Unknown Disturbance

Amber woke up late next morning, yet again to the sound of frantic knocking at her door. Sighing, she got off the bed, noticing she still had her armor on. Shaking her head, she walked to the door and opened it.

Applejack, another one of the elements in the town, was standing outside, looking furious. Amber Star blinked, and then asked the all-important question.

"What are you doing here, Applejack?"

"That creature of you're broke into mah farm and stole some apples!" Applejack yelled, apparently forgetting I still had eardrums. "I chased it off, but it ran into the Everfree forest. Can you find that darn thing so ah can buck it into a wall?"

Amber used a hoof to rub her head, minding her hurting ears. "Sure thing, Applejack. Come nightfall, I’ll go looking for it. It should be out then, so I can easily find it."

Applejack slowly nodded, and wandered off. A short while later, I send a message to Princess Luna about it, and she promised to look into the dreams of the creature and confront it.

A short time later, Amber received a transcript of a dream. Apparently, the creature had slept after it stole the apples, and it had been completely unapologetic, apparently shrugging its shoulders before talking more in its strange language.

Amber still had eight hours until the sun started to go down, so she sat down on her work table and got started on the paperwork she needed to organize a massive search. Six hours later, she took a small nap. Her wings and hooves feeling like she had spent an entire day in training after using them to manipulate the papers and feathers she used to sign an entire stack of documents.

The nap stretched into a long sleep, and it was two hours past nightfall when she finally slipped out of house. Stretching her wings, she activated the helmet's disguise feature, turning her outside appearance into the usual white guard that pegasi adapted. She jumped into the air, quickly taking off into the sky.

She knew she wouldn’t find anything in the air, as the creature had undoubtedly camouflaged it, but from the ground any shelter should be visible - she assumed it had made shelter, for that is what she knew any intelligent creature would have done.

She landed in a forest clearing and started a ground search, moving in lines spaced twenty feet apart and around two hundred feet long. It would take days to cover the entire forest, but they would eventually find it. After a half-hour had passed she came upon a tiny clearing with a small hut inside. Moving to the side of the wooden structure, she heard the sound of breathing inside, and seconds later of something moving.

Amber stopped, listening to the sound. She froze as the creature poked its head outside of the hut, looking one way before turning to her. They both stopped suddenly, and just as she was ready to charge him she heard him give a small yell, feeling an impact against her skull. Darkness overcame her as she felt her helmet fly off, landing somewhere nearby as she fell to the ground.