A Bit of Mojo

by StormDancer

08 - Resin: Part 1

Sitting upright behind a polished oak desk, a particular Mr. Apropos studied the small paper-wrapped parcel carefully before levitating it up to the light and unwrapping it.

Unlike many of the other packages he would often 'obtain', this particular item was not one that he would be directly benefiting from. He hadn't obtained it for himself and, to be honest, he couldn't really understand his employer's motivations in stealing documents, let alone stealing them only to give them back in a number of hours.

It wasn't his place to question, but it confused him to no end.

What was the point in stealing something if it wasn't to have it, or at least sell it? The guy wasn't even blackmailing anypony that he could tell.

With a snort and a scowl, he ran a hoof over his face before slicking back a few stray strands of his mane, neatly tucking them back over an ear before leaning on his elbows and gazing up at the slowly rotating package in thought.

He'd been paid... a lot... and really he should just be happy about it and leave well enough alone. He'd learned that back in Manehatten and Baltimare: When you have an easy job, don't ask questions you're better off not knowing the answers to. He'd seen the mooks who'd started thinking too much down by the docks firsthoof. He'd wondered, at the time, if they might be on to something... asking questions when the scams were getting allies busted up. He'd actually been on the way to ask Mr. Back if everything was okay when he'd seen the barrels get carted by. He'd changed his mind quickly when one of the carts upended in a pothole causing a barrel to fall off the back, cracking open to disgorge it's syrupy contents across the sidewalk.

He'd stopped to help when one of the guys just shot him a look and politely, though firmly, declined the aid. He'd been confused at that until he caught sight of the other carter trotting over to right the damaged barrel and muttering about getting the "sticky stuff" out of his coat later.

It hadn't occurred to him until much later that night when he was sending a letter out what the smell had been from the broken barrel, at which point he quickly stopped licking the envelope and backed away from it with nausea threatening him with every breath.

Idly, he floated the package over to the bookcase, careful not to disturb its contents, before sealing it in the small shipping box he had waiting.

Nope. It was better that the little guys didn't ask big questions.

He'd taken to using tape on envelopes after finding out where some of the glue came from.

Zecora watched quietly as Twilight studied the thread of misery that she had caught earlier. She watched as Twilight observed; as she tested and re-checked her results. Twilight could have been a marvelous apprentice if she had come across her a number of years ago, long before either of them had arrived in Ponyville... but that was beside the point.

Letting her eyes drift to her cup for a moment, she tasted the steam without drinking the herbal concoction.

There was a brief clattering as Rarity scuttled back away from the table where the bottle was resting while Twilight seemed to be much more collected; instead flicking a small shield bubble into existence. Time and again, the young alicorn would prod or poke the little devil, treating it as if it were just a particularly complex mystery, something that Zecora admired her for. Despite all the trouble with discovering its nature, Twilight stalwartly continued, determined to 'solve' the little beast.

It wasn't until she saw Twilight reaching for the stopper that she cleared her throat in warning.

Twilight, absorbed in her work, startled as she seemed to suddenly become aware of her surroundings once more.

"Were I not a cautious mare, I somehow doubt I'd leave the stopper there." she offered to Twilight's perplexed glance.

There was a brief moment where Twilight considered before she slowly withdrew her hoof. "It's just so frustrating Zecora. I mean, I can see it," she flicked a hoof towards the bottle, "right there, but my magic says the bottle's empty. I can see it, I can even hear it tapping on the glass, but for all that, my instincts are screaming at me that the bottle is empty. It's like ... like the opposite of camouflage. All my senses tell me it's there, but my head is telling me to ignore them!" Twilight winced as she suddenly placed a hoof to her forehead in apparent pain.

Applejack looked over at Rarity and shrugged before leaning back on the floor cushion she'd been offered to rest on. Zecora smiled softly at the farmer's response... it was reasonable and sensible after all... she was an Earth pony, and one whose skills didn't lend themselves toward the supernatural.

