Equestrian Adventure 2!

by DerpyHooves320

2: Angry Dogs and a Friendly Face

Colors swirled all around in his vision, while some invisible forces tossed Zach around like a ball, giving him the extreme urge to throw up. But he resisted, much to his dismay. With a bright light appearing at what seemed like the end of the tunnel of colors, he was blinded and promptly thrown out onto the cold hard ground. Getting up and opening his eyes, before immediately realizing his mistake, he released a pained groan before he started blinking his eyes rapidly to get rid of the flashing effect that hurt them oh so badly. Once that was gone, he turned to see the portal closing with a smile just visible, which came from a white figure that he couldn't identify before it closed the rest of the way. Thinking about who it could be, he could only think of two ponies: Rarity or Princess Sun Butt. No, wait, Celestia! That's her face.

Deciding to think about it later, he began to take a look around him and immediately recognized where he was. It was the outskirts of Ponyville, just by the Everfree Forest. Now carrying the knowledge of where he was he would be an unstoppable force! Unfortunately for him, snarls starting sounding from right behind him. Those would stop him. Not wanting to be a quick snack for the hungry predators, he ran towards the small town earning a chorus of howls from the beasts behind him. Seeing his house just to the left of the entire town out in the open, he took a sharp turn to get there without any delay, but it quickly got him caught by his pursuers. Forced to the ground and feeling a few claws catching onto his leg and holding firm, Zach flipped onto his back and got a full look at what it was. They were wolves. Or at least, wolves made of wood. Timberwolves? Bark? Tree Dogs? Howling Woods? Whatever they were called, they looked hungry for fresh flesh. If that is what they were after, anyways. Who knows what they eat.

"Alright, I'll make a deal with you five if you let me go," Zach bargained, which for some reason caused their snarling to stop as they all cocked their heads in curiosity, "I'll give you fresh bacon after I fix all this," with his hands waving everywhere, causing them to look all around as well. With the distraction in place, he got up quickly and booked it as fast as he could, which took the wolves by surprise. But he wasn't very fast, since it was from straight off the ground and he was stumbling quite a bit trying to just balance from the sudden shift from sitting to sprinting.

Of course, the wolves easily caught up with him, since they were wolves and ran for a living for God's sake! Who would've thought? But not a single one took him down instantly, which was very kind of them. Instead, they started messing with him. They were going at what looked like a slow jog, which perfectly matched the now slightly less stumbling human's pace, as they nipped at his legs every now and then with a wolfish smile all the while. Almost to the door, he balanced himself out the rest of the way and began a full on sprint, which was only slightly faster than before since it was just a basic sprint, but was picking up speed somehow. Throwing his hands straight to the handle once he got there, he opened the door and was immediately dragged away by the wooden dogs.

'How rude of them. Once the runner reaches the end, they're supposed to be safe from everything!' Zach complained to himself, grumbling as they dragged him into the forest. The fact that they got him to the forest faster than the time it took him to run to his house was rather surprising. But then again, he was being dragged by two of them and they probably didn't even feel his weight. Their teeth were now digging their way into his legs, causing him great discomfort. Could they just not bite into him like that? Save the biting for later when you're eating me!

Seeing a stick pass him by, he reached out and grabbed it firmly. Finally, a weapon! It's almost like he was in a game, since his first weapon is a frickin' stick. Why was he thinking 'frickin' instead of the word that almost came to mind? Without another thought about it being a stick or his self censorship, he smacked one of the wolves right in the eye, causing both of the wolves to drop him and look at the oh so terrifying weapon he wielded. First mistake: using a weak weapon against strong enemies, especially if it's the same elemental damage. Unfortunately for his 'weapon', it was chomped right in half by the wolf on his right. Thankfully this distracted them long enough for Zach to do absolutely nothing. But his doing of nothing was quickly answered to be a distraction for someone else, as a few knives flew from the trees, impaling the wooden beasts through their skulls. Hollow Wood? The two that were dragging him fell into many tinier pieces, in a cartoon-ish looking style as well, while the other three looked to the trees with panicked whimpers and angry growling. They also fell to the savior in the trees when more knives flew straight into their faces at rather fast speeds. Looking around the tree tops, Zach saw no one that had thrown the knives, which showed just how good they are at hiding from wolves. Alongside him as well, since he couldn't find them. Frickin' ninjas.

