The Disappearening

by Abraman

Scoops

The ball sailed across the field on a warm, sunny day. It hung in the air for a while following a long, lazy arc through the blue sky. Eventually, it hit the ground, barely visible in the distance.

“Hah! Beat that!” exclaimed Rarity, as she sauntered to the end of the line.

“Why are we even letting her and Twilight play?” asked Applejack, to nobody in particular, as Spike stepped up to take his turn. “They’re unicorns, they can just use their magic to throw it as hard as they want.”

“Okay, I need a quick rundown of the rules again.” Said Spike.

“Spike, this game literally has only one rule. Throw the ball as far as you can in that direction.” said Twilight, almost in disbelief.

“Spare me, Twilight.” Spike said, winding up to take his throw. At the moment he started to swing his arm forward, Spike felt that feeling again. Opening his mouth to expel the flames, and the parchment that came out with it, his throw went wildly off course and about half as far as Fluttershy’s had.

As the rest of her friends laughed with Spike at his atrocity, Twilight, more interested in the letter he had delivered, picked it up and opened it.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle,” the letter began, as all of Princess Celestia’s letters did. “Your studies are coming along nicely. Your journal entries have been fun, to say the least, and it’s good to see how well you’ve progressed.

“But this isn’t about your day-to-day routine. To the west, something very strange has happened. The village of White Tail has mysteriously disappeared. The scouts I’ve sent discovered something very strange, something that I’m not totally inclined to believe. There may be a magical forcefield distorting their view, or something to that effect.

“This leads to why I am contacting you. I want you and your friends to journey to White Tail and report to me what you find. Take the Elements of Harmony, as it may be dangerous there. I don’t know what’s going on, but I trust you, my most faithful student, to find out for me. Dearest regards, Princess Celestia.”

The letter left Twilight confused. A magical forcefield around a village was nothing, but to distort the view of anyone outside it? This was serious magic if it was true, and aside from doing the duty that the princess had entrusted her with, she wanted to check that out.

Twilight turned around to find her friends in tears. Spike was dramatically reenacting his wild throw, to the great amusement of everyone. Waiting until the commotion was done, Twilight got their attention.

“Everyone, the princess has informed me of strange happenings in the White Tail woods, specifically around White Tail village. She has asked us to journey there and check it out for her.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Rainbow asked. “Let’s go!”

“Well, we’re bringing the Elements, so we have to get those first.” said Twilight.

“Wait, we need the elements?” Fluttershy asked, sounding very worried. “Is it going to be dangerous?”

“It may be, Fluttershy, but we need you to be strong for the group and come with us. We couldn’t leave a good friend behind."

“O…okay” said Fluttershy, not entirely consoled.

After a short trip to Twilight’s house to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, as well as various other trips made by her friends to get some of their things, the six of them boarded the next train to Las Pegasus. During the ride, Twilight pondered why Princess Celestia never did anything herself. She obviously used to, as it had been her and her sister, Luna, who had originally found and retrieved the Elements of Harmony from the Everfree forest. Unfortunately, that matter had to be put aside, as the train pulled into Las Pegasus Station and more pressing matters needed to be attended to.

“Ooh, the grand city of Las Pegasus!” Rarity exclaimed excitedly as they stepped off of the train. “Certainly not as wondrous as Manehattan, but it truly is as great as they say!”

“Well, sugarcube, sightseeing is going to have to wait.” said Applejack, nudging Rarity as she passed. “We have more important matters to focus on.”

“Yeah, like lunch!” interjected Pinkie. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and boy am I starving!”

The six friends started on the trail to the White Tail Woods. Their walk was relatively uneventful; apart from a few rattlesnakes, which Pinkie pointed out they had never seen before, it was actually kind of boring, as Rainbow Dash had loudly made clear.

White Tail Woods was actually very pretty. Unlike the Everfree forest, which was dark, imposing, and intimidating, the White Tail woods was calm and soothing, the beams of sunlight filtering through the canopy giving it a therapeutic atmosphere.

Drawing ever closer to White Tail, Twilight began to wonder what these “strange happenings” Princess Celestia was talking about were. She certainly hadn’t noticed anything strange up until then.

That all changed suddenly, when Pinkie, leading the way, suddenly vanished over the next hill with a shriek. As Rainbow Dash dived down after her, the rest of the six ran up to the crest of the hill where Pinkie had vanished. Stopping short, their mouths dropped, agape at the sight that met them. A perfectly spherical indentation had been made into the earth. It was as if the ground had suddenly vanished. Even the overhanging trees had been cut perfectly into the sphere that was taken out of the earth. The other side of the crater was barely visible to them, demonstrating that the area taken was about as spacious as Ponyville.

“Well,” said Applejack, consulting the map. “Welcome to White Tail, everypony.”

“It’s like someone took a BIG ice cream scoop and took a huge chunk out of the ground!” pointed out Pinkie, having been carried out of the crater by Rainbow. “Hmm…earth flavored ice cream. I wonder how that would taste?” she pondered.

“This…it…” stuttered Twilight. “The amount of magic required to lift an entire village, along with the ground around it, out of the earth…oh, I don’t even want to think about it. Oh my, I have some measurements to take…”

Rarity noticed Fluttershy talking to a squirrel just off the path. She walked over to her friend, curious as to what she was doing.

“Oh, my goodness, that’s terrible!” Fluttershy exclaimed. Turning to Rarity, she informed her, “This squirrel says its whole family was inside White Tail while it was out gathering acorns. Oh, he’s so worried, he just doesn’t know what to do!” turning back to the squirrel, she comforted him. “There there, it’ll be OK. We’ll find out what’s going on.”

Rainbow was still astonished at the crater in front of her.
“It’s so big!” she said.
“Rainbow Dash, with the incredibly insightful input.” Applejack joked.
“Oh, shut up.” Rainbow smirked.

Teleporting out of the hole, Twilight informed her friends, “I’ve just verified, it’s a perfect sphere. I am also fairly certain that this was done by very powerful magic.”

“My friends are just so full of very not-obvious information today!” Applejack sarcastically remarked as Rainbow snickered.

Twilight ignored her. Addressing the whole group, she said, “We’ve done everything we came for. Let’s go back to Ponyville so we can send a report back to the Princess." Turning around, they began the long walk back to Las Pegasus. They had only one thing on their minds: what in the world had happened to White Tail?

Comments

[Phaedra]

I can see a lot happening with a plot like this. Great job! Deserves a track.