//------------------------------//
// To the Mountains 
// Story: Lost and Far From Home 
// by KyleAJ 
//------------------------------//

	“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about dragons now Rainbow Dash, I’m sure that they have all moved on from that area by now. Even if there are a few stragglers, I doubt they’ll give us much trouble if we stay out of their way.”
“Hmm, if you say so Twilight, anyway, we should get back to the group now, especially since you left them all behind on the ground.”
“Alright, I’ll meet you down there,” Twilight said as she gathered her mind for the teleportation incantation. Rainbow Dash simply dove through the air to where the others were waiting.

“Hey guys, sorry about splitting off from the group, me and Twilight were just scouting out the area. Turns out we’re headed straight to where all those dragons migrated a month or so back.” Noticing the worried looks she got, especially from Fluttershy, she continued on. “But Twilight says that all the dragons should be gone by now, so no worries right?”
“Oh, I sure hope so; I don’t think I could handle more than one dragon.”
“Well then, let’s get going; it is going to be a bit of a trek!” said Twilight in a cheery demeanor.
“Ugh, I hate walking.”
“If you don’t complain, Ness, the trip will go by faster.”
“Once I learned how to teleport, I never had to walk between towns... Wait a minute! You guys have all been there before right? Why don’t you just teleport us all over there?”
“Well, the reason is that it is hard enough to teleport normally, but add long distance and multiple po-” Twilight caught herself mid-word, “people just makes it harder.” Twilight explained.
“Well if ‘I’ were the one who had been there before, I would teleport everyone no problem at all.” Ness said in a half-jeering tone.
“Just walk, Ness,” Twilight said to him, nearly sick of his attitude already.
Ness crossed his arms and started silently sulking from the forced exercise, not that he was inactive, he just hated walking.




Meanwhile...




The pork commander was half-crawling half-rolling his damaged machine through the forest, cleaving a clear path through the trees. He did not care that the path he made was obvious, no, not when he knew that he could retreat back into his mountain base like the mighty Hermit Crab. He would have to salvage what he could from the wreckage of the previous before starting to build another battle unicorn. He would have to make some changes in the design though. Wings in addition to the horn, for example, oh, and he would paint it an intimidating black, complete with red mane and tail. It would be so cool, and he bet no one had ever thought of such an amazing combination before; he was a genius after all. Yes, soon enough he would make that terrible excuse for a friend Ness and all those other soft and huggable “locals” as he called them. The locals never even gave him a proper welcome, and offered to befriend him though, he wondered if there was something wrong with them.




Later...




“Well, it was a long and uneventful walk where nothing of interest happened and it is okay to just pretend we never had it in the first place.”
“You’re just saying that, Ness, because you got chased and stung by bees.”
“It’s not my fault they didn’t want their honey’s freshness to be checked.”
“Actually, Ness, honey never loses its freshness, it only crystallizes.”
“Shush braniac, we’re here,” Ness said as he gestured to the edge of the clearing in the trees. From beyond the forest the group saw the foot of the massive mountain. Fortunately there were no dragons in sight. They silently waited in the bushes, cautious as to not curse their luck with dragons and other nasties that might be lurking.

What the group saw was exactly what one would expect when the words ‘blast door’ where mentioned, perfectly set into the foot of an extraordinarily average mountain.
“Any plans on how to get inside?” Twilight asked her circle of friends.
“Yes, actually, I propose that we knock on the door and wait a few minutes for it to open,” replied Ness.
“That... does not seem like it would work... at all,” Twilight replied with a semi-thoughtful voice.
“Hey! It worked last time and I don’t see how it won’t work again. In fact, watch as I open the door with my magical ability of 'having done this before',” Ness said angrily as he walked out from the shrubs and confidently strode over to what they had correctly assumed was the base. He stood face to face with the door for a few seconds; he was mentally bracing himself for whatever might be behind these giant doors of metal. He raised a clenched fist; intent on knocking on the door like would on any other, before letting fall to his side. He reached into his bag and pulled out a wooden handled hammer. ‘Hmm, I was hoping for my baseball bat, but this will have to do,’ he thought to himself. He had decided to stop questioning the multitude of seemingly random things inside his bag earlier this morning. He put all of his effort into whacking the metal door as hard as he possibly could. He raised his arm once more, poised to strike. With a lighting quick flick of his arm, the hammer impacted the metal with a resounding clang that could be heard from the top of the very mountain the door was lodged in, unfortunately so.

A mighty yet distant roar was the only immediate reply to Ness’ hammering session. Ness was only afraid for a second, and then he realized that he had fought the bastard children of machinery and monster that sounded twice as terrifying all by himself. But he also realized that the past statement had only occurred inside of his dream, in the land of Magicant. Ness steeled himself for battle that surely was to come, before another roar shattered his resolve. The door was actually opening. This was a surprise to Ness, because last time he had to wait around three minutes before he was let in. Right now though, three minutes might as well have been three hours because of the unearthly roar from above. Ness frantically called for his companions to come to the opening door, but he was relieved that they were already coming.

The moment after they had all made it through the door, the metal began to slide shut. As it did, the ground was shaken once again as a forest green behemoth of a dragon crashed down on the ground. This dragon was even bigger than Spike, when he had become consumed by his greed. The roar from the beast was far louder than it had been when it was still at the top of the mountain. That fact, combined with the enclosed space that the ponies and otherwise were in deafened them all for a short time. Just before the doors finally shut, the dragon breathed dark crimson flames that were blinding to look at through the slim opening, creating a dividing wall of flame in the room they were currently in. But relief flooded the figures as the flames had subsided, blocked by the heavy doors. They were safe for now.

By the time everyone had caught their breath, bearings, and senses, they notice an unfamiliar face on a monitor inside the room. The voice it spoke in sounded heavily synthetic, tones of words were mismatched.
“Well, that was quite a close call. I trust all of you are all right.”
“Ugh, yeah, yes I think we are all fine. Is everypony alright?” Twilight asked. She looked around the room, her eyes still adjusting from the assault of light from the dragon’s fire.
“Yeah, no one’s hurt. Wow, you guys are all a lot tougher than you look. Huh, well I guess that makes what, 7, no 8. I guess that makes 8 of us,” Ness replied.
“Ness, you haven’t moved from your spot, how can you know if everypony, sorry, everyone is alright?”
“What are you talking about? I can see it plain as day; all of you have a rolling counter above your heads. Mine, of course has the biggest numbers,” Ness explained.
“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well, then just... never mind. You wouldn’t understand it unless you could see the world like me.”
“Wait a minute, I recognize you. You are Twilight Sparkle, the talented unicorn. Unfortunately I do not remember much else about you, but you will be a powerful ally to us and our cause,” the voice from the monitor said.
“Wait a minute, who are you, what is your cause, and why should be support you!?” Ness said in a defensive manner.
The voice replied, “We are I, and the good doctor. I had a name and a body once, but they went hand in hand when I was removed from my body. I have also had some of my memories removed. The doctor said the memories in question were ones of negative experiences. They served as the fuel for a terrible robot that the doctor was also forced to build. Our cause is to find a body for me to inhabit, and to escape. As for why you should trust us, we have the ability to open the floor beneath you and send you all plummeting to your death, or just open the door to the outside, where the hungry dragon waits, but so far we have done neither. This is because we need your help. So, will you help us?”
Ness thought for a moment before turning to the rest of the group. “Well?”

























“Looks like we have no choice...”