//------------------------------// // Chapter Two: Part Seven // Story: The Misadventure Of: A Bunch Of Silly Ponies That Just So Happen To Not Be Applejack // by OCisbestpony //------------------------------// Chapter Two: Part Seven A heavy thud came to both Berry's ears and torso as something slammed hard into him. He wasn't sure what it was, but it smelled faintly of feathers and dust. Then again, EVERYTHING smelled of dust. Or at least it had been for the past few hours. He had never run so fast in his life, and he suspected that he was unlikely to do so ever again. Not to mention the part where he'd been running for what must have been close to 8 or 9 hours straight. He'd been on his hooves since the train incident, which had happened a little before mid-day. Even so, Colgate was in danger, and nothing was going to stop him from going after her! Not even the sudden barrage of airborne birdtillery was going to stop this train of a stallion! So, much like water hitting an umbrella, the mysterious feathered fowl ricocheted off to the side as Berry charged full speed to where he had seen all those flashes and heard all that noise. Nearly trampling over the unconscious bodies of several ponies, he finally arrived at the dead center of where the disturbances had been coming from. Bon-Bon hopped down and began looking around. While she was not a fan of riding on his back, she did have to agree that it was the most efficient way to travel for the time being, seeing as how he could run faster then her and seemed to have unlimited stamina. Granted, Bon-Bon was no weakling. Both her and Berry knew that if it wasn't for that drink, she would be the fastest of the four of them. As it was however, Berry was under its influence and while so, he was just about the fastest and seemingly toughest stallion either of them had ever met. “Colgate!” Berry shouted. “Are you here? Where are you?!” “Right by your left hoof!” came the reply, from beside his left hoof. He blinked, then looked down. Sure enough, there was a pony lying on the ground with what looked to be a massive stone sitting on its legs. Had it not spoken, Berry wouldn't have known it was Colgate, for all the ropes it was wrapped up in. “What the? What happened to you? Are you alright? Did they hurt you?” he asked, easily kicking the stone off of her. “Berry...” she started as Bon-Bon seemed to have come out of nowhere with what looked to be a surprisingly sharp statue of some kind. She began using it to cut the ropes that mummified poor Colgate. “What? What is it?” he asked, removing the ropes as they were being cut. “You guys came … I … I …” tears of joy began to fill her eyes. And a huge smile came across her face. “How did you find me?” she asked. “Well, that's a story in of itself.” Berry said, pulling the last of the ropes off of Colgate. Bon-Bon looked at the statue with curiosity and decided to attach it to her pony using a bit of rope, as she did not have her saddle bags. “As it turns out, half of these guys ran a different direction to pull us off the trail. It worked, but after asking for some directions, they sent us this way.” Berry said, a pleased grin on his face. “Berry here really does have no sense of direction. I had to keep telling her to turn left, right, left, more left. She seems to like going to the right, a lot.” Bon-Bon said. “Hey! Who did all the running?” Berry shot back, good naturedly of course. “And who has endless endurance?” Bon-Bon asked, a bit smugly. “Thanks guys. Thank you so much.” Colgate said, hugging both of them. “But how did you find this place in the dark?” “Oh, that was easy. A little while ago we saw this huge burst of light in the distance, and we kinda hoped and figured that must have had something to do with you since it came from the direction we were headed. And as we got closer, we saw some more bursts of light and then we kept hearing all these noises. In speaking of which, was that you that screamed just a moment ago?” Berry asked, a note of concern in his voice. “Me? No, that was the griffin. Wait! Did you see it? We need to take it to the authorities right away! It's stealing ponies' cutie marks and turning them into its slaves!” she shouted. “It flew back that way when it tried to take mine!” She pointed the direction they had come in from. Berry and Bon-Bon both looked. “Wait … I think that might have been what I hit on my way over here!” Berry exclaimed. Bon-Bon, without a