The First Standoff

by bookhorse125

Chapter 1

Gusty crouched behind a bush, wishing for the hundredth time that the streak of pink in her mane would turn the same shade of green as the rest of her short, choppy hair. She deliberately kept it short, hoping that it would make ponies think of her as a warrior, not some prissy unicorn.

“All right,” her brother said from the center of the clearing. “I give up. Come on out.”

A smile appeared on her lips, but she kept still, even though her brother had already accepted defeat.

“Gusty!” he cried indignantly, spinning in a circle, scanning the area for any signs of his little sister. He heard a rustle to his right and whipped around, narrowing his eyes at the tree, trying to see past the thick green canopy. He heard a twig snap, and then-

“Gotcha!” Gusty leaped out of her hiding place, tackling her brother from behind, wrapping her arms around his neck and pushing him to the ground. They wrestled for about a minute until he lifted his hooves in surrender, Gusty sitting on his back. She rolled into the grass, laughing, while Ocean Breeze stood up, brushed off his coat, and tried to recover some of his dignity.

“That wasn’t funny, Gusty!” he said, glaring at her. “Stop laughing!”

“Maybe not to you,” Gusty said slyly, sidestepping him as he tried to tackle her again, rosy patches of embarrassment clearly visible on his cheeks, “but to me, it was very entertaining.”

“You scared me!” Ocean collapsed on the ground, worn out by his sister’s antics, and Gusty felt a pang of guilt that shut out all feelings of amusement. “You could have gotten hurt, you could have gotten captured, you could have gotten lost…” He broke off, forcefully swallowing his tears and clearing his throat, avoiding his sister’s face.

“Sorry.” Gusty rubbed her arm with her hoof, ashamed now of what she’d done. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Ocean Breeze shakily took a deep breath and got to his hooves, still avoiding Gusty’s eyes. “I’m going into town,” he said, looking at the ground. “Stay safe while I’m gone.”

“Oh, please let me go with you!” Gusty begged, jumping in front of him. “I promise I’ll be good, I promise!”

“No,” he snapped, taking Gusty by surprise. Her brother was a pretty easy-going pony who almost never got really mad. He must have noticed her shocked expression, because he said, “Sorry. But I’ve already lost Mom and Dad. I can’t… I won’t risk losing you, too.”

He unfolded his wings, launched into the sky, and then… he was gone. Gusty plopped on the ground with a defeated sigh.

Since Grogar had invaded, ponies began to band together. Twins sprung up along the east coast, fueled by the huge amounts of fish a single pony could haul up in a day. Gusty and Ocean had been living close to these twins for all her life, moving around every once and a while to stay hidden. Ocean Breeze went into town everyday to do odd jobs and try to earn a little bit of money, usually to buy food, but sometimes to buy other things, like candy for their birthdays, or medicine for when one of them got sick.

And all her life, all Gusty had seen were trees, trees, trees, with the occasional tree. She was not happy about this.

“I’m not old enough,” she mumbled, listing off every excuse her brother had given as to why she couldn’t accompany him to any town or even any house they came across. “It’s a pegasi household. Grogar’s army is occupying the city. I’m not old enough. Unicorns are discriminated against there. This is a job for a pegasus. I’m too young. Grogar’s army is recruiting unicorns; they might try to snatch you. I’m not old enough. For stars’ sake, Ocean, I’m not a filly anymore!”

Gusty paced angrily around the clearing, fuming. “Look, I know you want to protect me, I get it. But you don’t have to protect me! I am perfectly capable of protecting me by myself, thank you very much.”

She stopped in front of a tree, glaring at it. She imagined that it was an army under Grogar’s command. Lighting up her horn, Gusty blasted that dumb tree, the tree that was only one in a billion trees, the tree that was the only thing she had ever seen in her whole life.

Her magic blast sawed the tree in two, and the halves fell to the ground with a grash. Gusty grinned in satisfaction and proceeded to chop the tree into firewood. She restrained herself from running away to just go catch a glimpse of what a town looked like. She even made the trip to the creek to refill the water jug and filled a basket to the brim with berries, enough for the next few days.

Despite all that, by the time noon was gone, Gusty was bored out of her mind. She finally took some of the firewood she’d cut and made a dummy out of it. To be more specific, she made a Gorgar dummy that she spent the rest of the day punching and kicking and blasting with her magic, and then fixing him when she reduced him to rubble. So she wasn’t entirely surprised that Ocean Breeze was frightened to death when he came back.

“Gusty!” he yelped, dropping the small pouch of coins he earned that day. “What are you - who - what-” He broke off, recovering his dignity and picking up his earnings. “What are you doing?” he asked again, more firmly this time.

“Practicing,” Gusty panted, lighting up her horn and blasting Grogar’s right horn off.

“For what?” Ocean Breeze poured the three coins he’d earned into a bigger sack, which he buried every night.

“For. Defeating. Him.” Gusty kicked Grogar in the face with her hind legs and vaulted over him, landing on his back and wrapping her hooves around his other horn, intent on pulling it off. She tossed her head, shaking her bangs out of her eyes and glared at her brother. “Obviously.”

“Um, that seems a bit… excessive,” Ocean said nervously, backing up as Grogar’s left horn snapped off and flew across the clearing. “Don’t you think you should leave that to the army? You know, the ponies who are specially trained to do that?”

“Isn’t the only army in existence Grogar’s army?” Gusty asked, leaping gracefully to the ground and studying Grogar as one of his hooves fell off and clattered to the ground in front of her.

“Not anymore,” Ocean Breeze muttered, quiet enough that it was clear his message wasn’t intended to be heard by anypony except for himself. But Gusty’s ears had grown sharp after years of living in the wilderness, and she caught her brother’s words.

