Wherein The Hunt is On
Day Six
Nineteen Days Remain
Another weird dream, though this one was a little more hectic and less silly. A plague of grey goo nano-machines sweeping the planet. Except instead of breaking people down into more tiny robots they were turning all the humans into ponies. Watching someone's human shape melting away before my eyes was pretty unnerving. It didn't have the feel of that flashback to my last minutes on Equestria, so I'm not particularly worried about it being a portent of doom.
I rise to my feet and give myself a stretch. Arch my back. Reach forward with my hands. Spread my wings to the fullest to work out the kinks. The feeling of all those little joints moving after a restful night's sleep is heavenly and suddenly I understand why Soundwave does his wake-up-from-a-nap calisthenics so religiously.
Huh. Soundwave. I hope he's doing alright. I wish I hadn't needed to dump my phone out of the sky. Then I would have been able to check in with Lewis to see how the screwball of a cat is doing. And assure my mom that I'm not dead. Geeze that's going to be an awkward meeting, isn't it? “Oh hey there mom, how's the garden doing? That's wonderful. Oh by the way, turns out that I'm a female hippogriff from another universe banished to Earth by a chaos curse. Crazy right? Is the Memorial Day family get together still going on? Great, I'll bring some bratwurst.”
“You should bring extra pickle relish, too,” Surprise calls down at me.
My eyes are drawn up to the ceiling and much to my shock the white pegasus is hanging upside down by her hooves. She's flapping her wings slowly to stay put, but watching her skitter around up there like Spider Man is still really weird.
“Hmm... I wonder why they call it relish. And what does it have to do with a stork?” she muses.
“Eerr... I can't say I know, Surprise,” I reply. How else is one supposed to answer a crazy pony throwing non-sequiturs around while dangling above you?
“Anywho! Time for everypony to wake up!” Surprise says as she drops from her perch and pulls a gaudy looking noise-maker from her mane. I think it goes without saying what happens next. Everypony leaps upright at the jarring squeal and Surprise gets one pillow to the face courtesy of Silver. She staggers around in mid-air for several seconds clutching herself as if mortally wounded and then collapses into the heap of cushions she had slept on last night.
On the one hoof my friends are glad that Surprise didn't let them sleep in. On the other, well. Surprise isn't exactly subtle when she wants to be noticed. It's difficult to stay mad at her though, honest it is.
Silver gets right down to business. Because hunting evil magical wolf monsters and the trees that make them is pretty serious stuff.
“Alright, we've got a lot of forest to cover. At the very least we know that those buckers were consistently attacking from north, so we start our search in that direction,” he says.
“I could feel the magic bleeding off them even from a distance,” I recount. “I'll bet it's because there's so little natural magic here on Earth that any source shows up like a neon sigh. It's like lighting a fire on top of a hill in the middle of the night. You can't miss it.”
Dust gives a nod at that. “So we do a sweep from the air and give a shout if we spot anything. We're out in the middle of nowhere here so it isn't like anyone will be around to spy on us.”
“We should be glad for that. If the wolves weren't so remote they probably would have hurt someone already,” Sea Grass comments.
Huh. Kind of strange that we just so happened to fly over right as the attack was launched. Could Discord somehow have known that we would be passing overhead at just that moment to get us embroiled in this mess? That's a scary thought.
“If it's alright I think I'd like to stay here,” Sea Grass says. “I can't fly around. And I don't know how I feel about fighting.”
“Earth ponies are really strong,” Dust points out. “Seriously strong. You can probably kick like a freight train if you tried.”
Grass opens her mouth to object but Dust waves her down.
“Don't worry about it though. We're Wonderbolts and we've got this covered,” Dust says. “Just remember that you aren't helpless. If you get in trouble you can run or you can give a mean buck.”
The quiet earth pony seems glad for the reassurance. No one likes being helpless after all.
“Alright, sounds like we've got a plan for our little gosh darn adventure,” Silver says. “We do this right. No diving in alone,” he glares at Dust. “No buck ups. These are serious horse-apples that we're dealing with. If we make mistakes somepony gets hurt or killed. Understood?”
