Slender Mane

by Lightning Crystal

S:1 Ep:2: More clues

Shot Lock walked through the forest with Sentinel in search of clues when he felt a chill run down his spine. He stopped walking his body went stone cold as he could feel that he was being watched by something in the shadows. He looked behind him and saw nothing, Sentinel noticed him not moving.
"Hey, is something wrong?" He asked
"No, it's nothing, I just have the feeling somepony is watching us" Shot Replied. They kept walking after that and got to a house in the forest, it was odd considering nopony was supposed to be out there. They walked inside hesitantly and saw something in the corner of the room.
"Hello?" Shot said wearily. The thing turned around and it revealed itself as a dark grey pony.
"What is it?" The pony asked.
"Do you know about the rumors?" Shot asked.
"Yeah, have a nightmare, three days later, you're gone." Said the pony.
"Anything else you could tell us?" Shot asked.
"Yeah, see the thing is it's not a rumor, I have seen with my own bug eyes ponies being dragged into this forest, and never coming out." The pony said. Shot and Sentinel looked at each other with confused expressions.
"Did he just say-?" Shot stared.
"Bug eyes?" Sentinel finished.
"Yeah, I said bug eyes." The pony said. In a quick green poof the pony revealed to be a changeling. Both Sentinel and Shot Lock jumped backwards in surprise.
"A changeling, I thought those were sent flying off never to be seen again" Shot said, He exchanged worried glances with Sentinel and finally calmed down enough to bring his heart rate back to normal.
"Do you have a name?" Sentinel asked.
"Kabuto." The changeling replied.
"So Kabuto, can you tell us anything more about what the hell is happening here?" Shot asked.
"A strange tall slender pony is dragging ponies into the everfree forest, not much else to say." Kabuto said.
"Well what about notes, do you know if there are any more of these notes?" Sentinel asked as he showed him the note they picked up a while ago.
"Actually yeah, I have seen tons of these all over the place, about eight that I can remember seeing." Kabuto said.
"So these must be clues, Kabuto why don't you come with us, it's not safe here" Shot said.
"Sure, to be honest I don't want to be here any longer." Kabuto said, as he said that the drumming sound came back. It was getting closer and closer to the small hut they were in, cold chills went down each pony's spine, they couldn't move. The door swung open and there it was, the tall slender stallion with no face.
"The window!" Shot yelled. All of them jumped out the window and started running.As Shot, Sentinel, and Kabuto were running in the woods trying to escape what was following them. It was the tall slender stallion with no face, just like on the drawing, they ran and ran as it's dark embrace reached out towards them.
"Sentinel!" Shot yelled
"I know, I know, we just have to keep running!" Sentinel replied.
All three of them suddenly stopped dead cold, they couldn't move they had been paralyzed, shadows enveloped them drowning out their vision, it was the end, but as if out of nowhere a light flashed and all they could see was whiteness. Their vision came to them and they were outside of the forest uninjured.
"What the hell was that?" Asked Kabuto.
"I don't know, but we're alive" Shot said.
"Shot, the note is gone." Sentinel said. The note seemed to have been taken from him, along with the lantern.
"That's odd, and so is the lantern." Shot said. He took Sentinel's bag and looked through it to see they still had five lanterns left.
"We still have the other five, seems like we have five more chances with this bastard." Sentinel said.
"Yes that would be a good assumption, he took one lantern and left five, so it would seem he thinks of this as a game of cat and mouse, with the mouse having six chances." Shot said.
"But why give us five chances, the others only got one." Kabuto said.
"Our lanterns, we had lanterns and they didn't so he is giving us a chance to save the others." Shot said. They all stood up and headed back to town to plan for what they would do next.

Author's Note:

a new member of the team, and another clue as to what the hell is going on.

Sorry for the long wait, I was procrastinating.