Chapter Twelve
It had taken the remainder of the night for the group of ponies to get ready for their trek into the Everfree and now they stood at the edge of the dark forest. The princesses had returned to the castle in Canterlot to deal with the sudden influx or worried ponies. This left only a few who would be venturing into the dark woods in search of Inventor. Aside from the Elements only Crimson Turn and Trixie were there to go in with them.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders were all back at the library where Scootaloo was fretting about her adoptive father. Sweetie and Applebloom were attempting to get her attention off of the current situation but were failing miserably as Scootaloo moped about around the hollow tree occasionally staring out the window of the building in the direction of the forest. All while Spike set about with his chores that Twilight had given him before she had left.
Before heading into the forest Twilight coughed loudly to draw the attention of the group as she walked forward. All eyes turned to look at her as she began to talk “We will be heading into the forest in search of Inventor, we owe it to him. A quick note if we get caught I suggest we all meet up at the old castle in the Everfree, I have given a map to both Trixie and Crimson so they can find their way back out. Is that clear?” The lavender mare paused to look at the assembled group.
“Clear as clockwork,” came the reply from the group, they had decided to use it as a catchphrase for this adventure in honor of the person they were going to rescue.
With a nod from the lavender mare the group set out into the forest.
The time passed slowly as they headed out into the dark woods, each mare was looking into the surrounding trees which were completely shrouded in darkness despite the rising sun. The ponies were all on edge, something was unnatural about the forest, it seemed to ooze evil and danger. Something the candy colored miniature horses were not used to.
“So,” Trixie said as she started up a conversation, “How did you meet Inventor, Crimson?” The showmare asked as she looked towards the trotting pegasus.
“I kicked him lethally in the chest.” Crimson said with a smile of the memory before turning to Trixie. “And you?”
“Kidnapped his daughter and her friends in the service of Blueblood.” Trixie responded as she looked down at the ground with despair. Her sad self reflection was interrupted by a snorting laugh from Crimson, The showmare turned her look to the inventor with a raised eyebrow.
“Inventor really is something isn’t he? I almost kill him and you kidnap his daughter and what does he do? He forgives us.” The red pegasus said with a smile.
“I just wish I knew why he forgave me.” Trixie replied with a hang of her head.
“We’ll just have to ask him that when we find him won’t we?”
A nod from the blue unicorn responded to the question and both mares smiled at each other in understanding.
The silence fell once more though it didn’t last for long, a few steps later into the wood and a giant bear paw landed directly in the middle of the group, Twilight looked up the bear paw and began to freak out “Ursa Minor, everyone split up!” She cried before she ran off into the woods.
The rest of the group split up and ran into the woods of the surrounding area in separate directions, Fluttershy ran hurriedly through the brush as she tried to escape the imposing bear, she could calm animals easily but this bear was an exception and the yellow mare doubted that it would stop if she asked it to. Much to her chagrin the bear began to follow her.
The pegasus was running as fast as she could as tears of strain came to her eyes, it was because of these tears that she didn’t notice the root that jutted from the ground in front of her. Fluttershy tumbled end over end once before coming to a dizzy stop. The mare closed her eyes as she anticipated the coming pain, the pain never came however and instead a voice spoke just above her. “Hello there miss, you seem to have tripped.”
Fluttershy opened her eyes to see a pegasus stallion standing over her, “Oh, I’m sorry, I was running from an ursa minor and I must have tripped and gotten in your way, I’m so sorry.” She managed as she stood up.
The stallion smiled back as he bent down to support her side with his head as he helped push her to her feet. “Its no problem I was just worried for you, Ursa Minors aren’t exactly known to be kind to their prey. Now, is there anything I can do for you?” he said as he took a step back, allowing Fluttershy to see the entirety of the stallion, he had a blue coat and mane and his cutie mark seemed to be a stitched together heart with several pins in it.
“So, what are you doing in the Everfree at this hour?” The stallion asked as he gave up on his previous question. He smiled warmly as the shy pegasus looked at his odd cutie mark.
“Oh, me and my friends are looking for a friend who said he was going to come here.” Fluttershy said as she blushed slightly, embarrassed that she had been staring so impolitely.
“Must be a very important friend if you came into this evil forest to look for him.” the stallion replied with a wise nod.
“Oh, he is. I just think that he’s a bit confused about himself, but that’s what friends are for, to help out when we can’t seem to manage by ourselves.” Fluttershy said with a small smile as she looked at the stallion.
The stallion nodded and waited a bit before speaking, “I guess we you should go find the rest of your friends then. I have nothing else to do right now and I assume that you had a place to go to if any of you became lost?” Fluttershy merely nodded shyly and the two began to head out into the woods with Fluttershy leading the way to the designated meeting place.