Rarity, on the otherhoof, was suddenly showing interest as Twilight's exclamation seemed to have caught her attention. Zecora sipped her tea as she watched the fashionista scrutinize the bottle... from a safe distance.

"Twilight, does the light have to move for the shadow to show up?" she asked while shifting her position slightly back and forth.

"Well, it seems so. You can't really move the shadow without moving either the bottle or the light after all."

"That's...... not precisely accurate Twilight." Rarity said as she suddenly looked up, raising a hoof to her mouth as she thought.

"Um, what do you mean Rarity? If you're not moving the light, and you're not moving the bottle, there's no differentiation between luminous exposure states so you can't really see any difference."

Rarity scoffed slightly before exaggerating a head roll to face Twilight with a smile. "Twilight, dear, with all of those books and all of your experience, I'm surprised that you didn't even consider tricks of the light."

Twilight's immediate defensiveness melted at her friend's smile. "Okay... so... like a mirage or something?"

"Well, a mirage might do something, I'm not sure, but I was thinking of something even simpler... what about something like a screen or layered silks?"

Zecora listened as the two conversed, smiling despite her best efforts to remain carefully expressionless.

There were times when even she was graced with a novel idea.

"Before you discount the thoughts of your alabaster friend, perhaps it would we prudent to see her thoughts to the end?"

Once more, Twilight looked over to Zecora before sitting down and looking to the floor in thought. "I just don't see what a screen would do. It's not going to sufficiently dim the light to change a visual recognition and even accounting for VERY large threads, I doubt the difference will be sufficient to merit activity from whatever that thing is." She paused again to glance up at the bottle sitting a few paces away. "I just wish I knew even what we're dealing with here."

"Wait a sec, I think I might know what Rares is talking about," Applejack stood up from the cushion and crossed the room slowly to stand by her friends.

Twilight raised an eyebrow sceptically... "You do?"

"Maybe. See, out on the farm we have these fences to keep the critters out from the different crops. We don't really need to worry about the apples mostly but the tomatoes, carrots, and beans all need to be left alone to get big enough to harvest." She paused noticing the looks on both of her friends faces. "You do know that we grow more than just apples right?" Applejack's curiosity melting into exasperated confusion, "You both have eaten at my place before! How can you not .... Twilight, I even.... you know what? It doesn't matter. Fences."

Twilight's deadpan response almost led Zecora to shake her head. "Fences."

"Fences... right. So... funny thing happens sometimes if you're trotting along out in the fields and you can see more'n one fence overlapping... sometimes, if you just glance over and don't really expect it, the front fence seems too close or too far... or if you're still moving, it looks like it's moving the other way. Or... at night, if Mac's carrying a lantern and it spins, it looks like the fences jump a bit from their shadows."

Zecora watched Twilight's expression closely... sometimes that one could jump to solutions that boggled the mind where others, she could get stuck on a single point and miss the entire purpose.

Twilight's frown shifted from aggitation to thoughtfulness... and then to tentative consideration.

"Girls... it's time for Science."

Trotting along, alone, in the Everfree was not something he had planned on doing anytime soon. Rather, more specifically, it was not something he had planned on doing ever. Not only was it dark, filled with dangerous things, and mostly uninhabited, but it was also a place where absolutely anything could (and often, would) bring about serious trouble.

Everypony knew about poison joke, the capriciously mercurial flower that seemed to have a magical sense of humor, but fewer knew about such legitimate dangers as burning whisper, scorn stones, tagalongs, creepers, and whatever that thing is that blows out lanterns. Admittedly, he really didn't know anything concrete about any of them either, but when wandering in the Everfree, foals tales were just about as good a guidebook when it came to staying safe.

Flicking his ears at a muffled snapping sound, Storm Dancer tried his best to simply ignore the seemingly endless supply of nerve wracking noises and half seen somethings that seemed to be stalking along as he fled the elder wood. It wasn't an easy act by any means, but seeing as how the alternative would be to return to that ancient tree in the clearing being reclaimed by the forest... well, terror inducing panic seemed like a more sensible alternative.