Geeze. Way to throw a wet blanket over the whole thing. I know it's dangerous, but is that kind of 'pep talk' really needed?
The mood is lightened considerably when Silver is nailed with a precision cushion strike from Surprise. “You know,” the grey pegasus says. “That was a declaration of war.”
Cue one impromptu pillow fight.
Alliances are made and broken as pillows zip back and forth across the room. The dour tone set by Silver perishes an ignoble death under Surprise's clever ministrations, the laughter of ponies, and a hail of weaponized cushions.
We've all undergone personality changes. Some have been minor, others more noticeable. When I first started noticing it in my friends I was worried. Would we even be ourselves by the time this is all over? But as more time has gone by and I've seen the changes begin setting in I can't help but feel that my friends are changing for the better. People change all the time. I wasn't the same person last year as I was when I was ten. And I'm not the same person now that I was yesterday. The only unusual factor is how fantastical and sudden the chances are, not that they've come.
Though one change I would never want to give up, the one that I'm happiest with, is the ability to unabashedly be ourselves. Ponies don't seem to have the same shame that humans do when it comes to acting out. Ponies are all so different from each other, both outwardly and inwardly. Humans are far more homogenous on the outside and that seems to encourage them not to stand out. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, as the old saying goes. There's no stigma in being myself. And I wouldn't trade that sweet freedom for anything.
Heh.
Pausing to ponder is probably a poor plan. Mostly because Surprise pounces on me while I am busy contemplating life.
Once our friendship exercise is over we clean up, grab a bite to eat, say our goodbyes to those staying behind, and trot outside. Dust takes a deep breath of the sweet, dry air. “Time to do the lumberjack thing.”
“Oooh! We should do a team cheer!” Surprise yells right as we begin spreading our wings for flight. She's met with several skeptical looks. “C'mon! Follow me lead, it'll be fun!”
Surprise holds out a hoof and we do likewise. May as well indulge her, right?
“Wonder, wonder. Wonder! Wonderbolts ho!”
Alright. She was spot on. That was fun.
Into the sky we go.
I have no idea what I'm looking for, I must admit. A tree that makes timber wolves I guess? After a bit of prodding Dust had explained that the official name for the malevolent plant is 'Wolf Timber'. That's almost as clever as 'Ponyville'. Coming up with imaginative names doesn't seem to be one of the strong suits of the Equestrians. Everything is either obvious or a horse-pun. Like 'Canterlot'. Apparently most of their cities and many of the countries are all based in some part on real-world locations. Just turned into a pun based on whatever race lives there.
Torttingham, Manehattan, Vanhoover, Canida, Griffinheim, Prance, and Neighpon just to name a few. All with real world connections in either mythology or actual places. It almost makes me wonder if there had been some previous contact between Earth and Equestria? Apparently even the name of the planet is in some depute. Phrases like 'what in the wide wide world of Equestria' are used in some episodes and the world is flat up called 'Earth' in others. If the latter is accurate then that's another point in the 'alternate universe' concept. It would certainly help to explain a lot. Maybe if-
“Hey bird brain! Spotted anything yet?” Dust's voice crackles over my headset. That shakes me out of my absent-minded pondering.
“Just a lot of oak and pine down there so far. What exactly should I expect?” I answer.
“Big gnarly looking tree with glowing green sap bubbles all over it. Lots of brambles, too,” Dust says.
Seriously?
We're looking for a tree covered in huge luminescent magical green pods? That seems a bit heavy handed to me. But at the very least that should make it stand out whether we pick up on its magic or not.
“I've got it!” Surprise yells over the radio.
“Good work Surprise!” Silver answers. “We'll head your way and-”
“What? No no no, I didn't find the tree silly!” the loopy pegasus laughs. “I figured out what the pickle stork is for! It's because pickles are made from baby cucumbers and so they need a stork to deliver them!”
There are no words.