“So, why are you friends with him then?” The stallion said as they walked on.
“He was there to save me when I needed it, I guess I just want to try and repay him for being so nice.” Fluttershy said. A rustle sounded from the bush off to the pegasi’s right side. Immediately the blue pegasus jumped in front of his shy companion.
Both heaved a sigh as Applejack walked out of the underbrush, “Ah, Fluttershy, ah thought I heard you talkin’ over here.” The farmer said before looking to the blue pegasus, “And you are?”
“Oh, how thoughtless of me, I forgot to introduce myself, my apologies.” The blue stallion said with a glance over his shoulder to the yellow mare who had shrunk slightly at the sound from the bushes but was now beginning to stand straight once more, “My name is Insight, it’s a pleasure to meet you two, I have decided to help your shy friend with her trip through this forest.”
“Nice to meet ya then,” the orange earth pony replied “Ah’m Applejack”
“Oh, and I’m Fluttershy, sorry I forgot to introduce myself.” the yellow pegasus responded.
“It’s okay, I didn’t expect introducing yourself to be your top priority after escaping from an ursa minor and being without your friends.” The blue stallion said, “Now, we should probably continue to wherever we were heading.” He said as he fell to the back of the group and indicated for the yellow mare to continue on.
Applejack instead took the lead as they made their way through bushes and between trees, after a few minutes of walking Insight spoke up again, “So, why are you such good friends with the friend you are in here after?” he asked as he glanced around Fluttershy to look at Applejack.
“Well, when Twilight first came to town and told us about this thing that she had made friends with ah was more than a mite doubtful about its intentions. I decided to give it an open mind though just in case ah was wrong.” the orange mare smiled slightly before she continued. “I was a little worried when it suddenly adopted Scootaloo like that, but then one day I took mah sister Applebloom down to its house for a playdate with her two friends so they could have a day to hang out.
“We took ‘em down to the playground for the day and me and the creature got to talkin’ it introduced itself and I introduced mahself and before long we were talkin’. Not long after was started talkin’ did Applebloom scrape her knee on the asphalt and give out a cry.” The farm pony broke into a wide grin and paused briefly as she recalled the day, “Boy I tell ya, he was off faster then a six-legged mouse after cheese, he was at her side and was making sure everything was alright with her before ah barely knew what happened, that was when I decided he was probably a good whatever-he-is after all.” The work mare glanced back with a sad smile at the blue stallion and then went back to leading the way.
“Ah just think he needs to be less hard on himself, thinks he can carry the entire world on his shoulders, and then tries to bind his wounds with his own clothes.” Applejack said with a shake of her head.
“Indeed.” Came the reply from the blue stallion who looked to be in deep thought. “Indeed.”
Shortly thereafter the group arrived at the bridge that lead over the crevasse to the castle that the group was supposed to meet at, however as they emerged from the forest they caught the eyes of Rarity and Pinkie Pie who had just emerged from the forest as well. Rarity was relieved to see them as the energetic party pony spouted off another line of confusing repetitive dialogue.
Slightly picking up with her walking speed the white unicorn met the other group of three ponies at the bridge with Pinkie bouncing up slowly behind. “It’s nice to see you again darlings, I hope you managed to get through the forest okay.” The fashionista said as she looked over the two mares before catching a glimpse of the blue stallion at the back of the group.
“Oh, how unladylike of me, My name is Rarity. May I ask what your name is, gentlecolt?” She said.
“Ooo, ooo, let me guess let me guess.” Came the reply of the pink pony as she jumped into the conversation. “Is it Sky, or maybe ummm, Aqua?” She said as she hopped up and down.
With a smile at the antics of the party pony the blue stallion replied “No, actually my name is Insight. It’s nice to meet you Rarity and...?”
“PINKIE PIE!” The mare replied with an explosive voice, “ohmigosh a new pony, I haven’t seen you before where do you live?” she continued in a rant.
“I live in the Everfree I guess you could say. I’m not sure I could really fit in with other ponies so I decided to live here in the forest instead.” the blue stallion said.
“Oh but darling, it's so dark and scary in this forest. Surely you would much prefer a room in Ponyville, I’m have a guest room you could use if you wanted.” Rarity said.
“No thank you, I’ll be fine.” the stallion said, “I don’t mean to change the subject, but on another subject I was wondering why a pony who obviously cares so much about their clothing would come out into this forest, why are you out here looking for your friend?”
“He always seemed to be quite gentlemanly, he would take blame when something happened that was his fault,” The white unicorn paused and frowned “He usually took the blame when it was someone else’s fault too.”
