• Published 17th Mar 2012
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The Adventures of the Elementals - AutoKnight01



Twilight and friends learn to combine the elements of harmony with those of naure to save Equestria

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Whitetail

And here is chapter two re-written. Here ya go and I only own my own characters. Enjoy!

The Adventures of the Elementals

Chapter 2: Whitetail

Early the next morning, the alarm clocks of all six mare rang into their ears alerting them to the time of 6:00 AM. That was the time all of them agreed to wake up so they could all meet up at Twilight's house in the morning before they embark.

Applejack had packed up the night prior a tent of her own, a sleeping bag, and lots of tasty apples and apple related treats wrapped up for all of her friends to share. She moved quietly so she wouldn't wake up anyone else in the house. But before she left, she headed for the bedroom belonging to her younger sister to give her another run down of what she explained yesterday.

"Now Ah mean it, Applebloom. All you do is go to Zecora's hut, water a few of her plants, and make sure everything is in order. Then ya leave and come straight back here. You don't touch anything, you don't take anything, ya leave with nothin' but the bow on yer head. Am Ah clear?"

"Yes yer clear." Applebloom whined.

"Repeat it back to me." The elder sister snapped.

"Ah won't touch or take anything from Zecora's hut." The filly groggily responded.

"One more time." Applejack was very insistent on this.

"Alright! Ah get it! Ah won't lay a hoof on anything there! Now can Ah PLEASE go back to sleep? It's six in the morning and it's Saturday!"

Applejack had briefly forgotten that little tidbit of information. Since it was Saturday, it was only one out of two days each week in which the filly could sleep in a few extra hours without being bothered by the tedious chore of going to school.

"Well alright then. Ah'll leave ya to snooze." The orange mare turned and walked out of her younger sister's room.

Applebloom immediately went back to sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. The snoring Applejack heard from the staircase down to the front door made her chuckle as she headed out to Twilight's library.

Rainbow Dash had packed light with a tent, sleeping bag, and a few snacks. Before leaving, she left out a big bowl of tortoise food for her beloved magically hovering pet, Tank. The floating reptile rubbed his head to his owner before she went out the door. The cyan pegasus jerked her head in every direction possible to make sure nopony could see her before she gave the shelled creature an affectionate nuzzle in return. Then she shut the door, locked it, and flew down to town.

Fluttershy, like Rainbow Dash, also packed light but did not pack the same things. All she packed was some food for herself and her friends. Being an animal expert, she had spent a good amount of time sleeping outside with some creatures in order to take care of them if the circumstances called for it. She caught a cold a few times because of it but she didn't care at all for that. The thing she strained a bit on in preparation to leave was finding somepony who could take some time to go over and check on her animals. It took a couple of hours, and Rarity to actually ask for her, but she finally was able to find a suitable temporary caretaker. Lyra Heartstrings volunteered. All she needed to do was go over there in the afternoon, get the bags of food in the kitchen, read the labels for each, and then give it to the creatures on the specific labels. It seemed easy enough.

Rarity was never one to pack light. In her sense, those two words, "pack" and "light", didn't even belong together in the same sentence. She packed everything she considered essential to living outside. A giant tent, a whole inflatable mattress, bed sheets, pillows, food, flowers, it was just ridiculous. Sweetie Belle was requested the day earlier by her older sister to come by and make sure Opalescence was fed. With that, the ivory fashion designer was off.

Pinkie Pie did pack her own tent and a sleeping bag for herself. The rest of the space in her bags was filled with nothing but tasty treats which were more than enough to last the planned time span of the trip. She didn't like doing it, but she had to keep Gummy locked up in her room with a little extra food and water because Mr. and Mrs. Cake weren't all that comfortable with the alligator being around their twin foals. However, Pinkie assured her beloved pet that everything would be fine and ventured off.

Twilight was wide awake about an hour before any of the others were. She had set her alarm earlier so she had time to go over the things she packed one last time to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. Spike, as usual, groaned and did his best to ignore her calls for him to get his scaly butt out of bed. Eventually though his feet did touch the ground and he packed the only things he cared about taking with him, his blanket and a pillow.

Once Twilight headed outside, she was pleased to find that everypony else was there like she had instructed them to be. Spike, still rubbing his eyes, joined her by her side and did his best to stay awake.

"Alright, everypony. I hope you all packed wisely because we aren't turning back now." Twilight started.

"Ah'm all set to go, Twi. And Ah think the rest of us are good too." Applejack looked around.