Dust busts up laughing and Silver chides Surprise for being too Surprise-like. I do my best to tune them out and turn my eyes back to the terrain below me. The stillness is unsettling. There should be jays squawking and squabbling at each other. The previous day my eagle eyes were zeroing in on so many rabbits and deer and wild turkeys that I had found myself distracted by them. But out here? It's as if the wildlife has decided to evacuate. Maybe the forest animals can sense the wrongness of the timber wolves and beat a hasty retreat. Or maybe they've been systematically hunted down. There's a chilling thought. If the timber wolves run low on prey here what's to stop them from spreading toward more inhabited areas?
All the more reason to burn them to the ground.
We spend about two hours in the sky. With each sweep we expand the area that we're searching a little wider. That was Silver's idea, though I'm not sure where he got it from. Some fragmented memory of our old job in Equestra? A tactic in a video game he played? A line from an old movie? Who knows. But regardless of the source it seems sound enough. Eventually Dust gives the word that we were hoping to hear.
“I see 'em everypony.”
That's all it takes.
We converge on Dust's position and turn our attention to the massive scabrous looking plant clinging to the earth like a tick. The wolf timber is horrifically out of place when contrasted with anything else growing near it. Not that there's much growing near it to begin with. All the other plants within a hundred foot radius are blackened and withered. The tree itself has a tremendously bloated trunk covered in large pods filled with acidic green sap, pods that pulse and squelch and generally seem far more unpleasant than a plant has any business being. Branches growing at the top are more like an afterthought than anything else with only a few scarce leaves hanging from them.
Creeping over the whole surface of the tree is a chaotic tangle of light brown brambles that stretch away from the wolf timber and over the surface of the forest floor. In fact, the extent of the decay and the reach of the brambles appears to be one and the same. Desiccated husks of plants and the bleached bones of animals litter the briar patch. Wisps of livid green fog drift about the blighted clearing and every now and again something wriggling and green squirms its way out of a sap-boil.
This thing is literally sucking the life out of the forest.
“Well buck me sideways,” Silver snorts. “That's one bucked up looking tree.”
“Eeww,” Surprise grunts, wrinkling her nose at the stink wafting up below us. “It smells really bad.”
Like refuse rotting under water mingled with decaying flesh.
“That thing looks a lot creepier than the one from the show did,” Dust mutters.
“I think this would have been a little too morbid to get the green light for a kid's show,” I muse. “So how are we going to do this? If we land and just start bucking it I'll bet you bits to doughnuts that timber wolves will start crawling out of the woodwork.”
“Yeah, when the Mane Six flattened the one in the show a ton of wolves showed up. And it went after them with the brambles, too,” Dust recounts.
I look down at the mangled carcasses of several deer snared in the blighted briar patch and decide that isn't a fate I wish to share.
“But I think I've got an idea,” Dust continues. “Y'know what happens when a pegasus kicks a cloud?”
Oh! I know this one!
“It evaporates!” I reply with a wide grin. I have no idea how that would help us but I was able to remember some trivia about the show!
“No no, the other thing,” Dust sighs.
My shoulders sag in defeat. Foiled again.
“Lightning!” Surprise says. “If you kick a cloud right it shoots lightning bolts! Is that your idea Dusty?”
The aqua pegasus nods and points a hoof at some rather sizable clouds high above. “It's going to take quite the trip, but we head up there and come back down here with a cloud. A big one. Then we compact it and get it all riled up and start stomping out some lightning. We stomp that lightning until the wolf timber is a heap of burning splinters.”
“Alright. Sounds like a plan to me,” Silver says. “Operation Bolt of Lightning up the Plot is a go. Let's go rustle ourselves a cloud.”
Turns out that's easier said than done.
On Frindship is Magic clouds seem content to hover around near ground level. They're small, discreet, cottony things. Just like the ones that we make when we put our wings and hooves to work. But the clouds here on Earth? They're really really big and miles away. So when we begin beating our wings and flying higher into the sky the air quickly grows colder and thinner with every foot we climb.
“This is...” Dust pants. “This is a lot harder than I was expecting...”
