With the Help of a Wolf

by bronzewolf78

Chapter 9

Chapter nine

“How do you expect us to believe that!?”

“Because it’s the truth, Rainbow.”

“You expect us to believe that you’re a human from another world and that you've had a god following you around like a lost puppy and you've never told us?!” Rainbow seemed aggravated. I hadn't the foggiest of ideas why.

“Well when you put it like that I sound like I’m mad,” I said. “I’m not, though.” I looked up at Bronze. Come on man, help me out here.

“Are you crazy? This is hilarious!”

No it isn't!

“It does sound hard to believe, Hot Head,” Twilight said gently.

Applejack pushed her hat back from where it had been covering her eyes. “Now hold on just a minute. Maybe that’s why he’s been staring so much lately. If he is talkin’ ta some kind of god or somethin’, that is.”

“Let me see something, then,” Rainbow said. She swooped in front of me. “You say he’s right here?” She pointed to my right. I nodded.

“Watch, nothing will be here.” She flew at a moderate pace into what she thought was empty air, only to collide with… nothing. She went right through Bronze and kept going. “See?”

“Oh, come on!” I gave a death stare to Bronze, who started laughing. I shoved my head into his side, and he stumbled a bit.

Come on. Show them.

“No, this is funny!”

I reared up with a hoof to take a blow at Bronze, but thought better of it, dropping back to all fours.

Fine. I’m glad you take such amusement out of my hardships.

I took a deep breath. “Fine. If you guys are going to be this way, then I’m just going to go, before I do anything I regret.” I turned around and took a couple of steps away, ignoring what might have been comforting words and requests to wait. I needed to be alone. “Don’t follow me.” I threw over my shoulder, projecting the command through my thoughts as well.

I headed towards the woods nearby. Walking through the woods had always helped me clear my head as a kid. I started to feel better as the darkness of the woods came over me.
-----

“Should we have just let him leave like that?” Twilight asked. By the look of the mares, they all felt guilty about the previous episode.

“He just needs to be alone, Ah guess,” Applejack looked towards where Hot Head had stalked off to.

“The poor dear. He looked passionate about the whole thing,” Rarity said.

“He looked scary,” Fluttershy whispered. “Did you see the fire in his eyes? And how his mane started to go crazy?”

“I think that his mane reflects how he feels. We made him agitated, I think,” Twilight went into her “teach” mode again.

“Thanks for the update, Twilight,” Rainbow said sarcastically. She looked over towards the woods. “I’m going after him.”

“What?” Most of the girls blurted.

“You heard me.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie finally spoke. “A mad friend is an unhappy friend and if a friend is unhappy then it makes me unhappy and we should go cheer him up so we can all be happy together and then-!”

Twilight put her hoof in Pinkie’s mouth. “If you’re going, Dash, then we all are. Right girls?” Everyone gave consent.
I watched all of this transpire and I debated whether revealing myself to them was a good idea. I felt bad about making Hot Head mad, but I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. They had all gotten up and were starting to head out. I lost my last chance as a familiar aggravating smooth voice invaded my ears.

“Are you really letting your pup wander off by himself into the Everfree again?”
I didn’t even turn around. “Fuck off, Discord. You really aren’t helping right now.”

“Since when would I not be of any help, Bronze? You offend me.”

A growl was the only response I gave him. He teleported in front of me, and I shouldered him out of the way before he could say anything. “I don’t have time to rip your throat out. I’ve got more important things to do. Go bother Sunbutt or something.”

“I guess you don’t want my help then,” Discord inspected his claws.

“Was it that obvious? No, I think you’ve helped enough.” I didn’t wait for a response before I chased after the mares. A pink shape was just fading into the shadows of the forest, and I headed for that, casting one last worried look at the evening sky, hoping I could find my ward before the girls could.
-----

I didn’t know my way in this forest. I had only been in here once, and that was when Discord made me an eternal candle. It probably wasn’t a good idea to wander around in these forests with a beacon, based on what kind of creatures the girls told me lived in here. At least I could see a little bit in front of me.

As I walked, I could feel my anger subsiding. I started to reflect on that last scene with Bronze. I’m normally pretty level headed. I don’t know what happened. I just snapped at all of them… for no reason.

I stopped and looked at a small branch on the ground in front of me. It was bent slightly, like tree branches normally are, so it convexed off of the ground a bit. As a kid, I would normally find a branch when I walked, carrying it with me and breaking bits of it off as I walked. I put a hoof on the branch and pressed down. A satisfying snap echoed through the forest as the stick broke.
I decided to keep going. I didn’t know what was ahead, but it had to be better than what was behind me. I stared at the ground as I walked, lost in thought. I wondered again what I had left behind at home. Matt probably missed me. I wondered how my brother was doing.

