//------------------------------//
// "Why does the plot elude me?!" 
// Story: SSAdventures: Spirit Awakening 
// by Spirit Shift 
//------------------------------//

        “Oh, thank the skies! Finally!” screamed Spirit as he eagerly hopped off the train. He quickly proceeded to stretch every part of his body, from his wings to his eyebrows. 

        Blazing Notes and Bionic Force trotted off of the train after him. “Dude, it’s just a train, calm down,” the former said.

        Spirit turned on him with an accusing hoof. “That thing is the Tirek!” His eyes tearing up, Spirit fell to the ground and started pounding it. “Why must you torture me like this?!” he sobbed.

        Bionic Force rolled his eyes and slapped his brother upside his head before stepping on top of it, forcing his face into the ground, “Shut up.”

        “Jeez, why does he hate trains so much?”

        Force took out a folded up device from his saddlebags. “It’s too confining for him.”

        Spirit jerked his head up, lifting Bionic Force into the air, “It’s a friggin coffin is what it is!”

        Stomping down, the small colt forced his brother’s face back into his face hole, “Shut up.”

        Blazing Notes began trying to stifle his chuckling, “Rubbish! Spirit doesn't even know the word fear!”
        
        “The word what?”

        “He’s not afraid, he just really doesn't like trains.”

        “Oh well, he’s gonna hate us in a few seconds then.”

        “Indeed.”

        “Why? What’s up?” Spirit mumbled from the ground.

        Force ignored him and continued to look at his device. Leaning back and fully sitting his haunches down on Spirit’s head, he unfolded it, projecting a full holographic image of Equestria, it slowly began to zoom in on their current location. “Nothing, stay down there for a few minutes.”

        Blazing Notes leaned over him and looked at the map. “So which way? There?”

        “No, not yet, closer this way.”

        “Skia? Sounds sexy.”

        “No, you idiot, below that.”

        “Oh, OH, alright. So, we have to take this one here to get there.”

        “Precisely.”
        
        “Gotcha.”

        Spirit groaned from his hole in the ground, “Can I get up now?”

        Blazing Notes looked around. “I think you should stay down there for now, mate.”

        “Aww c'mon!”

        Bionic Force hopped off his brother’s head. “Sure, you can get up if you want.”
        
        The result was instant, Spirit popped his head out of the dirt and took in a lung full of air. Once more he stretched but this time he actually took a look around. Everything seemed to look like a normal, town. There were rolls of buildings green grassy ground and random ponies going about their business. “So, where are we?” he wondered.

        Bionic Force handed the map to Spirit, “A town called Crossways, since its right below Canterlot, every train in Equestria comes through here at some point.”

Just like he said, the map indicated that the train station that they were standing at seemed to be copied in several different places in seven different edges of the city.

His brother came up next to him and pointed a few places out. “Theres one that goes to Ponyville, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, Canterlot, Manehatten, Trottingham and even Appleloosa.”

Blazing Notes tilted his head in confusion. “What about the Crystal Empire?”

Spirit and Force simply looked at him. “What’s that?” Spirit asked.

“You know, that new kingdom north of Canterlot?”

Force remained expressionless but Spirit looked extremely confused. “Never heard of it.” Force answered before turning back to the map. “Anyway, among others, those trains run through here at various times throughout the week.”

“NOPE!” Spirit instantly dropped the device and bolted into the sky. Stopping on a cloud he looked down “I am NOT gonna be stuck on one of those things again.” He yelled before flying off again.

The smaller colt picked up the device, inspected it for a few seconds, then stuffed it into his bag. 

“How long do you think it’ll take him to realize that we’re walking from here?” Notes chuckled.

“We have time. I’m gonna make a few preparations.”

“Like what.”

“Like none of your business.”

“Well I will go observe the local wildlife,”  he smiled, styling back his mane.

Force scoffed. “Good luck. Just don’t end up in jail this time.”

“Shut up, don’t be mad because you’re an antisocial wanker.”

“At least that’s the reason why I won’t be some stallions toy when I get sent to jail,” he replied, walking away.

Now alone, Blazing Notes trotted gleefully to town. With his head held high and a confident grin on his face, he was certain that no mare could resist his suave charms or his smooth accent.  

Once he reached a nice populated area, Notes activated his specialized tunnel vision skill, which eliminated everypony from his gaze except only the prettiest of mares. Turning his head, he took count of every mare in the immediate vicinity. “Hmm nice, nice, beautiful, ohh a redmane, ordinary, GORGEOUS! Immediately, he dropped the vision and dashed over to the supposedly gorgeous unicorn standing outside a nearby store.