“And you?” The stallion asked as he turned toward the pink mare.
“He always wants to make other ponies happy!” The party pony exclaimed “How can you not like a guy who wants that?”
“Indeed.” The blue stallion paused for a moment before nodding to Applejack, “Let’s keep moving, we shouldn’t leave your friends waiting any longer than necessary.” The work pony nodded and the group began their trip across the bridge in a suffocating quietness that was only broken by creaking wood boards.
About half-way across the ancient bridge the fashionista spoke up “You know Insight, I feel like I’ve met you before though I would swear I have not seen you since today. How odd.”
“Odd, most definitely.” Was all the blue pegasus would say as the rest of the trip passed in the same pseudo silence that had encompassed the previous half of the time on the bridge. After making it to the other side safely the ponies made their way into the nearby castle that sat within sight of the end of the bridge.
As the group of five made it into the castle they noticed that they were not the first to have arrived, the other four ponies of the group were already waiting there, Rainbow was almost asleep in the corner of the room as Twilight and Trixie talked about magical theory and Crimson was seated quietly nearby looking at a small collection of gears in front of her.
Upon the entry of the group all the ponies gathered looked towards them and made their way over, Rainbow almost causing a sonic rainboom as she dashed over, after the group had talked briefly with each other about the events in the forest Insight was introduced to the other half of the group that had come into the Everfree searching for Inventor. He nodded politely and smiled at each of the members and as they finished the group decided to head back out into the forest to continue their search.
They left the ruins and went back to the bridge, what they saw at the other end made them freeze, Scootaloo stood at the opposite end of the rickety passage unaware as the ursa minor from earlier approached from behind. Crimson was the first to jump into action, she tackled Scootaloo to the side as the giant bear dropped its heavy paw down.
The bear once more raised its paw and made to crush them again but was distracted as a rainbow blur hit it in the jaw, angrily the bear changed its focus and began trying to swat the blue pony out of the sky.
Meanwhile, back on the opposite side of the bridge Twilight watched, stunned at was happening, “Redemption day.” The lavender mare turned to see Insight talking to himself.
“What was that?” She asked.
“Redemption day.” He said once more as he looked to the librarian, “I’m so sorry I had to fool you.”
Twilight was about to ask what he meant by that when the sickening sound of bones grinding together echoed into the air, With a shudder the mare closed her eyes and clenched her teeth as the nightmarish noise rang through the air. When it stopped the mare turned her attention to the blue stallion that had stood next to her moments before.
She didn’t see Insight, rather she saw Inventor fully clothed with the exception of his mechanical arm that still hung loosely at his side. All the ponies on the same side of the bridge as the man had their attention drawn to the bipedal. He smiled a sad smile at each of them but turned his attention back to the ursa minor that had managed to hit Rainbow and was once more about to drop its paw on Crimson and Scootaloo.
“Overwind.”
With a burst of steam from his mechanical shoulder Inventor cleared the bridge and was standing next to the two pegasi as the bear claw dropped, both looked at him with confusion and awe. The paw dropped.
And stopped short.
The clockwork ticking that had appeared when Inventor had transformed back was missing from the air and was instead replaced with an incessant whirring noise. Inventor stood under the creature, sweating profusely as his the noise picked up in pitch. With a grimace he managed to push up and toss the bear off balance and onto its back, the scared cub looked at Inventor with horror before running back into the forest.
The man smiled at the two pegasi who lay on the grass next to him before his legs gave out, with a thump Inventor fell to the ground and caught himself with his mechanical arm, crimson liquid erupted from his mouth as he coughed up blood and his gaze was locked on the ground. Mere seconds later the man fell to the ground as well with a horrible raking noise and he lay still.
Crimson approached him slowly, still trying to figure out what had just happened as Inventor had shown up out of nowhere. She laid her head against his chest and breathed a sigh of relief as the comforting sound of a heartbeat echoed back to her.
Rainbow Dash limped slightly out of the trees from where she had been knocked earlier, her mouth dropped open as she saw Inventor passed out on the grass and the ursa minor nowhere to be found. She looked questioningly to Twilight who had no answers to give either.
Eventually Scootaloo broke out of her stunned silence and approached the unconscious man, With a slow purposeful act she slipped down next to his side and rubbed her muzzle into his neck as tears rolled down her eyes. “Dad.” She managed to say through a choked up sniffle.
Twilight broke out of her stunned silence at the words of the filly and approached the unconscious man, “We’re going home, any objections?” The lavender mare said matter-of-factly, when no oppositions were given the librarian nodded and built up a collection of power in her horn, with a nod to the group she cast her spell and teleported all the remainder of the group to the hospital in Ponyville.
