Mystery Of Everfree

by FourShadow

Chapter 4: Magic

The morning sun peeked into Twilight and Fluttershy's tent, starting a new day. The light hit Twilight's eyes and she winced from the brightness, hoping it would go away. And she was woken up even more by Spike jumping onto her bed and licking her face.

"Okay, okay, I'm awake!" Twilight giggled, pulling herself up. She pet Spike's head and gave him a soft hug, hearing his tail wag all the while.

Fluttershy yawned as she stretched her arms. "Morning Twilight."

"Good morning, Fluttershy. Sleep okay?'

"Mmmhmm," Fluttershy said, stretching as she stood up, revealing her tank top and her shorts. "How about you?"

"I slept fine," Twilight replied.

"And good morning to you too, Spike," Fluttershy smiled, petting Spike's ears. She reached over to her bed to adjust the covers, when she stopped to notice something amiss. "Um, Twilight? Is this your toothbrush?" Fluttershy asked.

"It..." Twilight turned around, feeling dumbfounded. "Y-Yeah, it is. How did it get over there?"

"I don't know," Fluttershy said, not sure either.

"You don't think someone would have--"

"--Twilight, if someone came into our tent, I would have been the first to know, and I would have tackled them to the ground," Fluttershy answered.

"Oh. Well, there it is," Twilight set it down back on her dresser.

"Huh. Wait, where's the sunscreen? I had a set here, but--"

"--Oh, found it!"

Twilight pointed to the sunscreen down on the floor. But when she did, something happened. The sunscreen started floating up into the air, all on its own. No string attached, nothing magnetized to it, it was hovering all on its own. Twilight and Fluttershy's eyes bulged and they gasped at the sight.

Not only did the sunscreen float, but half of their items they brought into the tent started to float as well! Makeup, clothes, their phones, they were all in the air!

"Twilight, are you... doing this?" Fluttershy asked.

"I.. I can't believe it, this is--"

"Amazing!"

"Terrible!"

And like a snap of fingers, everything fell back down on the ground again.

"What do you mean? This is amazing, you can make things levitate! Nothing like this has ever happened before; well except for Trixie and her friends getting powers, but that was because the bonds they had with the Dazzlings! How did you do it?"

"I don't know!" Twilight panicked. "Maybe it's not me. Maybe it's her..."

"Her who?"

"N-Nothing, never mind," Twilight shook her head. "Can we just not talk about it? And could you please not bring this whole levitating thing up to the others?

"Why not?"

"You heard Applejack, this is supposed to be a place where everyone can get away from the city, and away from magic, I don't want them to know I potentially brought some crazy new kind with me!"

"If you really don't want me to, I promise I won't say anything," Fluttershy agreed.

Twilight sighed. "Thank you. I really don't."

But Fluttershy stood up and held her shoulders, face to face. "But you understand that we're here and if there's anything we can do, we can help you, right?"

Twilight nodded. "I do."

Fluttershy smiled and gave her a hug. "Good. Because we're all here if you need to talk."

Twilight softly smiled and reciprocated the hug.

---

After breakfast, everyone started getting into activities for the day. Timber started his off by taking a few of the students for a walk. Not too many of them, but it was totally fine by him. And he didn't mind interacting with them. And for the most part, they were well behaved, he was thankful of that fact. Much more mature than some of the other students they've had over the past few years.

The group was at peace on their walk. The warm air, the nice beautiful sunshine rising for a new day, it just made their walk all the more amazing. Even sweet and innocent Derpy was enjoying the outside. And over in a small patch of fronds, she could see some little berries. They looked juicy and ripe for the picking--

"Hey! Drop it!"

Derpy panicked and let go of the berries, hands over her head. "I surrender officer!"

"Derpy, it's not the police, it's just me," Timber said, a little exasperated.

"S-Sorry, did I do something wrong?"

"Derpy, do you even know what kind of berries those are?"

Derpy slowly shook her head.

"Those are ivy berries," Timber explained. "They contain oxalates, which will cause pain and swelling to your lips, face, tongue, and skin. Really need to start marking those, I swear..."

Derpy blushed and her head sunk. "Sorry..."