She had a silky flowing pale pink mane with an even paler pink coat. She was tall, thin and had the build of a supermodel. On her well shaped flank lie three stylized lilies. She jumped slightly when the love struck pegasus appeared in front of her. 

“Hello,” he said as charmingly as he could, “might I say that YOU are absolutely beautifuUUGH--” Loverboy quickly found himself attacked by not one, but two black-coated earth pony stallions; both of whom burst out from the store’s windows. One had somehow pinned him to the ground without him noticing, and the other was holding his head in a choke hold. 

The mare gasped in shock. “Rough, Tough, not again, he wasn't attacking me! Let him go!”

One of the stallions looked up at her. “But Ms. Lis-”

“Now!” she ordered.

Reluctantly, both ponies released their hostage, who immediately began coughing and hacking. 

The mare gently leaned down and pat the colts back. “I’m very sorry, those two are a bit… excitable.”

Blazing Notes sucked in a large breath of air. “It’s… *COUGH* fine. *HEAVE*”

“My name is Fleur De Lis, these are my bodyguards; Rough Beatdown and Tough Beatdown,” she said, gesturing to the two stallions behind her. Notes managed to look at them and discovered that they were nearly as tall as Celestia… that is, if Celestia was built like a freaking tank. He also noticed that they were nearly identical to each other save for one small fact-. 

“Don’t look them in the eyes!” she warned when she noticed that he had begun examining them. Taking her word for it Notes averted his gaze.

Fleur let out a sigh of relief and helped the colt up. “Sorry, my boyfriend is really protective. Fancy just has to make sure that I’m safe when I leave Canterlot.”

So she has a boyfriend… challenge accepted! “Hello, like I was saying, My name is Blazing Notes. I wanted to tell you something, but first, quick question? Why, exactly, can’t I look into their eyes?”

“Oh they’re Blackjack bodyguards from the Deadtrot Islands, if you look them in the eye they have permission to break you,” she explained cheerfully. 

Blazing Notes, now thoroughly unnerved, backed away a few steps. “What!? Well why aren't they wearing sunglasses or something!? And what do you mean they have bloody permission!? Who gave them permission!?”

“They’re also ambassadors, and Celestia is aware of their condition but can’t do anything about it. So, in order to minimize casualties, they’re ordered to wear sunglasses or goggles when escorting me around. Unfortunately, they accidentally broke some time ago. In fact, they were just looking for some in this store here. Hopefully we can find some before somepony gets hurt.” 

Now he looked even more confused. “I have so many questions right now…”

One of the guards smiled a very disturbing smile; it was made even more disturbing by how jagged and sharp his teeth were, not to mention dirty. “We enjoy our job,” he said simply, as if that answered everything. Notes noticed that his accent, unlike his own, sounded extremely foreign.

Fleur turned to her guards. “Did you find any?”

This time the other guard gained an equally disturbing smile, though his was more of a smirk. “Fresh out,” he said, his accent and teeth identical to his brother’s.

Curious, the colt leaned over and examined the inside of the shop from the broken window that the two had come from. His eyes shrank as he took in the complete scene.

Inside contained literally nothing but broken objects, nothing. Everything had been broken in every possible way, including, but not limited to, every single pair of sunglasses and shades, the mirrors, the walls, the floorboards, the pictures on the wall, the carpets, the shopkeeper, the lollipops in the back, the register, and the business cards. Everything was broken in half. 

There were even a few broken bits sitting on the counter.

Blazing Notes calmly returned to his original spot, even though he was avoiding eye contact, he still noticed that the twins’ grins had grown some since he leaned over.

“Yup,” he squeaked, “fresh out.”

“Oh well. Let’s go somewhere else then. It was nice seeing you Blazing Notes, you know you could come back to Canterlot at some point.”

This shocked Notes out of his fear induced state. “W-what? You know who I am?”

“Well it’s hard to forget one of the three colts who blew up half of Canterlot,” she giggled. “You’ve become quite the good looking stallion by the way. Anyway, bye~,” she sung, trotting off past him.

“But I di--” Just as Notes was about to call back out to her, one of the guards shoved his face right into his. Luckily, his sharp reflexes allowed him close his eyes just in time. He heard the stallion suck his teeth in annoyance before lifting his face away. In front of him he heard the sound of wood breaking, and assumed that it was the previously unbroken front door to the shop.

Just to be safe, Notes sat stone still with his eyes screwed shut for a solid five minutes before he even thought about opening his eyes.

He thought about it, and decided to hold them shut for a few more minutes.

Eventually, he heard another grunt of a annoyance and a set of large hooves galloping off. 

