Chapter 1: The Rock that Caused the Avalanche
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The Creature of the Everfree
Chapter 1: The Rock that Caused the Avalanche
"Spike, wake up!" Twilight said for the fourth time as I was getting ready to meet with her friends for Pinkie Pie's party.
"Me sleep. Me feels good while sleep." Spike was huddling in his blanket (or "blanky", in his term) half-unconscious.
Twilight inhaled, ready to yell at him again, but stopped herself. Wait, Twilight. You're smarter than this. What was the one thing that he would do anything to get back?
Of course!
"Oh Spike?" Twilight whispered right next to Spike. "Missing something?"
Spike tossed and turned, shivering. "Why is it so-" Spike's eyes looked up at Twilight with her horn glowing. And his blanky floating right above him.
As soon as Spike realized what she did, Twilight teleported herself and Spike's blanky out of sight.
"Noooooooooooooooooo!" Spike jumped up in panic.
Where can his precious bundle of warmth be? She can be anywhere with it.
The party! Obviously!
Spike sprinted down the stairs, and almost tripped through half of them, before slamming the door open. As soon as he went outside, he slammed into something.
"Oh, I'm so-" Spike was going to say before he saw who it was.
Twilight stood high above him with his blanky, as happy as ever.
"Great, your awake." Twilight levitated Spike on her back as she began walking towards Sugar Cube Corner.
"Why is there a party today? What's the party even for?" Spiked asked Twilight, leaning on her head.
"When does Pinkie Pie ever need a reason to party? She could be celebrating the word "celebrating" for all we know."
"Why am I not surprised" Spike mumbled, already starting to fall asleep on Twilight's back.
As she was on her way to the bakery, Twilight's smile soon faded at the sight of... well, nothing.
"Why is nopony here?" Twilight asked, looking around to find a single pony being in the town square.
"I don't know. There's always a pony in the town square. Are they still afraid of Zecora coming into town?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Oh Spike, don't be silly. The ponies learned their lesson. It couldn't be that."
As they were talking, Twilight and Spike found themselves in front of Sugar Cube Corner. The building stood silent.
"And there's always people walking in Sugar Cube Corner. This isn't good." Spike was looking around, looking for what was causing everyone to stay in their homes.
"Well Spike, I'm sure our friends could give us a great explanation as to what's going on."
As Twilight opened the door inside, she felt the wind inside the building spill out as she walked inside. When she looked around, the interior of the bakery was just like the exterior. Silent, still, and just empty.
"Uh... Hello?" Twilight felt as if her voice caused an echo in the room.
"Twilight?" A voice whispered loudly behind the counter. A head pointed out above the desk.
"Mrs. Cake!" Twilight exhaled a sigh of relief. "Thank Celestia, I thought everypony disappeared. What's going on here?"
Mrs. Cake raised to voice to a normal talking volume. "Twilight, they haven't disappeared, They're just staying in their homes. Do you know what happened?'
Twilight slightly heard a voice behind her.
"Please don't say zombie pony, please don't say zombie pony."
"No. We just left our house ten minutes ago." Twilight said, ignoring what Spike was worrying about.
"Oh." Mrs. Cake stood silent for a few seconds. "You should go upstairs. All your friends are there, they know more than I do."
Twilight, still confused, slowly walked past her to the stairs. "Thank you, Mrs. Cake."
She heard a slight "No problem" as Mrs. Cake went back to the kitchen to hide again.
"Are you as confused about everything as me?" Spike whispered to Twilight as they walked up the stairs.
"I bet, but I'm just glad everypony is alright, especially my friends."
As they were right by the door to Pinkie Pie's room, Twilight turned to Spike. "Hopefully, we can get an explanation for everything."
As Twilight pushed the door open, she felt something that she had never felt on her friendship before. Nothing. She saw her friends looking down, Not talking, not arguing. Nothing was there. Rarity and Applejack were both sitting on the wall next to each other. Rainbow Dash was looking out the window. And it looks like Pinkie Pie is trying to convince Fluttershy to come out from under the bed.
When they finally saw Twilight and Spike at the open door window, Rarity was the quickest to react.
"Twilight, darling, you're here." Rarity was putting on a fake smile, trying her hardest to act like her usual self.
"Hello."
"Howdy."
"Hey there"
"Hi!"
Everyone was trying to act like nothing happened as soon as they saw Twilight in the room.
Twilight sighed. "No need to pretend, girls. I know something is going on."
Fluttershy poked her head from under the bed. "Who would ever do that to another pony?"
Twilight just about had it. "Why does everypony know everything but me? Can someone explain what's going on?"
"You haven't heard?" Applejack asked as she grabbed a newspaper on the bed.
After she gave it to Twilight, Applejack looked down when she walked away.
Twilight levitated the newspaper in front of her. "Now what is all the fuss about?"
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Murder in the Everfree Forest?