Pinkie Pie was smiling, Fluttershy looked as ready as she would ever be, Rarity had the seams of her bags about ready to burst, and Rainbow Dash....was snoring while standing up.

"Rainbow!"

Immediately the pegasus jolted awake and sprung into the air by reflex hovering a few feet above the rest of them.

"Huh?! Wha?! Where?!....oh....right I'm up I'm up."

"Rainbow Dash, please try to stay awake. This is very important." Twilight told her.

"I'm trying to. But can you PLEASE tell me why we had to get up this early?" Rainbow complained.

"Because I want to get as much time in on our search as possible. There isn't a single moment to lose now that we're on the hunt for them." Twilight responded.

Rainbow groggily nodded before Applejack asked one more question.

"Shouldn't we give the princess a heads up about this? Ah'm just sayin, that letter said there was a war going on. Seems like something she'd like to have knowledge about."

"I sent her a letter about it last night before I went to bed. I told her everything about the book I found and the letter inside it. Honestly I wasn't expecting a response from her until much later. But she sent me this in no less than five minutes."

Twilight's magic grabbed hold of another parchment and it unrolled to reveal a letter to Twilight from Celestia.

"My dearest Twilight,

I was quite surprised at first to read about your findings and the name of the pony you said wrote that secret letter concealed within the pages of that book. I would love to supply with more information but I am afraid I am not at the moment ready to tell you. However, I can tell you this. Hitashi Ma, if you or anypony else doubts it, is very much real and very much alive, as are the six ponies he tells of.

It is my hope that if and when you find them, you ask for them to come and see me. There are things that must be discussed with them. Good luck and safe travels in your search for them.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia"

When Applejack finished reciting the words of the letter, Twilight rolled it back up and placed it back in her saddlebags.

"You understand what this means, don't you?" Twilight asked them all.

"That once we find them that we'll become all their bestest friends and we can teach them our Equestrian customs and you, Twilight, being the studier that you are will ask them all sorts of questions about their homeland and what they can do and what their own customs are?"

Pinkie grinned showing all her teeth after that little rapid rant leaving Twilight confused a bit.

"What....Pinkie no....well actually some of those things are true. I do want to ask them questions and all but that's not what I was going to say. What I was going to say is that, according to the way Celestia worded her response to me, it confirms that these six ponies are in fact real and not some hoax like some of us were thinking."

That was mostly directed to Rainbow Dash since she was the only one with such doubts.

"And now that we know that the princess wants to talk to them about something, I guess that only makes this trip all that much more important, right Twilight?" Fluttershy said.

The lavender unicorn nodded.

"Exactly right, Fluttershy. So if that's everything, let's move out, ponies."

That was indeed everything. With that, Twilight closed the door to the library, locked it, and then set off with Spike on her back for the Whitetail Woods. Applejack and Rainbow Dash of course recognized their surroundings from the race they had together in the Running of the Leaves. It brought back old memories of both of them thinking the other was cheating to get ahead of the other. All of it just to both finish behind Twilight. Everypony gave off a few giggles as they recalled that race.

The Whitetail Woods were a big region of the Ponyville outskirts meaning it was going to take some time to search every square inch of the place. By the time the sun had just began to set, they hadn't found a single clue to the whereabouts of their mystery ponies.

"This is totally bogus." Rainbow complained. "What are we supposed to be looking for anyway? A sign that says, 'This way to the weird element ponies'?"

"If there was a sign like that, I would've spotted it! I have a knack for finding signs and reading them!" Pinkie said not in the least bit worn down from the search.

Rainbow Dash just shook her head and looked into another pony's direction.

"Maybe we would have more luck if SOMEPONY would take her eyes of that dumb book and help us."

Twilight wasn't listening to her at all. Like Rainbow had said, Twilight hadn't peeled her gaze away from the pages of that book since the first hour they were looking.

"Twilight! This search was your idea!" Rainbow shouted.

The volume of her voice that time was able to break Twilight's concentration from the book and look up at her friend.

"Sorry, Rainbow. Just a little distracted I guess." She excused herself.

"A little? You haven't looked up once since we started. You've nearly ran into so many trees it's not even funny. It was at first but the gag got old really fast."

Twilight rolled her eyes and just continued to do what she was doing in the first place as if she hadn't been interrupted at all. Seconds later though she was interrupted again this time by Pinkie who shoved her face next to hers to look at the pages of the book.

