Bullseye Marks The Spot
Swift Strike had been asleep in the castle for the past six hours. The kangaroo had spent a majority of his time looking around the castle. Making sure not to cross a line he shouldn’t as he moved about getting to know this new and strange place, after he had awoken.
Back in the Kangaroo Isles, they didn’t have castles. They had buildings, and a large temple. That was it. They had a mayor, not a prince or princess and that was all. Their governmental system was more of a dictatorship of sorts than a diarchy, with only a few important political figures in charge. So this castle and it’s structure were all a bit new to him.
Hopping back into the common room of the Elements of Harmony, the buck moved towards the kitchen to grab some grub. His stomach had been growling something fierce for the past ten minutes and it was time he got some food to eat. Once he was inside the kitchen the buck moved towards the fridge, opened it and saw a wide variety of fruit to choose from.
He picked up a pear and an apple and began munching on it. Staring out the window just in front of him, he could see all of Ponyville. And man, was it a beautiful sight.
“Crikey” S.S. said, “this town’s nicer than I thought. It’s hard to imagine this place has been through so many things like the newspaper say” he said to the air, taking another bite from his pear.
It was then something dawned on the kangaroo.
What happened to the others?
For six hours they had been gone. And in all this time, Swift Strike had been asleep. Well, okay, maybe not all this time. He fell asleep for five hours. After waiting one hour he decided to get some rest. And since that young dragon, “I think his name was Spike or something?” wasn’t here, but watching over the CMC, then it meant boredom.
And when Swift Strike was bored, he went to sleep. But now that time had passed and he’d gotten some grub to eat, he began to realize just how bad this could be.
“I should probably go out and ask around if anyone’s seen those lil buggers.” Turning around and exiting the kitchen, the buck began moving towards the common room gates, but just as his back came to face the Cutie Map, Swift Strike’s ears perked up as he heard a melodic humming coming from behind him.
“....” slowly, almost mechanically, the buck turned to face the map. And much to his loss of amusement, the map was indeed glowing.
Swift Strike cringed. When they had arrived he asked how they were able to figure out Daring Doo was in need of assistance. It was then Pinkie Pie had gone into a well fast paced explanation about the Cutie Map, and how it detected problems around Equestria and it’s nearby countries.
Moving towards the map, Swift Strike watched four cutie marks, float over “Ghastly Gorge.” Yet at the same time, there was something else he noticed. These four cutie marks obviously belonged to four different ponies.
One was a compass, so Swift Strike knew it was Daring Doo. The other was...a ball with a screw jammed into it, so that meant Screwball was going also. The third one, belonged to the Element of Laughter; Pinkie Pie. And the fourth belonged to, Hailstorm.
Yet of course, there was something strange about Hailstorm’s cutie mark. On their trip back to Equestria, Swift Strike had noticed the stallion had not one cutie mark that was the same on both his flanks, but two different ones. And the second cutie mark on Hailstorm’s flank, a multicolored bullseye, with B and A as its targets, glowed. The colors on Hailstorm’s cutie mark, were glowing.
Now being a kangaroo and all, Swift Strike didn’t have the capability of getting a cutie mark. But he had escorted and talked to enough ponies in his previous job back at the isles, to figure out that cutie marks weren’t supposed to be expressing multiple colors the way Hailstorm’s cutie mark was.
The buck merely ran a hand over his hair and sighed, “Things just never let up around here do they?”
“Your cutie marks are glowing” Discord commented for the sixth time.
“For the last time, I know! Jeez Discord quit telling me something I can feel!” the stallion rushing to keep up with the others said.
The draconequus merely shrugged and disappeared out of my view. I really didn’t need this right now. The girls had told me as we were leaving Zecora’s place that the god of serpents had payed a visit while I was being treated.
My reaction was to believe they were playing a horrible joke on me. Especially since it had been Rainbow Dash who bluntly told me this fact as we left the premises.
Of course, when their reactions went silent as I laughed, I immediately began to question a lot of things that had happened when I was out. And one of those had been what caused me to hit my head on Zecora’s roof.
