//------------------------------// // Cabin in the Woods (EDITED) // Story: The Reject Chronicles // by Darth Pestilence //------------------------------// 3 days after the events of the previous chapter... Mason awoke to the sound of chirping birds and various forest critters going about their usual activities. He slowly and carefully sat up, not wanting to fall off the tree branches he and the others had been using as a bed last night. For the past three nights, Robert had insisted that the three of them sleep in trees. Robert had told them all about the creatures that roamed the forest at night, which quickly convinced the two older men to agree with him. Mason grabbed onto a nearby branch, hissing in pain when he realized he had accidentally stretched the arm that Rarity had stabbed with the needle. He retracted his injured arm and used his other one to lower himself down to the ground. He stretched, which helped ease some of the pain in his back, if only a little bit. As he finished, his stomach growled loudly. Mason chuckled lightly. "I'm kind of hungry. Might as well have a few of those fruits," he thought. Mason walked over to a nearby bush and pushed the branches aside, revealing John's backpack. He pulled it out of its hiding place and opened it up, revealing several red apples. In the past three days, Robert had been leading Mason and John around the Everfree forest, trying to find Zecora's hut. Robert had outright refused to go into the deeper parts of the forest, forcing them to go around the edges of the forest, which took considerably longer. On the second day the group stumbled across Sweet Apple acres, and decided that taking a few apples for themselves would be the best course of action. For survival. Mason took an apple out of the bag and took a large bite, savoring the wonderful taste. "Robert wasn't kidding when he said that these apples were delicious," Mason thought to himself as he took another bite. "Having breakfast without me?" Robert said, sitting up from his makeshift bed. Mason looked up at the younger boy, noticing the tired look on his face. "Hey Robert, how did you sleep?" he asked. Robert gave a tired smile, "Not very well to be honest. The pain I get in my back when I sleep in these trees, as well as the pain in my leg, keeps me from sleeping all that well." "Sorry to hear that. I hope we find this Zecora you keep talking about soon so that we'll actually have a proper bed to sleep on," Mason said. He pulled another apple out of the backpack and offered it to Robert. "Apple?" "Yes please, I'm so hungry!" Robert said eagerly. He climbed down swiftly and dropped to the ground when he was close enough, wincing when he was reminded of his hurt leg by the pain shooting through it. Mason noticed Robert's pain and walked over to him. "Are you alright?" Mason asked. "Yeah, I just forgot about the big, fat bruise on my leg for a split second," Robert said, shaking off the pain. "May I have that apple now?" "Sure," Mason gave Robert the apple, which he promptly began to eat. "Well I'm just glad your bone didn't fracture." "Amen to that," Robert answered in between bites. The two of them sat in silence for a while after that, just eating their apples. Mason broke the silence after he and Robert had finished their apples. "Do you have any idea as to how close we are to Zecora?" "Well, we stole from Sweet Apple Acres last night. So we are near the edge that Ponyville is located. If that's the case then we just might find it today if we look hard enough," Robert said, tossing his apple core over his shoulder. "Now that's something I like to hear!" Mason said with a grin, throwing his finished apple core off to the side. " "Yeah, maybe we can finally clean ourselves up when we get there," Robert said. Mason glanced up at Robert, taking his appearance in. His pale face had smudges of dirt on it, his brown hair was messier than it was when they first arrived, having flakes of bark and dirt in it. Robert's white t-shirt and jeans were also smudged with dirt, his tennis shoes being the only article of clothing that didn't look like it was about to fall apart. The most noticeable things, however, were his tired green eyes, and the limp he had when he walked. "We do need to clean up. You look like crap Robert," Mason said. "No offense." "None taken," Robert said, looking a bit more upbeat after Mason's humorous statement. The teen looked at Mason's appearance before adding, "But to be fair, you ain't looking so hot either." Mason's pale face and short black hair were equally covered with dirt and bark as Robert was. Mason's red shirt had been stripped of its sleeves, which had been used as makeshift bandages for their wounds, and his jeans had been ripped in several places, and like