No kidding.
Flying six miles along the surface is easy. Ostensibly flying six miles straight up shouldn't be any harder. After all one of the basic components of pegasus flight magic involves thumbing our noses at gravity. Turns out that dealing with the thinner air is a pretty big deal.
Eventually we find a low hanging cloud and flop onto it. Our prize is still thousands of feet above us and we're all wheezing for breath. The air pressure up here is just way too low!
Wait.
Air pressure.
That's my special talent, right? Magic that messes with the density of air and waves traveling through it? I look down at the twin tornadoes of my butt-picture and grin. I made that giant pressure wave that Dust surfed on during our battle with Discord. And of course who could forget the sonic shock-wave roar from the battle yesterday? I may as well give this a shot. If I fail I'll probably just look silly. But if I pull it off we'll be able to breath again.
So I close my eyes, spread my wings, and reach out with my magic.
I can feel the air around me, so cold and thin. I warp it in my magic and begin to gently tug it toward me. At this point I probably shouldn't be surprised when it listens, but I am. I can't help but feel a little giddy when I realize that I'm quite literally commanding the air and it's heeding my whim. Oh so slowly the frigged air creeps inward, its temperature gradually rising as the jostling atoms are forced closer.
“Whatever you're doing Geneva,” Dust says suddenly. “Keep doing it. The temperature has already jumped by five degrees.”
It takes a few minutes for me to ease the pressure to just the right point. Obviously I don't want to go too fast or I might pops some ears or pressure-cook us. Once my little bubble of air is finished my friends are all breathing easier and spirits are lifting.
“This kinda takes a lot of focus,” I admit. “I'm not sure if I'm skilled enough to keep this up and fly at the same time.”
I would hate to lose my grip and have all this high pressure air snap back to equilibrium with the rest of the lower pressure air around it. You know what they call a violently expanding volume of gas?
An explosion.
“That's okay Geneva!” Surprise says. “We'll just shove the cloud you're sitting on along with us!”
And so that's what we do.
Before long my friends are carving out a huge chunk of some sort of massive cloud I don't recall the name of while I sit around and focus on making the air breathable for us. It's a really important job. Having everyone suffocate, freeze, and drop out of the sky would put a huge damper on Operation Bolt of Lightning Up the Plot. My little platform is melded into our storm cloud and we begin to descend.
I can feel the magic and charge alike crackling under my hooves. It's actually really interesting. This kind of cloud feels vastly different from the fog we had been romping in a few days prior or even the clouds we had built at the river. Different kinds of clouds are almost like different kinds of building material to a pegasus, each having differences in feel and property. Now that I know what a storm cloud feels like I'll bet I could make one from water.
As we drop in altitude I gradually release my grip on the air around us. Because explosions are still bad. At least when they're right on top of my friends and me.
“I figure we've got about four solid bolts in this cloud,” Dust rambles as we dip earthward. “And I can even use my magic to recharge it if we need to. Oh! Great idea! Once we're done frying the wolf timber we can stick this bad boy on the bottom the Cloudmobile! If anything gives us trouble I can just give it a kick and boom! Lightning bolt to the face!”
“Oooh. That sounds pretty neat Dusty!” Surprise says. “It would be really hoofy if we run into anymore monsters.”
“Hoofy?” Silver asks.
“You know, hoofy! Instead of handy. Because we have hooves?” Surprise replies with a huff. “You made me explain the joke, Silver! Now it isn't funny anymore.”
Surprise laments the death of her clever pun all the way back to the ground.
We park the storm cloud over the wolf timber and Dust hops on top of it, looking rather pleased with herself. Our target is right under her and taller than anything else nearby. Given lightning's propensity to seek out the highest point nailing the tree should be easy. Dust rears up on her hind legs and begins rubbing her front hooves together, causing them to cast of sparks.
“Alright everypony! Let me show you what I can do!”
Dust stomps, an ear-splitting boom splits the sky, and the briar patch fifteen feet to the right of the tree bursts into flames.