They all answered, save for Fluttershy, it was Jormanzir’s doing. And while I had no idea who Jormanzir was, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out based off of Starlight’s warning from him.
The rest of our trip away from Zecora’s was done in silence. That is till four cutie marks started glowing. None of which anyone noticed till Discord pointed it out, and hasn’t stopped since we began running.
That scar across my shoulder and trapezius muscle, began making sure to remind me that pushing myself was an idiotic move. But me being an idiot that brought impending doom on this entire world, decided to muscle through the stinging and burning.
It had taken us a couple minutes to finally reach the castle, roughly around fifteen, and when we did finally get there. Swift Strike had been pacing the common room so much that when he saw us he wasted no time in approaching. He cleared four feet with a single hop and immediately shoved us into the common room.
“What’s going on?” Twilight asked confused.
“What do ya think is going on? Your map is calling for ya, now get going!” Swift Strike stated. Obviously whatever was bugging him about the map was serious.
And you know what? I hate how right he was to be.
The six bearers gathered around the map, sitting in their seats. Starlight, Daring Doo, and I, stood by Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy respectively. Swift Strike stood by me along with Screwball, casting a slightly disturbed glance at the floating cutie marks on the map.
“I don’t see anything so bad about this Swift Strike” Rarity said, with a raised brow.
The buck gave her a look. “From what ya’ll h’ve been telling me” he said his accent now seeping in. “That map takes cutie marks and uses them as a guide to destinations right? it doesn’t change the cutie mark in anyway right?”
Everyone slowly nodded. I didn’t because I wasn’t even sure.
“Good, then can someone explain to me what in the seven boomerangs of Hoppingsdale, is that?!” he said pointing at one of the cutie marks that floated over the gorge.
Twilight and the others weren’t sure what had this buck so riled up. But they decided to get up and take a look.
Everyone moved in close. Rainbow and Daring flying over the others and peering from above. After a few minutes of silence, Rarity said, “Darling, what exactly are we looking for?”
Swift Strike groaned and ran his hand over his face. “Look closely, very close and you’ll see it. It’s on Hailstorm’s cutie mark.”
The sudden change of air that swept over this entire room did not go unnoticed by me. Daring Doo, Screwball, and Starlight gave the others some space to work, and I just maintained my distance.
Seconds passed. And they were excruciatingly long. Felt like hours almost, until I heard a familiar gasp.
“OH MY GOSH!” Pinkie screamed, her head shooting away from the table. “Hailstorm! Get your perfectly shaped flank over here now!” the mare ordered.
If I could I would have very well liked to ask her if she’s been staring at my butt recently. But I withdrew the question, fear taking over me instead.
Moving away from the corner in this large common room I approached the others, and upon doing so noticed how Rainbow Dash’s eyes slowly became hit with revelation as she stared at the holographic image of my cutie mark.
Before I knew what was happening, Pinkie had tackled me to the ground, spun me over onto my belly, and gently moved my tail aside in a span of four seconds. I had to admit, for an energetic mare, she was fast....and strong.
“Pinkie what are you-” Fluttershy began her protest, only for the mare to raise a hoof for a moment, to show them that she was not about to commit any horrible or obscene act to me in Twilight’s home.
“Look!” Pinkie said, causing me to shiver when I felt the tip of her hoof graze my pelt that had my second glowing cutie mark on it.
The room fell silent, and I couldn’t help but feel extremely uncomfortable being pinned to the ground like this and having my rump being up for display. With one quick shove I moved Pinkie off of me and scrambled up to my hooves, rounding to face the others.
The look of confusion on everyone’s face told me something was amiss. And all I could do was sigh.
“What did I do this time?” I sighed.
“We’re not sure” Twilight said slowly. Cautiously. “But you can see it for yourself.” The six mares parted, moving away from the map. I looked at Swift Strike hoping he’d give me an answer to this instead, but the buck shook his head. “You’ll have to see this for yourself mate.”
I suppose I do, don’t I?
Moving forward, the room quiet, to the point where I could hear my own breathing and the clopping of my hooves on the ground I took a look at the map, and the cutie marks floating over the gorge.
