//------------------------------// // The Adventure Begins.... // Story: Human Nature // by Dragonfire2lm //------------------------------// Manaquire quickly opened up a glowing pink portal and dispersed before anypony reached the throne room that morning, Sunset was already there, using what little control of her magic to constantly levitate a plate of Vegemite on toast, and was munching a piece when two ponies, and a moving plush toy pony the size of a cat walked in. Sunset swallowed her food and set down the half eaten slice of toast back on the plate as she looked at her friends. "Am I dreaming?" she asked. "Nope" Derpy replied. "Wow... OK well after breakfast we'll head out, are you guys sure you want to do this, you can back out if you want to..." Sunset said. "Sunset you sound like Fluttershy" Lyra deadpanned. "There is no way I'm letting you go out there to face Celestia-knows-what without help, no pony can do this sort of stuff alone" "Sunset, I can't pretend to understand, but this..it must hard for you, Manaquire and all those creatiions here before your very eyes...a single pony facing the unknown, well why bother going alone eh?" The Doctor stated. "Friends stick together no matter what!" Derpy said. -------------------------------------------------------------------- After breakfast the group stepped through the portal, to be faced with a vast desert of yellow sand and angry looking storm clouds covering the sky. "My TARDIS!" The Doctor yelled happily, spotting the blue phone box sticking out sideways in a nearby dune. "Hey what's that?" Derpy asked, pointing to a red light floating in the air in the distance. "A better question is where are we?" Lyra asked. Sunset flew up high and glanced around, behind her was more desert, and before was moredesert with the tel tale prinpicks of vegetation in the face off distance. "Filles and Gentilecolts, this is The Dessert of Storms, the most nothern region of Vardos. Behind us lies more sand, and beyond that the badlands, sealed off from this world by the storm clouds above us. if we continue going forward we'll eventually reach The Volcaneo, to the east of that are the ruins of the Time Scribes and the jungle surrounding them, to the west of the volcaneo is The Bone Blizzard mountain range. if travel south of the volcaneo we'll reach the plains of paradise and Black Stone Castle, that building is in the very centre of this contintent, to the east and south east of the castle is a large expanse of forest, if you go directly east from the forest you'll reach a huge plateau and departure falls, south of Black Stone Castle is the rocky shores of sea serpent beach, west of the Castle is the graveyard...and that is all of Vardos that is knownto..well me..i think, there is the possibility that i forgot somethiing" Sunset explained after she landed. "Wow that sounds..huge" Derpy commented. "Well let's get started then" Lyra declared, setting off for the red light in the sky. The others had no choice but to follow. Well The Doctor stayed behind to dig out the TARDIS. --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh my Celestia." Derpy breathed in shock at what was before the three mares. The red light was actually a large cluster of red lightning that was attracted to a yellow dingo with white lower jaw and chest, the underside of its tail was also white and his eyes were green. the poor cainie was flailing about in the air desperately trying to get down and out of his lightning prison. "Ben?" Sunset gaped, and at this outbirst the adressed dingo looked down at the three ponies. "Oh thank The Original someone is here! Listen a dragon called Manaquire reversed my electrical charge and altered my magnetic feil so I'm stuck up here unless you can get rid of this damn lightning!" Ben hollered, having a slight mix of an American and Australian accent. "i got this" Derpy stated and flew up to the floating canine. "Derpy are you crazy!" Lyra yelled. Sunset just remained quiet and watched. The grey pegasus flew closer and hoveed just out of the lightnings range before diving in and grasping a large mass of the red electrons in her front hooves. her face scrunched up in concerntration she disperesed the charge until it was at a manageable, and mostly harmless, level before sending it coursing through her body and arching out of her wings and back hooves heading toward the ground. This continued for a few minutes as the build up of power lessened and the pony and the dog slowly floated back to earth. Once they touched down Ben began inspecting the grey mare's body for burns and saw that her hooves, wing tips and parts of mane and tail suffered from burns. "Is she ok?" Lyra and sunset asked simultaneously. "I can get her back to my place, I have medical equipment there, the burns aren't that bad, she won't be walking for a while and I think some feathers need to be pulled out, but in the long run she'll be fine" Ben smiled softly. Derpy grinned sheepishly "Hey somepony had to help you" Ben rolled his eyes, then tuned back to face the other ponies. "So I'm Ben, last of the Thunder Dingoes, who are you/" he asked casualy as he hoisted the injured Derpy onto his back. "Name's Lyra" "Sunset S-" the blue alicorn began. "Loz?" Ben asked in astonishment as he recognised her voice. "...Did you just use the nickname my favourite primary school teacher used?" Sunset asked. "Um yeah...seemed appropriate" Ben replied sheepishly. "So it's really you?" "Yep" The dingo and the alicorn burst out laughing. "Who would've though it eh? The Great Goddess of Vardos here in the flesh, great to see you!" Ben happily exclaimed. "But first things first, let's head to my place and patch your friend up".