“I think you missed, Dusty,” Surprise points out.
Surprise is helpful like that.
The tangle of thorny vines on the ground begins slithering and snapping and writhing about like a mass of centipedes that had just been poked with a stick. A low unearthly keening sound reverberates from the wolf timber and soon there after howls respond in kind. Apparently the plant knows that it's under attack and is calling for backup.
Dust gives a snort. “That was just a practice shot. I'm going to nail it this time.”
Another stomp and another lightning bolt. This time, however, the whole front half of the tree lights up with the brightness of the sun. The pods along its surface burst as magical lightning surges through them, spewing blazing sap all over the blighted soil. Little squirming green things wriggle and pop as the flames consume them.
“Buck yeah! Thor hasn't got a thing on Lightning Dust!” Dust crows as she rears up again. “This plot-whuppin', I like it! Another!”
The air reverberates with the sound of a third thunderclap and the whole right side of the tree explodes in a shower of splinters and burning pitch.
“And one more to seal the deal! Boom!”
A fourth and final lightning bolt surges into earth, splitting the remains of the wolf timber in half and setting the whole of it ablaze. The burning brambles twitch spasmodically and gradually fall still. I can feel the magic in the unnatural plants fading as they crumble away.
“And that's how we do things in Equestria,” Dust says as she scuffs a hoof against her chest.
“We aren't out of the woods just yet, ladies,” Silver pipes up. “We've still got mop-up on the rest of the timber wolves. Once they get here we give 'em Tartaurus.”
We've burned some magic fetching clouds and falling trees, but the timber wolves weren't very tough the first time around. And this time we'll have Surprise fighting on our side. I have no idea what that's going to look like, but it'll probably be impressive.
Shouldn't be too bad, right?
Nope.
That's when the thirty foot tall timber wolf comes stomping through the forest blindly shoving trees out of its way as it bounds toward us.
“Oh yeah, I forgot they could do that,” Dust mutters as we all scatter to avoid the massive monster of malevolent magic and mounded vegetation leaping our way.
“That would have been some bucking useful information, Dust!” Silver yells as he darts away from a lashing paw.
How are we supposed to fight something this big? The tree was easy. It might have been huge, but it was immobile and we had a storm cloud full of lightning bolts. This thing? It actually fights back!
Silver drops out of the sky and slams into the huge wolf's spine with terrific force only to get batted away for his trouble. “How the hay did they kill this thing in the show, Dust!”
“Spike threw a rock in its mouth and it choked to death!” Dust yells back as she darts in and kicks the monster in the ribs with a crackle of electricity. Its hide is buckled and blackened, but that doesn't seem to have bothered it much. The monster lurches into Dust with its weight and sends her tumbling into a shrub near the edge of the clearing.
“Well that's just bucking great,” Silver huffs while pulling himself into the air again. “Maybe it'll bucking gag when it eats us.”
I swoop in and begin clawing desperately at its neck, but the giant timber wolf's woody hide is so thick that I doubt I'm actually causing it much in the way of harm. It snaps around with speed uncanny for its size and flings me off. The world spins around me in an erratic blur as I beat my wings and try to regain my balance.
This is absurd. My flight's powered by the tears of Sir Issac Newton himself. My magic eats physics as topping with its cereal. Losing control shouldn't even be a thing that happens to a Wonderbolt. So I just need to steel myself and will which way to fly. I can do this! I can beat this!
My short flight ends when I crash into a pine tree and slump to the ground.
Great.
Now my everything hurts.
Even better, the giant timber wolf is heading toward me.
I scream at my body to move, but it seems to have other plans at the moment.
That's when I notice Surprise.
She's standing between me and the timber wolf on her hind legs. A conical rice hat is pulled down low over her face. The crimson scarf wrapped about her neck is flapping in the wind. Slowly she spreads her wings with a sound like a sword being drawn from a scabbard.
“There are roads...” Surprise says as the massive beast stomps towards her. “...which a pony must travel.”
The wind picks up again, carrying with it a flurry of flying oak leaves.
