Ancient evils

Chapter 22: Control

"It's been quite a while since we left Cloudsdale." said Applejack. "And I'm startin' to get hungry."

"Me too, let's land and see if we can find anything, there's a forest below." said Rainbow Dash.

"Wait, a forest?" asked Applejack.

"Yeah, what about it?" asked Rainbow Dash

Applejack looked down below. to see a very strange sight. The land below looked...normal. Maybe even pleasant. She saw apple trees, and started to freak the buck out with excitement.

"Apples!" she yelled. "They look so good! I haven't seen something so good in, well, ever!"

"Applejack, are you alright?" Rainbow looked down where she was looking, but saw no apples. But that didn't matter now, she saw something much better.

"Is that...the Wonderbolts?" she said with disbelief.

Applejack didn't even respond, she was to enthralled by the ground below. She couldn't take it anymore, this balloon was landing too slowly. She jumped out, mouth open wide, staring right at the apples. Rainbow chased after her, but not to save her. Rainbow whizzed by Applejack, touching down on the ground. Applejack came close to the ground, when a vine shot out and caught her, slowly lowering her to the ground.

"I can't let me pretty little ponies get damaged, now can I?" said a voice.

The voice came from within the forest. Rainbow didn't care, and tried her best to shut it out of her mind. She approached the Wonderbolts, who were standing still, silent. It was an eerie sight, but all that mattered to Rainbow was to meet them. Applejack ran towards the trees, and saw the most beautiful sight of her life. A gigantic apple, the size of her head, hung from one of the trees. It hung low enough she could grab it with her mouth. The apple shone brightly, and as she approached, more appeared around her. At this point the balloon had landed, still intact enough to fly, but a little beat up. Applejack saw sweet apple acres, and the apple trees. She saw this apple on one of her trees. This was hers, and hers alone. She planted the seeds of it, and all of it's apples grew this magnificently. She got a ribbon for these apples. Not just any ribbon, a blue one! She was recognized throughout Equestria for owning the world's best apple farm. All she had to do was pick the apple. Rainbow Dash had visions of joining the Wonderbolts. Not just joining them, but she was elected their leader. She was known throughout the world as the best flier. She was 20% cooler than any other pony, and posters and action figures of her were sold everywhere. And all she had to do was greet them now.

"Do you want this?" said the voice.

Both ponies nodded.

"Then take it." said the voice.

They both reached forward to grab their respective visions, and vines began to wrap around their hooves. But they didn't care, they had their dreams in front of them. They had to reach them.

"Rainbow! Applejack!" yelled two voices in near unison.

This snapped them out of the trance for long enough to see Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie being grabbed by vines, fighting them off the best they could. They both reached their hooves back, and ran to their friends. This made the voice mad. RD and Applejack ran to their friends, and helped them out of the vines.

"You cannot leave! You are my property!" yelled the voice.

Following said voice came a brown unicorn mare with a green mane, charging at them. She stopped, and her horn shone. She rose a large chunk of rock out of the earth, and sent it spiraling towards the four ponies. The rock narrowly missed, but exploded into fire behind them.

"What is this, a Micheal Hay film?" said Pinkie.

"She's a druid, she can control nature." said Fluttershy.

"You know her?" asked Applejack.

"She's the last protector of the Everfree, we should try not to harm her too badly." said Fluttershy.

"Just try." said a voice coming from the forest, not the mare.

The mare had a look of fear and regret on her face as her horn lit up once more. The flames behind the ponies began to chase them down.

"Get in the forest!" yelled Fluttershy.

This seemed counter-intuitive, but the ponies listened and went deeper in to the forest. The flames stopped, the druid seemed to be having a fight with her self, writhing in pain. The fire disappeared, and the druid got back up. She changed tactics, and a vine pulled her into the trees. A torrential rain started above them, and thunder began to strike.

"I'll just kick those clouds away!" said Rainbow, as she flew into the skies.

Lighting struck all around her, for this was no natural storm. Heavy winds blew her back and forth, but she stayed determined. She began kicking clouds left and right, but was getting bettered down by the storm. Fluttershy was on her way to help, but being a weaker flier, it took her some time. They managed to clear most of the clouds away, when a loud smack echoed through the sky. Fluttershy was hit by a chunk of rock thrown into the sky, and was unable to keep herself up. Her left wing was hurt, and she spiraled trying to stay up, and was falling pretty fast. Pinkie ran to catch her, and managed to grab her. She set Fluttershy down, as she was still pretty hurt, and began barreling towards the druid. Applejack followed her lead, and charged in as well. Rainbow finished clearing the skies, and began charging down. The druid began flinging balls of fire up into the sky at rainbow, where they would not damage the forest.  Rainbow began flying in erratic patterns to confuse the druid, which gave Applejack and Pinkie enough time to buck her out of the tree. She fell to the ground, in pain.

"No!" said a voice from the forest.

The druid seemed to give up the fight, and stopped attacking the four ponies. She was hurt, and scared. She ran off into the forest. Another unicorn mare came out from behind the bushes. She looked incredibly frail and sickly, like you could blow on her and break her bones. Her skin was a dark blue, and she had a withered out, damaged looking grey mane hanging from her head. Her eyes were a very strange shade of grey, unusually pale. She had a hard time walking, but she nonetheless made it towards them. Her horn began to glow, and she cast a spell on the four ponies. She once more tried to lure them in with their greatest desires, but it was of no use. They already had everything they needed, and that was their friends. Applejack bucked her, and she toppled over,  powerless. She tried to cast a spell once more, but her casting was interrupted by Rainbow's blade to her gut.

"I am... a general... of Sin!" she coughed out. "I will not be defeated by such...pawns! I am the very essence of control!"

"So you're a general, eh?" said Rainbow. "So that means two down."

"What!" yelled Control.

"Suffering's been taken down already." said Applejack.

But Control could not respond. She began convulsing violently, fighting her death as much as she could. She put up quite a fight for a mare in her condition. You'd almost think death was having a hard time besting her, but she eventually gave in to his demands, and went silent.