yes.” Rita stood up very carefully on the still galloping Pinkie Pie’s back. This was a crazy plan, and had an extreme chance of failure. Rita looked ahead of them and saw a branch she could easily make. Rita shouted to Pinkie Pie. “You will need to double back here to pick me up if you can. So don’t get yourself hurt.” Rita jumped into the air and onto a tree branch hanging about eight feet from the ground. Rita quickly pulled herself up onto the branch and pressed her weight against the side of the tree. She aimed the palm of her gauntlet down at the ground bellow where she suspected the timberwolf was going to appear. Pinkie Pie was gone from her sight in seconds and for a brief moment Rita was frightfully alone. The timberwolf came running out from the forest still chasing Pinkie Pie, but it didn’t suspect the human girl to be waiting for it. Rita focused her magic into the gauntlet and a sweeping veil of blue light enveloped the timberwolf as it ran passed her. The timberwolf continued running through the light and disappeared from her sight. The blue light disappeared after a second and Rita looked at the gauntlet with dissatisfaction. The gauntlet didn’t do anything more then make a shiny light appear on the wolf. After messing around with the gauntlet to find the problem Rita accidently created another blue light. This one was smaller about the size of her hand and took the on a three dimensional shape. It looked just like the timberwolf. Rita realized exactly what she was looking at and why she didn’t remember what Lapis Lazuli gems did. Rita was holding a hand scanner, useful for creating tracking devices, medical machines, and illusions. Unfortunately this was support gem, and Rita was not used to these, she preferred to use combat gems. Rita sat there for a few moments wondering what she could do while examining the small blue illusion of a timberwolf in her palm. She noticed something odd about its chest, or rather what looked to be inside of its chest. There was an green globe inside of it, and Rita stared for a few moments before coming to the conclusion that this was its heart. Kill the heart, kill the beast. Rita decided that she was going to deal with the beast on Pinkie’s return, and she now knew she was going to need to do this the old fashioned way. She stood up on the branch she was on very carefully and regretted the loss of her hunting knives. Looking around she did find a suitable weapon for the job. A nice looking branch, thick enough to use as a club, small enough to break off easily, and long enough to have some good reach. After breaking the branch off the tree she began to hear the sound of hooves clopping against hard packed earth, it was coming towards her tree. Pinkie Pie was coming, but she had slowed down by sound of it. This was not a good sign. Rita saw Pinkie Pie running towards her at a slower rate than before with the timberwolf right at her heels, or hooves, fetlocks maybe? Either way Pinkie Pie looked tired and Rita was going to need to do something about this situation. Just as Pinkie Pie passed underneath the branch Rita was standing on, Rita jumped off of the branch with the stick being swung in a downward arc. The stick collided with the timberwolf’s head with enough force to knock it completely flat onto the ground. With cold emotions Rita stood up and began to strike the wolf repeatedly in the head sending slivers of wood to come splintering off in different directions. When it finally stopped moving she kicked the body over onto its back and began smashing chest cavity in with the intent on getting to the heart. After a few moments of repeatedly smashing it Rita was able to see the green glow coming from its still beating heart. Rita turned the stick around to its sharp edge where it had once been attached to the tree, and stabbed the stick through its heart. The beast let out a whimper and retained its form for a few seconds before it exploded into a burning pile of wood. Rita watched as the body burned and within seconds turned into ash. Something was shining from the ash though catching her attention. Rita bent down and picked it up, and to her excitement found two gems, one was a cracked green stone. This stone was unfamiliar to Rita. The other was much more valuable of a prize, a sunstone. With deft ease Rita uncoiled the lapis Lazuli gem from her gauntlet and replaced it with the sunstone. And with a wave of her hand Rita said aloud. “And then I said let there be light.” Her hand caught a flame with magical fire and Rita shaped it into a small ball of fire. She marveled at the ball of fire for a while until she heard a faint voice ask. “What…how are you?” Rita lost her focus and the fireball vanished from her hand as she looked over and saw an exhausted and scared looking Pinkie Pie. Rita looked down at the pile of ash before her and then back at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie looked a little fearful as she said, “You killed it…you killed the timberwolf.” Rita quickly grabbed the green gem and pocketed it for later research. Rita then stood and said as calmly as she could. “It was going to kill us Pinkie Pie, I saved our lives.” Pinkie Pie looked frightened but nodded as she understood the danger it had posed towards them. Rita then closed her eyes and begged in a soft voice. “Please don’t tell anypony about this, especially Fluttershy.” Pinkie Pie walked up to Rita and nuzzled her side while saying. “But why…you’re a hero, you saved me.” Rita pushed Pinkie Pie’s head away gently and said. “Because I don’t want her to be scared of me…do you understand?” Pinkie Pie looked up at Rita with her blue eyes and agreed. “Yeah…I understand. I Pinkie Pie promise that I won’t tell anypony about this. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Rita wasn’t sure what all of that meant, but she appreciated the promise. She gave Pinkie Pie a hug before saying. “Why don’t we head to that castle now, unless you need to rest?” Pinkie Pie nuzzled into Rita’s shoulder and said. “I’m okay now, that wolf scared me that’s all. Let’s go to the castle, it will be tons of fun.” The two of them began walking towards the castle when they heard a bone chilling howl in the distance. The two of them stood frozen for a few moments listening very carefully. Another howl sounded off from behind them, and then another. There was indeed a pack of timberwolves and in Rita’s mind they sounded angry. Both Rita and Pinkie Pie began moving as quickly and as quietly as they could towards the castle ruins.