It was dark in Ponyville. All the lights had gone out but one. This was the home of a mare named Twilight Sparkle. Her dark coat shimmered in the artificial light created by her house and herself. She was currently standing outside with a candle next to her telescope staring at the stars. Her wings fluttered in the breeze experiencing something she had not been privy to for a while. Her assistant Spike was fast asleep, since he was done doing his daily chores. She let him be and just watched the stars.
Suddenly the stars began to disappear in a certain area. Having grabbed her curiosity, she magnified the area. The stars were being blotted out by what had appeared to be smoke. Moving her telescope downwards towards the direction of the smoke she saw something frightening. The smoke was coming out near the same dragon cave that she liberated so long ago. Immediately she ran towards her desk and began furiously writing a letter to her mentor, Princess Celestia.
Dear
PrincessCelestia,
It has come to my attention that the same or another dragon has taken root in the Everfree Mountain. I have decided to inspect this disturbance. Note that I mentioned "I". The only reason for this is that I believe that I can rely on my alicorn magic in case the dragon were to become hostile towards me. I also don't want to wake everyone up at 2 in the morning just to confront a rogue dragon. If the dragon is in fact reasonable, unlike the last one, I will surely help him by showing which cave would suit both of his and Equestria's needs the best. If he does go on a rampage and I can't stop him I will immediately contact my friends as well as you to get this problem dealt with without dealing a lot of damage to Ponyville and the surrounding area. I don't want to remind you what happened once Spike was about the size of that.
Your StudentYour Fellow Princess,
Twilight Sparkle
After she was done writing she rolled up the scroll and awoke Spike, the premature dragon. "Spike...." Hesitantly she poked him. "Spiiiiike..."
Once more she poked him, except with a little more force. He only mumbled something incoherent which faintly sounded like, "Pink walrus tutu league....ZZZZZZ".
This went on for a few more minutes before she lost patience with herself and began to scream in an unfit princess manner. "SPIKE!!!!!"
Fortunately she has not unlocked the secrets to the Royal Canterlot Voice ,so Spike was safe another day. Unfortunately, he still woke up to the sound of Twilight screaming. "AAAAHHHHHH!!!"
Spike then proceeded to fall off his bed onto his face before grumbling something incoherent.
"What?" Twilight asked. "I said, What do you need more for this early in the morning?" he replied.
Twilight pointed to the letter on the desk. Spike squinted at it before realization dawned on him. "Alright, but don't wake me up anymore tonight, please. I need my sleep."
Spike walked over to the desk, picked it up, and blew flame on it. Instantly it went up in flames and the smoke flew out the window. Spike grumbled as he walked back to his bed and went back to sleep.
Twilight sighed as he went back to sleep. Someday she would look back on this and love every second of this. Careful not to wake Spike back up again, she trotted off down the stairs and packed essential research materials for the trip. They were mostly of the fauna and flora of the Everfree. She never did spend much time in there, but when she does she wanted to be prepared. She had also gotten some a geography book of places outside of Equestria that she could advise to the dragon in case he actually liked the thought of moving. Twilight then put the items in her saddlebags and headed out the door towards the dark, impending forest.
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It had been over two hours since I had started the bonfire. It was burning brilliantly now. There were some minor disturbances, but it was nothing to start the music over. They were mostly just the occasional lone wolves. sometimes there was something of actual note like that one frickin bat. Uuugggghhh. I hate bats. It's nothing personal with them. I did used to think they were really cool, but then I met one in the wild. I speak from experience when I say," Don't ever try to tame one! It will not end well." The only reason that I actually make not of this bat is that it just kept flying around my head and trying to claw my eyes out. It was pretty annoying. I am embarrassed to say that that frickin' thing was the only thing that actually harmed me.
The moon had finally passed over the sky and was almost in the setting phase. Then I heard claws scraping against stone. I looked over and saw the same yellow eyes that have been staring at me. It was too dark to see the body of the beast. Carefully I raised my weapon towards it. The eyes disappeared. Then out came a Manticore walking towards me.
Now the first thing I did was raise my spear towards the creature. It stopped from the sudden approach and laid down watching me. Now I've been in the forest for a while and I know that this was not typical predator/prey behavior right here. Slowly I withdrew my spear before I noticed something different about this manticore. It had a stone stinger. *huh* Wait a minute....
When I put the spear on the ground the manticore still had done nothing. I walked slowly towards it. No reaction was witnessed besides the tilting of its head. I slowly lowered my body to a crouch so as to look it in the eye. It stared right back at me. Slowly I raised my hand towards its face. Its eyes widened. Now I know when I see a defense mechanism ,so it was perfectly reasonable to pull my hand back. What happened instead gave me pause to the whole it being an unstoppable killing machine. It pounced on me and began to lick at me wildly. I laughed wildly as it continued to lick me like I was a melting ice cream cone.