"So what else are you finding in there, Twilight?"

Twilight smiled as she thought about that.

"All sorts of things, Pinkie Pie. I'm learning so much about the culture of Alamante, their customs, their climate, geography," Then her smile vanished and disappointment crept up on her. "But I haven't found anything in here about a prophecy like Hitashi Ma's letter talked about."

"I wonder. What do you think this prophecy will entail any who?" Rarity wondered.

"I'm not sure. And unless I keep reading, we'll never be sure." The lavender unicorn put her nose back to the text of the pages.

The search went on all day with a few breaks in between. Then it came time for the night to show up. The moon was only half full this night with plenty of stars to keep it company. It was only minutes after the moon was raised that the group unanimously decided to call it a night and resume the search first thing in the morning.

While everypony else set up their tents and rolled out their sleeping bags, Spike built a small pit filled with some flimsy wood and made a fire strong enough to cook some food with. He used a single pot that brought along to boil some water and mix them with some vegetables and spices to make quite a tasty soup. Rarity supplied a loaf of sliced up bread to pass around and share with everypony as a side.

The meal was delicious but it did little to ease some minds. Some of them were completely certain that what they were doing was the right thing. Rainbow Dash for one. She was still a bit convinced that this was all just some prank despite the princess asking to talk to these ponies after being found. Fluttershy was a bit frightened because she had got the thought in her head that maybe these six other ponies were probably not in their homeland because they were exiles or criminals banished for a crime they committed.

After they ate, Spike gathered up the bowls they had used and set them in a container. He would wash them whenever he found a source of water. But first, he wanted to sleep. Both he and Twilight were the first to go in terms of who was going to sleep for the night. The other five ponies weren't all that tired yet and decided to talk for a bit longer to the point where they were ready to hit the sack.

Only fifteen minutes passed after Twilight and Spike fell asleep. That's how long it took for the fire the drake made to go out.

"Ah man, Spike didn't use good enough wood for the fire." Rainbow complained.

"Oh this is just great." Rarity joined her. "How is a girl supposed to sleep out in this dreadful wilderness without there being a reliable source of heat?"

She did have a point. It may have been decently warm weather around these parts but in the woods at night, it always got a bit chilly. The ivory mare shivered a tad while Applejack just let out a chuckle finding Rarity's inexperience with nature quite humorous.

"Alright, quit yer fussin'. Ah'm gonna get us some quality wood that'll burn all through the night. You got the horn. So Ah need yer help to see out in these woods."

Rarity, eager to get the fire going again, hastily went along with the country mare to gather more firewood and conjured an orb of light to illuminate their way. As they walked, Rarity jumped at every little thing she saw crawling in sheer terror.

"Rarity, will you cut it out?" Applejack sternly requested. "Landsakes, girl, why does the outside make you so jumpy?"

"Applejack I'm just not tuned with nature the same way you are. It does not mean I jump at every little-AHHHH WHATWASTHATWHATWASTHAT?!"

The country mare groaned as Rarity literally jumped on top of her seemingly clutching for dear life.

"It was a bush, Rares! Get off!"

With one motion of her body, Rarity fell off and thudded to the ground as Applejack spotted some good firewood and walked forward to gather it. While she did, Rarity turned around in every direction getting a good vision for what was surrounding her. She began to talk to herself in the process.

"It's fine, perfectly fine, Rarity. You have dealt with much more messier forests than this. Like the Everfree. That place was at least five times as uncouth as this forest is. This place is peaceful. Good view of the stars…..fresh air.....bugs everywhere.....perhaps poisonous plants….”

Her head jerked around in every direction annoying Applejack because she was the source of light. Instead the light was shining everywhere from the bushes, to the ground, to the black figure on the branch of the tree.

Rarity redirected her head for a second before she squealed and turned back to look up into the tree and stumbled into Applejack again causing both of them to topple over to the ground,

"Ugh. What is it now? A leaf? Did your delicate little hooves snap a twig in half?"

"No. I think I saw a pony up in that tree!"

Rarity shined the light in the correct direction the branch she looked at before. There was nothing and nopony on it but a few leaves growing from it.

"You overreact a lot, Rarity. But that is just the icing on the cake." Applejack laughed a bit.

"I know what I saw, Applejack!" Rarity seemed firm on her opinion. "It was a pony, up in that tree, wearing a big black cloak."

Applejack still wasn’t buying it. She stood up and started to regather the wood that Rarity made her drop.