Whipping around and narrowing her eyes at him, she said, “What did you say?”

He turned red with embarrassment, ducking his head and keeping his eyes on the ground, saying, “It’s none of your business.”

“None of my business?” Gusty cried, stepping forward. “If there’s another army, it’s probably to oppose Grogar, which means… there’s a rebellion?” She gasped. “This is. The best. Day. Ever!” She teleported in front of her brother, a huge grin on her face.

“Uh, oh,” he mumbled to himself, but Gusty was already ramped up. There was nothing Ocean could do to stop the flood of questions pouring out of her.

“Is Grogar going to be overthrown? Or killed? How soon? Can I help? Where is the army? How big is it? Do you think they can do it? Defeat Grogar, I mean, do you think we might finally be free? Can I help?”

“NO!” Ocean Breeze yelled, covering his ears and flaring his wings. Gusty stumbled backwards, a look of shock and hurt on her face. There was silence for a minute, long enough for Ocean to get very guilty. “I’m sorry, Gusty, I just…” He reached out toward his sister, but she shrank away from him.

“Why?” she asked in a hurt voice. “All my life, I’ve wanted to do something to free ponykind from Grogar, but you’ve kept us hidden. I want to fight, but you’ve refused. But I never understood why. I know you want to protect me, but as long as Grogar’s in charge, neither of us will be safe. So we might as well do something to help the fight. And yet you still say no. So why-”

“Because Grogar killed our parents!” Ocean Breeze burst out, tears streaming down his face.

Gusty stopped. “You said Mom and Dad died in the flood that destroyed our house,” she said slowly. “You flew off with me, but Mom wouldn’t leave Dad, even though he was too heavy for her to carry. You LIED to me about them!”

“I’m sorry, Gusty, I just couldn’t tell you the truth!” He had to concentrate to keep his voice from wavering, but there was nothing he could do about the rivers of tears splashing into puddles at his hooves. “I thought - I thought that if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be as angry at Grogar, and less likely to go charging into battle to defeat him. I lied… because I was trying to keep you safe.” He gently extended a wing towards his sister. “I hope you can forgive me…”

Gusty shrank away from him, unsure of how she felt about this. One thing she was sure of was that she was very, very angry. She whirled around and fired her Grogar dummy with her magic, reducing it to ashes. Ocean Breeze winced, but Gusty was too furious to care. She let out a wordless scream and ran off into the woods, leaving her brother alone.

“Gusty-” He called after her, but she blocked him out. She kept running until she reached her favorite tree. It was a huge oak with limbs close enough to the ground that Gusty could climb it without using her magic.

She scrambled up until she was hidden from the world by a thick green canopy. She stayed still for a moment, until she was certain she was alone. Then she buried her face in her hooves and cried.

She cried for what seemed like forever. When she finally lifted her head, her eyes red and puffy, it was dark out. Fireflies passed in and out of the branches with ease, weaving through the leaves as if they were water.

Gusty lit up her horn and teleported back to the campsite. At first glance, everything looked fine. The fire was burning low, the only light coming from the coals and embers. The firewood was stacked up against a tree, and all the food had been put in cloth sacks that hung in a tree. It was Gusty’s job to put a protection bubble around it each night to keep it safe from possums and squirrels.

Once she did this, Gusty walked to a pile of blankets near the fire, which was where she and Ocean Breeze slept every night. Using her magic to lift the top blanket, Gusty found the makeshift bed empty.

Dropping the blanket, Gusty whipped around, whispering, “Ocean? Are you there?” She tentatively took a step forward. “I’m sorry about earlier, if that’s what this is about.” Although something told her that this was something different entirely.

A breath of wind stirred something next to the dying fire. Gusty lit up her horn for better light and stepped forward to investigate. It was a scrap of paper with messy and sloppy hoofwriting. Gusty used her magic to lift the note, intrigued. Very few ponies knew how to read or write, but Ocean had insisted that Gusty learn, so she could read the spell books he managed to find. Along the way, he said, “What the hay,” sat down with Gusty, and learned with her.

The note was hard to read in the dim light, but Gusty built up the fire and lit her horn to make it easier to see.

Dear Gusty,

I’m sorry about earlier. I just wanted to protect you. But you were right. We’ll never be safe as long as Grogar’s in charge. So I decided to actually do something to protect you. I’m joining the Equestrian army. They’re going to try and overthrow Grogar. I promise I’ll come back to you. I love you and I already miss you.

Your brother

Ocean Breeze

Author's Note:

Expect a lot more of this in the days to come. Like, at least twelve chapters more. I've got a lot. Obviously not the whole thing, but I'll hopefully be releasing that later this summer. My point is, keep your eyes open.

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Comments

[Lets Do This]

This is good, a solid beginning. We need more stories like this, exploring the early history of the G4 lore. There's over a thousand years of ground to cover, lots of room for new characters and ideas.

There's a few typos in the text, but only a few, which an edit pass would clean up. And it'll be interesting to see your take on Grogar's motivation and goals, here. Given how powerful he is, what does he have to fear? (Aside from Gusty, of course, we know how that story turns out.) What's going on in this earlier world that leads to Grogar and the Age of Monsters? That's what stories like this can really contribute, so it'll be cool to see what you have in mind. Keep it going!

[Flora Blossom]

Next chapter please!!!!!!!!!!!!! OWO 1.bp.blogspot.com/-4JFdsC6JNiw/XZSPJ2JEknI/AAAAAAADQNs/huFb0vm6GpgozUdzYlpiXESNSJ4F2khhgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Pinkie_pie_4th_wall_by_cptofthefriendship-d4mdrlt.png