I must have been thinking for longer than I thought, because when I came to my senses I realized I was in a cave, based on the stone floor underneath me and the lack of stars overhead. A very warm cave. Heh, maybe I can just live here. I thought, looking around. I couldn’t see much outside of the small range my mane illuminated. I could see silhouettes of stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the cave far overhead. As I was looking around the higher parts of the cave, I wasn’t looking ahead of me. I bumped into something hard and unforgiving.

A wall of large red scales flickered in front of me. As my brain tried to put together what this could be, my eyes followed the scales as they ran up to a horned head, resting on massive claws. My eyes told me that this beast was a dragon, but my brain kept putting two and two together and getting seven. Dragon… dragons don’t exist!

The light I cast off must have woken the thing up. That, or I have really unlucky timing. Well, neither do talking multicolored ponies or heterochromia flame demons, either. As I stood there, trying to make myself as small as possible, the dragon raised its head and stretched. Somewhere in my mind I realized that there weren’t hoards of treasure around, but it didn’t register as important in my head. What was important was how sharp the teeth looked in the dragon’s yawning maw.

The beast came to and looked at me for the first time. It leaned down and stared me in the eye for a moment, then roared at me at point blank. I stood my ground, too terrified to fight or flee. Its eyes narrowed and a claw sent me flying towards the opposite wall. I felt broken, laying in a heap against the far corner, every bone a source of overwhelming pain. I was sure I was going to die when I saw the dragon inhaling, a sure sign of its next attack.

I closed my eyes and resigned myself to my fate as I heard the roaring inferno start. It felt strangely relaxing, instead of the burning pain I had felt after slamming into the rock. Was I dead? Again? I cracked open an eye. All I could see was orange and white fire, everywhere. Should I not be dying right now? I looked at my hooves. All the fur and skin was there. I looked over my shoulder. I was pretty sure my leg had broken from the impact, but it looked fine now. After a few oddly relaxing minutes, the raging inferno stopped.

I looked up at the dragon and saw my own confusion replicated on its face. We locked eyes for only a moment before it tried to crush me under a clawed hand. I managed to narrowly dodge it. A series of cracking sounds emanated from the beast’s hand, running behind me and up the nearby cave wall. Large cracking sounds came from the fissure as it elongated. It seemed the dragon and I shared thoughts again as we both paused to visually follow the crack as it reached the ceiling of the cave. A second of silence was shared as we looked back at each other. The dragon seemed to shrug, and I reared onto my hooves as the dragon bared its teeth.

It lowered its head and charged. I had no room to either side to dodge, so I charged at it, hoping an opening would reveal itself. As the red behemoth drew close, I saw my chance. I leaped at the last second and landed on its head. I thought I was such a genius, getting into an advantageous position. Before I could get off the dragon’s hard forehead, the beast slammed into the cave wall.

Explosive pain around my torso demanded my immediate attention, but after a few moments I was able to focus on a familiar sound of destruction. The crack in the wall had grown, shaking large pieces of rock from above. To make it even worse, the dragon looked up at the disturbance as a large rock descended directly above its head.
-----

I groaned as I pushed myself to my feet. Hooves. Damn it! I looked around for signs of red scales, but there didn’t seem to be any. After the dragon’s chamber collapsed, a hole opened up underneath. I had fallen down a long, bumpy ride, now finding myself in a narrow, natural tunnel, with no visible end to it. I painfully turned to see a pile of rock behind me. Not going that way. I had no choice but to trudge ahead.

As I moved, I wondered if I needed serious medical attention. I was pretty sure I had been initially fatally wounded from that dragon’s first blow, but after the fire I had felt fine. Now I had at least a few broken ribs, and probably internal bleeding. At best.

Ugh… How much farther is this going to go? Does it even have an exit? My chest couldn’t have been getting any better with moving up a steady incline, or moving at all really. After what seemed like hours, but was probably much shorter, I emerged into the forest once again.

None of the trees looked familiar. I wished I had been paying attention when I had wandered into the cave the first time. Recalling the fall and the long walk afterwards, I realized that I was most likely no small distance from the original cave.

Great. I was lost.

I tried to remember some kind of navigation lessons from when I was a kid. Nothing of importance came up. I could try and find a river, but I could be wandering for hours. Logically, if I picked one direction and went with it, I would eventually get out. Yeah, I’m just going to try and find a river.