Timber sighed, "It's fine, you didn't know." And with that in mind, everyone continued back on the hike but Timber tried his best not to look back at Derpy. He was annoyed, but he did feel a slight tinge of guilt for snapping at her like that. "Same ole stuff every year, never ends..." Timber muttered quietly.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Timber said, awkwardly. "It was nothing, really."

"Hey Timber!"

Timber looked to the source of the noise, and to his surprise, it was Pinkie Pie... in a giant blue bird costume. Where she had it, how did she get it on so fast when he only just saw her in the Everfree shirt and shorts, and how she climbed up that tree so fast was beyond him.

"CHIIIRP! CHIRRRP!" Pinkie screamed out loud, flailing her 'wings' like a bird. Timber couldn't help himself from chuckling, especially the other campers. Pinkie just tilted her head at them with that same innocent smile. "What? I thought we should get in touch with nature!" Pinkie squeaked.

"...Thanks. I kinda needed that."

Pinkie giggled. "Aww, it's no problem at all!"

And with that, Timber led the group back on the hike. Pinkie slipped out of the bird costume in a jiffy and was back on the ground. But before she could go back, she had to tie her shoe real quickly. Just a few simple knots and--

Snap.

Pinkie's ear twitched and she jolted her head up. That noise didn't come from the students who were walking off on the path. It came from behind them. She stood back up, looking a little concerned.

"Hello? Anyone there?"

She looked back, leering her head at every possible angle she could, listening for what could have heard her. Another twig snapped, following by a quiet growling noise that sent shivers down Pinkie Pie's spine.

"H-Hello? Mr. Scary Creature? If you're out there, please come out!"

Pinkie Pie turned around and was greeted with Rainbow Dash popping out of nowhere. "Boo!"

"Dah!" Pinkie fell on her back. And instantly, her fear melted away and she just laughed away, knowing it was her friend who had pranked her.

"Gotcha!"

"Hahahahaha!" Pinkie laughed. "That was great! Nice touch on the growling noises, I didn't know you could sound so scary!"

Rainbow's laughing stopped. "Wait... I didn't make any growling."

Pinkie also stopped laughing like a lightswitch flipped on. "What? You... didn't make any super scary noises that sound like a monster that's hungry for Pinkie Pie?"

"Uh, no. I don't even know how to make that noise."

Pinkie's pupils shrunk. "... Oh. Well maybe it was just my imagination, totally nothing wrong or out of the blue, come on let's go!" And she vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Rainbow looked behind her, just as a double check. Yeah, she did sneak up on Pinkie to jumpscare her as a prank, but she didn't make any growling noises. Nada. But Rainbow remembered; when Pinkie says she heard or saw something, she never lies. So what if something was out there that spooked her? Out of fear, she started checking behind her as she kept on walking on the path. That is until she didn't notice her foot get caught on a massive rock and she tripped.

"Ooof, aaah!"

Rainbow's eyes slammed shut, bracing for her face to plant straight into the ground. But when she opened her eyes, she found she was only a few centimeters away from planting into it. In fact, the rest of her body was only a few centimeters from colliding into the ground! She looked behind her, and she noticed her feet weren't even touching the path! How was this happening?

"Whoa! How did I do that? Wait; could I always do that?" Rainbow asked out loud, slowly moving her feet and hands down so she could stand up right.

---

Lunchtime came around, and mostly everyone was sitting inside the mess hall to eat. Now it was still nice outside, but there was only one problem. There wasn't exactly a ton of picnic tables to sit at, in fact, there was only two of them as far as the eye could see. Even Applejack took notice as she ate her sandwich at the picnic table with Autumn.

"Do none of y'all have more picnic tables out here?" Applejack asked, looking around. The picnic area was almost vacant.

"I'm afraid not," Autumn explained, looking around. "We've been trying to watch how much we spend. I mean this place is financially stable, don't get me wrong, but we don't really know who to talk to, and we've been too busy to even deal with it."

Applejack thought as she looked around some more. She snapped her fingers as she stood up. "I got an idea. I think this is exactly what the camp needs, this could be the Camp Gift! We can come together and create more picnic tables for future campers! Simple, easy to do, but it's giving something to y'all. What do you say?"