Pinkie’s was floating next to Daring’s, Daring’s next to Screwball’s and behind them was mine. My other cutie mark that I still didn’t understand, nor like that much. The multicolored bullseye, didn’t look as multicolored as it should.
Slowly around the circle’s edges, where there should have been a pink cerise mixture followed by all the colors of the rainbow, was a black tracing around the bullseye's edges. And from the looks of it, this black color, was sucking out the color in each of the other rings all the way to the bullseye point. Turning everything a dark shade of grey. It was like vacuuming. Suction occurs and sucks up anything in its path. Leaving nothing, but a new clean floor in front of you.
And that was what looked like was happening to my cutie mark. Everything was turning grey. All save for the B and A. They were turning red?
At this realization I felt a shiver crawl up my spine. I had no idea, what on earth this was implying. But I didn’t like it.
“Where’s Ghastly Gorge?” I asked after a few seconds of silence had set in so I could adjust.
No one responded. It felt like they were looking at me, or rather were staring at the mark on my rump. I dared a glance back and noticed that for the first time since I’ve seen her, Screwball herself had no idea what was going on.
A feeling of great turmoil made its way into my body by forming a lump in my throat. I swallowed, and forced this feeling of terror away. If Bill was doing this to scare me for payback on calling him out, he was doing a great job.
I coughed, and broke the mystical spell of silence. Everyone diverted their attention away from the map that held my ominously darkening cutie mark or diverted their attention away from my cutie mark in general and looked at me.
“Well” I said with some feigned courage. “Let’s go, we’ve got to go see what the problem is. Pinkie, Daring, Screwball, lead the way.”
No one moved. And for a second I felt like they were going to start asking me questions again about why I was here and why I was so different. But then Pinkie smiled, hopped over to my side and told everyone we were leaving.
Pinkie Pie half dragged, half escorted me out of Twilight’s castle with a intrigued Daring Doo, and greatly perturbed Screwball following after us.
All our friends watching us as we left.
The front door to Twilight’s castle slammed, and then Pinkie exuberantly started guiding me towards Ghastly Gorge, doing everything in her power to make sure I didn’t look back at the castle.
“C’mon Hailstorm let’s get a move on!” she said with a grin that looked more forced than natural. Pushing me along the ground with a foreleg, Pinkie and our other two comrades followed as we moved towards Ghastly Gorge.
But before we were too far away from the the castle I dared a chance to quickly look back.
That was a mistake.
The eyes of Rainbow Dash and Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack, were watching us leave Ponyville, and the entire time I could see that look in their eyes.
The look of distrust, a look of curiosity, and a look of utter confusion. Pinkie noticed this and gently turned my head so my gaze would go straight forward.
“Let’s just focus on this mission, alright?” she said gently.
Pinkie sense. A strange and unnatural gift bestowed upon Pinkamena Diane Pie, and Pinkie Pie alone.
Every now and then, Pinkie’s nose would twitch. Pinkie sense. It was a strange, yet unique gift the mare had had since the beginning of time. And ever since Hailstorm had arrived in Equestria her nose had beena twitching.
Pinkie Pie lead the troop of four, towards Ghastly Gorge. And behind her was Daring Doo, and Hailstorm. Screwball trotted by Pinkie’s side, casting cross-eyed glances at the stallion every chance she got.
And every time Screwball glanced at Hailstorm, Pinkie’s nose twitched. She had been ignoring this feeling for quite some time now. Ever since the stallion got here her nose hadn’t stopped twitching. It did it when he was asleep,it did it when Dash had saved him, it did it when he had come running to her rescue, and it did it every single time he switched to his hue-man, form. But Pinkie hadn’t made a deal of it like she usually did with her senses. She kept quiet about it. Because a twitchy, itchy nose meant one thing to the party planner.
Secrets.
Secrets were being kept and hidden like buried treasure that would make you rich for the rest of your life, ergo a twitchy, itchy Pinkie nose.
On a few occasions Pinkie had thought of telling the others, but then again Rainbow Dash had covered that enough already. With her whole “he’s a weird and we should figure out what he’s hiding!” bit.