After a while I got up and patted its head. it scorpion tail wagged slightly. I stared at his tail in thought. My thoughts came to be on the day I got that head. He(she) must have never completely recovered from the stoning fiasco. He had followed me back to the cave, eaten all my scraps for extra food and tried to get my attention on several occasions, but I must've been to preoccupied to actually notice.
"Now what am I going to call you?" My voice had grown considerably huskier with the months of non-use. It was a great question really. What am I now going to call my new manticore companion? Before I had even gotten to thinking of a name, I began to hear growling. I looked towards my new friend and saw him staring towards a particular piece of underbrush. I looked at it intensely and raised my spear. there were about 5 pairs of giant eyes watching us. I reached towards my pocket and pressed the button and threw my phone towards a pile of leaves that I specifically set out beforehand. I was ready for the fight of my life. The epic guitar riff filled my soul with the adrenaline of my ancient warrior ancestors. I ran towards the underbrush preparing the spear with my new manticore friend right behind me. The ten sets of eyes became various dangerous creatures. My eyes glistened with fear as I had finally saw something that I never even fought before. Chimera.
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Twilight Sparkle had just arrived inside the Everfree Forest. The forest was just as endearing as ever with its atmosphere. It was also quieter than usual. Not even a tweeting bird or a chirping insect. Just nothing. It unnerved Twilight to no end. She began to see a giant fire. Now usually the Everfree Forest was able to take care of itself. That's what made it the Everfree Forest. Now seeing a fire in it made Twilight question how well the forest's magic was. She then began to ran towards the fire which had likely been caused by the dragon she had theorized moved into that cave. She was frantic and instantly racked her mind for a dousing spell. As soon as she got a hold of it though she was introduced to some kind of music.
She thought that it was just Zecora at first, but then she began to realize that language that was being spoken wasn't even remotely Zebracan in origin, and this used instruments that she wasn't even aware of existed. As she slowly began to approach the light coming from the fire she saw IT. It was just a shadow in front of the light, but from here she saw what looked like a creature that was a young minotaur holding a spear and an unidentifiable object being held in its other paw. Now what a minotaur was doing in the forest she couldn't guess, but she could see what it was doing. It was fighting of a pack of Timberwolves, a Manticore, a Hydra, and a Chimera. The last one surprised her as she had thought that Chimeras tended to be down further south. Now back to the minotaur. It was moving with a fluidity that Canterlot guards would one day hope to achieve in combat. He (Twilight was assuming he since he lacked the lustrous curves female minotaurs usually had) was slicing the Hydra's heads many times causing fountains of blood to pour out at an immense rate ,but as suspected it began to regrew back its heads . Within the short time frame the minotaur was allowed, he had put its spear within the fire, pulled it back out, and seared off the stumps that essentially killed it off.
It then turned towards the pack of Timberwolves. Two of them had all but backed away, but with a reassuring bark the pack leader rallied his troops against the minotaur. On the other side of him the manticore ran towards him. Twilight was sure she was going to see the end of the minotaur, but she was immensely surprised when the manticore jumped over him an began to attack the Timberwolves. Then the minotaur advanced on the Timberwolves bringing his flaming spear towards them. Instantly they ran off yipping all the way into the forest. Then they turned towards the chimera. Now the chimera hadn't been doing nothing this whole time. The snake head had made a moat of poison, the lion head had breathed fire all around itself, and the goat head had chewed a log off and gave it to the lion head to fend off the minotaur.
Now once the minotaur had seen this he began to raise both of his hands in a pattern. He sighed and brought up the round object and put his two digits on it and pulled upward. Instantly the lion head had dropped the log as his head went stock still. The other two heads were shocked and had a pained look on their bodies. The body of the chimera hadn't moved in a while and the two heads were getting frantic. The minotaur had walked up to the creature and carefully stepped over the poison moat. It didn't even stop to clear the flames. It just walked right through without nary an ember on him. It raised its spear and cut off the two heads muttering to itself in its weird language. It walked away from the blood-soaked soil retrieving something in a pile of leaves. It messed with it for a moment. The music instantly stopped. Twilight wondered if that was where it was coming from, but then she noticed the minotaur walking towards a raised pedestal off to the side of the clearing with the manticore following it.
On it were two glowing rectangles that were slowly giving off less light. Twilight theorized that this is where the music was coming from and that it must've been made by using some crystal lattices imbued with magic. It all made sense as to how the creature was able to do what it did, but the only flaw with her guess is that the one crystal that is need to recognize and remember sounds as complex as those, would be a blood amethyst, currently the world's rarest gem.
Carefully she weighed the option of approaching the duo. They did not seem like they would hurt her unless she would do so otherwise. They could also appreciate her assistance in healing magic, because she doesn't believe that he could've gone through that fire without at least getting first degree burns. On the other hoof, they were very dangerous. If she makes the wrong move then she would surely die at the paw of the minotaur. Finally deciding on talking with the minotaur. She stepped out of the bushes.