//------------------------------// // Look // Story: The Wanderer // by Jetstream S //------------------------------//         “Sweetie Belle, we’ve been walking for hours!” Scootaloo complained as she stepped on yet another large thorn. Her hooves weren’t completely solid just yet, and were still susceptible to sharp stabbing plants. She was almost green with envy as she watched Applebloom crush the thorns like paper bags under her already hardened hooves.         Sweetie sighed as she kept casting the spell on the ground, looking for gems. “I’m sorry guys, I think its just a bit further,” Sweetie pleaded as she sat down to relax a bit. The magical strain she was putting on her horn was making it throb and give off visible heat waves. As much as she hated to admit it, her big sister was far better at magic than she was. At least for now.         “Rarity told ya it was about an hour trip, right Sweetie?” Applebloom asked as she sat directly in a bushel of thorns that made Scootaloo wince and shiver.         Sweetie nodded and took a bottle of water from her saddlebag, then levitated it with some difficulty to drink some. She poured the rest on her horn with a loud hiss that made her friends cringe. “Ahhh, that’s the ticket…” Sweetie sighed as she laid back with a dopey smile.         Scootaloo snickered and sat down herself. “Jeez, sweetie, you look like you just got finished-”         A sudden surge of magic bright enough to cut Scootaloo off lit up Sweetie’s horn and she shuddered. A huge blush covered her face and her eyes crossed as the glow became brighter.         Applebloom and Scootaloo looked at each other with raised eyebrows, before looking back at Sweetie. “Uh, you alright?” They both asked in unison. A few seconds later, the ground all around them suddenly became translucent with the shine of hundreds if not thousands of gems sparkling up at them.         Scootaloo and Applebloom’s jaws cratered the ground as they stared. “Scoots, get the-”         The sharp scrape of a shovel impaling the dirt cut Applebloom off as Scootaloo started to dig with a fire in her eyes. Sweetie had just now gotten ahold of herself and looked down at the fruits of her magic. “Ooo…” She whispered. “Pretty…”         This damn leaf won’t quit slapping my face as I look out on the massive and seemingly desolate landscape. Nothing but a dotting tree here and there and yellow hay-like grass. Kinda reminds me of Maximus’ death scene in the movie Gladiator. The tree I climbed is massive, easily forty meters tall, providing me with an amazing view of the surrounding area. I only climbed about thirty meters, seeing as beyond that point I had run out of sturdy limbs. My rifle is resting against the tree, with the barrel against the trunk and the stock against a large limb to my left.         “Funny, the whole reason of me climbing this damn tree was to get a twenty on where I was in correspondence to the forest, not take in the scenery,” I tell myself. I take my rifle and a round from my belt, sliding it into the chamber and clicking the bolt closed. Bringing it up and aiming it toward the treeline, I reach up and adjust the eyepiece, making the reticle razor sharp. I take the small handheld rangefinder from my backpack and aim it toward the forwardmost trees. "Holy shit... Three miles?" I ask myself as I lean against the trunk of the tree. "No way I'm gonna get a good scope adjustment from that." Sighing, I look around for a target of equal height and less than a mile out. Seeing nothing from the area I’m facing, I decide to make my way around the huge trunk of the tree to get an all-round view. Seeing another tree in the distance, looking no further than a mile, I take my rangefinder and take aim. One and a half mile out. “Guess that’ll have to do.” As I take aim, I notice the grasses on the ground between the tree and I are moving wildly, suggesting wind patterns are not the same everywhere. I sigh, knowing this will definitely affect my bullet’s trajectory, and therefore lead to an inaccurate scope adjustment. So I watch and wait, hoping the grasses will settle and the conditions will be right. As I wait however, the math and effects of the area continue to whittle my confidence. The .308 bullet is not designed to be accurate at this distance, and wherever I am, I can’t really add the Coriolis Effect into the equation. I could be on a planet the size of Jupiter and not even know it. But if I was, the gravity would surely be different… right? The bizarre thought brings me back to the question of where I am and the memory of how I got here… “I know it wasn’t you, Ethan…” I sigh. I walked through the embers and still smoking wreckage, wondering how the overhead and surrounding trees were untouched. The fire that destroyed the two story cabin would surely have been high enough… I watched Ethan looking under charred pieces of wood and glass, figuring he was searching for the cause of the blaze. I quickly decided to look with him, hoping my EXO Ironclad gloves would be enough to protect my hands from any nails and red coals. Zach spoke up, leaning against a support beam that shimmered with glowing red veins of burned material. “I don’t get it,” he inquired. “The trees all around the cabin are completely untouched and even the lawn isn’t charred or even