(I feel like this is a much better chapter than my last one, be sure to tell me what you think about it, ways I could improve, etc.. -N64Fan)
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Except for the fact that I identified Insight's true nature almost instantly, it was pretty good.
Overwind? is that like Overclock but for his machinery and overclocking bio-mechanical hybrid parts results in personal damage?
and finally.... how did he transform anyways?
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In that order. Good to know, yes, find out next chapter.
May I make a suggestion? NEEDS MOAR LAZORZ!
In all seriousness though I find this story most entertaining to read, if only the chapters were a bit longer... or a more frequent updating speed... but you can't have it all I guess.
GOOD JOB!
- The First
It's a good day to read
Im no grammar nazi, nor am i very good at grammar but there were a few places where you had a run on sentence or used the wrong word like "or" instead of "of".
It was way too easy to learn that inventor was insight or had something to do with Inventor If drawn out into two or three chapters this little arc couldve been better than what it is. IMO the only thing that was "wrong" with it is that it took what, by the set up of the last chp, should've been an epic friendship challenging adventure that explored each characters individual relationships with the inventor and basically chopped out the descriptive parts.
When Insight (also name was way to obvious), asked each pony why they cared enough to come looking despite the danger, that was like the golden moment to dump some info on use, you had the right Idea with Applejack but my god it was too short. Keeping everything not to wordy is key, but theres a difference between being wordy and being descriptive and narrative.
I still had a lot of fun with it though, awaiting next installment.
493650
the picture you have for your profile pic, that's the face I'm making right now. It was indeed a little choppy and I would just love to apologize for it, but frankly, I feel that's cliche, I felt that I was approaching the too wordy end of the balance and so I shortened it, AJ is a pony who would tell a long story, she just like that. Fluttershy and Rarity however are not, Pinkie Pie maybe but I felt that the way I portrayed her was correct. Don't get the wrong idea of me, I love your opinion and I appreciate that you took the time to write it out for me, I am just explaining why I did what I did, and I mean honestly, no matter how I introduced Insight, regardless of what I did with him after he was introduced It would still have been dead obvious who he was, if only by the virtue of the fact that he had to at least resemble Inventor's personality.
On a side note the lack of long confusing explanations from Inventor is depriving me of some of my creative fun, I think I'll have some fun explaining the transformation in the next chapter, as well as details on the teleport.
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Trust me, i wouldnt get the wrong idea about your comment. From one writer to another, we are suppose to tear into each other from time to time you we push each other to be better.
Also trust me,when i say you aren't wordy (most of us would like to see the chapters longer and more fleshed out). I think ive been reading duties and has like 13,000 word chapters and like 15 chapters. Its not wordy because it flows effortlessly and has breaks appropriately. That is the trick and its a dozy to learn.
What you did with Pinkie, AJ, Fluttershy and Rarity was fine, it was perfectly functional in your story. We judge the content of a story with our personal preferences. The way i would've done it or would've like to have seen it executed wouldn't work in your story and i don't fault you at all for it. Which is why "wrong" was in quotation marks.
It is very, very, very, hard to sneak characters in under the radar, a slippery slop my friend. If they are too similar its, obvious; too different yet still interested in the main cast and convenient to the plot, its too obvious; they know to much, too obvious; ask very inquisitive questions, too obvious. That whole ploy is a writer death trap
The trick to doing it well lies in how much information the reader has to play with in their heads. The character needs to be similar enough toi draw some parallels, but different enough to throw the thought of them being the same character to the side. And at the same time there should be enough going on in the story that questioning if the character is anyone other then who they say they are is a back burner issue. Then slowly give us more parallels between that character and who they really are in very tiny increments (which is hard to do, sometimes the character doesnt even have to DO anything, for a writer to do this), but still with enough contrasts that the readers still can only raise an eyebrow because they dont have anything solid.
^above is really hard, I had to characters that i was going to do this with.I was going to do it with the protagonist, but the more i thought about it the more it was apparent that for it to work Id have to do a time skip, and I'd really hate to because then id have to tell what happened in retrospect.
The other character I know i can do it, but i have to be gentler than a feather falling on a marshmallow mattress to keep people from instantly recognizing who it is.
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~The more you know~
I think I'm going to start digging into my 13th chapter (oh no the bad luck) with your's, and other's, suggestions in mind, let's see if I can't save this fic from the looming trash compacter yet.
Power to you.
LOL you worry about being wordy....i might need to be punched so that i can stop typing mounds of text.
Not sure if someone will have a fit because it is not with pony vernacular
Fuck it who cares