//------------------------------// // Chapter 5- Survival // Story: Tales of The Wasteland Wanderer // by BlakeCorman //------------------------------// Arc 2- Lessons -Start Chapter 5- Survival         Wind howled across the sands, blowing grit wherever it may. Cacti swayed in the same wind, their needles occasionally clicking together. The sun beat down on Pyro as he traversed this terrain. It had been almost three weeks since he had left the plantation, and immediately things proved to be more difficult than the colt had expected. However, he wasn’t stupid.                  For the first three days he had watched what little wildlife the desert sustained, learning all the little tricks they used to survive. The birds had been especially helpful, showing him the easiest way to get both food and water. They would land on a cactus, peck a hole into the flesh of the plant, and drink from the small stream of water that came after. For Pyro, this was a simple task. He would grab a piece of the cactus in his unicorn magic and sever it from the rest of the plant using his fire. Plucking the quills was easy as well, thanks to his magic, and simply eating the plant was enough to sustain him for a few days.         Because he would go days without food, his body had thinned down even further, if that was possible. However, thanks to his years of slavery, Pyro was nothing more than muscle at this point. This caused him to overheat quickly during the day, so he would spend his in whatever shade he could find, resting and sleeping the day away. This left him to travel at night, which, while the temperature dipped far below freezing, didn’t bother him. His inner fire helped him in that regard.         And that had been Pyro’s life for the last three weeks. Fill his belly with cactus, sleep during the day, and travel at night. He hadn’t spotted anyone in the entire time he had been out in the desert, but this didn’t stop him. He just kept marching on.         Oh, who am I kidding!?! I’m completely lost, Pyro thought to himself, something he did quite often. He stopped next to a mesa, sitting down and placing his back against the rock formation. He hadn’t seen any cacti in days, and he was slowly running out of energy to keep up his inner flame. “Well, no good crying about it,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow.” And, with that, he curled up and fell asleep. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------         The sun’s rays beat down on the mesa, heating it and the surrounding rock quickly. Pyro, still asleep in the small patch of shadow cast by the formation and a nearby bush, slumbered peacefully, the angry waves of the sun unable to reach him. A blissful dream had overtaken him, a dream in which he sat in a house in a far off land, surrounded by a family he did not know, but nonetheless they were happy. As the young colt slept on, a third shadow joined the other two covering Pyro in their shade.         Slowly, Pyro’s dream came to an end, and the heat of the world around him began to sink in. He uncurled slightly, but kept his eyes closed, hesitant to release the realm of dreams. Hesitant that is, until he felt the sands and earth shifting around him in a familiar pattern; someone was watching him. He kept his breath shallow but steady, keeping still to keep up the illusion of sleep. And he stayed that way for several minutes, waiting for whatever it was to leave.         The sands continued to shift, but, eventually, the shifts got further and further away from him. Still he did not move, wanting to make sure that he was indeed completely alone. After many more long minutes, Pyro breathed out, letting go of the breath he had been restricting. He let his limbs unfurl, stretching them as far as he could to get the soreness out of his body. He still had yet to open his eyes, and, before he did so, he flipped himself over on his back, stretching again. With his muscles relaxed and sleep completely gone from him, he opened his eyes… only to look into a pair of green eyes.         “Ah!” Pyro yelled out, rolling to one side and pressing his back against another part of the mesa. His chest heaved, trying to regain the breath the scare had knocked out of him. As his mind calmed itself, he focused on what had scared him… and found himself looking at a dark gray pegasus stallion with a dark blue mane and tail, wings working silently to keep him in the air, and a look of unamusement spread across his face.         The old stallion slowly lowered himself, coming to rest a few feet in front of Pyro. “Sorry about that. Didn’t think you’d be so jumpy,” the pegasus stated, trying to calm the colt down. Pyro kept his back against the rock, but his breath was slowly restoring itself, and his fright was leaving him, instead being replaced by annoyance.         “What the hay!” Pyro yelled, getting to his hooves. “Didn’t anyone ever tell it’s rude to watch others sleep?”         “Actually, no pony’s ever told me much of anything,” the stallion replied, waving his hoof dismissively. Pyro just stared, eye twitching, confusion written all over his face. Who was this pony, and why did he get the strangest feeling from him? After a while, he just shook his head.         “You know what, it doesn’t matter,” Pyro said. “It was real nice meeting you, but I gotta go.” “Where to?” Pyro stopped dead in his tracks and let out a sigh. What was with ponies and asking him all these questions? “I don’t know,” he answered through gritted teeth, “wherever you’re not.” “Yeesh, tough crowd,” the stallion said, rubbing the back of his neck. He turned to continue talking to Pyro, but started when he didn’t see him. He looked around and spotted Pyro already a good distance away. He frowned. “Damn it, Soldier, can’t any of your Imagines just stand still?” Pyro was breaking one of his cardinal rules, never travel during the day, but he’d do just about anything to get away from the crazy pegasus. Who knows, maybe he was just a hallucination, he thought. “Are you really this stupid?” Pyro jumped, turning around and around to see who had spoken. He finally stopped, jerking his head up to find the gray pony hovering above him. Pyro let out a snort. “Why are you following me?” he asked irritably, choosing to ignore the jab to his intelligence. “Simple,” the stallion replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I was wondering why you would be moving away from the best source of water in this Council-forsaken wasteland.” “What are you talking about?” Pyro didn’t want to have anything to do with this pony, but if he could lead him to water, he could stand him. Besides, if he proved to be a threat, well, Pyro had faced worse. “Duh, the plateau,” the mystery pony replied, pointing back towards the mesa. “It’s the biggest oasis in the entirety of Waste.! Didn’t you smell it?” Pyro looked past the hovering pony to the mesa, raising an eyebrow. He looked back to the hovering pegasus without moving his head. “First off, that’s a mesa,” Pyro listed, pointing to the land formation. “Secondly, how do you smell water?” The pony’s eye began to twitch, before he sighed and face-hoofed. When he finally stopped shaking his head and removed his hoof from his face, he looked to Pyro with the look of a parent that had had just about enough. “Look, just follow me, or stay out here and die of thirst. Your choice.” With that said, he turned around and starting flying back to the mesa. Pyro stayed put for a moment before shrugging and following after the odd stallion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------         Pyro’s hoof came over the edge of the mesa, slamming down and pulling him onto the top of the enormous land form. He rolled over onto his back, gasping for breath and sweating profusely. The crunch of gravel drew his attention to further on the mesa top where the gray stallion stood, looking as if nothing had happened. Pyro narrowed his eyes at the old pegasus. “You… could have… warned me,” he said between breaths, still glaring at the pony.         “Not my fault you didn’t do the obvious,” came the reply, the pegasus ruffling his wings. Pyro narrowed his eyes further.         “And what, pray tell, is the obvious?”         “Levitation.”         The answer was so simple, it caught Pyro by surprise. Of course, why didn’t I think of that?         “Or your flames.”         At this, Pyro caught his breath. In fact, he stopped everything. He looked at the pegasus from the corner of his eye. How did he know about that? Magic was obvious, he was a unicorn after all, but to know about his fire? He hadn’t revealed any of his unnatural power to the stranger, and yet he still seemed to know. But the question is, does this make him a threat.         “I wouldn’t do anything drastic,” the old pony stated, seeming to read his mind. Pyro reacted just as any other pony; he jumped into the air, spinning and coming down several paces away.         “Who the hay are you?” Pyro asked, taking up a fighting stance, his mane and tail igniting in blue and yellow flame.         The pegasus simply stood in place for a moment before sighing and shaking his head. He finally looked at Pyro, his gaze betraying nothing but cold steel. “I am called Guard, and I came here to help you.”         Pyro snorted. “That’s a load of crap if ever I heard one.” The flames on Pyro’s head and back began to grow in intensity. “Now,” Pyro growled, “if you don’t tell me what you’re actually doing here, I’m going to turn you into a pile of ash.”         