"Get up, we have to go," his savior said from the trees, as a cloaked figure fell from a branch higher up in the tree with a front flip, landing gracefully on their feet. They sounded feminine, he mentally noted. Trying to get up off his butt, he faltered a bit from the pain he had received after having his legs gnawed on for a minute or two. "Right, you got chewed up, pretty nasty looking too," the figure said, before reaching into their bag and pulling out a potion, popping it open immediately. They then poured it straight onto the wounds, which earned a sizzling sound alongside some smoke.

"GAH! That burns!" Zach said, crawling back and causing some of the liquid to miss and fall straight to the ground, showing that it actually was burning stuff. The ground was turned to a straight black color with a terrible smell following.

"Hold still you fool!" They barked, causing him to stop what he was doing, for he was scared of what they might do to him if he didn't cooperate any further. Now that he was done feeling the burning sensation from the rest of the liquid they poured, he could see his wounds were now closed and his legs didn't hurt as much anymore. Even though it hardly hurt to begin with until he tried to stand up. Now with the potion in effect, he started getting up to see if he could stand without feeling the pain as badly anymore, which he did so and felt that it hardly hurt anymore. Turning to the stranger, he saw them walking away.

"I don't know if I should follow, or go off on my own, or what," he pondered out loud, causing them to stop.

"If I were you, I'd follow" they called back, before they continued on their way. Deciding that it was obvious what he should do in this situation, he went the opposite way. Not knowing this individual at all made it hard to feel safe around them, plus having to follow them further into the forest didn't seem like such a good idea at the time. Who knows what else lives in there! He already knew of the cock a what what, but still. Breaking free of the forest, he started making his way straight to his house. This time he wouldn't be dragged away. Hopefully. Once inside, he locked the door behind him and began looking around, making sure nothing would be waiting for him. Thankfully, nothing was as far as he was concerned

Flipping on the lights, he saw that the house looked completely abandoned, with cobwebs in the corners and on some furniture, with a layer of dust on everything. Continuing further into the house, while keeping quiet for the sake of being silent, he found himself in the kitchen. Seeing signs of someone's activity in the kitchen recently, it made him feel somewhat uncomfortable until he saw that it was also covered in dust, which means the owner is long gone.....or worse. Shaking off the creepy feeling of him finding a corpse inside any room, he continued his journey through the house. Going through to his room, Zach opened it to find his room in it's good old dirty fashion. Obviously, since he never cleaned. Walking in, he failed to notice the tripwire that he sent his foot through, causing a rope to fly out, wrapping him up before hanging him just close enough to the floor for his head to smack it.

"Who goes there?" A voice called out, but got no reply as the now captured human was too busy groaning from smacking his head into the floor. "Answer now, or be incinerated!" The voice called out again, sounding slightly annoyed that their question was ignored. With his senses returning slightly quicker than normal, Zach decided it would be best to respond, unless he wanted to become a hot dog.

"Don't cook me! I taste bad!" Zach called out, before he was left in an uncomfortable silence. Hearing some shuffling over by his closet, he looked over to see another cloaked figure poking out from the closet.

"I recognize that voice," the figure said, before they left the closet and walked over in front of Zach. "I last heard it a year ago, if I remember correctly," the now confirmed male individual said, but his voice left some tingling in his head.

"Wait, I recognize your voice too," he said, looking at the figure and noticing quite a few unique features about him, "Spike?"

"Zach!"

"Oh my god, Spike!"

"Sweet Celestia, Zach!"

"Where's Twilight?"

"Wha-"

"Where there's a Spike there's a Twilight" Zach said, causing Spike to frown a bit from being the side character once more, while taking his hood off.

"You don't know, do you?" Spike asked, as he got onto his knees. "She's gone" he finished, earning a groan from Zach.

"Great, I remember now! She got taken away by Frank and his gang with some magical mumbo jumbo," he grumbled, before mumbling some choice words about that red menace. Looking back at the drake, a thought came to mind. "Has it really been a year?" He asked, earning a sad nod from Spike.

"One year of chaos, and only a few of us left, hiding in the ruins of any town or city that isn't in control of Frank," he said, before he started to cut the ropes with a few sniffles, "one year without Twilight or the others" he finished sadly, as Zach got up from the trap.

"One year of sitting in Hell" Zach said, throwing in his bit of information.

"You were really in Tartarus for that whole year?" Spike asked, as he looked over the ash covered human.

"Yep, which makes me angry," he said, before his stomach started grumbling, "and hungry too," he finished with a half hearted laugh, before turning around and heading to the kitchen. Insert awkward cut to next scene.

Author's Note:

Note: The story will be somewhat self aware. Somewhat.