touched for that matter.” Ethan nodded in agreement as he surveyed the area. “You think someone planned and contained the fire manually?” He asked as he flipped a blackened piece of wall. Nodding, I looked toward what used to be a small coat closet near the living room entrance. The door was charred and blackened, but strangely harbored no structural damage. I raised an eyebrow, pulling the straps of my backpack a little tighter as I approached it. “Hey guys, check this out. Doesn’t this closet door look weird to you?” Both Ethan and Zach dropped their pieces of wreckage they were examining and walked over, both sharing quizzical looks as they nodded their agreement. “Yea, no kidding,” Zach whispered as he looked the door over a bit more. “Okay, how is that even possible?” Ethan asked as he put a hand on it. His glove took with it the black char, exposing the still white door beneath. “But... its wood… shouldn’t it have gone up with the rest of the cabin?” I asked in awe. “Makes zero sense,” Ethan said as he wiped the black off his glove on his pants. I walked over some rubble to see behind the door, confirming my suspicions that the contents of the closet had been destroyed. Something was up, that much I knew, but what? I’ve never heard of anything like this happening in my entire life, and I had no doubt that this would stump even the most seasoned firefighting Veteran. I turned to Zach and Ethan, the former of whom having just cracked a joke in reference to his blackened glove. “Once you go black, you never go back…” Zach chuckled as Ethan struggled to remove the black char from his glove. I rolled my eyes and placed a hand on the door’s knob, feeling a sudden shock through my gloved hand. Though not really painful, it was a surprise and made me jerk my hand back. The action made me elbow Ethan, who had come up from behind, right in the stomach. “Hey!” He yelped as he held his stomach from the pain. “Woops, sorry. The knob shocked me through the glove.” “How?” He asked as he looked it over. “Don’t know,” I replied. “Probably just my imagination.” I turn the knob, opening the door and looking inside as if expecting something. I still don’t know why, but I had expected to see Narnia or the surface of mars. I wasn’t crazy, but the lone door among all the rubble and burnt wreckage seemed crazy. Like it was there for a purpose. Or maybe it was a fireproofing experiment my grandfather had attempted way back when. Whichever the case, it was one helluva door to withstand such a fire with next to zero ill effects. I walked through the door frame and closed the door behind me from habit. I felt something wash over me, like a warm blanket’s embrace in a cold night. It was odd, but I just attributed it to a heat wave from the still smoldering ruins of the cabin. I wouldn’t learn how wrong I was until I turned around to see nothing but forest in all directions. “Guys…?” As I come back to reality, I notice the grasses have all but come to a total standstill. Thinking it's now or never, I pull the trigger and fire a round toward the tree. I keep my scope as steady as I can through the recoil, waiting for the impact. After three seconds, I can see the puff of debris where the round struck the tree a few centimeters to the right and below the center of the reticle. “It’ll have to do.” With my scope somewhat adjusted, I start my descent from the high tree. As I do however, I notice something off in the distance. A direction I’ve apparently never faced before since I’ve never noticed the large rocky outcrop in the distance. Figuring there might be a means for shelter among the rocks, I climb the rest of the way down and make way for the rocks. “Rarity is gonna flip!” Sweetie squealed as she loaded up her saddlebag with the shimmering assorted gems. “I know!” Scootaloo chimed in. “We could buy all sorts of stuff for the clubhouse!” "Yea, as long as it ain't another one o’ them industrial pet dryers," Applebloom chuckled. They all shared a laugh as they stocked up their saddlebags with hundreds of bits of worth of natural gems and jewels. Applebloom’s bags were nearly bursting at the seams but she didn’t seem weighed down at all, while Sweetie’s bags were both roughly half full and she was sweating. Scootaloo wasn’t faring much better, with only three quarters of her bags filled at most. "Um, guys... What's say we take a break, huh?" Scootaloo suggested as tough as she could. Sweetie quickly nodded and sat down, letting her bags slide down her back onto the ground with a sharp gravel-like noise. Applebloom sighed and nodded, sitting next to her tired friends but keeping her bags on. "Just think girls, when we get back, we could buy enough supplies to expand the clubhouse to three times what it is now!" Sweetie delightfully suggested as she inspected her forehooves for chips. "Well, it ain't over 'till it's over, Sweetie Belle," Applebloom sighed. "We still gotta get all this back before dark, and we easily got a four hour walk." Both Scootaloo and Sweetie looked up in worry, seeing that the sun had dipped considerably since they started digging. The wide canyon they were in was encompassed by near vertical walls, far too high for any of them but Scootaloo to get out of. The only way back was through where they came in, and the sun was just