Autumn grinned. "Yes! Yes yes yes yes, I think this is great, I mean no one's come up with an idea like this before--well okay there was one guy last year but he didn't really give much specific and all of his ideas were super illegal and just wrong, but this, this we can do, I know we can--oh, I ju-I must--I'll go tell Gloriosa!" And Autumn skipped away to find Gloriosa, leaving Applejack chuckling as she looked at the sandy pits the table was sitting on.

"Yeah... this can work. This can work," Applejack smiled and nodded, hands on her hips. Looking over at the docks, she could see Twilight was sitting with Fluttershy, kicking their legs back and forth. And Fluttershy was feeding the cute little duckies some bread. And Twilight still seemed really calm and chill, no problems whatsoever.

Walking over, she sat down on the dock with them. "Hey Twilight--"

"--Nothing's wrong!" Twilight panicked. "O-Oh, Applejack, sorry. Heh, heh..."

"Are you okay?"

Fluttershy looked over to Twilight, who then looked back at Fluttershy. Twilight shook her head silently, and Fluttershy gave a resounding nod back.

"I-I'm fine, really. What's up?"

"I think I just got an idea for the Camp Gift! Notice the lack of eating areas outside?"

Twilight and Fluttershy looked to where the picnic tables, and indeed, they oculd see there was barely any picnic tables out there.

"I was thinkin' that maybe we could build a whole new set of picnic tables; that way when future campers come, maybe they can have more spots to eat outside! What'ya say?"

Twilight smiled. "It sounds like a good idea to me! I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm sure they'll think it's a great idea!"

Applejack grinned at that. "Oh I know it will be."

Over at another part of the campgrounds, Flash Sentry was walking around, minding his own business. Checking his phone once in a while for any texts or messages from back home, nothing out of the usual. Although they were all the way out in the woods, the camp did come with a cell tower so if they needed to send any emergency emails or calls to anyone out in the city, they could. Safety precautions, of course. Though Flash had a bit of a difficult time trying to send simple texts a few times, oddly.

But looking up in front of him made him put his phone back in his pocket. A small shooting gallery with several targets and painted metal cans set up on stands for people to shoot.

"Hey Timber, is this a shooting gallery?"

"Yeah, it's an activity we've had set up for a lot of camps, but most of the campers we've come here don't really come to this. You can blame mostly the immature campers and the teachers who weren't the most responsible with them," Timber rolled his eyes.

Flash frowned. "Oh. Well, okay."

Timber did feel a little guilt, he didn't wanna deny some fun to the campers, but he didn't want anyone to behave rather brashly and ignore every warning he had advised before they were granted permission. Maybe this guy wouldn't be as bad as the previous campers, maybe he would be smart and actually acknowledge his warnings.

"You wanna try it out?" Timber asked.

Flash perked up, and he nodded with a smile.

"Alright. You know what to do?"

"Keep the gun pointed at the gallery wall only, if it's in my hands, keep it pointed down, always set the safety on if it's not in use, and don't take it from the camp," Flash replied.

Timber was about to raise a hand up, but stopped. This student already knew how to behave himself around the weapons? Guess he didn't need to say anything.

Flash stood near the post, looking at the instructions very quickly. He picked up the gun, checking it if it was filled with paintball ammunition. Timber gave a small can of paintballs, and the guitarist filled up the tank. Loading it up and setting it tight, he cocked the gun, ready to try it out. Timber still stood by, making sure he didn't hurt himself.

A few tin cans were in his sights, and he focused on them. Holding it up carefully, he locked on target, and...

Bam! Bam! Bam!

One by one, like a cowboy, the cans all went down. Timber had to admit, he was surprised. Not a bad aim.

"You've used a gun before?"

"A few times. My girlfriend back in Canterlot took me to a paintball course, and a few shooting ranges. It was pretty fun," Flash smiled. And another bam, another can went down.

Near the archery course, Derpy was looking at the archery setup. A few bows and arrows sitting on a bench, with a target set up for her to shoot at, perfectly held in place. She picked up the bow, and grabbed an arrow, slowly holding it up to fire. She pulled back, only for the arrow to just drop from place and onto the ground. A few students did notice and she looked at them with embarrassment.

