Chapter 64
I stared up at the tent above my bedroll and tried to fall asleep. The heavy rain against it helped. The thought of nine ponies, one of which being one of my oldest friends being missing, presumed dead… didn’t.
I got them into this.
It wasn’t even over yet. It would take rescue a week and a half to get there and now we would bring everypony through a two day dangerous march through the predator infested jungle.
The worst thing was that it seemed like the best way to get everypony through this.
...Or at least as many as physically possible.
I just wanted to help the thestrals. Where did we go wrong?
Rolling over, I closed my eyes.
My horn throbbed like it was on fire and it just… wouldn’t… stop. I clenched my teeth and felt like punching something.
But I still had a job to do, I could whine or cry or yell or punch a tree or something when everypony was safe.
Until then, everypony was relying on me and if they saw me not being able to handle it, they would panic, morale would completely shatter.
I’d need to talk privately to Midnight about that tomorrow.
Might be my expedition, but she was still a Princess. I understood how she felt and.. I felt the same.
But ponies needed us to keep it together right now. Now more than ever.
Right now, my job was to go asleep while everypony was getting everything ready, to do a final sweep for one of the missing ponies.
If I could just go asleep, that is.
Maybe I should just ask Moon Dancer for help with the sleeping spell again.
Rolling onto my side, I sighed.
I did finally fall asleep after a long while, drifting off into the dream realm. The sparkling void around me shifted like usual and I sighed, taking a slow breath and feeling my wings droop as I finally relaxed as my horn felt like normal.
The pain didn’t cross over into this realm, thank Luna.
If I don't have to be awake, I’ll stay asleep until it’s over. I was already dreading having to wake up again. Finally I furled my wings and got up, looking around.
Ponies were asleep all around me. Unless they were completely necessary for the preparations, everypony had been told to get as much rest as they could.
They’d need it.
I looked around. Almost a hundred ponies were asleep right now and I could see a lot of dark portals of nightmares.
I wasn’t exactly surprised by that, I would certainly have been having one right now if I couldn’t do this.
Sighing softly, I started to move among the dreams, touching portal after portal, sending their occupants into dreamless sleep, to better get them as much rest as possible for tomorrow.
Turning, I oversaw the dreams of the expedition before I sighed again and turned to scan the dreamscape for any of the missing ponies.
It has been two days now. If they were out there, I’d have spotted them by now so I didn’t have much hope.
Nothing.
I sank down onto the not-ground and then slammed my hoof down against it..
Damn it!
I rested my head against my hooves. Nine ponies.
Sighing. I opened my eyes to look straight at a portal shimmering in the distance. I stared at it for a second before I even realized what I was looking at before my eyes went wide and I surged to my hooves, taking a quick step across the kilometers of distance to the portal.
It was one of the ponies.
It wasn’t Swift, but… we might be able to save somepony else!
I quickly touched my horn to it and stepped through it to reveal a dream that was of a quickly darkening a forest that was hedging towards turning into a nightmare.
I quickly put a stop to that and stomped my hoof, turning the dream into a bright white room instead, leaving me with a unicorn mare.
I had seen her around before, she was one of the ship's crew I think. She had a gray coat with light blue, almost white, mane and her cutiemark being that of a balloon.
Rising High looked around in surprise before she spotted me. She quickly surged to her hooves to bow, “Lord Page!”
“Rising High,” I said and moved up to her, “Are you safe?”
“I think so, sir,” she said and stood up again, “We’re in a small cave and set up a small fire.”
“We?” I asked, “There’s more with you?”
Rising High nodded, “Two more,” she said, “My brother, Turning Crank and one of the guards, Swift Spear.”
Relief rushed through me and I nodded, “Are any of you hurt?”
“The stallions both are,” Rising said, “Swift Spear has two broken legs and my brother twisted his hoof in a hole. We don’t think it’s broken, but he can’t put any weight on it. Something has been hunting us for days, but I think we’re in a safe spot now.”
“Stay where you are,” I told her seriously, “I know your relative location right now. I’ll wake up as soon as I leave your dream and send a group of pegasi to get you as soon as I do. Do you know the spell for sending up a flare?”
Rising nodded, “It’s one of the standard unicorn spells for emergencies. We all have to learn them.”
“Send one up every couple of minutes and they’ll find you. Stay safe, Rising. We’re coming for you.”
I sent us both awake and I snapped my eyes open, instantly rolling onto my hooves and galloping out of the tent into the rain towards the light of the command tent.
“Moonglow!”
She wheeled around to look at me in surprise, “Sir?”
“I found three,” I told her, “Get me some pegasi.”
Her eyes widened and she quickly nodded and galloped off into the rain. I did my best to shake the worst of the water off myself, stretching my wings for a second before I looked out into the rain filled night outside the tent.
Three ponies.
Three of nine.
Not all.
Not enough. But for those three ponies… for those three ponies it was everything.