peeking over the canyon edge. Applebloom sighed as the shadow reached where they were sitting. "We uh, we better get going then, huh," Scootaloo suggested as she hoisted her bags back into her back. A few small rocks suddenly tumbled from the top of the canyon wall to their left, drawing all three fillies' attention. Their ears swiveled and their eyes darted upwards, but to their relief, nothing was there. "C'mon girls, time ta move..." Applebloom quickly took the lead and walked with a considerable pace, forcing her tired friends to keep up. Something didn't feel right in her gut about this place, as though each turn and step brought more and more eyes on her and her friends. Her coat stood on end as the feeling intensified, and her ears splayed back on their own. She looked back at her friends, whose heads were also on a swivel. Applebloom knew her friends were feeling the same eeriness as her. "Fee... Fi... Fo... Fum..." All three fillies froze in horror as the echoing voice filled the canyon. "A-Applebloom?" Sweetie squeaked as she glued herself to her side. "Y-Yea... I heard it..." There was a dramatic pause as the wind through the canyon seemed to cease its gentle flow. "We smell... A bag full of rum..." Sweetie started to shiver as those words graced her ears like a rusty nail on a chalkboard. Her friends were confused but easily just as scared. "Oh no... D-D-Dia..." Another sudden fall of rocks from the cliffside made Sweetie squeak in suppressed panic. It was accompanied by an echoing snicker and soft, near inaudible paw pats on gravel. Scootaloo was trying to maintain her tough facade, but her involuntary trembling was making her fail miserably. "B-Bag of r-rum...?" Applebloom whispered. "But w-we're carrying-" "GEMS!" A huge bipedal creature exploded from the ground only inches away from the trio's tails like a spring loaded mole, making a swipe for their saddlebags with its enormous paws. The three fillies squealed in terror, jumping out of their skins like startled cats. Applebloom’s saddlebags were ripped off her back, but not before the strap around her belly took her with them. It tore mid swing, flinging her into the canyon wall with a loud thud. She yelped in pain while Scootaloo ran over to her undoubtedly hurt friend. As she ran over, Sweetie shrieked in horror from behind as another, larger creature descended from the canyon wall. “Gem finding pony! Good Gem hunter! You MINE now!” The creature knelt down on the petrified unicorn filly, scooping her up and running as fast as it could down the canyon. Scootaloo, still trying to wake Applebloom, looked back and was torn between her two friends. She knew she couldn't save them both, and she was no match for even one of the three beasts that surrounded her and Applebloom. She looked up at the closest one and bared her teeth as she stood over her friend in a defensive posture. "Oooh... You no gem hunter... You tasty snack!" Scootaloo swallowed thickly and growled a bit, standing defiantly over Applebloom. "Don't come any closer you monster!!" Scootaloo yelled as she made an attempt to bite the creature's paw. It simply laughed and swatted her aside like a flea with one solid swipe, knocking the breath out of her and sending her tumbling into a large rock against the cliffside. Dazed but not out, she attempted to stand but was greeted by a sharp pain in her left foreleg making her yelp. She looked up to see the monster that hit her kneeling over and grabbing Applebloom by her hind leg, picking her up effortlessly and dangling her over his mouth with a menacing giggle. "N-No... Applebloom!!" Scootaloo reached out for her endangered friend but couldn't get up from where she was. Was this it? Was this how her and her friends' journeys ended? These thoughts clouded her mind as the creature dangled her unconscious friend over his gaping maw. She closed her eyes and turned her head, unable to watch what was about to happen. But out of nowhere, she heard a sudden thump, followed almost immediately by a sharp cracking sound. The echo through the canyon indicated that it came from afar, so she opened her eyes and looked around. Amazingly, Applebloom lied on the ground while the creature looked down at its chest. It's paw was soaked in a dark liquid, and it fell over with a ground shaking thud. Completely astounded and scared, the dead monster's counterparts looked at each other and nodded, both reaching for Scootaloo and Applebloom. Scootaloo attempted to fight but was held tight, almost suffocating as they started moving quickly toward the next bend in the canyon. She screamed in panic, praying to anyone listening for help. The creature quickly squeezed the air from her lungs and continued running, but suddenly its head snapped forward as a red spray exploded from its forehead. It dropped Scootaloo, letting the asphyxiated filly roll limply to the side as it face planted into the ground. She looked up with bleary vision, feeling herself slipping away into unconsciousness when the silhouette of a tall creature approaching caught her attention. Thinking it was another of the same monster, she forced her eyes to stay open long enough to see a strange appendage reaching down for her. The last thing she felt before going under was the sensation of being lifted and carried in arms.