"Um, I don't know how to do this..." Derpy admitted, blushing.

"Fluttershy taught me how to do this, maybe I can give some pointers?" Rarity offered, walking over to the course.

"Um, sure!"

Rarity stood behind Derpy, helping her keep her arms at the right position. "Okay, just like that, keep your right arm as straight as you can. Left elbow back, fingers locked around the band... Good. Just look at where the target is, and where you want the arrow to be."

Derpy did just that. One eye closed and the other was locked on target, focused on the red circle in the center. She pulled back as far as she could go, ready to release. And when her hand let go of the band--

Thwunk!

Derpy hit the target! ... But not the middle. She was mostly along the outer rings, but she still hit the target board!

"There you go, darling! Not a bad shot for your first try."

"You think so?"

"Of course. You just need a little more practice, that's all."

And Derpy squeaked with a smile.

---

After dinner, everyone sat around the campfire once again. Smores passed around, and everyone enjoying the sweet delicious taste of cinnamon, marshmallow, and chocolate all mixed together.

"So I'm curious, what's Canterlot High like?" Timber asked, curiously.

"Eh, just your average high school, really," Flash shrugged. "Though with everything we've been through, it's really hard to say. It's been really weird to say the least. I will say this though, the bullying has definitely died down, so that's doing us a massive favor."

"Bullying?"

"Eh, yeah. But it's just the past now," Flash smiled. "Did you have any bullies growing up?"

"Not really. I can't say I have, and especially since I don't really go to school," Timber explained.

"Wait, you've never been to high school?"

Timber shook his head. "My sister and I have been homeschooled for almost all of our lives. Our parents taught us everything, and, well, when we finally became teenagers they taught us a few things on how to keep the camp running."

"Where are they now?"

"They're off on a really long business trip," Timber answered.

"And they just left you two to look after us by yourselves?"

"We've done this for a long time," Gloriosa said with a positive expression, "it is nothing that we can't handle! Also I'm 21 years old, so I'm legally allowed to stay and help run the place," she muttered quietly.

"Ohhhhh...", everyone said.

"That makes more sense..."

"That explains so much."

"But CHS is a pretty great school," Flash smiled, nodding.

"How did you get in?" Gloriosa asked.

"I was new to Canterlot around middle school, I didn't really know a place to go to. Mom and dad suggested that I go to CHS, and I attended ever since 8th grade," Flash explained. "That's where I met everyone here at this campfire."

"Well, what about you Thunderbass, how did you wind up going there?" Timber Spruce asked, eating a marshmallow out of the bag.

"Dad and I were looking for a new neighborhood. The last town we were in, um... it wasn't the best the neighborhood around. The suburbs of Manehattan weren't the best place to live. We bounced around until we settled on a place here in Canterlot. Met Flash when I finally went to CHS, and introduced him to two of my friends, Brawly and Ringo, told him that they'd make good bandmates. And I'm pretty sure that worked seeing how Flash Drive was created within a few weeks," Thunderbass smirked.

"Yeah, yeah..." Flash rolled his eyes, chuckling.

"I've been in Canterlot all my life, dude. Never felt the need to go anywhere, thought Canterlot was the perfect place. Went to elementary school, middle, and now high school here. Best school in the area, dude," Sandalwood grinned.

Timber and Gloriosa nodded.

"What about you Derpy?"

"I bounced around from a lot of schools when I was a kid. It wasn't until I found Canterlot High that I started making friends. No one really wanted to be friends with me because I have strata...strat... I don't know how to say it," Derpy blushed.

"Strabismus," Micro Chips corrected.

"Y-Yeah, that! And people made fun of me in middle school for my condition," Derpy frowned.

"Ow. That's kind of mean, isn't it?"

"Middle school is the worst school to be at when you're a kid. Everyone there is mean, it's awkward, its just not fun," Thunderbass said. "Seriously, it's brutal."

"I personally think elementary school was the worst place to be. No one lets you be yourself, you can't enjoy anything you like without someone bullying you because it doesn't make you a guy, and if you're the smartest kid in the classroom, then it stinks to be you because you're automatically going to be bullied," Micro Chips shared, seething a bit.

Everyone hissed.