“Don't blink, or you'll miss it,” the white pegasus says as she hops about a foot into the air and the giant timber wolf leaps at her.
I blink.
I feel the breeze in my mane.
Surprise lands on the opposite side of the timber wolf, her hooves braced as she slides to a halt and folds her wings. “Gale of a thousand cuts technique.”
And thus things fall to pieces. The giant timber wolf, several desiccated stumps, even all the oak leaves that had been drifting in the wind. They're all sheered to bits and flung apart. Chunks of timber wolf clatter to the ground only to be covered in a blanket of fallen leaves when the wind abruptly dies.
That.
Was totally awesome.
Ooow, my everything still hurts.
I slowly roll back to my feet and limp toward the others. Nothing feels broken, but nothing feels particularly comfortable either. I think my magic absorbed most of the impact for me. Because otherwise I would have had a broken spine instead of a sore back.
Turns out Dust is just fine save for a bruised ego.
Silver isn't hurt in the slightest. Lucky him. “That was darn impressive, Surprise,” the grey pegasus says. “Do that again next time we run into some big bad mother bucker causing us trouble.”
That request sets Surprise to giggling. She seems to have ditched her hat and scarf.
Somewhere.
“I can't do stuff like that whenever I want!” Surprise laughs.
I quirk and eyebrow at her. Ow. Even talking hurts. “Why not? Does it use up too much magic?” I ask. That's an interesting question in and of itself. Do we have some kind of magical power pool that we draw from whenever we use our abilities? I do feel a little drained after everything that just happened, but that could be normal fatigue.
“Of course not silly filly! It wouldn't be funny then!” Surprise replies.
Ah.
Right. It wouldn't be funny to go ninja-Surprise on everything and dice them to confetti. How could I have forgotten something so fundamental and important?
The others react much as I do, but as with all things Surprise-related we decide to just leave it alone for the well being of our sanity.
We pile the remains of the giant timber wolf into a heap and light it on fire. By this time the whole blighted clearing has been reduced to ash and charcoal, but we hang around just in case the fire tries to spread. Sacrificing our storm cloud to make rain is certainly one option, but I don't think Dust is too keen on losing it after so much work was put into fetching the thing in the first place.
The ashes are stomped out to make sure there aren't any embers left and we set off back toward the ranch house. I'm still pretty sore from my close encounter of the pine kind so I get to crash on top of the storm cloud and have the others fly me there. If I knew I could get free rides out of making an idiot of myself I might have started earlier.
Our trip back is much shorter than the search to find the wolves if only because we don't have to spend hours flying in circles to find an evil tree. A sense of direction is just as inherent to a pegasus as a sense of balance is to a human. I can tell which way is north just as easily as I can tell which way is down. And that makes navigation simple, thankfully enough.
We park our newest toy in the clearing and meet Don, Edna, and Sea Grass outside the ranch house. They don't even need to ask how things went when they see how smug Lightning Dust looks.
“Heard the thunder from here,” Edna comments with a small smile.
If Dust could puff herself up any more she might be mistaken for a blowfish.
“Mission accomplished,” Silver says with a curt nod. “Those bucking weeds won't be giving you folks anymore trouble.”
“Sorry about the bad guys getting your goat,” Surprise adds. “Hee. Goats. Anyway! We've got more ponies who need help that we have to go find, so we should be leaving all quick-like!”
“Are you ready to head out, Sea Grass?” I ask.
Grass looks between our two new friends. They give her a small nod. “I told Don and Edna about what we're doing. How you're going to be rescuing ponies, but we still need a safe place to stay. Our friends own a lot of land here that we could use.”
“Ooooh! That sounds like a fantabulastic idea!” the perky pegasus replies.
Dust looks at me and mouths 'fantabulastic?'
“Once we get some more ponies out here to dig their hooves in I bet we can make a great little community! We've got trees and land and water and everything we need to build stuff and grow stuff and share and care!” Surprise continues.
“For now I can tend to the river near here,” Grass says. “I'll have plenty of water lettuce cultivated by the time friends arrive, so we shouldn't have too worry much about food.”