And everything was the least we could do for them.
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Yay!
Nice
You always leave me wanting just a bit more, Hiver. Well done.
Well, there is a chance that the missing 6 encountered bat ponies and are either:
Or
Swift is still in the game, though broke 2 legs. Best to just run whatever creature is stalking them.
Short chapters... good for story transitions, bad because they are... short.
Still ya got me hanging on waiting for each one.
The word count on these chapters is fluctuating like the Stock Market.
Just when it seems to climb up to an acceptable and steady level, there’s a sudden surge of profit-taking sell offs, and the word count is back to hovering at a lower average.
So WHO THE FUCK TRADES STOCKS ON WORD COUNTS!!??
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*Nervous sweating*
MEANWHILE...AT SHIPPING HQ...
Cadance: I'm so happy~! They found Swift and he's alive!
Discord: ...pony feathers. They found Swift...BUCK!
Cadance: DISCORD! That's a horrible thing to say!
Discord: No no it is not that. I am happy that Swift is still alive but the chances of other missing ponies being alive just been reduced drastically.
Cadance: Wait what are you talking about??
Discord: *sigh* Whenever there are side characters missing in a story and only ONE of those characters is constantly named, a small amount of protection is formed around that named pony. This protection somewhat extends to the other missing ponies but only if Swift stays with them.
Cadance: But now that is Swift is found, this protection no longer applies to the six unnamed ponies still missing...they have become expendable to the story...OH BUCK! Everypony! We all need to prepare for severe emotional turbulence that is possibly coming. Keep a close eye on both Page AND Midnight! Shipping is great and all but is pointless if these two end up mentally broken.
Discord: But Senpai...there's not much we can do from here since they are outside of Equestria...
Cadance: *hugs Discord* I know kohai...I know...
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*Meanwhile, at the FTC, Special Agent Vladimir Kilgore suddenly senses a disturbance in the Force*
Vladimir Kilgore: “Hey, Andrew, get me everything there is on Word Counts.”
Andrew Wiseman: “...’Word Counts’? I had no idea that it was possible to trade in those! You got another intuition, boss?”
Vladimir Kilgore: “Yeah, the feeling just came to me.”
Andrew Wiseman: “I’m hot on it, boss!”
Awesome chapter, I'll be honest I thought Swift was dead, or in a rock.. or ground.. let's just not imagine how teleportation could go wrong
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Teb: “The pegasus is inside out.”
Page: “I heard that! He turned ‘inside out’!?”
Teb: “And he exploded.”
Page: “Did I hear Swift Spear turned inside out, and that he EXPLODED!? Hello?”
Twilight Sparkle2: *flicking a bit of Swift Spear off her horn* “Hold, please.”
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Ah, yes, the old "plot armor" theorem...
To be frank, we were considering equiping our scientists with plot-crafted protection, but we realised that, due to plot fluctuations, we'd lose too many of them due to dramatic circumstances...
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Mind you, it still took two dramatic death by irony and the [REDACTED] incident to change our mind.
Back to the earlier comment, though...
Yeah, I'd prep graves and champagne if i were you, D.
2 broken hooves... Tough Guard to have made it so far. Well... So mutch for 'Jungle Swarm rescue theory' and my favorit ' Swift Spear snu-snu a amazon tribe'.
Maybe next time
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I myself am going to guess, that it's not a raptor stalking this group... But one can only hope.
Also, I really question why Page hasn't used the dream realm to find or at least see if there's any bat ponies out there, one would think they'd think of that.
Looks at Hiver in scrutiny for big plot derpForeshadowing if someone wonders...
Barn expanded the range of his hunting around his cave. Many creatures were becoming wary of him and had begun to go into hiding when he came in view.
But then, he sighted another pony! Even better, it was another unicorn! A mare that he had occasionally seen on the expedition, but he had trouble recalling her name. And... somehow... he knew... there were two other ponies in the small cave that she was using for shelter.
He almost called out to them, but some sudden fear gripped him and held him back.
And as he wrestled with his conflicting feelings of the hope for rescue and those of the inevitable horror his fellow ponies would have toward him, a new danger made itself evident: another of those accursed bipedal predators with all those extra and unnecessary claws was hunting the three ponies.
Barn knew what he had to do.
Silently, he made his way to approach the predator.
I've no doubt that when they find the seventh of the nine she will have been assimilated.
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She'll prebably be just as good looking too
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I reread this series for the comments. I swear between both of you and a surprisingly absent Sipioc I get like four stories for the price of one.
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He has a point…
*Grabs speaker!*
RED ALERT! POTENTIAL EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY AHEAD! ALL HANDS, CLAWS AND HOOFS ON DECK!
Damn fine comment section, it's like half the fun by now
I want to see a real vampire, rage, and human savagery, what the ponies are hunting against, I want to see an alpha in bloody action. it's been a while since we've seen anything dark magic