Robert, his shoes were still intact. Lastly, his blue eyes had small bags under them, and his left shoulder was wrapped in one of the two sleeves, which had successfully stopped the bleeding after many attempts. "Heh, well I guess none of us have been doing very well since we've arrived here. We should just be glad we're still alive and that none of our wounds got infected," Mason said. "Yeah, it's a really good thing they didn't get infected. Looks like my luck finally decided to do something good for me," Robert said, pulling another apple out of the backpack. "Hm? What's that about your luck?" Mason asked curiously. "Well, my luck has a tendency to make the most inconvenient things happen to me," Robert explained before sinking his teeth into the delicious fruit. Mason smiled, "Sounds rough." "Yeah," Robert said through a mouthful of apple. "There was this one time when-" Robert and Mason heard the sound of rustling leaves and looked up, seeing John finally waking up. "Look who finally decided to wake up, " Mason jokingly said. "*yawn* Good morning guys," John said, rubbing his eyes as he sat up. Mason and Robert looked over the third member of their group. There wasn't much different about his appearance and that of the other two, except that his brown eyes didn't look as tired as Mason and Robert's, but he still looked exhausted. "How'd ya sleep, bro?" Robert asked, taking another bite out of his apple. "Not that well to be honest," John said. Robert shrugged, "I don't think any of us slept well last night." He reached into the backpack and pulled out another apple. "Would you like an apple?" John got off of the tree with relative ease since he had not sustained any injuries in the fight with the mane six aside from a few small bruises. "Sure, I'd love one." Robert tossed the uneaten fruit over to John, who caught it in one of his hands. "Alright, we're all awake," said Mason. "How about we go ahead and start searching for Zecora?" Robert and John nodded. "Alright, then let's set out." The three of them pulled their respective weapons out of the backpack before resuming their trek through the forest. (2 hours later...) "I spy with my little eye-" Robert began. "Trees?" Mason guessed, bored out of his mind. Robert grunted in annoyance. "Yes, it was a tree." "Is there anything else we can do to pass the time?" John asked, also quite bored. "Maybe we could play rock, paper, scissors," Mason said sarcastically. "No thank you," John said, apparently not picking up on the sarcasm. "I don't think a game like that would make this trip any less boring. Who knew that trekking through the forest of an alien world could be so tedious?" "Well since we're trying to avoid the creatures that would have no problem with eating us alive, we have to take the long way. I just wish we hadn't fallen down that riverbank," Robert said. An hour earlier, they had accidentally fallen down a steep riverbank that they couldn't climb back up. In order to get back to where they had originally been, they had been forced to walk along the river until they found a place where the riverbank wasn't quite so steep. They had found it, but it was very close to where the Everfree forest ended. Right. At. Fluttershy's house. It was sheer luck that the yellow Pegasus was not home at the time, giving them the opening they needed. It had taken them an hour to get back to where they had been, much to the chagrin of the three. "Same here," said Mason. "Now not only are we dirty, but we're wet too." "Well we should just be happy we didn't run into any Cragadiles," said Robert. The two older men glanced at each other. "What's a Cragadile?" asked John. "Think of a crocodile, except it's bigger and has rocks instead of scales," explained Robert. "So it's not an animal we would want to run into." "Geez, this place is crawling with monsters!" John said, suddenly more paranoid than he previously was. "Oh you think that's bad? I haven't even told you guys about Slendermane yet." "Slendermane?" John questioned. "Yep, there's a pony Slenderman in this forest. In this one episode-" said Robert. "Quiet," Mason commanded, standing completely still. Robert and John ceased their conversation and stopped walking too. 'What is it Mason?' John whispered. 'I think I heard voices a short distance away,' Mason answered, also whispering. John and Robert listened closely, and were faintly able to hear unintelligible voices about forty yards away. 'What do you think it is?' John whispered. 'I don't know, what do you think Robert?' Mason said. 