Letting out the breath he was holding, he finally opened his eyes only to suck the breath back in when he noticed two deep red orbs glared into his. Throwing himself backwards, he tried to fly away only to realize that his wings were shut tight from fear.

Before he could begin begging for the demon pony not to kill him, he noticed that the pony in front of him did not have a deep black coat, but instead a soft blue one. He also noticed that the pony was currently rolling around laughing his butt off.

“SPIRIT! THAT WAS NOT FUNNY!” he screamed.

Spirit laughed only harder.

“Friggin mental pegasus, scaring the blood gotted hell outta me like that,” he muttered, wiping the dust off his grey coat from when he fell trying to escape.

“Y-you should’ve seen your face when you opened your eyes!” Spirit laughed.

“Yeah, I’ll get a mirror so you can see your’s bashed in. What do you want?”

Spirit got up and gave his friend a kind smile. “Nothing, I got bored so I came to see what you were doing.”

Notes looked at him suspiciously. “How much did you see?”

“I don’t know, I just saw this huge dude staring at you, and you had your eyes closed. What happened before that?”

“Nothing, now run along now, I have grown up business to attend to.” 

“What? You’re only like two years older than me,” he pleaded.

The pegasus ignored him and began literally shooing him away by waving his guitar in Spirit’s face. “Go on now, get. Go find your brother and ask him when we'll be ready to go!”

Spirit grumbled and listlessly flew away.

Notes watched him leave and sat the instrument back in it’s proper place. “Now that I’m warmed up and pumping, let’s try this for real.” After swearing up and down that this time didn't count, and that the next would be his first real attempt, he trotted back into town.

Activating his skill, he picked out a rather attractive subject slightly north of him. She had tan coat and a navy blue mane that gently fell down the sides of her face, only kept out of her eyes by two clips that were in the same shape as her cutie mark; two horseshoes. While not as drop dead gorgeous as Fleur De Lis was, she was still up there in his opinion.

“Hi there.”

Although slightly taken back by the colts sudden appearance, the pegasus still offered a kind smile. “Oh, hi…. Who are you? A traveling musician?” she asked, glancing at the acoustic on his back.

“My names Blazing Notes, but you, my dear, can call me Blaze.”

The mare was clearly unimpressed. “Charming, that’s a nice guitar, do you actually play anything or is it just a nice looking prop?” 

“My dear, I could play song that would set your heart ablaze”

“Oop!, lame pun alert! I’m out!” she said, quickly trotting away.

Notes ran up in front of her. “Alright! Alright. Sorry. What’s your name?” he asked, dropping the inflated charm.

“Shoeshine. So for, lets see, the third time; can you play guitar?”

“Of course, my name IS Blazing Notes.”

“Oh, I thought that just meant that you like to set your guitar on fire.” 

“Well that was how I got my cutie mark afterall.”

“So you think your hot stuff?” she teased.

“Occasionally.”

Shoeshine scoffed and stomped angrily. “Oh you are JUST like my ex-boyfriend!”

“I-uh-What?”

“Oh you may seem attractive with your silky hair, gorgeous mane, and Trottingham accent. But I see right through you!”

Notes looked stunned, “You really think I’m attractive?”

“SEE? RIGHT THERE! Thats the only thing your kind thinks about, how hot you are, and no matter how true it is, it’s still wrong!”

“So... are you hitting on me?”

Shoeshine only shook her head before angrily flying off flying off. “Jackass.”

The colt could only watch, still dumbstruck as she flew away. “Bloody hell…” he whispered.

“Well, that was fun.”

Blazing Notes turned just in time to see Spirit descend to the ground behind him.

“So, I’m guessing you saw the whole thing then?”

Spirit nodded happily.

“Be honest with me, am I bad with mares, or are all the ones I meet just utterly insane?”

        Spirit shrugged, and Blazing Notes sighed.

        “Yeah, I guess you wouldn't know; maybe I’ll just give up for today and go nap on some comfy clouds.”

        Spirit walked up and patted his friend on the back.“Oh c’mon, Blaze don’t be like that. It’s still morning, go try again.”

