Chapter Six: Close Calls

私の小さい馬：大きな鉱石の物語

MY LITTLE PONY: THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT CRYSTALS

Dairosshou: Hiyarihatto

だいろっしょう：ひやりはっと

第六章：日やり法度

Chapter Six: Close Calls

“Spike! Spike!” Twilight shouted, bursting into the library.

“What is it?” he answered, looking at her. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “What happened to you!?”

“Gash happened. He went rogue, and I need to send a message to Princess Celestia, now!” she cried out. She levitated a quill, inkpot and scroll to him.

“Gash went rogue? That sucks,” he muttered.

“Okay, here’s the message,” she started.

“Ready!”

“Dear, Princess Celestia,

It is to my disdain to tell you that our ‘friend,’ Gash, has gone rogue. Just earlier today, he attacked a filly at the Ponyville Schoolhouse, and when I tried to stop him from continuing, he attacked me. Given, I did attack him first, but he came close to killing the filly and me. We believe he has fled into the Everfree Forest. We do not know what he will do next, so we request your assistance. While he does not know the Everfree, I postulate he will head towards the old castle for shelter by instinct.

We now know what his red book does. It has magical power-when he incants the words in it, different lightning effects are created. He has two spells that we know of: “Zakeru,” which shoots a wave of lightning, and “Rashirudo,” which creates a shield that can reflect magical blasts.

I believe it is in our power to stop him. He is a detriment to our society, and he clearly doesn’t have a place within it. I request your immediate reply.

Twilight Sparkle”

“…Got it.”

“Send it off.”

Spike sent it off in a green breath of fire and looked sadly at the ground. He looked out the window and grimaced, closing his eyes. A few minutes later, he belched out a royally-sealed scroll. He gave it to Twilight, who promptly read it.

“To my faithful student,

It saddens me to hear that Gash has demonstrated such terrible actions. I will be sending troops to Ponyville immediately, and I and Princess Luna will be joining you shortly after.

I have not found any script with the text on/in his book. This leads me to believe that it is completely foreign to this world. Its magical properties are something I haven’t heard of. It’s definitely a spellbook of sorts, but not like the ones from this dimension. I’ll continue trying to remember other places I’ve seen this writing, but at this point I don’t believe I will find anything.

I request that you and the other Elements of Harmony also come, as your assistance may be required in defeating Gash. I will also leave it up to you to decide his punishment, as I do not know enough about him yet to determine a proper procedure against him.

Your Princess, Celestia”

“Okay. So I guess that means that we’ll gather the Elements together now?” Spike asked.

“Yes. Then we will probably come up with a battle strategy.”

“Should I go?”

“No. It’s too dangerous. I’m not going to risk you in a battle you have no place in,” she explained. He gave a soft smile and hugged her.

“Stay safe.”

“I will,” she said, walking through her front door.

Gash had been wandering the forest for about an hour at this point, and he hadn’t found anything resembling civilization. There were no signs of water or edible food anywhere, and to top it off, it was dark and gloomy, which made him feel uneasy. He was searching bushes for berries, but couldn't find anything.

“Is it so hard to find some god damned food in this place!?” he cried out in frustration, punching a tree really hard and knocking it over. “Or at least some drinkable water or a path to follow?”

He kept walking for another five or so minutes before coming across a path, one that would lead him deeper into the forest. He rested for a few minutes, exhausted, before continuing down the path.

After following the path for another three or four minutes, he came up to a cliff. He looked down, and attempted to determine the length of the fall, but couldn’t. He grabbed a stone and threw it down, and it hit the ground after about three seconds. He calculated this to be about a forty meter drop. He looked around for another way down, but couldn’t find one.

‘How the hell do I get down there?’ he thought.

He saw small pieces of rock coming out of the rock face and a few, small piles of rubble down at the base of the cliff. He assumed these used to be platforms that these horses would climb up and down that had eroded over hundreds of years and had collapsed. He also saw a orange mound of…some sort of matter with a red pillow-looking material. He was trying to decide whether or not he should trust using these small, bulging pieces of rock to climb down or to find another way.

“Hmm…Fuck it,” he cussed, turning around and lowering his legs down, hanging to the ledge by his hands.

He looked down between his legs and saw the first platform to his right side. He inched his way across the ledge to where he was directly over the small rock he had seen. He took a deep breath and let go, putting his legs together. He felt his legs land on the platform, and quickly lost his balance. He fell to the side, turning around in the process. He put a hand up and grasped the ledge, cussing that he was going to have to parkour his way down this ledge. He turned around and grasped his other hand to the ledge. He looked down again and saw the next platform was to his left. He took another breath and started to swing left and right. He gained some momentum and let go, just barely getting his fingertips on the ledge. He swung his other hand up and grasped the ledge. He looked to see his next platform was to his right, so he started swinging again. He let go after a few more swings than last time and landed on the ledge with his feet. He put his hands out to balance himself, trying to calculate his next leap. While he was thinking, the platform under him began to crumble. He didn’t notice at the moment, so he just kept thinking. A few moments later, the platform collapsed and he fell.

