~oOo~
Ugh, I had too much to drink last night. Way too much to drink. I looked around as I got up, noticing that I was in the middle of the woods. Great, I must've wandered off during the party. I felt around my body, and found that my costume was still intact. Well, that was something. At least I didn't break anything. My mace was right next to me as well, which meant that by some miracle, I had actually managed to hold onto it for the whole night.
I picked up my mace and raised my other hand to hold my head, which currently felt like Gallagher had used my head as a prop instead of a watermelon.
Slowly, but surely, I began trudging through the woods, trying to find the road. I had no idea where I had ended up, but I couldn't have gone too far from where the party was, right? I was beginning to notice some strange things. My armor seemed heavier than it did, and so did my mace, but I was still intensely hungover, so that was probably just me being a bit weak from the alcohol. I also felt like I was taller, but that was probably just because I was disoriented, because once again, hangover city, baby.
Eventually, I came across a river. Well, less of a river, more of a big stream. It would probably be good for me to splash my face with some cold water, so I walked down to the side of the river, took of my helmet, and began throwing water in my face.
Damnit, that felt good. It didn't get rid of the pounding headache, but at least it woke me up a bit more.
"Ogh, I need to get moving." I really did. I had work tonight! Plus, I had already been late once this week, and my boss was really strict. That asshole had already fired two of my coworkers for turning up late at the museum. Jared was just lazy, but Katie was only late because her car broke down. Not that he cared. Fuckin' asshole. Plus, he didn't even seem like he was interested in history. Why would he work at a museum if he wasn't interested in history? I mean, I wasn't interested, but I wasn't the manager, I just worked at the gift shop. Having him as my boss was like having a teacher that you knew hated kids.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, I stopped to rest on a rock. My stomach was really not feeling good. I started to feel some buildup, and pulled my helmet off as quickly as I could, and threw up on the ground. I had to lean way forward with my legs spread really far while holding my cape up behind me so that I didn't get any on my costume.
I wiped my mouth off with a leaf from a nearby tree (I didn't want to get any on my gauntlets) and sat there for a moment before I started walking again. I was passing through a clearing when I heard some rustling in the underbrush. I spun around, trying to pinpoint where it was. It was too loud to be just a chipmunk or a squirrel, and my paranoid hungover mind jumped immediately to the worst conclusion: I was being hunted by wolves. I held up my mace in front of me, as if I was a rookie soldier learning how to hold a sword.
I turned out to be right about the wolves, but they weren't actually wolves.
I saw the eyes first. Their glow penetrated the leaves and branches, pushing through to glare at me. Then they moved forward, and revealed that they were attached to six large wolves, made of leaves and branches - they weren't hiding in the underbrush, they were the underbrush!
My eyes widened in shock. Maybe I could've taken one wolf, two if I was lucky. But six? No fuckin' way, man. Absolutely not. So, I did the smart thing and made a tactical retreat.
In other words, I ran.
I spun on my heels and hauled ass outta that clearing like nobody's business. Considering how fast I was moving, I would've been great for the track team, if they had just made an event where you get chased down the track by wolves.
If I wasn't wearing gauntlets, I would've seen my knuckles going white from how hard I was squeezing the handle of my mace. I don't know how long I ran, but after a while, I got too tired to continue. So, I stopped to catch my breath and got into a fighting position. If I was gonna be torn apart by timber wolves (ooooh, I get it), I was gonna put up a fight, at least.
The wolves entered the arena, only now there were ten of them instead of six. I was gonna get ripped to shreds! I was only seventeen! I wasn't even an adult, and now I was gonna die in the middle of the woods getting eaten by a bunch of wooden canines! This couldn't happen, this couldn't possibly be real -
'That's it!' I thought, 'This isn't real! I'm just having a dream.' The wolves' growling distracted me from my inner monologue. 'A really... really bad dream.' I was starting to panic. 'Ok, what are you supposed to do to wake yourself up from a nightmare? Pinch yourself?' I glanced down at my armored form. Unfortunately, I would not be able to pinch myself through my costume. 'Well, what about pinching yourself makes you wake up? Come on, Will, THINK!' The wolves were getting closer, beginning to circle around me. 'Pain! It's the pain that makes you wake up!' Ok, so all I had to do was hurt myself. Preferably without the use of claws and teeth.
Before I could do anything more, the closest one lunged at me. Acting on instinct, I swung my mace around to hit it, and to my joy, it met the wolf head on. My mace smashed into it with more force than it should have had, considering it was made of wood and plastic. Anyways, my mace hit the wolf head on - quite literally, in fact - it smashed the wolf's head to pieces.
"They-they're made of wood." The realization dawned on me. "They're made of wood! They're just wood! HAH!" Panic mode was off, though there were still alarm bells ringing in the back of my mind. Now, I was feeling more confident. Confident that I could win. That I could walk away from this.
