Cutie Mark Crusaders: Adventure Awaits!

Cutie Mark Crusaders: Adventure Awaits!

Chapter One: The Stranger

     The four ponies continued to stare at each other for an extended period of a time, continuously blinking at each other. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had backed themselves to the other end of the caravan, all too afraid to speak or answer this stranger. The unicorn and pegasus had dropped their torches on the floor in fright - illuminating the stallion to create an even more dangerous atmosphere behind him; all three of them had an expression of a little foal that knocked over a vase and being caught. The bright light expelled from the single lightbulb placed onto the ceiling illuminated the expression of the fillies’ faces. This caused a strike into the stallion’s heart and soon enough he gave the three a slight, forced smile from his muzzle.

     The strange unicorn had ultimately broken the silence ‘Sorry for the scare, my little ponies.’ The voice of the stranger had changed from a grim tone to a forced, friendly tone to comfort the perplexed and petrified fillies.

     The night howled outside, creating an even more shrouded confusion for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. It felt like an ominous nightmare that had involved all three of them and they would awake themselves to find that they were safe and free in their own tents. They were wrong. The current situation was that they were trapped with a much older unicorn; escape was futile as they would just be caught by timberwolves in these forests. They couldn’t defend themselves, excluding the occasional threat from Applebloom with her hammer. They were trapped with a complete stranger stallion.

‘Ya- Ya stay ‘way from us, okay!?’ Applebloom had replied, her occasional stuttering and body language indicated an obvious sense of a distressed filly.

‘Yeah, just go away!’ Scootaloo joined, ‘We haven’t done anything to you!’

     Sweetie Belle had crept up in a corner, curled up into a small ball, she was less brave than the two other ponies and definitely wasn’t a fighter.

‘I’m not gonna harm you all, you better just drop all your things down and explain everything to me,’ answered the stallion, still forcing a smile to comfort the three.

      The two fillies turned to each other to exchange their expressions. They both had the same thought swimming in their brains: resistance was futile and would land them into more trouble, so they decided to obey the stranger and dropped their saddle bags and weapon. The trio was then invited to sit on a small table, suited for three full-grown ponies, and was told to wait there for further instructions. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were all fidgeting and terrified at their current situation.

‘Scootaloo, what d’ya think is gonna happen to us?’ Applebloom had asked, in an almost inaudible voice.

‘I don’t know, Applebloom. We can’t go anywhere; we’re in a strange stallion’s home with no ability to go outside because of the timerwolves.’ Scootaloo replied, shuffling along on her seat.

     The Cutie Mark Crusaders were staring at each other – trembling at the thought of being trapped. Scootaloo decided to sort out her items in her saddle bags for the wait while Applebloom surveyed the entire caravan for any types of escape while Sweetie Belle continued to curl up onto her seat.

***

‘Sorry for the long delay, My Little Ponies. I’m normally prepared to only serve one pony, not four,’ the Stallion , a tray with four cups of water held onto his hoof. He placed all three cups onto the table, while leaving the forth one on the tray in which he left on the ground, placing each one infront of every pony. He pulled up a chair, telekinetically, and sat next to the three fillies.  ‘Now, which one of you is going to tell me what in hay you’re doing?’ the Stallion asked, while taking a sip from his cup.

     The three Cutie Mark Crusaders began to explain, without any interruptions by the observer:

‘Well… Ma sis told me never to talk to strangers but I’m gunna… M’name’s Applebloom, m’friends are Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. We come from Ponyville and ma family decided to have a little hike down ‘ere at the forest, pass to Appleloosa. We heard a loud boom an-‘

‘We came to investigate, ‘cause we’re brave ponies!’ Scootaloo interrupted.

‘Anyways, we came here to investigate ‘cause we’re Cutie Mark Crusaders Night Detectives and we ended up here – we also heard a loud boom. We came here but were scared by a timberwolf and hitched here, where we met you, sir.’