"Sounds like you've had it rough," Timber stated.

"Yeah. I did. I'll be honest, I hated elementary school. Maybe if you're into sports, you'd have the entire school liking you. But if you're super smart, or if your interests are weird things like superheros or robots, then you're nothing but a four-eyed nerd apparently," Micro hissed, getting a soft pat from Derpy's hand.

Twilight admittedly felt the same way. She moved her eyes away, remembering a time when she was bullied for very similar interests as the techie in the group.

"Just like with Derpy, and Thunderbass, and Flash of course, it wasn't until I went to Canterlot High that I found some more friends," Micro Chips said.

"What about you, Twilight?"

Twilight finally snapped out of her thoughts, hearing her name called. "I'm sorry?"

"How did you end up at CHS?"

"O-Oh, um, well I wouldn't say I ended up, uhh... I'm sorta... not from CHS."

Timber blinked. "Wait, really?"

"Actually, I'm from Crystal Prep. I came along on this trip because, well, my friends invited me to come," Twilight admitted, holding her arms. She felt all eyes were now locked on her, judging her internally, even though no one was really judging or thinking harshly about her.

"Well that's not bad," Gloriosa nodded with a soft chuckle.

"Nothing wrong with that," Timber agreed. "But okay, Flash, about what you said earlier, what did you mean by weird?"

"I mean weird weird. Not like showing up to school naked weird, or everyone dressed as clowns weird, this is... weird weird."

"Well, what makes this weird weird then?"

"I don't think I can really say. Besides, even if I did tell you, you would think I'm crazy," Flash said.

"Eeyup." Applejack nodded.

"Mmmhmm."

"Yep!"

"Too weird for words to describe," Thunderbass added. "But hey, it did shake things up a bit for school, I like that."

For the rest of the evening, Twilight kept to herself. She did recognize what they were talking about; and now the guilt was hitting her more than ever. Now, okay, they did forgive her and move past it, but she still had a hard time forgiving herself. She was only thankful that the rest of the schools (both CPA and CHS combined) were still okay with keeping this weird magic stuff a secret.

---

By now, everyone was in bed again. But Twilight wasn't quite ready. Not because she hadn't brushed her teeth or rinsed or changed into her PJs and all that. No, she was worried about something else.

"Oh... should I... No, I shouldn't. But I... agh."

"Twilight?" Fluttershy interrupted. "Are you okay?"

"... I'm fine. I uh... I think I'm going to take a quick walk before bed," Twilight brushed, walking out of the tent and into the outside. Admittedly she was considering going back to get her slippers, but she didn't mind. The grass felt okay, besides if she picked up any dirt, she could just wash them off real quickly. She slipped by the rest of the tents, no one noticing that she was still up.

She paced over to the main site, near the crystal lake. She could see the moonlight reflecting off the lake, watching it sparkle along the water. For a second, she thought about how weird or unexpected it would be if the Sirens were to show up in those waters, but she remembered, they would come for the second week. They weren't coming quite yet. She still remembered her talk with them weeks after the Friendship Games and how wonderful their official meeting went, over a nice breakfast at a local diner. Sure they talked on a bench, but having some food with that discussion made things nicer.

Her head turned and looked over at the tree-clmbing obstacle course. Looked a bit fun. Maybe she could give that a shot while they were here? Rarity and Pinkie looked like they were having fun on it. And after all, she was out here. She should at least give that a try. Nothing wrong could go wrong--

Arrrooooooooooo!

Or so she thought. She jolted and spun like lightning, hearing the sounds of a group of what sounded like wolves howling. But it wasn't coming from the camp, thank goodness. But she could hear the howling coming from far beyond the woods, almost ghost-like in how they cried into the night. Her legs started shaking and she held her arms, and she backed up away from the sound--

"Twilight?"

"AH!"

Twilight spun around and to his surprise, it was Timber Spruce, coming out of the woods with a woodsman's ax in his hands.

"Timber Spruce? What are you doing?"

"Nothing..." Timber said, rather evasively. "What are you doing, shouldn't you be asleep by now?"

"Well, I... yes, I should, but I can't," Twilight admitted. "I uh... heard a noise."

"You heard the wolves howling too?"

