//------------------------------//
// 4-gotten: Forest 
// Story: The Sparkle in his Eye 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	By the time the group arrived in Terawatt Forest, Twilight's wings had dried out completely and the whole group was ready to continue their exploration.  The forest itself was brightly lit and full of lush vegetation in bright colors, with a solid stone path to follow along.  The only momentary concern was electrical interference that interrupted their connection with Aphelion, though Ratchet was able to solve it quickly, though with no guarantee that the fix would hold.

"From these readings," Ratchet informed them, "the very rocks of the Forest seem to be emitting some form of aberrant energy."

"Right," Twilight confirmed.  "I'll be sure to grab several dozen samples."

"That's not- oh, nevermind," Ratchet grumbled.

"We'd best have a carry capsule that can contain the aberrant energy so nothing else gets affected," Nefarious suggested logically.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll come up with something," Twilight purred happily.  "But first we need to find some of those rocks..."

As they walked, they came across yet another hostile creature, a strange cross between a mantis and a ladybug the size of Alister called an Anthropod.  It broke from a single strike of any weapon, and was rapidly ignored.

Not far beyond, a new weapons vendor was located, with new weapons available.  Twilight happily bought the whole group each a Thunder-Smack, a weapon designed to generate miniature thunderstorms.  "So, how will we tweak this one?" Nefarious asked eagerly.

"How about making it capable of generating a localized weather system of any sort, with a selector switch?" Twilight offered excitedly.

"Genius!"  The pair immediately fell to tinkering as they walked, with Alister and Qwark focusing on dealing with the actual hostiles.

Before long, they encountered a large capsule containing several large spheres, with platforms to interact with.  "That's an Orb-o-matic," Nefarious explained after a few moments.  "Croid designed it as a...children's play toy for use in hostile environments."

"And it's here because...?" Qwark began, curious of any sort of explanation.

"Let's find out!" Twilight offered eagerly, stepping up to the device and activating it.  "Wah!" she yelped out as energy launched out from the device, surrounding her in a metallic sphere that rolled around as she moved.  "...freaky..."

"The spheres conduct electricity on their outsides," Nefarious explained as he stepped up.  "We should be able to use them to complete electrical circuits and the like.  Like the one right there which probably controls a bridge."  He pointed to the two electrical towers with no connection between them.

"Then let's transform and roll out!" Qwark proclaimed as he stepped up to the platform and was ensphered.  "Ooh!  Tingly!"

Alister rolled his eyes heavenward in resignation before getting into a ball himself.

Once they were all balled up, they discovered that they could unfold from the balls and reenter them at will, much to Twilight's relief as she was unable to tinker with Nefarious while in a ball.  Various other devices also were designed to work with the balls, so that worked out well.  As they continued, a new hostile entity approached.  This one looked like a grey alligator with blue spikes on its back, hunched over as it dragged a legless lower body along behind it.  As it reached some strange blue crystalline structure on the ground, it expanded, its body turning red as it started giving off an electrical field, allowing the group to identify it as a Shard Beast.

"Those must be the stones giving off the odd energy!" Twilight called out.  "They're amplifying the Shard Beast's power!"

"Then lets break the crystals!" Qwark shouted out, swinging his Smashhammer.  Rushing forward, he smashed the large crystals erupting from the ground to bits.  When the Shard Beast shrank, Qwark seized it by its lower body and proceeded to smash it against the ground repeatedly until it burst apart in a final impact crater.  He stared down at for a moment.  "Ha!  Puny, uh, whatever you were!"

Rolling her eyes and giggling, Twilight threw Qwark a cookie which he snatched out of the air in his mouth, making Nefarious burst into peals of laughter.

Once Twilight and Nefarious had successfully collected some samples through the simple expedient of having Twilight launch them into space at high speeds for Aphelion to capture and place in her storage area, where the energy emissions couldn't effect anything, the group continued forward across more bouncy mushrooms.  As they continued, one of the larger Minion robots tried to block their way, but its actions drew the attention of an even more massive Guardian Robot that - until it moved - had been mistaken for the top of a mountain.

"...I want one," Twilight purred as she stared up at the Guardian Robot, licking her lips eagerly.

Qwark and Alister rolled their eyes.  Nefarious, however, rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

The group made their way forward carefully, avoiding the watchful eyes of the Guardian Robot, and others like it along the narrow path.  Not much further along, they encountered a smaller mech unit identified as a Croid Bot, a purple mech with a small robotic pilot, armed with two clawed tentacles and four plasma blasters.  Unfortunately, its armor left much to be desired.

"Does anyone else think we might have a bit too much in the way of arsenal for this world?" Alister asked curiously.

All three others turned to stare at him as though he'd just said something incredibly stupid.  After all, Nefarious and Twilight at least would have found him growing a second head absolutely fascinating.

Alister sighed fitfully.  "Just me then," he grumbled, following along as the group continued their destructive path.