'I'm not sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there are some ponies around here.' Robert said. One last shout echoed through the forest before the voices were replaced by a different noise: the sound of hooves. From where the three humans stood, they could hear many different sets of hooves going out in different directions, including theirs. John quickly pulled his invisibility cloak out of his backpack and said, 'Everyone, get under the cloak!' Mason and Robert were quick to comply and were under the cloak in no time. After a minute of waiting, a group of seven armored stallions walking in a single-file line stepped into sight. John, Robert, and Mason moved out of their path and backed up into a large tree. 'What's the deal with these spear-wielding ponies? Are they the police or something?' Mason asked. 'That's Celestia's royal guard. She must have sent them to catch us after we beat up the Elements,' Robert said. Robert suddenly gasped. 'What?! What is it Robert?!' John whispered, frantically looking around to see if anything dangerous was around. Robert narrowed his eyes and pointed to the guard in the back of the line, an orange Pegasus with a spiky blue mane. 'Flash Sentry? What's he doing here?' he whispered, his voice laced with surprise and distaste. Mason and John looked at the teen with wide eyes. Never had Robert spoken about someone with such dislike in the time they had been together, he even talked about the ponies that tried to capture him better! 'What did Flash Sentry do to make you hate him so much?' Mason asked, looking at the orange Pegasus. 'Well I don't exactly "hate" him, more like dislike his character. He's a poor attempt at a love interest for Twilight in a horribly paced movie,' Robert answered, much to their confusion. Robert saw their confused expressions and said, 'Look, I'll explain later, okay? Now what should we do about the guards? Should we make a run for it?' 'I don't think that would be the best choice. We might end up trapped if we run into another group of guards. We know nothing about what's going on with these soldiers. I say we get one of them and get them to talk,' Mason said. John considered it, while Robert looked at Mason as if he had suddenly gone insane. 'And how are we going to do that? Besides, hurting a guard will hurt our already crappy reputation!' 'All we have to do is wait for the others to be distracted so we can take the one in the back without any of them noticing,' Mason said. "The one in the back?" Robert thought. He remembered Flash Sentry was in the back. He was now slightly more accepting of this plan. 'Well I guess we don't know much, some knowledge about what's going on would be useful...' Mason, Robert, and John were trailing behind the guards, waiting for their chance to snatch the Pegasus. John and Mason were poised to strike when the time was right, while Robert was glaring at Flash through the cloak. Flash had actually glanced back at them several times because he felt Robert's eyes boring into the back of his head, only to see nothing. All of the guards were tense, glancing side-to-side and holding their spears tightly in their teeth. They were so tense that they would jump at the tiniest sound, exactly what the humans wanted. "C'mon, just a tiny distraction..." Mason thought. Right after Mason thought that to himself, one of the bushes began to shake as a shrill cry sounded from within it. The guard at the front of the line screamed, the others following his example. 'Now!' Mason said. While the guards were still in the middle of freaking out, they removed the cloak and got to work on taking Flash Sentry. Mason kicked the spear out of his mouth before using his free hand to cover it. John picked him up and restrained his flailing limbs and Robert threw the cloak back over them and pinned his wings to his back. Mason moved his bladed glove into the pony's line of sight. 'Don't try to fight us.' Flash looked at the humans and the bladed glove with wide, panicked eyes, desperately hoping that his fellow guards would notice what was happening. When he remembered that the information from the reports about the creatures he was trying to capture stated that they had some sort of robe that made them completely invisible, he realized that he wouldn't be seen and stopped struggling. 'Good. Now we're going to take you a short distance away and ask you a few questions, okay?' Robert whispered into his ear. Flash nodded. 'And you'll answer them truthfully, right?' Flash nodded again. 