word, ran off into the darkness in that direction. “Wait, you hit it?” Colgate was a bit confused. “Well, more like it flew into me as I was running in. It kinda bounced off of me.” he said. “We gotta find it! We can't let it get away!” she said, alarm in her voice. Almost as if on cue, they suddenly heard the sounds of a struggle nearby. The two of them turned and ran to the source with little hesitation. What they found when they arrived was the final blow in what looked to be a fight between Bon-Bon and said griffin. Bon-Bon had been thrown through the air by it, and perhaps by accident, right into Berry. This time however, this projectile did not bounce off. Rather, it knocked the both of them to the ground. Colgate lept to the side with a startled cry and looked at the griffin just in time to see it take off into the night. It made one last glance back at them, and opened its beak, “FORGET THIS, YOU'RE A FREAK! I'M DONE WITH YOU!”, and then vanished into the night sky. The two ponies quickly got to their hooves and shook themselves off. “You alright Bon-Bon?” both Berry and Colgate asked, almost in unison. “Yes, I'm fine.” she said simply. “Who was that?” Berry asked, looking off into the sky where the griffin had vanished. “No idea,” said Colgate, “but whoever that was, they're dangerous. We've got to get to Dodge and report this to the Princess! Or at least warn Twilight!” “Good idea.” Agreed Berry, “Come on, if we hurry, we might make it back by day-break.” “Hold on Berry.” Bon-Bon interrupted. “You may have unlimited stamina, but we don't. And who's to say what would happen if or when the drink stops working? We need to rest for the night. I'll tie up the other ponies around here, you two find someplace to camp for the night.” “Wait, you know how to do that?” Colgate asked. “How?” “I was a ranch-hoof for a few years on and off, so I learned how to use a rope.” she said with a shrug. “Anyway, we better move quick, I don't want to see what would happen if these ponies woke up before I tied them up.” So, with that, they set about doing just that. Bon-Bon was able find the rope she needed, and the other started a fire and got some spots ready for sleeping. Given that there was plenty of gear on hoof, the task was relatively simple. It was, however, made a bit more difficult by the fact that Colgate's horn was still wrapped in that cloth. Berry remembered well what had happened when she had tried to remove the cloth from Lyra's horn, and she wasn't about to repeat the experience. Colgate decided that it was best to wait until they got into town to remove it. So they did things the Earth Pony way. “Hey,” Colgate began, “so where's Lyra?” Berry and Bon-Bon exchanged glances. “Dodge.” Berry said. “Why didn't she come?” Colgate asked. “Yes Berry, why didn't Lyra come?” Bon-Bon said, tightening up a knot. “Err … I'll tell you in the morning, alright?” Berry said, trying to not look either of them in the eye. “Fine.” responded Colgate. “But make it the first thing ok?” “Sure sure.” Berry said. During this process, the little cave that Colgate had tried to dive into caught her attention once more. Now that the griffin was gone, perhaps she could take a look inside. Looking around, for something to give her a bit of light, she grabbed a plank of wood with her teeth. Turning back to the little fire she and Berry had gotten started, she lit one end of it and headed back to the cave. It should be noted that she did so quite quite a bit of haste. You see, normally she would have simply grabbed the plank with her magic and all would be well. However, since her magic was either very much there or very much not, she had to hold the now very on fire plank of wood between her teeth. And though that idea seems simple enough, it suddenly seems rather foolish once the flames begin climbing to one's face. Colgate always figured that she was attractive enough, no need for her to suddenly become smoking. “Where're you goin'?” Berry asked, her (for the drink had finally worn off) eyes following Colgate as she made her way. “There's this little cave I've been dying to check out.” She mumbled with a mouth full of plank. She arrived in short order and simply walked right in. There wasn't much to see. The little cave was empty. It was roughly pyramid in shape, with no holes anywhere to be seen. It looked as though it could have been natural, but it may have been ponymade. She wasn't too sure. Taking a