That or it was possible, just possible, that Mojo might have been acting just a little bit creepier than usual.

He reflected as his ears kept flitting to and fro; Mojo wasn't a bad zebra, but he could certainly play the part when the need arose. He couldn't honestly count the times when his friend had appeared at just the right moment, thrown a frown on his face, and sent a would-be angry mob packing. It was his presence more than anything concrete though... he could just somehow pull off a feeling of pure indifference with an unhealthy dose of primal malice.

It was something about his eyes really... something about how when he wanted folks to run, he'd just lower his head and look up from under his brows, letting the pale yellow gray edges of his eyes catch the light and draw attention to the mottled red of his glare.

He shuddered slightly. Mojo was one of his oldest, and only, friends, and he'd only seen that look on Mojo's face when folks had been after him and Mojo'd stepped in to "shake t'ings down a bit." It was a look that spoke more than Mojo would likely say to anypony else in a weeks time... and it did so louder than he ever would. It would shout to the wary, but to the big ones... the ones with a real chip on their shoulder... it whispered quietly, begging them to test him.

The sudden snap of a branch caused the unicorn to jump, spinning around as his horn, already flickering, flared to life in the dark wood. A warm breath of wind slid over his shoulders, slipping down his sides and pooling at his hooves before fading in the cool night air.

Storm Dancer's eyes flitted over the darkened trunks around him, taking in the reddish pink glow their bark reflected and struggling to find any movement to warn of an impending attack. He searched, never staring at one spot for more than a few seconds before checking the next - in the Everfree, no one had time to waste... any sign of weakness was a potential meal and standing still while looking frightened certainly counted as a sign of weakness.

After a few moments of near panic, he let his horn dim, the surroundings taking on a faint blue-white glow under Luna's moon.

"Just a branch," he muttered to himself, trying not to spin on his hooves and run. "Just a branch or some little animal trying to get home."

Trying to put the distressing sound behind him, he turned once more towards the faint glow of Ponyville that was just beginning to be visible in the scattered patches of sky through the canopy. It was a good thing he had spent most of his life outdoors, the Everfree forest was notoriously dark after all, or he would likely have been hopelessly lost until morning. Of course, given that it was the Everfree forest, there was little that would guarantee his not becoming lost regardless.

As swiftly as possible, he traveled through the wood, passing ink-black mires and thorn-encrusted trees. He often found himself backtracking, a precaution against unrecognized flora or the disturbing grumblings of an unseen creature. Regardless, after trekking for what seemed like hours, he finally caught the first glimmer of truly bright light through the trunks and creeping vines as he crested a small rise overlooking a clearing. Emboldened, he quickened his pace only to stop abruptly as a sharp series of cracks sounded off to the north.

Dropping low, he dimmed his horn as much as he could, before crawling into a nearby bush of some sort hoping against hope that whatever it was that was stalking through the wood would overlook the perpetual glow of his magic.

He silently waited, a scant few hundred feet from the clearing where a merry little cottage spilled a cheerful glow out into the night, while scanning the treeline for what had caused the sound. Seconds crept by as a few more rustles disturbed the suddenly quiet night, and yet no creature revealed itself. Seconds passed into a minute, and then two, before he chanced upon a drifting silhouette as it crossed a patch of moonlight, casting an absurdly long shadow which sped across the ground like a silent tide.

Whatever it was stood nearly twice as tall as a pony, sleek but oddly shaped, and having little form besides a vaguely upright posture. It slid across the line of trees quickly but without sound until nearing a patch of briars some 20 paces away, whereupon a stray thorn must have caught as a series of pops and snaps suddenly sounded. The shade paid the thorns no heed as it slid once more into the night, leaving only a breathless unicorn hiding under a thorn bush as its witness.