Considering how many apples a family of four earth ponies can grow on the show I believe her. And barring that ponies can just eat grass. That probably isn't very nutritious without an earth pony to tend to it, though. Maybe Sea Grass could try working on that too?
I know I've got access to more magic than just my special talent. If it didn't then I wouldn't be able to fly. Grass' special talent seems to cover growing plants and alga that live in the water. But would she be able to enhance the growth of other crops as well? It sure would be helpful if that were the case. An earth pony who could turn the normally astringent acorns into food fit for human and pony consumption would open up a tremendous crop that generally goes completely neglected.
Ponies solving world hunger?
Sounds good to me.
Though I can't imagine ponies being treated well in some of the less stable parts of the world. Or parts of the world where a unicorn's horn might be considered valuable. That thought sends a shudder of disgust down my spine. If rhino horn is worth more than its weight in gold what would a real unicorn horn be worth?
Just another reason to find as many ponies as quickly as possible.
A hoof to the ribs pulls me from my wandering thoughts. “Wake up, bird brain,” Dust says with a grin. “We're heading out soon. And Edna wanted to know if you could use some more sausages.”
“Oh thank heavens, yes please!”
The sausages are delicious.
Alas as before they don't last long enough.
As I munch the wonderful, wonderful meat my friends busy themselves with pulling the soft cloud shell of the Cloudmobile apart in preparation for its next incarnation. The storm cloud looks for all the world like a tiny cartoony thunder head. All dark and gloomy. Most of its charge was blown on frying the wolf timber, but I can still feel a faint buzz of magic jostling around inside it like an angry hornet in a jar. Once the new under-cloud is secured the old poofy clouds are reapplied to the top. They have a lot more material to work with this time around and so Surprise insists on giving our ride a vaguely Buck Rogers rocket ship shape.
It takes quite a bit of effort to warp the miststone floor, but eventually we reshape it from a round bowl into more of an oval. The end result is a pretty spot on rocket ship and thus the Cloudmobile Mark Three is born.
We gather the last of our things, wave goodbye to Don and Edna, and share a group hug with Sea Grass. She starts crying. I do too. Just a little bit.
“Thank you so much for saving me. I would have been lost without you all. The Wonderbolts are true heroes.”
Yep.
I'm totally crying.
Onto the Cloudmobile Mark Three we climb and wings start beating. Final goodbyes are yelled as we lift off into the sky. I've been stuck on pony radar duty this time around since I'm still a bit sore from the beating I took. I'm actually a bit surprised how much better I feel already. But then again Twilight recovered from having a piano dropped her after just a few hours. Assuming that part of the cartoon is accurate, anyway.
Our water-based aircraft has windows this time around at Grass' suggestion. Sure you could always just shove your head through the wall, but she had found that a little on the unnerving side. And being able to look out a window really helps to cut down on motion sickness. We haven't figured out how to make miststone transparent yet, so unfortunately that means wind is streaming into the Cloudmobile. And that's making it a bit difficult to work on Lance's biography what with the pages flapping around. Truth be told I'm not nearly as worried about my human memories up and vanishing, but it turns out that writing about my life is a fun way to pass the time.
Certainly beats sticking my head out the window and getting excited every time I spot a squirrel.
It's funny how most of my old problems seem trite by contrast now. I suppose setting off on quest as universe-traveling heroes to save people's lives and slay monsters while avoiding shadowy government operatives will offer a new perspective on things.
I stuff my notebook away and stick my head out the window to see where we are. First thing that catches me attention? Unsuspecting deer a few thousand feet below us. I could drop out of the sky like a thunderbolt and it wouldn't even notice me until after I break its spine. These predatory instincts are kind of bothersome sometimes. Before I could look at wildlife and simply enjoy them for their quiet beauty. Now I look at them and my brain starts calculating the best angle to pounce from.
Shut up brain. I already had sausages with a side of horse-cereal. I don't need to murder any unsuspecting furry woodland creatures right now.
