Radius

by Seismology

Chapter 2 - The Strange Forest

KNOCK KNOCK

"Hello, can I help you two?"

"Ma'am, are you related to one Harold Donaldson?"

"Yeah... That's my brother, why, what's he gotten into now?"

"Well, it's more of what's gotten him. We believe that he's a victim of these strange animal attacks we've been getting reports about."

"Yes, as my partner here describes, two of our officers found a strange horselike creature running off with him."

"We're taking his Mitsuibishi Vanwagon as evidence, but we'll return it back to you as you are his next of kin if we cannot determine anything."

"Oh my god... That idiot. I knew he was going on his mission, but I didn't think he'd get himself wrapped up with those animals so soon."

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Chapter 2 - The Strange Forest

Harold couldn't believe he was getting wrapped up with these strange animals so soon. That's what he thought as he travelled through a tunnel of blinding light, shutting his eyes did seemingly nothing against the ever so pervasive glow of the light corridor all around him. He twisted and he turned, he felt like his body parts were being stretched beyond all the belief of the word. His entire self felt wrong as he continued to be shot through the tunnel.

Then as suddenly as it began, it ended. He was plopped down back onto the forest floor. He quickly patted himself down and found that all of his parts were intact. Flexing his fingers for good measure, all ten were still there. He unslung his pack and rifle and found that those were still there as well. Satisfying himself, he checked his packs contents and found that everything was still in order. Suddenly, he found himself parched, and unhooked a water flask from his pack only to begin guzzling it down greedily.

He heard some sort of slurping noise coming from nearby and looked around. Oddly enough, he saw Ocean Breeze guzzling water from a nearby stream. He didn't think there were any sort of rivers around this part of Parker, but nature can surprise you. The pony seemed to quickly satisfy herself, wiping her muzzle with the side of her hoof. She turned back to him and smiled.

"Yeah, travelling between universes will make you thirsty!" The pony chirped as Harry turned from satisfied to dropping his jaw, then back to collecting himself.

"Travelling universes? Is that what that light tunnel was?" Harold questioned.

"Yep yep yeppers! Look over there, through the clearing!" Ocean pointed off in the distance towards a clearing, Harry looked around but didn't see anything special.

"I don't see anything." Harold said, not amused.

"Ugh, no! Up!" The pony trotted closer and began to tilt Harold's head from his sitting position with her hoof, but he slapped away her hooves angrily.

The pony huffed and pointed insistently, and Harold finally saw what she was pointing at. It was a castle on the side of a mountain, some parts of it seemed to be literally floating off the side, and he saw many dots of color circling around the castle stuck on the side. Harold's jaw dropped once more as he saw the spectacle, he couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing.

"I... What? Wow." Harold shook his head, and breathed in, then breathing out. He fished for a cigarette from his pack, and quickly lit it, sucking in the toxic smoke. Exhaling, he finished, "That's... This is incredible!" He bounced up to his feet, almost doing a dance. "A whole new universe! No wonder those hikers went missing!"

The pony laughed shyly, "Ha...Ha... Yeah."

Harold stopped doing his jig and turned to the pony, "We escaped, right? That's a good thing!"

The pony coughed and motioned around her, "Not when we're here, in the Everfree."

Harold looked around, then shrugged, "It looks like a normal forest to me."

"Maybe for you, but for us this is an extremely dangerous place! Only the town guard goes in here unattended, and normal ponies would only stick to the trails!" The pony practically shouted, breathing in quickly and heavily, then covering her eyes with her hooves again. "No no no, we were supposed to land in Ponyville!"

Harold couldn't help it as a snort escaped him, then said, "Well, we'll get to this 'Ponyville'," He air quoted as he spoke the name of the town, "And then we can figure out how to get me back."

The pony gulped, peeking from behind her eyes and smiling nervously.

"What else aren't you telling me?" Harold frowned.

"Well... Those hikers and other pon- people were offered the condition that they had to become ponies before they could come here... If anypony finds out that you... You're like this, they'll flip!" Ocean Breeze began to panic once more, sucking in breath after breath and almost sounding like she was crying.

"Well, fuck. Okay, we'll figure this out. I'll help you get back to Ponyville, and you can get another one of those scroll thingies to get me back, I can survive in the woods for a bit." Harry offered, tentatively giving his hand to the pony. "Shake on it?"

The pony once more peeked and stopped her panicking, taking Harry's hand with a hoof and shaking it. "O-Okay, we can try."

Harry let go of her hoof and stood straight up. "Good, now, let's just find our way to Ponyville, can't be that hard right? Do you have a map?"

The pony nodded and unhooked her saddlebags, digging in them and throwing out various items as she did so. What looked to be a dumbbell flew out of one, while a paperweight flew out of another, and Harold could swear that a crab even crawled its way out of the saddlebags. Ponies were a weird bunch, that much was for sure. Finally, after minutes of digging, Ocean Breeze pulled a map from her saddlebags. Harold took it from her mouth and opened it, then sighed in frustration.

"Figures that we speak the same language, but I can't read yours. Which way is Ponyville?" He questioned the ocean blue pony.

"Umm... South!" She perked up, her ears standing straight up.

"Sun sets in the east, right?" Harold questioned again, putting his hands on his sides.