Okay so maybe she didn’t say it like that but that’s how it sounded!
And then there was the whole thing with Haily Flaily’s cutie mark she thought as her forehead wrinkled with concern and thought. Cutie marks weren’t meant to do that, ever. Period, no ifs ands or buts. It’s weird enough he has two different cutie marks but one of them changing like that? It was almost like when Discord, discordeded us.
And this bothered Pinkie greatly.
Every place they had been there were secrets. The temple at Kangaroo Isles, that voice that knocked them out. The serpent god and his warning, Hailstorm’s weird transformations, the distortion with the magical balance, Discord’s reaction when he woke up, and her now twitching nose. All of this meant something really bad was going to happen.
The thing is, Pinkie didn’t know what. And that’s what bothered her. Her senses didn’t predict a future, they were a warning of something to come in the future. A very vague warning. And since she had nothing to work on Pinkie couldn’t figure out for the life of her what would happen when they got to Ghastly Gorge.
Taking a quick glance behind her, Pinkie could see Daring Doo was talking to Hailstorm now. And whatever they were talking about, was making the stallion avoid looking at her.
Pinkie frowned a bit. She didn’t like seeing her friends sad, but what must be done must be done. She turned her attention back to leading everyone towards Ghastly Gorge, a now nervous Screwball following behind the party planner as they gave Daring and Hailstorm some more space to talk.
“Hey” the pegasus mare beside me said. I turned my gaze in her direction. “What are you hiding from us Hailstorm?”
“There is a reason I can’t tell you” I replied.
“Try me” Daring Doo said.
I sighed, “I’m under a lot of pressure right now. There are things going on, things that are going to happen that you guys won’t understand. Like that whole serpent god thing. That’s never happened here before has it?”
Daring Doo lifted a hoof up in thought as we followed Pinkie and Screwball. “Not that I’ve seen or heard of. I mean there was Discord and I guess if you think about it Tirek, but from the bits and pieces of news I’ve gathered throughout my journeys, not a lot has happened since then.”
“Then you see why I can’t tell you and the others till I’ve figured a few things out for myself.”
The explorer merely snickered. “Sounds more like a half-baked lie, to me.”
I snorted and finally lifted my head up looking at the explorer, “You wouldn’t know a real “half baked lie” if you saw one.”
The flapping of wings next to me followed by Daring Doo herself landing in front of me and cutting off my procedure forward threw me off.
Pinkie and Screwball stopped their advancement towards the Gorge, which as far as my eyes could make out was probably now just a mile away.
I looked back at Daring, and saw her crossed look as she stared at me. Just like Dash, I thought.
“Like I said try me.”
My jaw had slightly dropped at this point. The sudden change of behavior coming from the explorer was a bit surprising. And Daring’s hardened stare wouldn’t let up.
“Well?” the pegasus said.
It was strange, you know? I understood why she wanted to know.Why they all wanted to know, the things that were happening I really did. It was just like with me and my dreams. Why I kept seeing things from Gravity Falls. Why me? Why now?
I used to stay up well into the night asking myself these questions. Coming up with all kinds of weird theories, that it was an illness, that maybe it was because I watched a couple weird shows every now and then.
Remember how I said awhile back my parents nearly sent me to the hospital because I kept seeing things? Well, my dreams were more of an impact than I thought. When I was younger, before I got into college back home, the dreams were worse. Way worse. I didn’t get full episodes when I slept. If I even got a blink of sleep that night.
Sometimes it’d be images. Brief ones. Simple yet sweet. Other times they’d be more vivid, clear. And those were the worst. Do you know what it’s like to wake up at 2 in the morning, covered in sweat and having this strange and insatiable urge to write down things you don’t know or understand for an entire week? Have you ever had a vivid dream where you’re seeing through the eyes of another person, watching their brother get sucked into this weird machine and then never see him again for years. Spending your life doing awful things, tricking your own family and sneaking behind their backs to bring a brother back who doesn’t even care but is obsessed with his research.
I suppose not.
No one would.
