“Hmmmm…” Lance pulled out his map of Equestria from his pack, looking for the nearest town to stop at. “According to this, the nearest town should be Dodge City, and it is just over those mountains.” Looking ahead, Lance was able to barely see the Macintosh Hills. They were mountains that created a barrier of sorts for the Badlands, and for some reason, they had snow on them, which was odd, considering that the Badlands themselves were unreasonable hot.

“Whatever, Dodge City, here I come!!!” Lance declared as he charged straight for the mountains. He maneuvered through the sandy dunes with little drag, since he was well accustomed to it, and whatever dangerous creatures he encountered, like the dangerous land scorpions and sand worms, he was more than capable of defeating, thanks to all of the training he engaged in. Lance soon reached the mountains, thinking of a way to get over them. He could fly over them, but his wingspan didn't enable him to fly for a long period of time. After looking from left to right, Lance figured that he couldn't walk around them. He decided to try climbing it, but no sooner did he decide to do that, did he look at the map again, and he saw a narrow path a bit off on the right. Lance face-hoofed himself and started off towards the path. Once Lance found the path, he saw that it was a cave, and it had many, many tunnels traversing throughout the mountains.

“Just my luck. Oh well, might as well start going through them” Lance exasperated, and he started going through them one at a time. Many of the tunnels lead him to dead ends, and one even lead him to where there was an unfortunate end to a unicorn with a picture of what he looked like. Apparently, he couldn’t find his way out, and withered away until he was nothing but a husk of what he once was. Lance decided to give the unfortunate soul a moment of silence, and then took his picture, deciding to use this form as a disguise.

“At least now I have a form to use. Forgive me for what I will do with your form good sir.” Lance solemnly said, as after looking at the picture for 10 seconds, used his magic to transform into said unicorn. Lance now had a cream body, with a multi-shaded brown mane and tail, and his legs had a coned form of light and dark brown shades. Giving himself one last look of his new form, Lance traced his steps back, chose the one tunnel that he didn’t take, and found his way out.

“Finally…..I found a way out, but at the expense of time. I’d better get to a hotel before it gets late” Lance told himself, and rushed on towards the small community that was Dodge City.

--------------- Dodge City ---------------

As Lance crossed the entrance to the town, he saw railroad tracks, ponies closing up shop, and the sunset just about to finish. He saw a earth pony stallion pass him and he proceeded to get his attention.

“Excuse me sir, but do you know where there’s a resting area around here?” Lance asked

“Sure thing sir; Hotel’s just a bit further down this road. You have a nice night now” the friendly stallion said, pointing to the building where Lance had to go to. He then tipped his off hat to the new traveler and proceeded to go to his own house.

“Thanks” Lance responded, and went off to the hotel building, where a mare earth pony receptionist was finishing up on her check-through of the day’s log list, when she saw a brown shaded unicorn stroll on up to her.

“Greetings sir; Welcome to Dodge Junction; My name is Samantha…. Will you be staying for the night?” she asked the strange guest.

“I sure am. My name is Lance, and any room you have open is fine with me” Lance responded, while the receptionist added his name to the book, and gave him a key to room 16.

“That’ll be 30 bits. Have a pleasant sleep now” Samantha stated, as Lance ruffled through his pack, and pulled out exactly 30 bits, nodded to Samantha, and went off to find the room. Once he found it, he used his key to turn the door open and looked around.

“Not bad. Luckily I won’t have to keep this form up for long” Lance spoke in his head as he locked the door, and dropped the disguise, returning to his changeling self and flopping onto the bed. As he took a breath of air, he looked at his locket, and the picture inside. He closed his eyes in solemn anguish, and looked up to the ceiling.

“I’ll make the both of you proud…...no matter what” Lance silently said to himself, as he put the locket on the side table near his bed, and went off to sleep.

------------------ Morning, Dodge City ------------------

Yawning, Lance got up, refreshed after what happened yesterday, and changing back to his new unicorn form, got his stuff together proceeded to give the key back to Samantha, and purchased a train ticket to Appleloosa, which costed him a good 50 bits, which he was quick to argue because it was practically a few feet away, but the ticket master explained how they needed to make a profit and a whole bunch of “reasons”. Shaking his head and not wanting to deal with him any longer than he had to, Lance gave him the money and sat down on a seat. 10 minutes later, he reached Appleloosa, and looking around, he saw a whole bunch of liveliness and upbeat emotion swirling around the atmosphere. Taking it all in, Lance was able to re-charge himself a bit as he took it all in, but this peaceful feeling wouldn’t last for long. As he walked around and wanted to get him a nice meal, a large dust cloud came towards the town, but it wasn’t no ordinary dust cloud. When it stopped, a gang of rowdy bulls stood in its place, looking at the entirety of the soon to be looted town with fiendish smiles and sinister glares.

Author's Note

Next time: good old western justice will be dished out.

So most likely, the next chapter will have a sex scene, and I wanted to know from you guys how I should approach this.

A: fit it in the story along with everything else
or
B: make a separate chapter for the sex scene, and continue off after it happened.

Please give me feedback on what I should do, along with what I should add in the story to make it more better for you readers. Thanks for reading, and I'll see ya next time.