'That's good. Cause if you decide to lie to us, well...you won't like what comes next.' Flash shuddered. They dragged Flash away, leaving the guards behind. "Whew," the guard in the front said. "It was only a crow. Everypony alright?" He turned around, seeing the relieved and annoyed faces of the other...five guards. "Wait, where's the rookie?" . . . After dragging Flash about sixty yards away from where they captured him, they stopped near a tightly packed group of trees. "Alright," Robert said in his normal voice. "Mason here is going to remove his hand from your mouth and you are NOT going to scream, got it?" Flash nodded. Robert nodded at Mason, who then moved his hand from Flash's mouth but still kept his bladed right hand in his sight. "Now," Robert began, "Why are the guards here? Answer quietly please." Flash gritted his teeth in anger. "You know damn well why, you sadistic freaks!" he said as quietly as he could. Robert delivered a hard punch to Flash's stomach, getting a grunt of pain out of him. "Kindly refrain from insulting us. We don't find it all that flattering. And would you please watch your language? I find such vocabulary to be unbefitting of the royal guard," he said in a low, threatening voice that sent chills down the spines of even Mason and John. "Why does he sound so...cold?" John thought. "This doesn't sound like Robert normally does. Has the stress of being trapped here gotten to him?" Mason thought. "Next question," Robert continued. "How many guards are here?" "1-150 in all. We split up into groups of various sizes to cover more ground. We're setting up camps near the Castle of the Two Sisters as we speak," Flash answered. "150!?" John and Mason thought, shocked at how many guards had been sent to apprehend them. Robert, however, remained calm. "Last question: what is Twilight's condition?" "Huh? Oh. I believe the doctors told her that she'll never be able to see out of her left eye ever again," Flash answered, confused as to why he was asking him that. Robert was silent for a few moments. "That'll be all. John, you know what to do." The three humans let go, and John slammed Flash's head into a nearby tree over and over until he stopped squirming. They took the cloak off and looked down at Flash's unconscious body. "I think we got him," Mason said. "Yeah, but what should we do with him?" John asked. Robert's eyes snapped up from Flash's body. He rubbed his eyes and looked around as if he was seeing his surroundings for the first time. John noticed and said, "You okay, Robert?" "Y-Yeah, I just feel a little light-headed. Like I snapped out of a daze, you know?" Robert said. "You got a little weird when you were talking to that guard, do you do that with people you don't like?" Mason asked. "N-No, this is the first time I've ever acted that coldly towards someone, but it felt so natural..." Robert paused for a moment before fishing his Batarang out of his pocket. He stared at it intently for a few seconds. "You don't think..." He stopped and shook his head, putting his Batarang back into his pocket. John and Mason realized what Robert had been thinking about, and were suddenly more aware of the Cloak of Invisibility and Freddy's glove. "Anyway," Robert said. "We can't just leave him lying here, it would give the inhabitants of the forest a chance to gobble him up. As much as I don't like the guy I don't want to see him become some creature's lunch." He thought for a minute. "John, how about you put his body up in the branches of that tree we banged his head against." John looked at the tree, then Flash, and then he shrugged. "Alright, just give me a second." He slung the unconscious pony over his shoulder and started climbing up the tree. After reaching a decent height, John laid Flash down among a group of thick branches. John dropped down and turned to Mason and Robert. "Alright then, let's continue our journey under the cloak. With all the guards walking around, I'd say staying out of sight would be the best option." The group of three got back under the Invisibility Cloak and continued their search for Zecora. (45 minutes later...) "Avoid the blue flowers! Avoid the blue flowers!" Robert said frantically, stopping them before they could walk into the patch of poison joke. "Why?" Mason asked. "How can a flower hurt us?" "It's called poison joke. On contact with living things it alters their body in a humorous, yet embarrassing and inconvenient. Trust me, it's worse than it sounds. Let's go around it." They went around the patch of mystic flowers and kept walking, coming across a thick fog soon after. "What's up with this fog? Why's it in the middle of a forest when it hasn't even rained in the past few days?" Mason said. Robert smiled. "I think we're close, let's push on." They pressed onward, walking through the thick fog that stretched on for what seemed like a mile to them, but was a quarter of a mile in reality. Once they were finally past it, they saw a small wooden hut, surrounded by wooden masks that looked to be African in design. "Boys, we're here," Robert said happily, walking out from under the cloak. "You can put the cloak back in the bag now." "This place sure looks strange," John said, stuffing the cloak back into his