It's a sad day for Equestria. After hundreds of years of peace and harmony, a murder has occurred in the Everfree forest. It happened 10 hours before this paper has been released and the E.P.D has crossed out suicide. Location has been classified due to prevention of being found by the public. The victim's name was Edward McSwaggin and as friend of his reported to the police, he was picking flowers as one of his ingredients for his secret recipe in his restaurant. The murderer, on the other hand, is as of this time, unknown. The police have very little decisive evidence so far.
"Very few of our officers have the proper training, but I'll assure you that we are going slowly but surely, and will find this murderer in Ponyville." Captain Garryside of the E.P.D.
But for now until further notice, we strongly recommend everypony in Ponyville to stay in your homes and lock your doors from this killer. This is the Surely Stable Sentinel saying "Stay safe everypony".
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"Uh, Twilight? You alright?" Rainbow Dash was looking at Twilight's shocked face for a few minutes now.
"I think somepony needs to snap her out of it."
"Aha!" Everypony looked back at the victorious sound.
Pinkie was carrying a bucket of water on her head. "I have buckets of ice water stashed all over Ponyville for this type of situation."
SPLASH
"Wh- Wh- What? Why? How? Murder!? What are we gonna do, the murderer's out there and we ca-"
Rainbow was close enough to put her hoof in her mouth before she could overload.
"Wow. And you think I can talk fast." Pinkie claimed.
"Anyway, I think you understand now." Applejack went on.
"Are you good?" Rainbow Dash asked Twilight, her hoof still in her mouth.
Twilight nodded, followed by little "mmhmm".
Rainbow Dash took her hoof out as Twilight slowly breathed in and out.
"Well, this explains just about everything. But how did you get this?" Twilight looked over the newspaper again.
"They dropped it on everyone's doors. They couldn't miss yours." Rarity exclaimed.
"Uh, Twilight..." Twilight turned around to Spike looking angrily at her. "I may have covered it up because someone stole my blanky."
"Oh." Twilight turned around to five confused faces looking at her. "Uh... long story."
"I guess all we have to do is wait." Fluttershy said.
"They'll find that killer in Ponyville eventually." Applejack added.
As soon as Applejack said that sentence, Twilight felt something she wouldn't expect to feel at a time like this: Anger.
"No! They won't!" Twilight threw the newspaper across the room. Everyone went wide-eyed.
"Twilight, what do you mean?" Fluttershy whispered.
"When I came to this city for the first time, I never expected to make friends. But I did know all of you, or anypony in Ponyville for that matter, would ever go so far as to what happened last night. And ever since we defeated Nightmare Moon together, that feeling has gotten stronger every day. Just for the police to think that the murderer could be here is... it's just wrong!"
"Twilight's right!" Rainbow Dash flew by her side. "I may not be as friendly to the public as her, but when I moved here, I've never met anypony that would harm a fly."
"I'm all with ya"
"Me two"
"Me five!"
"Yay."
"So how do we clear Ponyville's name?" Rainbow burst out to Twilight.
"Don't worry about that. I have a plan."
The Creature of the Everfree
He's coming! He's coming!
He was always like this.
"He is not coming back! He's dead!"
You never believed me! Ever!
This pony is stronger than both of us would ever be. I just beat him from luck!
"Months! You've been saying all of this for months!"
And he's been waiting for months! Waiting to make his move.
This is unbelievable. Imagine being stuck with this paranoid idiot for a millennium in this forest. I do get it, though. Somewhat. I get the freedom of traversing the land around our home, while he's stuck here. The only reason I didn't ditch him by now is what we've been through before.
He done some bad things in the past, but he didn't deserve all of this.
"Ketcher, listen. Whether you think he's coming back or not, it won't matter if you keep worrying and go insane. We have to find this as an opportunity. To do things we could never do as a pony. You have this forest, and everything in it, in the palm of your hoof.
And what am I supposed to do? Plant some trees? Unleash a stampede of bouncing baby bunnies? Yeah that'll scare them.
Besides, I'm not even THE forest, I'm only part of it.
"Haven't you remembered anything in school? Don't you know what's in this place? Every root, plant, animal, big or small, is controlled by the magic of this forest. With your powers and a little practice, This forest can be a little trouble for the town next to it."
So, you mean... revenge?
"Not exactly. You can't enact revenge on someone who's already dead. We can just continue our old business, causing mischief throughout the town, with a few changes, improvements maybe."
All of a sudden, a laugh came from all over the forest.
That dumb wizard didn't know what he was doing when he sent me here.
So we spent years practicing... and practicing... and practicing.
From rabbit to snake to wolf to manticore, we started learning the patterns of bigger, stronger animals. We learned to control anything that was connected to the ground.
But I was getting worried. As he was controlling these animals more and more, he was acting.. ecstatic. He started controlling animals all the time, which I thought was just more practice, but the next thing I knew he was making them fight each other, kill each other.
And even then, I didn't think much of it. He had to have fun, right? My real worry appeared when I said we were ready to cause troubles to ponies.
It just blew up.
I need to explain the rest in more detail. I had to find a way to end his rampage. I needed help.
And who knew the power of friendship was exactly the help I needed?