I can see a large lake looming in front of us and the city itself sprawling across the valley beyond. We're up at the very top of California's central valley now and the population will only grow in density the further south we go. There's no telling how many lost, frightened ponies there may be hidden away in the nooks and crannies here.
“Aim fifteen degrees to the south,” I call over my headset to my friends outside. I can feel them turn the nose of the Cloudmobile toward the new heading. “If I'm reading this crazy thing right,” I continue as I tap at the screen with a talon. “We're about ten miles from the next pony. Just about there everyone!”
Before long we've reached our destination. Below us is a pretty nice looking little estate in the hills above the city of Redding. Silver orders Surprise and I to head down and find our stray Equestrian refugee. Thankfully there aren't any signs of police or animal control lurking about this time around. Finding the pony turns out to be incredibly simple. He's standing in a patch of lawn behind the house right out in the open.
Something feels off, though. A squirming, sinking feeling in my gut that tells me that the image below me is terribly, dreadfully wrong.
My friend and I land without fanfare. The perky pegasus immediately begins bouncing toward the pony.
“Hiya! I'm Surprise and this is my friend Geneva and we're here to- Bwah!” Surprise starts mid-greeting and takes several steps back, a look of disgust and horror spreading across her features. She gives a sad, heart-broken laugh. “Heh... hehe... What's with the long face, buddy?”
This pony standing before us, this pony who was once human, this pony who was an Equestrian before being banished to Earth? This pony is absolutely indistinguishable from any mundane Earthly horse.
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complete instinctual take-over...
Oh no. P.S. This is honestly my favorite Five Score side story.
“I'm can't fly around." --> I can't
2972497
Between writing and editing I must read my stuff four or five times before I actually post it and things still manage to slip through.
Thankfully I've got you to throw a brick at me when I miss a typo
I love this story so much,and it's not often I say that about stories even though I read a ton of them
Your story and http://www.fimfiction.net/story/112520/return-of-the-dawn
Are my top 2 favorites for the Five Score side stories
2966246 I have to agree with this sentiment. I have an idea for a 5s/4 story with the CMCs, but I have no idea where to go with it after the transformation, because I don't know where the original story is going.
2972561
Thanks for the words of praise! I'm glad people are enjoying this story. It demanded to be told.
I haven't read any of the Princess-centric side fics yet. I'm not sure how I feel about the Two Sisters being on the scene somewhere. Immortal demigods tend to steal the limelight if they do anything other than loaf around and eat cake while the Mane6 save the day.
That and Tia kinda-sorta got punted into a volcano after being mauled to near-death by a hell beast. It seems unlikely to me that she was meant to survive that.
But to each their own I guess.
2972594
My advice?
Kick logic to the curb and do the impossible!
Give the Crusaders goals and challenges to overcome. Something that will keep the story active and interesting. Sure it might diverge from what happens in the main fic, but that's what happens when our source material isn't done yet. We make stuff up!
2972685
You're welcome and true enough.
Hmm, did they find a Saddle Arabian, or did this poor guy go all they way?
2972817
I guess you'll find out in Chapter 11, Wherein Consequences Are Discovered.
Did They Find Sherclop Pones?
I'm glad Geneva (and you) still think about Soundwave. For me he's one of the many highlights of this story.
Perhaps Screwloose is about to join their little group
Mmm, that ending does not bode well for the future of the Equestrians that were all alone when they changed.
Oh gosh. Please don't make Surprise turn into a blonde, white-winged Pinkamena. There's been enough untimely murders elsewhere in other fics.
Edit: I just realized that I commented mid-story on the 10th chapter. Nevermind.
Total Project: Sunflower reference! Yes!
Sounds like someone's been reading Project: Sunflower.
That wolf timber of yours reminds me a lot of the Bloodwood trees from the Edge Chronicles Nice job on the creep factor.
I like this story so far; it's taking a different approach than most of the other fivescore fics, and is decidedly much more light-hearted.
Man, when you put it that way, who wouldn't want to be a part of that?