Storm Dancer took a few extra moments to calm his nerves before carefully shrugging his way free of the thorns, earning a few slices along the way. Whatever that was, he reflected, it was nothing that had any business being around ponies... there was something simply wrong about how it moved... how it seemed to slide over surfaces rather that around them.

So preoccupied was he in his musings that he missed the silent passage of a pony-sized shadow careening through the night sky only meters overhead.

Perhaps to his good fortune, the shadow overhead was just as conductive as he when his magic stuttered into a blue-white arc terminating in a thunderous crash.

Lightning, it seemed, cared not for civilization's distinctions or a stallion's awareness.

Rainbow Dash felt bad, which for somepony as awesome as her meant that she was feeling spectacularly bad. Her insides roiled with nausea while her joints ached as bad as any crash she could remember. Her skin felt clammy and even her mane seemed determined to glue itself to her face and neck in an uncomfortably sticky way. Nothing smelled right and any attempt to open her eyes met with a painful throbbing in her head.

None of this was being helped by the rhythmic jolting of her pink friend who seemed to be doing her very best to find each and every stone and branch to bump her against.

While she barely felt up to breathing at the moment, an involuntary gasp brought the merciful end of the painful form of travel. Within moments, she felt her eyes being pried open only to be assaulted by the vibrant pink of her friend's face and the sickly sweet scent of apple-blueberry-something that was suddenly shoved into her mouth.

Trying not to gag, Rainbow Dash spat and sputtered, shifting uncertainly as she desperately fought against the sudden urge to vomit.

"Oh my gosh Rainbow! I was so so so so sooooo worried when I saw you trapped in there with Not-Fluttershy!" Despite the volume and migraine, not to mention the stomach turning aroma and spine grating agony of the trip, Dash managed a smile as she realized that her friend was there to help.

"S....sup Pinkie?" she stuttered out, shivering from the sudden feeling of icy chills. "Where're'we?"

If she was worried, Pinkie's exuberance hid it well. "Wellllll, we're just inside the edge of the Everfree Forest and fleeing from Not-Fluttershy, or were you talking about 'how are we doing on finding Storm Dancer?' or MAYbe you're really asking about the social development in regards to Celestia and Luna's absolute diarchy over the populace of Equestria proper?" Pinkie took a breath before smiling as she plopped down next to her. "But I'm pretty sure you didn't mean that last one."

Rainbow crushed her eyes closed as she forced down the moist confection in her mouth. Whatever it had been, she knew it would be infinitely better than trying to recover without anything to run on. Despite the instant desire to lurch forward and lose everything even resembling food, she'd been in enough accidents to know that she needed fuel to get better. Choking down the continuing urge, she glanced up to see Pinkie watching the forest quietly for a moment before she turned back, her expression quickly shifting to a concerned smile.

"Okay, but seriously Dashie, we really really need to keep moving. Not-Fluttershy is flying around out here and no matter how good I am at hide and seek, you're not going anywhere quick in your condition Mister."

Nodding with a wince, Rainbow struggled to her feet, and took a few hesitant steps before looking towards the sky. Even suffering as she was, Rainbow knew that Pinkie was right: whatever was going on, they couldn't stay out in the open... even in the Everfree. Even in the forest itself, the thick canopy would occasionally give way to clearings or murky swamps, both of which could be spotted from the air, and if what Pinkie was saying was right, straying anywhere near such an opening would be too much of a risk at the moment. Rainbow hated to admit it, but she was in no condition to do much of anything, let alone try to resist a bizarre imposter of her friend.

With a slight nod towards a nearby rise, she resettled her wings and started the arduous task of walking, "'K Pinks, let me just get my breath and we can go."

The duo hadn't gone more than thirty feet when Pinkie suddenly vibrated into the air before grabbing Rainbow in a dive, landing the pair at the base of a thorn bush. Rainbow's eyes bulged and her hooves flew to her mouth as she fought against a nearly overpowering urge before Pinkie clamped her own hoof over Rainbow's and gave a pleading look to her friend. Moments later, the pair watched as a towering shadow seemed to bleed from the dark between some nearby trees, slide purposefully across the clearing they had been crossing, and once more dissolve into the night eliciting only a few soft snaps from the thorns as it passed within inches of the pair. Rainbow was right about to breathe a sigh of relief when she felt Pinkie's hoof clutch her tighter a moment before the sky exploded with lightning.