And I guess that’s why I suddenly started to feel angry. Mad at Daring Doo to ask me something I had just told her to wait on. Mad at myself that all this was happening because of my mistakes. Mad at whatever was forcing me to have these dreams.
My mouth closed as Daring stared at me. The muscles in my jaw seized and tightened as my expression went from stunned to austere.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you guys. Not now. Not yet. I’ve told you I need time. Just give me time to-”
“We’ve given you enough time!” Daring Doo yelled, her wings twitching as she shouted. “How many more times will you tell us to wait. Or avoid the subject, or have someone else cut in for you because you don’t have the balls to speak yourself HUH?”
I said nothing. I just stared.
“Hey Daring, I get your tired of the whole back and forth waiting for an answer thing but don’t you think we should focus on getting to the Gorge?” Screwball said trying to change the topic.
“You’re one to talk!” the explorer snarled rounding on the mare. “Whenever he’s in a tight spot you just seem to come to his rescue, what do you have a thing for him or something?”
Screwball’s cheeks visibly turned a light shade of fuschia pink. She didn’t reply to the question.
“Okay!” Pinkie said wrapping a hoof around Daring’s neck and pulling her close. “How bout we forget all about this and just focus on the mission at hand okay? Cupcakes anypony?” she asked with a weak cheery smile.
No one said anything. Daring looked at me one more time with a sour look at my refusal to reveal anything. Then slipped herself away from Pinkie’s embrace with a wing tip. She slowly came trotting towards me.
Screwball and Pinkie weren’t sure what was about to happen so the two simply watched with a great sense of anxiety. Pinkie eating the cupcake out of a nervous habit and getting frosting all over her lips in an attempt to calm herself.
When Daring Doo was close enough to the stallion of her target she gave Hailstorm a cold look. Studying his blank, empty expression allowing the seconds to pass in silence.
“Why won’t you tell us?” she asked in all honesty. “Even after all the warnings we’ve been given, warnings I’m sure you knew would come and have received yourself, you still won’t tell us even if it means losing our trust? Are you really that stubborn? Tell me Hailstorm, why?”
My brows furrowed when she’d finally finished. A recent memory relating to one of the things Twilight had told me about Daring Doo when I read one of her books during my first week in Equestria.
“Tell me this. Why did you teach yourself not to trust anyone after becoming an adventurer?”
Daring Doo stared then blinked. “The secrets that come with my adventurers aren’t meant to be displayed publicly. There are ponies, griffons and other creatures out there that could use the relics I’ve discovered for evil purposes. Like Ahuizotl. What’s your excuse?”
I leaned in, and we bumped snoots. “I don’t need an excuse. Just like you basically just told me right now. Your knowledge on relics could be used for evil.”
“And yours?” she asked leaning in closer.
“Could tear Equus apart. Especially if he finds out”, with that said I moved my head away from Daring Doo, trotted by her without another word, and gestured Pinkie to keep on leading the way.
I didn’t bother to look at the scowl on Daring’s face slowly turning into a somewhat pleased snicker.
Screwball followed after me, once Pinkie took the lead again and tensions had died. Her cheeks were still a light fuschia cerise but she didn’t say anything about the exchange between Daring and I just now.
No one spoke for a long time.
That is not till the Ghastly Gorge was just a couple of feet off in the distance.
“Hey Pinkie, when a cutie mark goes grey. Is that a good sign?” I asked staring at the Gorge in front of us.
“Noo” Pinkie said with a frown. “It’s not. Not at all.”
Ghastly Gorge, really did deserve its name. Above it were nimbus clouds. Dark large, fat, bulky, nimbus, stratus clouds that loomed over the entire valley menacingly. Flashes of light struck above us, and in the distance the rumbling sound of thunder. Yet if the group of four glanced back in Ponyville’s direction.
There was not a cloud in the sky, that held such a dark and dim image that Ghastly Gorge now had.
“Soooo....” Pinkie said after the thunder had died down. “Who wants to go in first?”
Screwball who was beside me, slowly and jokingly raised her hoof. I slowly and seriously brought her hoof down.
“Let’s just go.”