backpack. "Has anything been normal in this place?" Mason commented. "Touche'," John said. "Alright guys, I'm going to talk to Zecora. Don't try to hurt her unless she tries to slit my throat or something," Robert said, leading them over to the front door. Mason flexed his bladed hand. "Got it." John cracked his knuckles. "Got it." Satisfied with their responses, Robert knocked on the door. Zecora was preparing a pot of stew for lunch when she heard Robert knocking on the door. "Who could that possibly be? I never have visitors," she thought. She walked over to a small closet and got a sturdy iron rod from it. "Can't be too careful, it might be another pony trying to drive me out of my home." She held the rod firmly in her teeth as she approached the door. She took a deep breath and opened the door. "H-hello miss. We're in a bit of a bind, would you mind helping us out if you can?" Robert said as soon as she had opened the door. Zecora's jaw dropped, the rod falling to the floor. Her eyes darted back and forth between the three; creatures unlike anything she had ever seen before. Realizing that Zecora wasn't going to respond immediately, Robert continued. "We woke up in this forest a few days ago with no idea as to how we got here, or where we were. We wandered around the forest for a while before encountering residents of Ponyville that were exploring the forest. I tried to explain the situation to them several times, but one of them mistook us for monsters and attacked us. We acted in self-defense and accidentally gave one of them an injury. This pony just so happened to be the student of Princess Celestia, and now the royal guard is coming after us. We have been looking for a place to stay ever since, avoiding the various monsters that tried to eat us. We just now stumbled upon your cabin, and were wondering if we could stay here for a little while?" Zecora stared at Mason's glove, its blades glistening menacingly in what little sunlight penetrated through the trees. "We could even help you out the best we can if you say yes," Robert added, hoping with all of his might that Zecora would be kind enough to let them stay. After getting over the initial shock of seeing three creatures that she had never even heard of, and hearing them SPEAK, she mulled over their words. "The littlest one seems sincere, I don't see any malicious intent in his eyes. The two bigger ones unnerve me, especially with that bladed weapon, but I don't think they'll attack me unless I hurt the small one. They must be friends if they're willing to protect each other," she thought. "They're in a lot of trouble with the ponies. If news about them spread over the course of several days, then the ponies must really dislike them, all because of a misunderstanding. ...They're a lot like me." Zecora thought about it for a minute before reaching a decision. "Before I decide, how about you three come inside and have some soup? I just finished making it," she said. All three of them nodded rapidly and shuffled inside quickly, getting a chuckle out of the zebra. As soon as her back was turned, Robert looked at her oddly. "She didn't even rhyme..." . . . 30 minutes later "So the residents of Ponyville have refused to sell you anything, shut themselves inside their houses when you come, call you a witch, and have even shown up at your door and told you to leave, just because you're different?" Mason asked, gripping the table in anger. Zecora nodded. "Wow," he continued, "we have the excuse of not being from this world, but they reject you just because of your different appearance and fashion choices? Man, ponies are racist." She laughed and said, "I am sure that not all ponies are like that, but I have yet to meet somepony who doesn't think I'm a witch." "Well, I'm sure that you'll meet somepony like that someday. But until then, you're stuck in the rejects group." Robert said with a laugh. Zecora stood up and set her empty bowl down. "After having this discussion, I have reached a decision. You can stay." Robert, Mason, and John all looked up at her in surprise. "We can stay?" asked Mason. She nodded. "Yes." "I honestly thought it would be harder than that to convince you to let us stay," said Robert. "What can I say? You three remind me of myself." "Thank you. You know, you kind of remind me of my mom, always too kind and generous for you're own good." said Robert. "But it still freaks me out that you aren't rhyming." "Thank you. Now I'm off to collect some herbs and berries. Stay put and try not to break anything. And remember what I said about the floorboards," she said, putting her hooded cloak on. "Okay Zecora, we'll keep that in mind," Robert said. Zecora opened the door and walked out. "It's feels nice to finally have friends in this place."