Guard stared, his eyes hardened into those of an old veteran that had seen many years of war. “I’m here to help you. To teach you how control your powers, and to let go of your anger.”         “I don’t need lessons from you,” Pyro nearly shouted, teeth grinding together. “Buck off, before I make you!”         Guard was unamused. “Very well,” he said, taking up a fighting stance of his own before turning a cold look at the flaming colt. “Make me.”         “AH!!!” Pyro cried out, launching himself across the ground with his fire skates. He closed the distance between himself and Guard almost instantaneously, dropping low as he reached his target before leaping upwards to deliver a fiery uppercut. But Guard was no fool.         He moved up and to the side, dodging the attack. Pyro responded by using his fire skates to spin him in the air to deliver a kick to the old stallion’s skull. Guard dodged again, bringing his and shoulders low before twisting his hind legs around his fore legs, bending, twisting, and skidding away from the fiery youth. Pyro hit the ground and spun, bringing Guard back into view. He wasted no time and launched himself at the pegasus, pulling his hoof back for a powerful jab.         Again, Guard dodged the blow, and that is how the fight went. Pyro spinning and twisting, utilizing every aspect of his flame to increase the ferocity of his strikes, but Guard, demonstrating skill and prowess honed by years of practice, easily dodged every blow. At this point Pyro was beginning to get frustrated, coming to a halt across from Guard, once again gasping for air. Guard, however, hadn’t even broken a sweat. Realizing close combat was pointless, Pyro combed his brain for new strategies. Is this pony even, well, a pony? Pyro thought to himself, still catching his breath and searching for a new plan. Come on, there’s gotta be something! Then it hit him, and a grin spread itself across his face. Seeing this, Guard’s brow furrowed and his stance changed. “I know what you’re planning,” he warned, “and if you go through with it I will not hold back.” “Good!” Pyro called back. “I won’t, either!” Pyro launched himself skyward, hovering in midair above the battlefield. He looked down and saw Guard running away from him, towards the center of the mesa. “Stupid old fool.” He began building up fire around his horn, generating a huge ball of concentrated heat. Guard continued running. Here goes! Pyro thought, yelling as he threw the ball of flame towards his opponent. And still Guard ran, not turning to block the attack or swerving to avoid it, only straight forward… until he jumped into the air. He brought his hoof back, as if to punch the ground, and that’s when Pyro saw it. The bottom of Guard’s hoof was adorned with a purple spell circle, and it was glowing. Guard came down, and with a cry of, “STABILIZE!” he smashed his hoof into the ground, cracking the rock as a larger version of the spell circle spread out around him. A bubble of magenta formed around the center of the mesa, covering a good portion of it… but not Guard. The sphere of red hot flames slammed into the mesa around Guard, engulfing him. What was all that about? Pyro thought, coming back down to land on the ground. The mesa top was in flames, burning with such intensity that even Pyro flinched away from it. “Whatever it was, it’s over now,” he said out loud before turning towards the edge of the mesa. “Where are you going?” Pyro stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide. He spun in place, and watched as the flames were blown apart and a figure started walking out of the flames. The figure lifted one of its limbs over the opposite shoulder before throwing it out to his side. The force generated created a gale wind so powerful that the flames were blown away. With the flames extinguished, Pyro got a clear view of the figure, and his normally fiery heart ran cold. There, standing among scorch marks and ruin, the magenta dome still in place, stood Guard… on his hind legs. Guard stared at Pyro, eyes hard as steel. “Combat transformation,” he said, deathly calm, “Anthropomorphism.” He started stalking towards Pyro, the circle on his hoof radiating power. Pyro’s body started moving on its own, scrambling backwards to get away from this monstrous power. He only stopped when he felt his rear hood slide off the edge. He turned and found the edge of the mesa. “Maybe next time you’ll listen.” Pyro felt the breath on the back of his neck. He only had time to turn his head. He got sight of the hoof flying at his head just in time to feel a sharp pain arc through his temple. His vision went black and he knew no more….