Twilight nodded.

"I thought so. It's nothing to worry about, those wolves howling are over on the other side of the forest, they live close by the mountains," Timber reassured. "They aren't going to come anywhere near our camp, and besides, they have no interest in going near us. We leave them alone, they leave us alone too."

"Well that's good," Twilight said, still sounding scared. And admittedly a twinge of some unease was in her voice.

"Twilight? They're nothing to be scared of, it's okay."

"I... I know."

Now Timber heard something else. "Is everything okay?"

"I..." Twilight sighed. "No. Everything is not okay."

"Why not?" Timber asked. Twilight didn't say. Timber, recognizing something wasn't okay, slowly moved back to the bench and sat down, letting the ax just lean against the side. He patted the spot next to him, hoping she'll sit down. "Twilight, if something's bothering you, I'll be more than happy to listen. It's my job."

Twilight did sit down, and scrunching her face with her hands, she sighed.

"Okay. I'll be honest. This is my first time doing like this. This is the first time I've ever done a camping trip, and I've been having a bad couple of nights. I don't want to screw anything up for them or ruin the trip, I've only recently started to try and actually make some friends, because I'm not the most sociable person on the planet. I'm just scared something is going to go incredibly wrong and it'll be all my fault..."

Timber frowned slightly, patting her shoulder.

"Twilight, you shouldn't be worried so much. I'm sure it'll work out just fine. And it's a bold move for you trying to do something new to get out of your comfort zone. But it's not healthy to worry and focus on every possible way that things can go wrong. I think you need to find something to take all of that stress off."

Twilight perked up slightly. "By going into the woods in the middle of the night and screaming your lungs out?"

Timber chuckled. "No, although that's not a bad idea. For me, I usually just try chopping wood," he explains, picking up the axe to show her. "We have a shipment of fresh lumber that's being used for building some new cabins, and I lend a hand by chopping them up."

Twilight nodded, understanding. "I see."

For a second, things were quiet between the two of them. Their heads tilted up as they stared up at the night skies, stars twinkling above their heads.

"Stars are pretty tonight, aren't they?" Twilight said, bringing a new topic of conversation up.

"Yeah, I guess so. See that one up there, next to the leafless tree? That's Orion's Belt."

Twilight squinted her eyes, and indeed it was. She could see the constellation crystal clear!

"And right over there, it's a little hard to pick up, but you can see Virgo right there, just above that little spot."

"You really know your constellations, don't you?" Twilight smirked. "You must be really lucky to be out in the woods to see all of these."

"Eh, it's nice I guess… sometimes you can feel kind of stuck here though.”

Twilight's smile melted. Something sounded a bit tense in the way he said that. But she wasn't about to pry him for that information. Besides, it was late, perhaps she should be heading off to bed now.

"I think I'll go to bed now. But thanks for listening to me, I really appreciated it," Twilight smiled.

"No trouble at all Twilight," Timber smiled back. "See you in the morning."

"Good night."

Twilight walked to her camp, and Timber sat and smiled. He had to admit, he liked that. Twilight seemed like a nice girl, and he did enjoy that conversation with her. Maybe he should try talking to her some more? If she was up for that, of course.

Comments

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

Interesting... very interesting! I like the way you handle Twilight and Fluttershy's scene at the start of this chapter, and the way that we got to look more into the goings-on with some of the other CHS kids too. That campfire scene was really nice, getting to learn more about not just Flash, but Derpy and Thunderbass and Micro Chips too. Good work!

And speaking of campfire scenes... I really liked the concluding bit with Twilight and Timber Spruce. This story's offering an interesting twist on the original character, that's for sure. He seems to have some issues with the camp, but to his credit, he is still trying to be professional and make it a good time for the campers. Good on him. I don't know if I could do that in his shoes.

One little typo I caught, that I missed earlier - Pinkie should be "leaning" her head, not "leering" her head. Leering is a type of nasty smile you make!

[Starlight Nova]

Why does the cover art make it look like this is a Stranger Things crossover?

[sonicfan05]

It was an enjoyable chapter, especially with other students sitting down by the fire and talked about their lives.

Really like your take with the interactions between Timber and Sci-Twi!