“Rarity, stop being a fraidy cat and help me gather some wood. I could use some levitation help over here.”

Sighing but not quite ready to drop the subject, Rarity got back up and started to use her magic to help Applejack with the wood. Once they had enough, they trekked back to the campsite only to find that the fire was completely out. The weak wood Spike had placed into had swiftly served its purpose. Rarity kept the light from her horn going as she set the wood down next to the fire pit. Applejack stacked some of the logs nicely in the pit to make for a strong fire. Then the five still awake mares were faced with a problem.

Starting the fire.

“Sooooooooo what now?” Pinkie asked her friends.

“Hold on, I’ll wake Spike and Twilight up.” Rainbow started to head over to Twilight’s tent.

She was stopped a second later by Applejack. The farmer then made Rainbow look at the tent and heard them both snoring in a peaceful slumber.

"You leave em’ alone, Rainbow. Those two are all tuckered out. Let em' rest up."

"But it's getting cold out here and they're the only two who can make us a fire." The cyan pegasus turned around to Rarity and looked at her.

Rarity noticing the stare could easily tell what her flying friend was trying to insinuate.

"I am sorry, Rainbow Dash. But I do not know a spell for starting a fire."

“Well….I think I know how to start one.” Fluttershy raised a hoof.

“Alright! Go Fluttershy! Lets see it!” Rainbow said actually wanting to see Fluttershy perform the act.

She never got a chance to though. She was putting a hoof towards the logs to actually do something, but inches away from the wood, flames erupted from them making her give a loud yelp and fall back on her flank frightened. The other four just started at the now burning wood with complete shock at their friend.

“Fluttershy….how….how did you do that?” Rainbow Dash asked awestruck,

“It…..it w-wasn’t me…..the logs….they just...caught fire out of nowhere.” the yellow pegasus said as she slowly got up.

That new tidbit of information made the group look at the fire with more confusion than ever now.

"How the hay did that happen?" Applejack wondered as she stared at the flames. "Rares?"

"I just told you I don't know any fire spells." The ivory mare turned back to Twilight and Spike's tent.

The two of them were still sawing logs so it couldn't have possibly been them unless Twilight suddenly learned how to cast magic in her sleep. Her gaze returned to the flames rising and flickering with more strength than before.

“We have fire now! So I’m gonna go to sleep! Gnite!” Pinkie Pie bounced off to her own tent.

Pinkie did have a point. Now that they had fire, it was about time to head off to bed. The rest of them headed off to their own area to konk out of consciousness themselves. It only took a matter of minutes for that to actually happen and the whole campsite was filled with snoring, both soft and loud.

*1 hour later*

Snapping. Branches snapping and bushes being rustled as a dark figure made his way through the forest towards a certain area. In that area rested the six ponies along with their dragon friend. Fluttershy, being the only one who wasn’t sleeping in a tent was the only one who was able to get stirred awake by the faint noises. Her ears twitched and then her eyes slowly fluttered open looking around. The fire was still going strong but other than that there was nothing noticeable. Shrugging, she laid her head back down and attempted to go back to sleep.

A matter of seconds later passed by before the sounds returned again. Now feeling a bit frightened, Fluttershy stood up and out of her sleeping bag trying to figure out which way the noise came from.

“G-girls?....”

She checked every single tent to find every single one of her friends in their tents sleeping soundly unaware of the noise or the loud zipping of their tents opening up. Leaving them all open, Fluttershy turned around to hear the loudest rustling of a bush yet. When she turned around to look, she lost her breath and her ability to speak.

Walking out of the bush and into the campsite was a pony. At least something that looked like a pony. This creature was equine shaped with different shades of dark purple and black, a mane of dark grey, and eyes with thin catlike irises resembling that of a bat pony. It grinned at Fluttershy showing its teeth to be sharp as knives. Fluttershy took a step back with every step this creature took forward. The mare unknowingly backed up all the way into Rainbow Dash’s tent and tripped over her snoring body stirring her awake. She was not pleased with being woken up so suddenly and glared at her friend.

“Fluttershy, what the hay?! What time is it?!” She shouted.

The yellow pegasus never even made eye contact with her. Instead, she pointed a shaky hoof in the direction of the dark creature and Rainbow turned to see it. At first her eyes widened and she bolted up to her hooves. The next second, her eyes narrowed as she prepared to charge.

“I don’t know who or what you are, but leave us alone!”

