> Slender Mane > by Lightning Crystal > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Pilot episode: The begining > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hello?" A confused young colt by the name of pipsqueak called out. He looked around frantically wondering where he was. He started to walk in a direction, hoping that it would help him find out where he was. It wasn't long until he saw a familiar looking place, his home. He ran towards the house wanting to see his parents again. "Mom, dad, I'm glad I found home." He opened the front door and saw his house was empty. He went upstairs and saw that it was barren as well. This can't be right, he thought to himself. He turned around and saw it. A tall slender stallion, he was wearing a black suit, with a red tie, he had no face. Tentacles popped out of his back, inching their way towards him. He tried to run but the slender stallion was blocking the doorway, it was hopeless. A chill was sent up pipsqueak's spine as the tentacles enveloped him, it wasn't long until he was engulfed into the darkness, never to be seen again. ~A couple months later~ "Shot Lock!" A grey mare yelled at the chestnut colored stallion. He looked to the mare and waited for what she had to say. "Yes, what is it?" He asked. "We have a case for you." "Where?" "Ponyville." "What's it about?" "A string of disappearances around the everfree forest." "Sounds like a case I would take." "So will you take it?" "Yeah i'll take the case, I just need to get my gear." shot Lock said, he went and gathered up all of the things that he thought that he would need. He went to the station and boarded a train. The train started to move, and he looked out the window, towards where ponyville was. "I wonder what sort of things are going on in ponyville." ~three hours later~ He exited the train, and looked around, ponyville looked really empty. He wondered around and was looking for any leads. He saw a store and decided to go into it. "Hello, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time." He called out into the store, he was replied with the crying of two ponies, he ran to where the crying was and saw a couple of ponies, the first one was a stallion, the other was a mare. "Oh i'm sorry, it's just that we miss our children." Said the stallion. "I'm Cup Cake." Said the mare. "And I'm Carrot Cake." Said the stallion. "Hello l'm detective lock, and I am here to solve these mysterious disappearances." Shot Lock said, the couple seemed to brighten up immensely. "You are, we will forever be in your debt if you could find our children." Carrot Cake said. "Sure thing, now what do they look like?" Shot Lock asked. "Pound cake is a cream pegasus, and Pumpkin is an orangeish unicorn." Cup Cake said. "Okay, wait a unicorn and a pegasus?" Shot asked. "Yes, you see-" Carrot Cake started, but Shot interrupted him. He looked around for clues. "Was there any odd things going on before they disappeared?" Shot asked. "We helped calm them down from a nightmare three nights ago, but other than that it was all okay." Cup Cake said. "Thank you, that helps a lot." Shot said as he walked out of the store. He looked around to try to see if he could find any more clues, he eventually spotted a yellow pegasus, and walked over to them. "Excuse me, can I have a moment of your time?" Shot asked. "Sure, what is it?" The pegasus answered. "I am looking for clues about the disappearances around ponyville." "The only thing I know is that all of the victims had the same nightmare three days before they disappeared." "Really, anything else you could tell me?" "All of the dreams had a tall slender stallion with no face, and it beckoned them to the everfree forest." "Thank you, this will help me immensely." Shot started to walk to the everfree forest. "Wait you're not going into the forest are you?" The stallion asked. "yes I am." "you can't go it's dangerous in there." "I have no choice though." "I won't let you get yourself killed." "And I can't let these ponies keep disappearing." "fine, i'll follow you then." "I can't let you do that." "And I can't let you get yourself killed, if you're truly going to save them you'e going to need backup." "Fine you can tag along, but at the first sight of danger I want you too run." "I won't run, but if I need too I will." Both stallions started to walk to the everfree forest, not knowing what lay ahead of them. They walked for hours still not knowing what to expect. They learned each others names, the pegasus' name was Thunderbolt Sentinel. When they reached the entrance to the forest it got dark, really quickly. "It's gotten dark pretty quickly." Shot said. "It did, but then again we did leave at around four PM." "True, Sentinel, do you have the lanterns?" "yes I do." Sentinel said as he pulled out the lanterns. "perfect, we will need these, but for now we'll only need one of them." Shot said as he was grabbing one of them. Both of them walked into the woods and started their search. ~Two Hours later~ "Hey detective Lock, I found something over here!" Sentinel yelled, as he was pointing at a note on a tree trunk. Shot Lock went over to where Sentinel was standing. He looked at the note on the tree. The note was strange, it had a crudely drawn slender pony wearing a black suit that had a red tie, and the drawing had no face, in weirdly drawn letters said, no eyes always watches. "What the hell does that mean?" Shot asked. "I don't know, but it looks odd, could it be evidence?" "Yes evidence, we should take it with us." Shot took the note and a drum sound was heard from the distance. The sound got closer and closer, and then it stopped. "What was that drumming sound?" Sentinel asked. "How should I know, but we could be catching onto something, we should try to get more of these notes." "If there are any more." > S:1 Ep:2: More clues > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shot Lock walked through the forest with Sentinel in search of clues when he felt a chill run down his spine. He stopped walking his body went stone cold as he could feel that he was being watched