A Journey Unthought Of: Revival of Chaos

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 25 - Cheerilee

The school house was burning. Green flames crackled, and embers flew up into the sky. Cheerilee and her niece Scootaloo had been lucky to have been late in waking up. Though the sun was not up yet, Cheerilee had made a habit of arriving at the school before dawn to get everything in order for the coming day of studies and bright smiles. Now there was to be neither. Had the young filly not been so difficult to rouse, the two of them may have been inside when the school house had been set alight. The both of them stared at the growing inferno as it consumed the belltower of the school.

“Who do you think did this?” Scootaloo asked Cheerilee, who continued to stare at the green flames.

Her aunt turned to her, “I need you to go find Twilight and her friends and bring them here. If any of the rest of the class comes when you get back, send them home.”

“Right,” the orange pegasus filly yelled over her shoulder as she quickly grabbed her scooter and drove hard away from the burning building.

Cheerilee turned back to look at the little schoolhouse, and she began to silently shed a few tears. She had always wanted to teach in the outdoors more, but she never thought that this would be the reason for-

The school teacher’s eyes looked past the flames into the corners of her mind. Her eyes narrowed, and a small frown crossed her face. As she blotted away her tears, Cheerilee looked to the edge of the Everfree Forest, which was only a couple hundred feet from the edge of the schoolyard, and in the distance she saw two ponies looking out from the edge of the tree line. Just as quickly as she had glimpsed them, they vanished into the forest, leaving no trace that they had ever been there. Sensing that there was something definitely wrong about them, and that they may have been the ones to set the fire, she began to gallop towards the Everfree in pursuit of them.

As she reached the forest’s edge, she cautiously looked every which way she could. After she passed through the first few bits of foliage, the surrounding plant life and clinging darkness seemed to engulf her, and its presence was absolute. Venturing further in, Cheerilee had expected that there would be a camp that those suspicious looking ponies would have kept near where they had entered. Perhaps they only entered the periphery of the forest so as to double back around to get out of town without looking out of place?

As Cheerilee was still searching for any signs of the mysterious ponies, one of them pounced on her from behind, sending the two of them rolling in the underbrush. Leaping off of his quarry, the arsonist pony’s eyes flashed green, and he screamed at the mare with a warbling shriek. Both Cheerilee and the disguised Changeling were startled by each other's sudden presence, but of the two of them it was the insectoid that was definitely the most surprised. From near the direction the Changeling had come, to the schoolteacher’s back, a pale magenta light was emanating from out of the underbrush. Suddenly, the air was filled with smoke and the sound of firecrackers as they screamed through the air, until they exploded in a dazzling display of colors and cacophonous sound. Confused and alarmed, Cheerilee whirled around in the concealing smoke, panicking as she tried to find a way out.

After going a little distance, she found the edge of the cloud, and began to cough away as much of the smell of rotten eggs from her lungs as she could. The Changeling, seeing that it was completely enveloped in the pinkish smoke, rushed to leave the area by shedding its disguise and flying upward as fast as it could. Hissing with alarm, the creature cleared the treetops. Suddenly, there was a loud cracking sound from up above, and the Changeling spiraled back to the floor of the forest with a crash, back into the now dissipating cloud. As the disturbed foliage settled around it, Cheerilee was slowly drawn to the form of the Changeling, where it lay unmoving at the place of its landing.

“You’ll want to stay back,” a voice from behind her declared, and as she turned, she found that that voice belonged to a strangely familiar cerulean colored mare with a pale blue mane and tail, “They can be quite the actors when it comes to playing stunned.”

Cheerilee unconsciously tilted her head as she tried to think of where she had heard that unique voice before. “Do I know you from somewhere?” she eventually managed to ask.

The mare turned her face away to try and hide her embarrassment, which caused the supplies and gear on her back to shift audibly, “You might, from the last time I was in Ponyville.”

It finally struck Cheerilee who this mare with the white cape and hat bedazzled in stars was, “Hold on a second, aren’t you that unicorn who came into town about a year ago and made the big scene with the Ursa Minor?”