Her wings revved up and she launched herself at the dark horse. Halfway there, she turned her body preparing to strike at it with her hind legs in a spin kick. The creature though was quick to react. Much quicker than Rainbow Dash had thought. Once her left hand leg has lashed out for its head, its jaws opened up and clamped down hard sinking into her skin and drawing blood.

Rainbow Dash let out a cry of pain as her momentum was halted and woke everypony else up to see their friend’s leg in the mouth of an unknown horse shaped creature. It gave a harsh spin and used the motion to throw Rainbow back in front of her tent where Fluttershy rushed to inspect her wound. The other four mares just looked at the dark one as it took a step closer. Twilight took a single step forward.

“Who are you and what do you want?” She demanded.

The creature stopped advancing and looked Twilight’s way. When it spoke, its voice sounded deeply feminine and had quite a rasp to it.

“All of you.”

That was all Twilight needed to hear. Her horn immediately flared up and she shot a bolt of energy straight for it. The creature easily dodged it and then opened up its mouth. Out from its jaws came a shot of dark looking magic aimed right for Twilight’s head. She was just narrowly able to jump out of the way and the shot ripped a hole in her tent. Applejack snorted and brushed her hoof against the ground ready to charge herself. Pinkie Pie was as well standing by the farmer’s side.

Right when it looked like the creature was about to strike again, it's attention was diverted to the left. Out of the tree line, a pony dressed in a black cloak appeared and stood between the group of mares and this shadowy creature. The head was blocked from view thanks to a hood. All that was seen of this pony were the tip of its hooves and a unicorn horn poking out of the hood.

“Back off.” A voice sailed out of the hood of the cloak clearly signalling that this pony was a stallion.

The creature made a feral growl and then lunged for the cloaked stallion. With fast reflexes though, the stallion lunged as well and was strong enough to drive the creature away from the six other ponies. The cloaked stallion wrestled with it for a few moments on the ground before the creature shoved the stallion off. He rolled back into a standing position then grunted as his front two legs thrusted his upper body straight and he stood bipedally. He leaned his now standing body into a stance that clearly signalled he was ready for a full on fight.

The dark pony let loose another cry again and stood in the same position. It was the one to make the first move and darted for the cloaked stallion throwing a punch with its foreleg. The stallion easily waved his own foreleg blocking the punch. Then he jumped back when it threw a sidekick towards him. After that, the stallion took his turn to be on the offensive. Closing the gap one more time, he expertly jumped and spun around to deliver a roundhouse kick to the creature’s head. The creature ducked it but it wasn’t able to dodge the next strike thrown at its stomach. It was thrown off a bit but it quickly recovered to block the next overhead strike from the unicorn.

While this engagement took place, Fluttershy was still trying to treat Rainbow’s wound while the other’s kept their eyes on the fight. Rainbow had taken karate classes before. But the way this stallion was fighting was a style she had never even seen before. It was almost like something out of a movie. Twilight too saw the techniques and skills as unfamiliar. Having a brother who was trained by the royal guard of Canterlot she was keen on fighting styles even though she never utilized them.

The stallion and the creature then came to be in a grapple. Another beast like roar came from the dark figure’s body as it prepared to shoot off another shot from its mouth at point blank range. Seeing it charge its attack, the stallion jumped back far and somersaulted backwards before landing right behind the campfire. The shot was taken. Then the stallion looked at the campfire and waved his forelegs upwards swiftly. In motion with his legs, the fire grew and shot upwards like a small geyser of flames. The entire campsite grew much brighter as the group of seven all looked on at the move stunned. The dark shot hit the wall of fire and immediately dissolved into nothing.

Instantly, the spout of fire died down showing once again the stallion who conjured it up. But he wasn’t done. In a similar fashion but much slower, he directed an upwards waving motion of his two forelegs towards the fire again. The flames grew and rose up to his torso level and began to swirl into a ball of fire a bit wider than his body. After it was spinning around fast enough, the stallion quickly spread his forelegs all the way out causing the fireball to shoot forward at the dark creature. There was no time at all to dodge it and the creature was hit so hard it was sent flying into a tree nearly cracking the trunk of it.

Weakened and smoking, the creature looked again to the cloaked stallion was was starting to approach. There was nothing more that could be done by this thing and it knew it. It turned tail and sprinted straight out of the campsite and away to who knows where. When it was out of sight, the red unicorn adjusted his hood, stood back down on all four hooves, and turned to look at the group that just saw him fight. Their fear dying down, they all began to stand back up. His face was only barely seen through that hood because of the dim light the campfire gave off.