Ocean Breeze nodded vigorously as she pointed in the direction of the setting sun, seemed like the time difference wasn't too far off.

"Well then, let's head off!" Harold began to trod off South, not waiting for Ocean Breeze to compose herself.

"Wait!" Ocean shouted at Harold.

He turned around and huffed, "What is it now? We gotta get out of these woods!"

Ocean Breeze bit her lip and motioned around the general area. "We should camp out here tonight! It's so so so much more dangerous at night!"

Harold laughed, "I think we can deal with a few woodland critters."

The pony shook her head and opened her mouth, "No! I mean there's timberwolves, and manticores, and cockatrices, and... and... and..."

Harold interrupted before she could say more, "Wolves? Well, I have no idea what those other things are, but if there's wolves then I can take shots at them with this-" He unslung his rifle and patted it down. "-here rifle." Harold smugly grinned.

Ocean Breeze shook her head once more and grumbled, "No... That won't work on timber wolves, they're like... They're made of wood, get it? Timberwolves."

Harry made an o-face and facepalmed. "Talking ponies, and wolves made of wood. Fine, you've got me, we'll camp out here for the night and-"

"Awooooooooooo!"

"Build a fire! Yep, that's what we're doing now!" Harold dropped his pack and hurriedly grabbed the hand axe out of it, not bothering to make a circle of rocks in the clearing as he checked the area for any sort of timber. He quickly found more than a few dead trees, along with a modicum of twigs and other various branches laying around. He motioned to Ocean, "You! Get tinder!"

Ocean gulped and nodded, scurrying to collect as much tinder as she could.

The two of them gathered what they could find and piled it hastily in the center of the clearing, away from the woody areas. Harry stuck a log or two on top of the pile for good measure. He looked back toward the castle on the side of the mountain and found that the sun had almost gone completely down already. That was fast.

"How has the sun gone down so quickly?" He muttered to himself, a question he'd have for Ocean later.

Harry threw his axe to the ground next to his pack, sticking it into the soil. Ocean came up to the fire area with another bundle of twigs and gently shoved it underneath the two logs that Harold had placed on top of the makeshift bundle. He dug into his pack for newspaper and grabbed a handful, quickly balling some up and stuffing it underneath the tinder. He took his zippo out of his pocket and sparked it, the lone source of light just barely illuminating the area, though the stars were doing a wonderful job of that so far.

He thrust the lighter underneath the tinder and lit the newspaper on fire, the paper lighting hastily and then spreading to the modest amount of tinder they had gathered. The fire crackled and sparked to life and quickly began building. The glow from it illuminating almost half the clearing. The trees nearest to them were lit up with the yellow and orange glow of the fire, but something else stood out from the newfound darkness of the forest. Yellow dots of light that seemed to move beyond the thicket.

"AWOOOOOOOOO!"

"Jesus fucking christ that sounded way too close for comfort, Ocean!" Harold shouted as he instinctively unslung his rifle. Aiming down the sights of it toward the treeline.

"It's okay! As long as the fire is going they shouldn't bother us! They hate fire!" Ocean reassured him, putting a hoof on his leg, Harold kicked it away, though.

"Stop touching me, what is with you and touching?" Harold criticized the pony, whose ears turned down.

"I'm... We're... Ponies are just affectionate, okay?" She kicked the earth with a hoof as Harold snorted.

"Well. No touching. Got it?" Harold sternly ordered, to which Ocean nodded in affirmation.

"Okay... If that's what you want." Ocean solemnly said.

Harry twisted his body as he saw something running through the underbrush just through the darkness of the tree line, and two yellow eyes peeking out at them. Then something came out through the brush.

"Awoo?" Peeped a small little creature. It looked like a young wolf cub, but made of, well, timber. Almost like branches of gnarled oak made up the bulk of its body, with something glowing in the center of the body, like some sort of energy source was keeping the enchanted beastie going.

Harry lowered his rifle as the cub cocked its head. "It almost looks... Cute?"

"Don't be fooled, Harold, the wolves are trying to lure us out..." Ocean growled and shouted at the cub, "Back! Get back! Shoo!"

The wolf turned around to look behind it, then barked at Ocean and ran back off into the woods.

"Huh. It's almost like it understood you." Harold remarked.

"Probably because it did, animals here are smart, much smarter than yours. I tried talking to a squirrel in your world and he didn't even wave! Just ran off like I was a monster!" Ocean huffed and sat down next to the fire, though still being leery of the woods around them. The wolves weren't advancing, they'd likely wait til they fell asleep.

"Well, squirrels don't exactly wave, or speak, but anyways... Why don't we sleep in shifts? You can sleep first, and I'll wake you up after say... Six hours?" Harry set an alarm on his phone, which was thankfully still charged. He had a solar charger in his pack just in case, but those things were finicky at best.

"Sounds good to me, but um... Do you have a blanket?" The pony sheepishly smiled and looked to his pack.

"Hmph, yeah, I do." Harry unrolled a bedroll that had been stuck to the side of his pack. He handed it over to ocean, who took it into her hooves and smoothed it out. She laid down on top of it and closed her eyes.

"Goodnight, Harold, be careful." Ocean said as she flopped onto her side on the bedroll, facing away from the fire.

"Yeah... Goodnight." Harold eyed the thicket, this would not be an easy night.