by something in the shadows. He looked behind him and saw nothing, Sentinel noticed him not moving. "Hey, is something wrong?" He asked "No, it's nothing, I just have the feeling somepony is watching us" Shot Replied. They kept walking after that and got to a house in the forest, it was odd considering nopony was supposed to be out there. They walked inside hesitantly and saw something in the corner of the room. "Hello?" Shot said wearily. The thing turned around and it revealed itself as a dark grey pony. "What is it?" The pony asked. "Do you know about the rumors?" Shot asked. "Yeah, have a nightmare, three days later, you're gone." Said the pony. "Anything else you could tell us?" Shot asked. "Yeah, see the thing is it's not a rumor, I have seen with my own bug eyes ponies being dragged into this forest, and never coming out." The pony said. Shot and Sentinel looked at each other with confused expressions. "Did he just say-?" Shot stared. "Bug eyes?" Sentinel finished. "Yeah, I said bug eyes." The pony said. In a quick green poof the pony revealed to be a changeling. Both Sentinel and Shot Lock jumped backwards in surprise. "A changeling, I thought those were sent flying off never to be seen again" Shot said, He exchanged worried glances with Sentinel and finally calmed down enough to bring his heart rate back to normal. "Do you have a name?" Sentinel asked. "Kabuto." The changeling replied. "So Kabuto, can you tell us anything more about what the hell is happening here?" Shot asked. "A strange tall slender pony is dragging ponies into the everfree forest, not much else to say." Kabuto said. "Well what about notes, do you know if there are any more of these notes?" Sentinel asked as he showed him the note they picked up a while ago. "Actually yeah, I have seen tons of these all over the place, about eight that I can remember seeing." Kabuto said. "So these must be clues, Kabuto why don't you come with us, it's not safe here" Shot said. "Sure, to be honest I don't want to be here any longer." Kabuto said, as he said that the drumming sound came back. It was getting closer and closer to the small hut they were in, cold chills went down each pony's spine, they couldn't move. The door swung open and there it was, the tall slender stallion with no face. "The window!" Shot yelled. All of them jumped out the window and started running.As Shot, Sentinel, and Kabuto were running in the woods trying to escape what was following them. It was the tall slender stallion with no face, just like on the drawing, they ran and ran as it's dark embrace reached out towards them. "Sentinel!" Shot yelled "I know, I know, we just have to keep running!" Sentinel replied. All three of them suddenly stopped dead cold, they couldn't move they had been paralyzed, shadows enveloped them drowning out their vision, it was the end, but as if out of nowhere a light flashed and all they could see was whiteness. Their vision came to them and they were outside of the forest uninjured. "What the hell was that?" Asked Kabuto. "I don't know, but we're alive" Shot said. "Shot, the note is gone." Sentinel said. The note seemed to have been taken from him, along with the lantern. "That's odd, and so is the lantern." Shot said. He took Sentinel's bag and looked through it to see they still had five lanterns left. "We still have the other five, seems like we have five more chances with this bastard." Sentinel said. "Yes that would be a good assumption, he took one lantern and left five, so it would seem he thinks of this as a game of cat and mouse, with the mouse having six chances." Shot said. "But why give us five chances, the others only got one." Kabuto said. "Our lanterns, we had lanterns and they didn't so he is giving us a chance to save the others." Shot said. They all stood up and headed back to town to plan for what they would do next. > S:1 Ep:3: New plans > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shot, Sentinel, and Kabuto were all sitting around a table in hayburger discussing what would happen, they were coming up with some good ideas on what to do, Kabuto once said to let themselves be taken, but Shot quickly shot down that notion. "Why can't we let ourselves be taken?" Kabuto asked. "It's dangerous, plus we don't know why he didn't take us last time." Shot replied. "Okay yeah it's dangerous but why don't we let him take us as an experiment, last time he took us we woke up outside of the forest." Kabuto said. "And he took one of our lanterns." Sentinel added "That's right he did, maybe it was the lantern that saved us." Shot said. A orange mare with a blue wavy mane, and a mackerel as her cutie mark walked over. " May I take your order?" She said. "Yeah, i'll have the number five." Shot said. "I'll take a combo meal." Sentinel said. "And i'll just take some hayfries." Kabuto said. A mare walked up to them and sat down. "So I hear you're trying to solve this case." She said. "Wait, who are you?" Shot said. "Sorry for not introducing myself sooner, the name's Jinx." She replied. "I'm Shot Lock." Shot said. "I'm Thunderbolt Sentinel, but just call me Sentinel," Sentinel said. "And i'm Kabuto." Kabuto said. "Nice to meet all of you." Jinx said. "So about this case." She added. "You're not getting involved with this." Shot said "Why are those two accompanying you then?" Jinx asked as she pointed to Kabuto and Sentinel. "Sentinel is a stubborn ass, and Kabuto just sorta started following me." Shot replied. "I'm the ass?" Sentinel said in confusion. After the group rested they went back to the everfree forest, they were walking for about an hour when chills went down all of their spines. "The hell was that?" Sentinel asked. "I have no clue, the walk to the forest never did that before Shot showed up." Kabuto said. "You think this has to do with me?" Shot asked. "No, but you have to admit, that's a very weird coincidence." Kabuto replied. "You know he's got a good point." Sentinel added. "Shut up Sentinel." Shot said. the three looked at the forest, not knowing what would happen next, or of the mysterious pony following them.