Rarity took a step forward.

"Um....thank you...mister...what's your name?"

"Not important." That was the only thing he said before his body vanished in a brief flash of flames. But his voice was still heard from around them. "It isn't safe in these woods. If you plan to proceed, do so with the utmost caution."

With that, he was now completely gone, leaving the seven friends in total confusion, amazement, and a smidge of fear at what they just saw.

"What....just happened?" Spike finally managed to say.

“Well….some dark pony came out of nowhere, then we got our butts saved by some dude wearing a cloak.” Rainbow gave a short hiss as another wave of pain surged up her leg. “I gotta give the guy this though. He sure knows how to fight. I mean did you see those moves of his?”

“YEAH!” Pinkie seemed overly excited about it. “I mean did you see him! With the “WOOSH!” and the “WHAM!” and the “POW!” And then….” That was when Pinkie Pie took in a large gasp as she noticed something. “And then…..the FIRE! He didn’t use a spell! His horn wasn’t glowing! He threw actual fire! From the campfire! That was so cool!”

Twilight took a second to think about it and found that Pinkie was in fact right. At the time when the mysterious unicorn used that attack, his horn wasn’t giving off any sort of glow. Meaning it wasn’t magic but something else entirely.

“He was using his mind alone to move that fire….no magic whatsoever involved…..that was him…..” She muttered.

That pretty much gave it away for the others as well.

"So yer sayin.." Applejack started.

"Yes, That was one of those six ponies we came here to find! And we let him go...." Twilight’s tone quickly changed from happy to disappointed.

"Well now we at least know that they DO exist." Rainbow Dash threw in her opinion.

"And that they must be here in this forest like that letter had told us before." Twilight added. “Oh….I really wish he didn’t teleport. If he had ran, we would have been able to follow him.”

"It's okay, Twilight. We just took a huge step forward in finding them. Plus, I’m sure tomorrow will yield us better results than today.” Rarity said in attempt to assure the lavender unicorn.

“Maybe…..” Putting that thought on the back burner, Twilight turned to Rainbow to check on her.

Fluttershy was wrapping up her leg with medical tape. Whatever that thing was that bit her, it had sunk its teeth in deep. Fluttershy had just washed out the wounds and applied an ointment to it so it wouldn’t get infected. Though treated, Rainbow’s leg still hurt like hell. Luckily for her it wasn’t a factor when it came to her flying performance.

Not wanting to take anymore chances, Twilight decided to make sure they all slept in peace tonight. She powered on her horn and sent a spell skyward which soon spread into a force field surrounding their campsite preventing any further intruders.

“Alright everypony. Time to get some real sleep now. Tomorrow, we’re going on a pony hunt.”

With that said, Twilight retreated back to her tent which sadly now had a huge gaping hole in it, and laid back down in her sleeping back. But not before using a similar force field spell to cover the hole itself. Spike was not far behind her. As soon as he laid back down, he was sawing logs. It wasn’t long at all before the others were out too.

A few dozen meters away from the shield covered campsite, a spectator viewed the magenta color of the force field wall. An orange fetlock hoof then swept back the hood of his cloak to show a head. Golden yellow irises brought color to his optical orbs of black and white. His mane was a bright red with wild orange streaks. His coat, a darker shade of red.

The stallion of fire stood on the branch for sometime until he turned away to listen a voice that entered his head.

“What happened out zere? I sensed you were een a fight but weeth who?”

A voice with a very french accent. He talked back to it.

“It was another one of THEM. Usually it’s not a big deal but we have a problem. It wasn’t after us this time.”

“Zen who was eet after?”

“Those six mares and that baby dragon you sensed before. Any idea why they’re here?”

“Not yet. I never bothered to read zem because I thought zey were just campers upon first sensing zem.”

“If those things thought they were important enough to take out, then they obviously aren’t ordinary campers.”

HIs eyes narrowed as he turned back to the force field.

“Don’t read them yet. Only keep them on watch. Whatever reason they’re out here for, we’ll find out when the time is right.”

“Eef you say so. Just come back soon. You know I-”

“Yes I know you worry about me. I’ll be there in a second.”

With that, the voice was gone from his head and he pulled the hood over his head again looking at the shield.

“Stay safe.”

Another flash of fire later and he was gone to be with whoever it was making that voice in his head ring. He knew those six weren’t normal ponies. But if he knew just how not normal they were, he would never have left them alone.