few more steps inside, the chamber suddenly lit up. A heavy slam behind her told her that door of some kind closed behind her. Alarmed, she turned to look, as suddenly a light begun to fill the room. The light began from the cloth on her head. It glowed brightly, outshining the dim light of her make-shift torch. Surprised, she dropped her torch and took a step back, but suddenly felt herself unable to move. The floor then began to light up, then the walls, then finally the ceiling. The sound of magic build-up began to fill her ears as she could feel the build up in what little of her horn was exposed. Whatever was about to happen, it was gonna be big. Not only that, the color of the glow, was the same color as her magic. Unable to move, she sat there, wondering what kind of spell was about to happen. She suddenly wished he had paid more attention to her magic 101 classes at Canterlot. Outside, both Berry and Bon-Bon were oblivious to this turn of events. Bon-Bon had finally finished tying the last bandit to the bandit pile she had made. Berry, on the other hoof, had just been lying on one of the bedrolls, watching her with endless fascination. “A ranch-hoof you say? That's where you learned how to tie ropes? I don't know Bon-Bon. You seem awfully familiar with how to tie a pony up. Are you sure you're not a commando?” she asked, raising a sleepy eyebrow. She was answered with a snort of frustration. “For the last time. I am not commando, nor have I ever been. I've never served under Celestia nor am I a guardpony! The reason I know how to handle a rope is because when it comes to tying up ponies, they are very similar to cows and pigs. And I had to tie up a lot of cows and pigs when I worked on the ranch.” “Oh yeah? Then where did you learn those combat moves? I don't know of many ponies who can pin a fully grown mare as easily as you did or can wrestle with a griffin.” Berry smiled. She was sure she had Bon-Bon trapped with that one. Bon-Bon's gaze of 'are you serious?' caught Berry a bit off guard. “If you must know, my parents enrolled me into self-defense classes when I was younger. There was a time when they thought that I might become a guard, but that thought vanished when I got my cutie mark. You see, both my parents wanted me to enlist because they were worried that I might one day need it.” “Ah ha! So you do have training as a guard!” Berry said smugly. “No! I don't! I said that I stopped those while I was still young. I never even got to basic training! When my special talent for making sweets showed up, they pulled me out and stuck me in culinary school. Happy now?” Bon-Bon was clearly irritated, and sat down by the fire with a bit more force then was really necessary. “So, why did you become a ranch-hoof?” Berry said, a note of disbelief in her very tired voice. “Because being a sweets chef doesn't always pay the bills. I don't know if you've noticed Berry, but I do a lot of odd jobs around town. And when certain seasons hit, I do odd jobs out of town as well. Like when summer comes along I'll head to Dodge to help heard cats or I'll head north to Vanhoover for other jobs. When winter comes sometimes I'll go to Appleloosa and help with the last harvest of the season, and bake pies for the Buffalo. I get around Berry. And when a pony works as many jobs as I do, that pony picks up a lot of things. Does that finally answer your question? Can we please drop the commando thing?” Bon-Bon's eyes were pleading. Berry, barely awake, almost didn't see it. “Alright Bon-Bon, I'll drop it … (for now)” she muttered under her breath. And then was out like a light. It was right about then it suddenly dawned on Bon-Bon that Colgate hadn't come back yet. “Colgate? Colgate! Where are you?” she got up and grabbed a plank and poked it into the dying fire. Once lit, she walked over to the little cave. It was empty. No Colgate, no light from a torch, nothing. It wasn't until she almost stepped in that she noticed something was amiss. The floor of the place was completely free of dust. That wasn't right. EVERYTHING had dust on it. So why didn't this cave? Her tracks lead to here, and there was no set leading out. She thought about it. Was the floor perhaps a trap door? No, she couldn't see any seams. Perhaps it was … she tossed in her torch. She watched as it flew through the air, and just before it hit the ground, it vanished. Teleportation magic. Colgate had been teleported, but to where?