The mare blushed as she tried her best to contain her embarrassment, as she was reminded of her last excursion in the local area. Eventually she let out a quick breath and looked Cheerilee in the eyes, “Yes. Yes I am.”

“Ms. Lulamoon!” an older stallion’s deep staccato called out over a nearby hill, and as he ran over the hill, the earth pony asked through a mildly winded breath, “Is the target pacified?”

Diverting her attention to Bunsen Burner and away from her self-consciousness, the younger mare declared, “Pacified and waiting, thanks to the help of Mr. Black.”

“Good,” he murmured. The stallion brought his hoof up to his face, and lifted a visor that had been concealing his eyes from view, placing them on his forehead. As he joined the two mares at the Changeling’s side, he carefully brought out his usual rectangular spectacles and placed them on his face, “Now this creature can’t do any further harm to anyone.” Tapping the comm unit in his ear, Bunsen Burner called out, “Mr. Black?”

“How does it look below, Mr. Brown?”

“Very nice job on the shot,” the stallion declared coolly, as he looked at the place the rubber bullet had hit the head of the target, “Right between the eyes. Come down; we have a guest.”

Turning back to the schoolteacher, the stallion offered his hoof out, “My apologies that we had to meet under these circumstances. My name is Bunsen Burner.”

Cheerilee was about to take his hoof in greeting, but her eyes filled with another bout of realization, and as she frowned she relinquished her offered hoof, “You're the pony who was ousted from Canterlot a few months ago, aren’t you? You’re the one the papers called 'crazy'.”

Bunsen Burner only blinked as he continued to look at the schoolteacher with a now blank expression.

From above the treetops a brown griffon with grey down glided to the forest floor to meet the three ponies. On his back he was carrying a rifle, and on his right forelimb was a sheathed knife. Cheerilee looked at the Griffon up and down, “And who are you?”

“I’m Mr. Black,” he curtly replied, his yellow eyes analyzing her with calculated judgment.

“Is that your real name, or is that some kind of a codename?”

Silence was the only answer he gave.

“Mr. Black is loaning his services to me in payment for a life debt he owes me,” Bunsen Burner interjected, “He is a Death Eagle, and occasionally his skills are needed for our current line of work.”

Cheerilee looked at the Griffon now with new eyes, and the horrific disgust she felt was almost palatable, “You’re an assassin.”

“I work in the cleaning business,” Mr. Black idly said, as he brought his rifle around to inspect it for a field clean, “And I would very much prefer to be back in the States at my home, but my honor is at stake, as Mr. Brown is so willing to constantly remind me.”

“That I am,” the old stallion declared, before turning back to Cheerilee, “Now then, if our introductions are out of the way, who are you?”

“Cheerilee?” a voice yelled out into the forest; it was Twilight calling, “Are you there?”

“Ah, the schoolteacher,” Bunsen Burner murmured to himself. He then looked to Trixie, “Ms. Lulamoon, would you be so kind as to escort ‘Cheerilee’ to Ms. Sparkle?”

Trixie shifted on her hooves uncomfortably before finally sighing, “Must I do this so soon?”

Bunsen Burner cocked an eyebrow as he glanced above his glasses pointedly, “Yes, you must. The sooner you get the mess of your past out of the way, the better. Now go. I must discuss something with Mr. Black for a moment. We’ll only be a minute.”

Trixie nodded her understanding, even while making her frustration fully apparent, and she motioned for Cheerilee to follow her. Looking back at the stallion and the griffon, Cheerilee had a good idea what was about to happen, and she felt sick.

“Please don’t hurt him,” she called back to Bunsen Burner.

The stallion’s back was turned to her, and she didn’t hear anything in his voice that could show what he was feeling, if he was feeling anything at all, “I will take only the actions necessary to protect Equestria from the Changeling threat. Escort her away now, Ms. Lulamoon; I have work to do.”

Comments

[Alan Smithee]

Quentin Tarentino's A Journey Unthought of...

[Hustlin Tom]

3915806
How should take this comparison to the cinematic genius? Tarantino the writer or Tarantino the director? Should I apply this towards a specific genre, or any and all the genre's he's worked in?