        After thinking for a second, he lifted his head back up and gave a confident grin.“Fine, I’ll try again.”



~~~



        Bionic Force examined his surroundings from the large hill at edge of the town overlooking Crossroads. “Alright…. so when the bomb goes off we’ll gather together here, here …  and over there,” he mumbled, pointing toward three heavily built stores. “Now, as for the radiation-”

        “OH SWEET CELESTIA HELP ME!!!!” cried out a faint feminine voice from the forest behind him.

        “...I’ll have to find a way to counteract it.” The earth colt thought over a few ideas, “Mmmno I really don’t want to do that...”

        “Please!! Somepony! ANYPONY!!” The voice seemed louder and even more frantic.

        Bionic Force seemingly paid it no mind. “Maybe I can come up with an alternative….. perhaps a-”

         “Agghhhh! It bit my leg!”

        “Perfect, I’ll create the poison immediately.” Finished thinking, the colt leisurely trotted downhill and back into town.

        The voice was crying now, “Ple-he-he-heaseee!”

        Sighing heavily, Bionic Force trudged back up the hill and into the forest toward the sound of the voice.

        Backed against a tree, the mare could only watch in fear as she was surrounded by timberwolves. She tried to see if she could maneuver around the tree but winced as she put pressure on her back right leg, which had large bite marks on it. Similar marks covered the majority of the mare’s body, leaving long red gashes along her dark green coat. Even some of her  black mane seemed to be torn out.

        “Im so dead, I’m so dead, imdeadimdeadIMSOSCREWED!!” she whimpered as the rest of her hope, and blood, left her body.

        “Shut up.”

        Along with those words came a small metallic orb that rolled out in front of the mare. Instincts kicked in and the mare covered her snout with a foreleg, just as a vapor spewed out of the orb. The vapor quickly obstructed everyones vision, timberwolves included. Through the smoke she could see a small shadowy figure quickly in between the large figures, every time the small one moved a large one disappeared. Several cracks and smash noises sounded out as splinters rained down around her.

        Eventually, the sounds stopped, and the figure began moving closer to her, now she could see that it was indeed pony shaped, and stood about two thirds her own height. However, whoever it was seemed to be getting fuzzier and the fog somehow suddenly grew thicker. It was at this point that she also realized that she was growing light-headed from holding her breath so long.

        “It’s not poisonous, you don’t have to hold your-”

        The mare took in lungfuls of air, gasping and breathing as hard as she could.

        “... breath.”

        The colored vapor quickly dispersed, allowing the mare to finally see her savior. Her brow locked in confusion when she saw that it was merely a colt most likely half her age. Yet somehow, he had easily took out the--her eyes widened as she remembered.

 “Watch out, the things can put themselves back together-aghh!!” she screamed as she jumped back, but once again falling due to her injured leg. 

        Bionic Force paid her no mind and simply examined the remains of the wooden wolves.

        The mare looked around and realized that the wolves weren't restoring themselves. “Wha-how?” A quick thought popped into her head. “What was in that smoke?”

Not seeing anything, Force grabbed a few choice chunks of wood and stuck them in his bag, “Experimental chemicals.”

        The mare quickly covered her mouth. “What the hell? You said it wasn't poisonous.”

        Bionic Force glanced at her. “I don’t remember contradicting that statement either.”

        “Alright,” she didn't know why but something about this colt irritated her, “so they did something to stop the timberwolves from coming back together.”

        “Judging from the situation it did more than that,” he said, taking out a pad and some paper he began writing things down. “It completely stopped regeneration, fusion, and interwolf communication. It was far more effective than I expected to be,” he mumbled, more to himself than to the mare.

        “I’m sure you get this a lot, but what?”

        “They won’t put themselves back together, call for help, or combine into a king wolf.” Having answered the mare’s question and put the tools away, the monotonic colt began trotting back to town. 

        “Wait, where are you going?”

        Bionic Force turned back to her, his voice still delightfully monotone as he addressed her. “Back to town to round up the idiots I came here with.”

        “Arent you going to help me?”

        “Didn't I just?”

        The mare glared at him, eyes narrowed suspiciously, “Somehow... I don’t think that I was on the top of your to-do list.”

        “Not by a long shot,” Bionic Force turned and continued walking.

        “Oh, ha, ha, now get back here.”

        Sighing, once more he trotted back to the mare, slightly annoyed, “What?”

        “I’m curious, why did you come out here, if it wasn't to save me?”

“To test out this mixture,” he answered simply, referring to the gas that he used on the timberwolves.

        “So you don’t know who I am?”

        “If I don’t then you must not be very important.”

        “HA! Wrong I’m incredibly famous. For I, am Foxtrot Fearless. You can call my Foxy.”

        “Didn't sound so fearless when you were screaming for your mother a while ago.”

        “I did not!”

        “Then why are there are still tears falling down your face?" 

        The mare instantly blushed and wiped her eyes, “Shut up! I’m an adventurer!”