The sky was awash with fire and light, her wings snapping uncontrollably as the lightning bolt danced across her body, and through it all the only thought in her mind was 'Rainbow Dash!'

Fluttershy screamed in frustration. She needed to help Rainbow, her friend was very very ill. She didn't have time for lightning or falling to the ground, and she certainly didn't have time to recover in the Everfree. She needed those berries so she could help Rainbow Dash, and no freak lightning bolt was going to stop her from helping her oldest friend.

With a shriek that tore at her throat, she forced her wings open, arresting her fall, and ground her teeth painfully in concentration. Nothing short of Nightmare Moon was going to stop her from helping her friend. So what if she couldn't see past the glaring afterimages? So what if she couldn't hear a thing with the endless ringing in her ears? So what if her beautiful cape-like wings were smoldering?

She couldn't leave Rainbow Dash in pain.

Snarling as she smashed through branches that left burning welts across her chest and face, trailing tiny splatters of blood where thorns snagged her, she furiously beat her wings, rising once more into the night. It didn't matter what happened to her, the pain was nothing if she could save her friend.

Blind and deaf from the lightning, Fluttershy rose unsteadily into the night sky, trailing thin wisps of smoke from the smoldering hair in a dozen places, and flared her wings as she waited for her senses to come back. The smell of ozone and burnt fur made her gag, but the overwhelming need to stay aloft (and thus mobile enough to help) kept her from losing focus.

Slowly, her vision began to return, all grays and greens in the night, though the ringing in her sensitive ears didn't seem to abate much.

Her body ached. Her wings burned with every flap, both from exertion as well as from injury. If she hadn't been in so much pain, she would have noticed the moist trails that painted her coat from dozens of tiny cuts. She knew she was in bad shape, but she couldn't rest.

Finally recovering enough to take in her surroundings again, she darted over towards the husk of a tree, branches twisted by the magics of the Everfree, and swung in underneath a larger bough. A quick flick of her tail and she hung a moment, trying to rest long enough to continue her search and tend to the wost of her injuries. Somewhere deep down, she knew she couldn't continue to fly without at least stemming the blood loss and snuffing the smoldering patches on her wings and coat. She snarled at the distraction but understood the necessity of the matter.

Knowing didn't seem to make it any better.

There just wasn't time for tending to her own injuries when Dash was lying home on her couch suffering through a concussion and fever. There wasn't a single reason she could come up with that would excuse her idle hooves when Rainbow needed her. There wasn't... there....

Fluttershy blinked. Somewhere down below, something had moved.

She twisted her head side to side, studying the near black forest below while trying to dodge the persistent after images that swam doggedly across her vision. Her ears pivoted, searching the floor below for any sound to no avail... the ringing simply hadn't faded despite her hopes. Even so, she knew she had seen movement... something shifting or skulking below in the underbrush and shadows.

Eyes squinted in concentration, the dribbles of blood slowly working their way up her body as she hung, Fluttershy dissected the woods beneath her, scrutinizing the bushes and trunks for any sign of the source. Unbeknownst to her, she opened her mouth, fangs glistening in the moonlight as her whip-like tongue coiled and prepared to strike.

Somewhere below there was something she could use. She knew it would only take a few moments to capture whatever it was and set it upon the task of finding the berries.

It would only take a moment.

One.... moment.

The ringing in her ears never seemed to abate as Fluttershy glared at the darkness below, silently daring it to move as, unnoticed, four figures silently crept away while she obsessed over a large figure below: one towards Ponyville, one towards her cottage, and two deeper into the forest.