I was wondering for a while when I noticed some purple flowers that had become common for some reason. I didn’t pay them much mind. I kept walking, lost in thought, when finally I stepped on a fallen branch, emitting a loud snap.

A howl answered the sound.

Hey, Bronze is nearby. I should try to find him to apologize. Then I thought about it for a second. Actually… why should I apologize to him? He’s the one being a dick here. He should be apologizing to me!

I started off again, and after a while realized that I was stomping. I also realized my face had started to hurt from being in an angry scowl for so long. What am I doing? This isn’t me! I don’t like being mad at people! I consider myself a carefree spirit… what’s going on here?

I entered a small clearing and sighed. Maybe I just need some more food. I’m not myself when I’m hungry. I’ll just go back to Ponyville and-

And what? Explode in someone else’s face? Maybe it’ll be Rainbow again. That would go great: she would fly over and say “Hey Hot Head! We were worried about you. Well, they were. I knew you’d be fine,” and then I’d say something stupid and we’d start yelling again. Then she’d say “Hot Head! There you are!”

What? That’s not what she would say then. I would have been in front of her for a while; there would have been no need for-

“Up here you dolt! Come on, let’s get out of here!”

“...Rainbow Dash?” I looked up and sure enough, Rainbow was hovering above the clearing, in a partial silhouette, gesturing to me. Far behind her, and a little off to the side, garnering my attention, was a bright white ball in the sky.

The full moon.
-----

“You’d think it would be easy to find a fire in the dark.”

“You can never be sure about the Everfree, Dash,” Applejack looked nervous.

“Yeah, just like you can never be sure about jelly-filled donuts! You think its going to be strawberry, then it’s just cream filled!”
Pinkie went ignored.

We walked in silence for a while, the only noises coming from the forest, Fluttershy jumping at every one. That mare really needed to grow a spine.

“Hey Pinkie,” Applejack spoke up, “Why don’t you sing us one of your songs?”

“Okie Dokie Loki!” Pinkie took a deep breath. “When you're rife with devastation,
there's a simple explanation-”

Recognising the song, I dove at Pinkie, tackling her to the ground. I pinned her and covered her mouth. “How about a happy song, Pinkie?”

A muffled “Okay” tickled my hoof. I let the hyperactive mare up, and she immediately went into another song. Thankfully, it was one we were all happy to listen to.

<Lyrics redacted for FiMFiction reasons, song is here. But you should all know this one by now.>

We all felt better after Pinkie’s antics. I had almost forgotten why we were in this stupid forest. Almost. Pinkie hammered the point in.

“Isn’t it funny how we’re in this spooky forest looking for Hot Head and Nightmare Night is only a couple days away?” She giggled, bouncing alongside Applejack.

Rarity looked at the forest around us. “I guess it certainly is… fitting of the season, Pinkie.”

“Shit, where’s Spike?” Twilight suddenly seemed shaken up. I had a moment’s heart attack before a male voice spoke up.

“Calm down Twilight, I’m right here,” Spike said, walking next to Fluttershy. “We were talking about-”

“Aargh! I can’t take this anymore!” I finally burst out, jumping and hovering above the others. “Look, I’m faster than you guys, I can find him faster if I go ahead alone.” I turned to dash off, but something on my tail pulled me back before I had a chance.

“Oh no ya don’t,” Applejack said, her voice muffled through my tail.

“Rainbow, you know how dangerous it is in here just as much as any of us,” Twilight put in.

“I’m the fastest flyer in Equestria, Twilight! I’ll be fine!”

“No, Dash! We stick together in here!” Twilight stomped her hoof.

I had to force down my anger, consciously opening my jaw to stop my teeth gnashing together. “...Fine. But hurry up, will you?” I landed next to Applejack and she let go of my tail.

“Look,” Applejack turned to face me as we continued. “Ah know that y'all’re worried about Hot Head… we all are, sugarcube. And Ah’m not tryin’ ta lecture ya, but-”

A roar interrupted her and shook the trees around us. Applejack jumped, startled. I wasn’t. Duh. I flew above the treeline before anypony could interfere again.

“What was that?” Twilight asked.

“That sounded like a...dragon,” Fluttershy squeaked.

I ignored the rest of the conversation and shot off towards where the sound came from. I grinned as the last thing I heard was a fading “Dammit, Dash!”