“Oh shi-“ he said, but landed on the orange mound he had seen prior.

It was soft, and warm and broke all of the impact damage from the twenty-or-so meter fall. Relieved, he got up and looked at the pillow-like fur, and saw two furious, small eyes looking at him, as well as bat wings. It was alive, and it was angry. He stepped back a few steps, but it got up and roared at him, baring its’ fangs.

“God damn everythi-“ he started, but was cut off when he was swatted away by the beasts claws, leaving small scratches on his mantle. His book glowed.

“Zakeru!” he shouted, releasing the wave of electricity over the manticore. When it ended, the beast showed signs of burns, but it had relatively no impact.  “Damn!”

The beast roared once again and ran towards Gash, who had little time to make any movements. He was head-butted by the manticore, and sent flying back into the forest behind him. Noticing he was in a forest, he looked around, seeing branches all around him. The beast continued toward him, lunging. Gash was prepared this time and jumped to his left, rolling as he hit the ground. The bat-lion rain into the tree and Gash saw this as an opportunity to strike.

“Zakeru!” he cried again, but instead of aiming at the beast, he aimed above to some branches.

The branches fell from the tree, landing on the manticore’s back. It howled in pain before shaking the branches off and turning around. It showed signs of fatigue from the pain shown on its face, but launched itself at Gash again anyway. He rolled to his right and circled around to the manticore’s backside. He jumped on top of the manticore, holding onto its mane, and it ran deeper into the forest, futilely trying to shake him off all the way. Seeing this as a free ride, he held on, until they came across a raging river. When that happened, he decided to dispose of this creature. He put an open palm on the beast’s neck.

“Zakeru!” he cried, jumping off of its back. The electricity surged from his hand and struck it right on its neck, knocking it out.

“Alright. So I have a river, and there’s no way to cross it. What do I do?” he asked himself. He sat down on folded legs, pondering the solution.

“A raft wouldn’t work, as it would be torn apart…Could I jump across?” he continued to ask himself. He tried to judge the distance, but because he had no actual means of measuring, he couldn’t.

Gash continued to ponder ways to get across the huge river for minutes. He was beginning to feel frustration until suddenly, purple waves rippled across the surface of the water. He arched a brow to this and stood up. It confused him as to what it could’ve been, until a giant, purple snake-like creature rose up from the surface of the water. On instinct, Gash opened his book and charged for a ‘Zakeru.”

He looked up at the creature and saw it had a light-purple middle-belly section, and the rest, up to the head, was a darker purple. Two slender arms with hands that each had a thumb and three fingers protruded from its body, which came out to a large snout. It had a neck-beard at the end of its lower jaw and two different colored mustaches on its upper jaw-an orange one and another, shorter orange one with a curly purple extension on the other. It had two fangs on each jaw and a purple tongue  It had two nostrils, of which were pointing up and had light-purple swirls on them. There were two googly-looking eyes and flipper-like ears, almost like Spike’s. A long, orange mane protruded from the top of its head and went a little ways down its neck, and was curly near the end.

“Zake-“ Gash started, but was interrupted.

“Why, hello there!” it said, in a flamboyant voice. It almost sounded like it had a homosexual-flare to it.

“Uh…hi?”

“What might you be doing here?”

“I want to cross the river.”

“Oh, you do! Well, I can help you with that. My name is Steven Magnet, by the way.”

“Okay, Magnet.”

The serpent dove underneath that water, and took its sweet time getting into a position to where Gash could jump across. His head rose back up.

“You can cross now!’ he said, diving back under.

“I knew that, you dumb-ass,” Gash muttered to himself before jumping across.

Midway through crossing, however, he lost his balance. After trying to regain said balance for about five seconds, he failed, and fell off into the river. Magnet saw this and slightly panicked, before swimming after Gash.

Gash was struggling to get above the surface of the water and breathe, and was starting to panic as he desperately gasped for air. He couldn’t hold on to his breath any longer and breathed out, allowing water to fill his lungs. He felt something grab him as his conscious faded out.

The troops Celestia had promised had made their way to Ponyville and gathered at the Golden Oaks library, waiting for Celestia to arrive to give instructions. The Mane Six had gathered, even Fluttershy, for this. Minutes later, the two princesses arrived at the library, stepping off their respective chariots.

“We are here!” Luna’s voice bellowed.

“Good afternoon, Princesses Celestia and Luna,” Twilight, who had cleaned her wounds and coat, wearing many bandages, said, bowing. The rest of the battalion and Mane Six also bowed. They all wore faces of determination, except for Fluttershy, who appeared to be sulk.

“Twilight Sparkle. I have come in response to your letter. This child, Gash, has disappeared into the Everfree, yes?” Celestia asked, in a much more serious tone than normal.

“That is what I believe has happened. It’s the only possible place he could’ve escaped to. I think he would’ve gone to the old castle, by instinct to find shelter.”

“Alright. Let’s come up with our battle strategy.”

