The Rings

"Good morning, Sweet Pea!" Fluttershy exclaimed.

Sweet Pea awoke to a beautiful morning, with clear skies and a warm breeze. It was certainly a lot safer than the forest in Johto, where mornings were cold and predators were everywhere. Sweet Pea considered staying there all day, but forests were where Chikorita lived, so she walked into the dark forest she arrived in yesterday to look for food.

Inside of the dark forest - Sweet Pea remembered Fluttershy calling it the Everfree Forest - it was still eerily silent. She walked slowly, carefully, looking around for any sign of danger. There were no Fearow, Nidorino, or even Paras around. There also weren't any fruits she recognised, or any fruits at all. Sweet Pea thought the forest was completely empty, until she heard a deep growling sound coming from far away...

Deeper into the forest, Sweet Pea saw a small, round cabin. It smelled strange, and she could hear, but not understand, talking coming from inside of it. She walked past it. The growling sound got louder...

Further into the forest, there was a river. It rushed so fast that it drowned out all other sounds, and it seemed to stretch on forever. Out of curiosity, Sweet Pea dipped a foreleg into the rushing water, put quickly pulled it out after she discovered it was freezing.

Sweet Pea turned around, and noticed several yellow lights coming towards her from several directions. As they came closer, she could see that they were quadrupedal monsters made of wood. Several of them noticed the tiny Chikorita, and opened their jaws wide. As they advanced, Sweet Pea only had one option: she had to run.

Sweet Pea ran as fast as her tiny legs could carry her, but the wooden monsters were quickly catching up to her. By the time she got close to the strange-smelling cabin again, they were almost behind her. When she was almost cornered, she heard the sound of the cabin's door opening. The wooden monsters turned to look towards the one who had opened a door, a young pony who was yellow-furred like Fluttershy, with no wings and a bow in her red mane. The pony shrieked as the monsters came closer to her, then ran towards the exit of the forest faster than Sweet Pea could ever have. The Chikorita hurled a few small leaves at the wooden monsters, but it barely harmed them. She ran out of the forest, hoping that the pony would be okay.

"...And then those timberwolves started chasin' me!"

Later on that day, Apple Bloom was talking to her two best friends, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, in their clubhouse. Although they now had their cutie marks, they still met there regularly.

"I could've easily dealt with those timberwolves!" exclaimed Scootaloo.

"That's what you would say..." said Sweetie Bell. She then pointed a hoof at the green sauropod that had followed Apple Bloom. "What's that? It looks like a leafasaurus..."

"I found it in the Everfree Forest after I visited Zecora," said Apple Bloom. "She must've followed me here."

"The Everfree Forest?" gasped Sweetie Belle. "That creature could be really dangerous!"

"She doesn't seem dangerous," objected Scootaloo.

"Well, she COULD be!"

"But most of the monsters that come out of the Everfree are all big and scary! This one isn't."

"Remember the parasprites?"

"Those weren't from the Everfree."

"QUIET!" Apple Bloom shouted. Even the newly-dubbed "leafasaurus" looked startled. "I think we should wait a while and see if this leafasaurus will cause trouble or not!"

"And if it does cause trouble?" argued Sweetie Belle.

"Well, somepony will be able to deal with it, right?"

Ponyville was strange even by Equestrian standards. It had been attacked by giant, celestial bears, cute bugs that ate everything and multiplied rapidly, and bugbears, among other things, all in the span of slightly over a year. Thankfully, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony - including Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle's older sisters - were always there to deal with such problems, to varying degrees of success.

The leafasaurus quietly left the clubhouse.

"Did we upset it or something?" said Scootaloo.

That evening, Sweet Pea was talking to Fluttershy again. She had left the clubhouse of the three small ponies earlier on when she realized they were having an argument, though she didn't know what it was about. Besides, she really liked talking to the kind pony.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see that you're okay!" exclaimed Fluttershy. "The Everfree Forest is so dangerous - I was worried about you!"

"I was chased by wooden monsters..." said Sweet Pea.

"Those are called timberwolves."

"But besides those, what else is so bad about that forest?"

"You really don't know? Well, it's... different from the rest of Equestria. Ponies can't control anything there. The weather happens all on its own, and the plants grow all over the place... It's just so... unnatural..."

Sweet Pea was about to ask how that was strange - after all, it sounded a lot like the place she came from - but then she remembered the thoughts she had the previous night. Was she in another world? Since things seemed to work a lot differently here, not to mention that the local wildlife was completely unrecognisable, she realized that her suspicions were correct.

But will I be able to go back?

Sweet Pea decided that she would go into the Everfree Forest again tomorrow, regardless of Fluttershy's objections. While this new world was nice, Johto was still where she belonged.