        “Then what are you doing out here, there’s nothing in these woods, if there was I would've have already gone to dissect it.”

        Foxy looked at him, shocked. “Don’t you mean study?”

        “That’s what I said.”

        “No, you didn’t.”

        “Then what did I say?”

        “Dissect.”

        Bionic Force’s face actually looked confused for a second. “I… don’t understand, is there a difference between the two words?” The colt actually put his hoof on his chin and thought about it.

        Alright, there is definitely something wrong with this colt. Foxy thought, now more worried than shocked at this point. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, young one,” she exclaimed, trying to pretend that the entire previous conversation didn't happen. “A extremely rare beast lives in this forest. I hear that he sometimes comes out and terrorizes the town.”

        “...”

        “I’m serious! It has the body of a minotaur, and the scales of a dragon. Some say it’s some ungodly spawn of the two races, others say it’s another type of draconequus. I thought it looked pretty damn creepy if you ask me.”

        “So you’ve seen it then?” 

        “Yeah, I found it about a mile into the woods. It went into some kind of building, but while I circled his hideout I stumbled upon a pack of timberwolves. I immediately knew that I couldn't take them all on so I-.” she continued to rattle on, her simple story evolving into an epic tale.

        The mention of a building managed to pierce through Force’s apathy and piqued his interest slightly. “So, it’s intelligent. Damn,” he thought. Reaching behind him, Bionic Force pulled out the same map from before. The only difference was that this time, after inserting some commands, the map instantly split into three parts. After a few seconds, the second and third maps merged into one, and three colored dots appeared on the holo-screen. One green dot lie by itself, blinking but unmoving, and the black and red dots were moving rapidly away from the green one.

        Several thoughts passed through the small colt’s mind as he watched as his brother and friend made their way from the town. Somehow, one thought managed to stick out above all others.

        “How the HELL did Notes get Spirit on a train without knocking him out first?” he mumbled in genuine curiosity.

        Foxy looked curiously at the hologram but otherwise continued her story. “-so when I catch him I’ll finally be more famous than my arrogant treasure-hunting big sister. She thinks she’s SOOOOO hot, with all her amulets, and books, and rainbow-haired fangirls! I’ll show her!” she growled. Eventually, she managed to calm down. “Anyways, I plan on going back in there when I’m healed, so could you carry me back to town?” she asked, “I gotta clean these wounds and get patched up.”

        “Well, whatever…” he mumbled, stashing the device away after he figured out where his companions were headed. “Where did you say you saw a building?”

        “‘Bout a mile in. Looks like a big, brown building. You can come with. When I’m better of course.”

        “Ummm, no. I’m gonna go check that out.” Bionic Force turned and trotted away once more. 

        “H-hold on, what am I supposed to do? I can’t get back to town like this. I can barely even move!”

        Stopping, Bionic Force turned and sat in front of the mare. He pulled out two small boxes, one red and one blue, and held them both in each hoof. “These are storage capsules. Take one, you wake up, fully healed, and free to believe whatever you want to. Pick the other, and you’ll be sent down the path least trekked by others. Where you get to see just how far the well goes,” he said cryptically.

        Foxy looked between them. “Wait, aren't you going to tell me which one does which?”

        “No.”

        “Why not?”

        “Because it amuses me.”

        “Then why even tell me at all?! You should have just said to pick one!”

        Bionic Force shrugged. 

        Foxy groaned. “Why are you even doing this?!”

        “It was in my favorite movie, so call it a guilty pleasure. Now choose.”

        “Fine,” Foxy looked between the two boxes; they both looked identical to each other except for their colors. Wake up healed, or be thrust into something amazing. Her choice was obvious, being an adventurer and all. “I choose red!”

        “Why is that?’’
        
        “Red is the color of adventure and danger, obviously!”

        He shrugged again. “Whatever you say.”

        Sitting the box down in front of her, Force backed away quickly. Curious, Foxy leaned down to pick the box up, only for the top to burst open and a little red toy unicorn to pop out on a spring. Slightly taken aback, she glanced up at the colt, who still looked at her with that same bored expression on his face. She looked down and picked the box up, examining it from all sides. 

        “Is this a joke?” she asked. However, once she looked up, the unicorn’s eyes glowed white, and his horn glowed blue. Springing completely out of the box the tiny unicorn touched its glowing horn to Foxy’s forehead. The effect was instant, her entire body glowed a brilliant azure. Once faded, Foxy found herself lying on the ground, asleep, her entire body healed as if it had never been harmed. 

        “Shame, blue is my favorite color.” Turning, he began walking toward the building, nonchalantly tossing the blue capsule  behind him, directly toward Foxy.

        Hitting the tree and falling next to her, the blue box opened up the same way the other one did, with a small unicorn popping out. Eyes white and horn alight, a large magical hole opened right next to Foxy, sucking her and the two boxes in.