“Alright. We should split into three groups. One group of guards led by Princess Celestia, one group led by Princess Luna and the Elements of Harmony with a few backup guards, for extra protection. We’ll invade from the front and split up once we get inside. One group of guards will stay and search the main castle; and the other two groups will search the outer wings. Wherever he is, a Pegasus/Alicorn will alert the other groups, who will gather to the designated spot. We’ll battle until he is defeated. In the case that we can’t beat him with our own power, we’ll use the Elements of Harmony to trap him in stone,” Twilight instructed.

“That sounds like a good plan. Shall we get going now?” Celestia asked, looking at the guards and Mane Six.

“Let’s kick some electric human butt!” Rainbow Dash yelled out, as a huge roar of approval was given by the guards. They traveled towards the Everfree, with the exception of Luna and Fluttershy, who stayed a little behind.

“We told you, didn’t we?” Luna asked, her brows furrowing.

“Huh?”

“We told you that this child was a monster. But you kept saying that he would change. This should teach you to believe in your Princess,” she bragged. Fluttershy remained silent, tears forming in her eyes once again. Luna looked at her and cocked her head in confusion. “Fluttershy?” she asked. Fluttershy mumbled something, but couldn’t be heard by the Princess. “Fluttershy?”

“I don’t need you to tell me what I already know,” she flatly stated, walking away, a few tears flowing. This left Luna even more confused, but she could tell that Fluttershy was upset about something and dropped the subject. The groups marched towards the Everfree.

“Hey, are you okay!?” a crazed Magnet shouted, pushing on Gash’s chest. A geyser of water erupted from his mouth as he began to cough.

“Ye…” he continued to cough. He sat up and coughed the remaining water out of his lungs. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem!” the sea serpent said. Gash looked and saw he was on the other side of the river.

“Well, I guess that’s one way to cross a river.”

“One that no one should have to experience.”

“I guess. Anyway, I need to continue onward.”

“Are you sure that you should be-“ Magnet started, but Gash was already running down the path.

Another minute or two later, Gash came across a bridge, and on the other side was a large fortress or a castle. The bridge looked unsteady, but Gash hadn’t come this far to be defeated by a bridge. He walked up to it and cautiously stepped on it, feeling it slightly bulge under his weight. He hesitated to take another step, but finally did.

“Maybe this thing is sturdy,” he said, beginning to walk across. “This was way easier than I tho-“ he started to think out loud, but the cables on the bridge snapped, sending the bridge careening into the rock wall in front of him. His head slammed into the rock, giving him a minor concussion.  “God…damn…it all,” he cussed, dazed. After a minute, he came back to his senses, looking up the face.

He began to climb the rope, but the ladder, once again, shifted under his weight. He could see the rope breaking higher up and started climbing much faster, using the boards of the bridge to jump, giving him larger boosts. He could tell he wouldn’t make it in time, so he thought of ways he would be able to save himself.

‘Grab onto a ledge and climb the rocks…No, this rock face is too smooth. Maybe use ‘Zakeru’ to blast a chunk out? That’s too risky. There’s a very low chance that would actually work…’ he thought, but had run out of time.

He needed to act fast. Panicking slightly, he looked around, but still couldn’t find a solution. He came up with an idea right as the rope broke, hoping it would work. His book shined, pulling it out of a pocket on  the inside of his mantle. He aimed his hand at the wall below him.

“Rashirudo!” he shouted, as the golden barrier appeared below him.

He fell but shortly after landed on the condensed electricity. He was expecting to be shocked by the substance, but found that it was more like a rubber surface. He could bounce on it, which allowed him to use it as a trampoline to gain height. He bounced higher and higher until finally, he was able to grab the ledge of the ground above and pulled himself up.

“Is there anything in this world that isn’t out to kill me?” he asked, as a pair of wooden-wolves rushed out of the bushes around the fort, growling loudly. “Damn. Everything!” he cried, glowing.

The wolves jumped at him, but he slid slightly to the left, grabbing one by the tail. He spun a few times, gaining momentum, as he threw the large piece of bark down the chasm. A few moments later, he could hear the sound of twigs snapping at the bottom. He turned his attention to the other one, which was in midair, having jumped towards him. He ducked and it flew overhead. In an instant, he punched his fist upward, hitting the wolf in its stomach, sending it flying toward the sky. He opened his palm.

“Zakeru!” he shouted, as the wave of electricity was surged from his hand, hitting the wolf completely. It howled in pain, but was soon silenced as it exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces. Gash panted as it rained wood and leaves from the dead timber-wolf.

Relieved, Gash looked at the large fort that was in front of him. It was in a state of utmost disrepair-There were shattered windows and glass all over the place near the front, and the entire upper half of what appeared to be a foyer was ripped off, with holes in the cerulean cobblestone walls. Large trees grew out of the sides, and there was a large, brown door at the entrance. Gash walked up to it, feeling the rugged carving.

“Wow…what the hell happened to this place? How old is it?” he questioned, putting his hand on the doorknob. “Well, I guess there’s only one thing to do now,” he muttered to himself, opening the door of the castle, walking in.