I made it to a cave. Being the only thing of note around here, I decided to investigate. I made my way inside, the limited light forcing me to the ground. My hooves echoed around the stone, no matter how quietly I set them down. I tried to force down anxiety, with varying levels of success. Tight spaces...Underground… Thoughts came unbidden to the front of my mind, threatening to send me into a panic. Eventually, one came up that I desperately clung onto. Loyalty. One of my old favorite phrases came to mind. “I’d never leave my friends hangin’!” I was in here for Hot Head. I had to keep going.
Finally, after only hoofbeats to accompany me, I heard distant thumps and scratches on stone. Picking up the pace, I wanted to see what it was. Before I got too much farther, another loud roar blasted by, flapping my mane around and forcing me to stand my ground. It was times like these that I was glad that I didn’t obsess over my mane like Rarity does.

A little farther on, the sounds quickly became obvious that a struggle was happening. A list of what creatures could give a dragon trouble quickly went by in my head. It was a small list, and one in particular stood out. Hot Head. It was probably wishful thinking, but if it was him, he’d be in trouble. I started galloping faster. The ground shook, the entire cave shook, as the battle escalated. The rumbles grew louder, and I heard a deafening crash. Senses obtained from years of dangerous flying told me to slam on the brakes.

I’m glad I did. Boulders and rocks of various sizes fell from above. I threw myself backward to avoid the cave-in, landing hard on my side. I didn’t completely succeed, I realized, as a rock the size of my head bounced onto my hind leg, accompanied by a sickening crunching sound, rolling to a stop somewhere nearby.

Fighting back reflex tears, I looked around as the dust cleared. The avalanche had completely blocked off the tunnel. I painfully pushed myself to my hooves, quickly hovering to get weight off of my leg. Moving to the top, I found a hole that I could peek through. Pressing my face to the opening, I couldn’t see much in the pitch black. I heard muffled grunts and strains, though. He’s still in there!

The sound of rushing air reached my ears, and a faint glow lit the room for a moment. The glow came from the dragon’s stomach as he gathered for a fire breath. It was flailing, and I couldn’t suppress laughter when I saw that the dragon had its head stuck in another pile of rubble on the far side of the room. I found no sign of my friend, though. It unleashed its heat-bearing attack, and I ducked down as I felt the heat through the hole. Hovering for a moment, I considered my options. I could try and dislodge rocks until I made a hole I could fit through, and look for Hot Head in the cave. And deal with an angry dragon, I added as an afterthought. Or, I could go find the girls.

I’ma go find the girls.

I made my way out of that hellhole and into the sky. I felt immediately better being where I belonged. Except for my leg. That hurt like hell. I went into a glide, gently banking from side to side to look for my friends. I picked up the odd sound of Pinkie’s bouncing first.

Predicting my point to be right in front of the group, I descended through the tree level. As I went through, my hurt leg bumped into a branch, sending blinding signals of pain to my head, blocking everything else. My wings locked up, and I cried out as I fell. My back slammed into another branch, breaking it, leaving a sharp edge for my foreleg to catch. The branch broke further down, closer to the trunk, letting me bring the stick embedded in my forearm with me. Mercy came as I landed on my head, as far away from that leg as possible, only for it to slam on the ground as the rest of my body hit the ground. Black formed at the edges of my vision, and the last thing I saw was bright, concerned green eyes above me.

“Apple...jack?”
-----

I woke up on the forest floor, the majority of my vision filled with pink. Pink. I was never a big fan of the color. I prefered sky blue, or the rainbow spectrum of course. Heh. Rainbow… I like rainbows. Rainbows are awesome… I’m awesome… so that means I am rainbows, right? ...That didn’t sound right. I’m Rainbow...but I’m not rainbows… so does that mean I’m not awesome?

A sudden fear seized my chest, and I started to breathe faster. But I’m Rainbow Dash! I’m the most awesomest pegasus in Equestria! I have to be awesome… Who am I if I’m not-

A sudden stinging soreness started a small spasm that shortly ceased subsequently. I looked up and saw Applejack’s worried green eyes hovering over me, an orange hoof raised to smack again.

“You ok, Rainbow?” she asked quietly, lowering her hoof.

I blinked a couple times as my mind tried to catch up. I shook my head to clear it.

“No? Alrighty then, just let me know when yer feelin’ better. You took a nasty fall there.”

“What? No, I’m fine! Seriously, Applejack,” I gave her my normal cocky grin.

Applejack raised an eyebrow and gave me a skeptical look. “Well, if’n ya say so,” she finally said, shrugging.

“Um, Applejack? I, uh, I wasn’t quite finished.” My gaze shifted behind Applejack to where Fluttershy had spoken up. She stood looking at the ground, holding a roll of medical tape in her hoof.

“Oh, Ah’m sorry, sugarcube. Ah didn’t mean to shove ya aside like that,” Applejack took a step back to allow Fluttershy to take her spot.