Which was, perhaps, for the best given that the figure below the smoldering, bleeding, deathly-serious Fluttershy was watching her as well... lion paws and scorpion tail still as the grave as the manticore waited.

Twilight Sparkle sipped a small wooden cup of... well, it wasn't tea, but it was close... as she watched the little ribbon twisting in the glass bottle.

There were innumerable questions she had yet to discover answers to that the little nightmare hadn't given up, but she had two things that would make her current situation much much more manageable.

She looked over to her friends as they took turns slowly walking by the bottle, warily eying it as they passed, shadows dancing on the wall behind them as a series of different shadows played with their passing. She smiled with satisfaction as her careful attention to detail (and a healthy dedication to the scientific method) was systematically giving her a more refined manner of detecting the malicious little ribbon.

As it turned out, Rarity's question had been the first step towards isolating one of the thing's apparent shortcomings: its inability to distinguish complex motion in time to camouflage its shadow. The original idea, altering the position of the light source, had proven too unreliable (as predicted), but Applejack's comments on fences, of all things, had led to Twilight's much more successful approach.

It all stemmed, she reasoned, from the method that the creature employed to hide its presence. While a chameleon, or various other creatures, would alter it's color or an octopus might even change its shape, both would still cast a solid and clearly distinguishable shadow. From this, Twilight had surmised that its defense was not merely physical. Magic seemed the obvious answer, yet her own senses denied its very existence, stymieing the thought of a spell to hide itself. Frustrated, she had finally humored Rarity and Applejack, assuming that it was somehow using illusion without magic.

The idea was both novel and almost distressingly simple: make the shadow it was trying to hide in too complicated to mimic. Simple motions, such as shifting the light source, had proven ineffective... the creature simply bowed and clung to the sides of the bottle, becoming almost invisible. Likewise, simple patterns like a spinning lantern (or Big Mac's fence shadows) were far too easily copied. Yet when Twilight, in a stroke of frustration, had scrambled their experiments, the ribbon had struggled to mimic, and then hide from, the rapidly shifting shadows. In its efforts, its own shadow stood out as blatantly as Rarity's coat would have in a changeling hive. Despite its apparently natural ability, it simply could not compensate fast enough to hide amongst a rapidly changing pattern of light.

Satisfied, she motioned for her friends to come back over as she took the small lantern she had been levitating and set it next to the bottle, casting the shadow of the ribbon into stark contrast across the back wall, giant from its proximity to the lantern which spun 8 enchanted sheets of mica around the flame.

"I dare say, Twilight, that is a most impressive lantern," Rarity stated as she watched, glancing between the lantern and the shifting shadows across the room. "Though I believe it casts most everything else in a rather distressing state."

Applejack, still recovering from her accidental burns, eyed the wall critically as she considered. It hadn't escaped her notice that the result of the lantern's enchantments left the room looking to be little more than a chaotic mess as the shadows seemed to dance and flow. Somehow Twilight knew that the apparent chaos irked her honest friend on a more personal level... no doubt memories of Discord's attacks surfacing as what they all knew to be solid walls appeared to melt and sway.

"I don't like it Twi... If the only way to spot those things's to mess up the world, I say we just ask Discord to get rid of 'm... probably one of his things anyway."

Twilight rolled her eyes before glancing to Zecora, who sat quietly where she had been for the last hour. Unlike her other friends, Zecora had remained mostly silent, apparently content to simply watch as events unfolded. Curious, Twilight raised an eyebrow and addressed the zebra.

"What do you think Zecora? It clearly works, but you've apparently dealt with these things before. Do you think we've got it nailed down finally?"

The zebra paused and looked over slowly as a slight smile graced her lips. "I think you've put on quite the show, the wicked though is sure to know. Yet trouble us, this beast will not, for with that lantern, its shadow, you will surely spot."

With a grin, Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn of Friendship, Element of Magic, and multi-time hero of Ponyville, floated the lantern into her saddlebags. "Girls, it's time to go find the others... we've got a fury to catch."