‘B-But don’t forget that we have a large family in one of the clearings. We can always go back there!’ Sweetie Belle explained, managing to return from her petrified state.

‘Uh-huh. Well, that’s a fine story, but you have to go to sleep. You can’t go back to your family until dawn, and that’s sometimes too dangerous’ the stallion had replied, a noticeable grim tone had slipped from his mouth.

***

     The three fillies had a peaceful sleep at the bed of the caravan. It was large enough to situate one large unicorn, or three small fillies. All of their belongings were placed under the bed below and their sleeping position was a really cute stance. The unicorn had given up his space and had decided to take shelter in the front of the caravan. There wasn’t much in the caravan in the first place; there was a lavatory compartment, the kitchen shared the main room with the seats and the personal equipment scattered around and there was the bedroom in which the three fillies slept.

     Scootaloo woke up from her nightmare. Princess Luna wasn't there for her this time. Her nightmare was seeing that everyone in Ponyville had disappeared and that only Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, the stallion and herself standing in the town square. She shot up from her sleep, panting with sweat revealing itself from the filly’s forehead. She needed some water to calm herself. She got up to her hooves and crept around the caravan to locate a source of required H2O. She found the stallion asleep in the front of the vehicle, a blanket covered over him – Scootaloo found it cute, after seeing the expression of the stallion before. The filly decided to back away from the unicorn, but that resulted in the very events that proceeded.

     The filly blindly reversed, in the darkness, and knocked into one of the tables. It swayed left to right, before tipping down several different chemicals onto the floor. The combination resulted in a massive explosion which engulfed the entire caravan in a large *BANG*. All ponies shot up a split second before the explosion affected the other three as well. Scootaloo thought she was numb, dead but she could feel herself and still move. She felt a spiralling and twirling motion inside the caravan and soon enough a white light surrounded her vision.

***

     Applebloom managed to wake herself up, surveying her surroundings after being blasted awake. She turned - her eyes half closed, to Sweetie Belle who exchanged the same expression. They both managed to lift themselves onto their hooves to perceive Scootaloo with her hair spiked up and her faced full of soot from the explosion. They then turned their attention to the Unicorn behind her: he was levitating his hat back onto his head before moving towards Scootaloo in the worst emotion you can expect from a pony from Equestria.

‘WHAT HAVE YOU, FILLIES, DONE!?’ the Stallion had erupted, the fillies manes stood up in horror at his voice, ‘YOU ALL RUINED EVERYTHING! YOU’VE AL- Wait, no… No…’

     The stallion burst out to the door to be embraced by orange sunlight outside and a rather peculiar smell of: excrement.

‘Oh… Sweet Celestia… It worked… Praise Princess Twilight Sparkle and her works!’

     The unicorn began jumping up and down in blinded joy as he exclaimed that sentence, similar to the same hopping stance as Twilight Sparkle. He then quickly galloped back into the caravan and grabbed essentials and a saddle bag from his container before moving out again. He seemed pretty happy and humorous, while the Cutie Mark Crusaders all just stood there to stare at the suddenly joyful unicorn. They decided to follow his example: all went to grab their belongings and followed the stallion out of the caravan into the bright new world. They were in a whole new world.

‘Welcome, My Little Ponies, to the past!'

***

‘Ta past!? How’s that even possible!?’ Applebloom exclaimed, her tone was stuttering and off-tone.

‘Pretty simple really: Princess Twilight Sparkle blessed me with one of Star Swirl the Bearded' spells and gave me the challenge to remove the consequence of only allowing one to stay in the past for only a few seconds’ the stallion explained, still pretty joyful.

‘Huh!?’

‘I’ve invented time travel! The chemicals I mixed contained the artificial Unicorn magic which were heated enough to become a liquid substance! The amount of mixing must have created a time travelling machine out of the caravan! I removed the consequence because Unicorn magic expelled from one’s horn couldn't take such punishment but artificial magic is not an organism and therefore-’

Before the Unicorn could finish up his sentence the caravan evaporated.