“Thank you.” Fluttershy mumbled.

“What was that for anyway, AJ?” I accused Applejack. “That...kind of stung a little.” I was about to say that hurt, but it would take a lot more than a hoof to the face to hurt the Dash.

“Y’all were mumblin’ somethin’ about not being awesome enough. Ah figured that coming from you, it might have been somethin’ ta worry about.”

I decided to ignore the smirk that Applejack was giving me, and I turned back to Fluttershy, who had gone back to working on whatever it was she was doing earlier. “So what are you doing now, Shy?”

“Well, you crashed pretty hard. Your hind leg is shattered, and your foreleg is torn and maimed. I’ve given you a splint for both, and I bandaged your leg. You landed on your head, so you might have a concussion. Follow my hoof, please,” Fluttershy seemed oddly assertive. She wasn’t stuttering or mumbling like she normally does. “Good. We need to get you to some serious medical attention, Rainbow Dash. It’s very likely that you have a concussion.”

“But I feel fine! My wings are fine; I can still fly!”

“Rainbow, you blacked out. We can’t just blow this off.”

“Hot Head is still out there! I’m not going back until we’re all safe!”

“Be rational, Rainbow!” Twilight walked up behind Fluttershy. “What if you get hurt worse out here?”

“No! You can’t make me go back!” I crossed my arms across my chest. Or, I tried to. When I moved my forearm, it hurt. A lot.

“Oh, try not to move that,” Fluttershy spoke up.

“Can we just get going?” I asked.

“Ah agree.”

Twilight looked at Applejack in surprise. “What? You can’t expect her to-”

“Look Twilight, if she’s being too stubborn about it, we should just let her do what she wants. When have you ever been able ta tell Rainbow Dash what to do, anyway? The more time we spend dilly-dallying here is more time for something to happen to Hot Head.”

“She should have been named Hot Head…” Twilight grumbled, turning away.

A past version of me would have made a big deal out of that, but I had already gotten what I wanted, so I let it slide. I got up (painfully) and immediately hovered into the air to take weight off of my legs.

Rarity looked up from where she had been entertaining Pinkie’s antics. “Are you sure you want to come with us, darling? That looks pretty bad, even from over here.”

I groaned. “Can we just go already? I’ll be fine, I can fly for hours! This’ll be no sweat!”

After deflecting more concerned words and ignoring a raised eyebrow from Applejack, we were finally moving again.

A long while of catching Fluttershy looking at me out of the corner of her eye later, my pegasus eyes uncovered a light bobbing through the trees in the distance. I grabbed Fluttershy, who happened to be the closest, and pointed her head towards what I saw. Pointing with a hoof right next to her head, so she could trace the line, I asked, “Do you see that, Shy?”

“Um… see what?”

“Ugh, nevermind!” I took off towards the light, dodging trees and branches along the way. Bursting into a clearing, I saw our target limping forward, head down.

“Hot Head! There you are!” I called out, waving with my good hoof. He stopped and looked confused, but he didn’t look up. “Up here, you dolt! Come on, let’s get out of here!”

Author's Note:

Heh, it's been... two months now? Man, time flies...
Anyway, finally an update! Real life stuff happened, some of which I'd rather not talk about, and then school is much harder this semester than it was last semester. Doesn't leave much time for writing.
I guess it doesn't help much when I fill that time playing Paper Mario either, huh?
Also, figures that Valentine's Day is the day where I actually have time to finish this chapter.

Comments

[djponyfl]

another very good chapter, and I can't wait to read more of this story.

[AdamAperture]

Eh, good enough.

[TheFirebird]

Hows the next chapter coming

[TheFirebird]

Hows the next chapter coming?

[bronzewolf78]

4098273
Look, I'm sorry, but this is a hobby, not a job. I'm a full time engineering student, and that takes up most of my time. I also have a youtube channel I'm working on, and right now that takes up most of my spare time. The next chapter will come out when it's done and I'm satisfied with it. I haven't given up on this or anything, but I've got more important stuff going on in my life right now.
And I've got a good 2300 words in chapter 10 so far, to answer your question.

[TheFirebird]

Okay thanks for the information

[Bojack H]

Shattered bones aren't exactly something one walks off, or all the other massive injuries, otherwise this is a great story

[unknowncape7377]

7152462
Short answer... Adrenaline ... Long answer... The injuries that occurred (shattered bones...etc.) happen to come with a boost of adrenaline within the blood stream that makes the pain seem like it is much less than it actually is and once that adrenaline wears off, the pain comes back even more powerful than normal