The one that I had smashed didn't appear to be getting up any time soon, so that was one down.
"And nine to go." Two more of them lunged at me at once, and I jogged backwards, so that they missed, and brought my mace down on one's head. It shattered, just like it's friend's, and then I kicked the other one in the face, disorienting it. While it was stunned, I started beating it with my mace, eliciting whimpers from the wooden dog, although they were short lived.
Now there were seven of them left. This was pretty fun, actually. I swung my mace in my hand, spinning it in a circle like a baseball bat.
"Come on, you fuckers. COME ON!" Another one ran at me, while two more moved to circle behind. I smashed the one that jumped at me into bits, yelling "GET SOME!" At the top of my lungs. I was pretty happy with myself, until something crashed into me from behind and I fell flat on my face. I turned over, and would've gotten a faceful of teeth if I hadn't rolled to the right. I kept rolling, and then jumped onto my feet, ready to smash some more timber wolves.
~oOo~
After about ten minutes, it was over. All the wolves were dead, and I was now trying to sate my curiosity about how the hell they could have existed in the first place. I had picked up a piece from one of their shattered corpses, and was examining it. Well, as best as I could. I wasn't a scientist, but I knew the basics. As far as I could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the wood that they were made up of. I considered magic, but magic wasn't real, it was a fun tool for fantasy writing, nothing more.
It was at this point that one of the corpses started glowing green, tendrils of green energy extending to the other broken canines. The broken wood started moving inwards, towards the energy, and pretty soon, there was a big lump of glowing wood. Unfortunately for me, that big lump was moving, and began to take the shape of a very large - and presumably very angry - timber wolf.
"Oh, shit." Time for another tactical retreat, everyone!
This fucking this was huge. It was almost twice as large as my dad's truck, only it was also alive, hungry, and angry at me, for smashing all of the little mini-me's it had into pieces.
The only upside in all of this was that my head had stopped hurting.
Of course, it didn't take very long before I tripped, and the gigantic wolf that was chasing me had no trouble catching up. It jumped towards me, and I stuck my right arm out, hiding my head in my left as I accepted my fate.
To my surprise, I was not immediately turned into prime William t-bone steak. In fact, when I peeked out from under my arm, the giant timber wolf was just hanging in the air, looking just as confused as I was.
I was very confused as to how exactly this was happening. I glanced from my hand, to the wolf, and back to my hand. One thing I noticed, other than the fact that I was somehow holding a giant wooden wolf in the air with... the force? Was that my ring was gone. Fucking hell! That thing was really nice, and I payed a pretty penny for it.
Speaking of, if you haven't figured it out by now, I was dressed as Sauron. The one from the middle-earth games, that is. The one from the movies is badass as well, but he's just too lanky for my liking.
Ok, So I somehow have... abilities, let's call it. I was feeling both panicked and elated. There was a piece of me whispering in the back of my mind that this was vindication for all those times that I tried to use the force on the TV remote. Oh, don't even try to judge me for it, because you know you've done it too. Everyone has. Y'know, when you're in a really comfortable position, and you don't wanna get up, but the remote is juuuuuuuuust out of your reach, so you think 'No one's around to see me, and if it works, I'm a jedi!' Anyways, to my chagrin, any control that I had over the big wolf vanished when I started reminiscing about couch magic, and the thing dropped to the ground.
Quick as I could, I refocused on the wolf, and tried to do what I had just done, and to my absolute joy, the wolf found itself floating once more. Ok, so I just have to keep focused. Simple enough. I can question my knowledge of the universe later, now is survival time. I moved my hand, and the wolf moved with it.
"Maybe..." I clenched my hand into a fist, and the gigantic wolf made a small whimper before being crushed down into a little ball of splintered wood and torn leaves, which subsequently fell apart.
I was more than a little shocked at the revelation that I could use magic, since it was quite obvious that was what it was. I sat in silence for... oh, I don't know how long. Couldn't have been longer than an hour, cause the sun didn't move that much.
I got up and started walking. I wasn't really paying attention as to where I was walking, I had just started walking south and was hoping that I ran into some kind of road, anything that would help me get back to the party house, and my car. Like I said, I wasn't paying much attention to where I was walking, because for most of the time, I was deep in thought. I could use magic. It was hard to believe at first, but as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said, 'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' I had checked, double checked, and triple checked my costume for any sort of tech that could possibly be responsible for what I had done. I had found none. So, the only option that I could see that was left was that I had used magic. I was probably not thinking of some other thing, but I thought pretty hard and I don't think I missed anything.
One other thing I found while I was inspecting my costume for any gadgets, was that it was all very real armor now. By that, I mean that all the pieces that I had 3D printed out of plastic were now metal, and there was chain mail in places where there should have been cloth. I had no idea how the hell that could have happened, so I'm gonna say... magic?
I walked for a long while, but I eventually came across a large field, and on the other side of it lay an orchard of some kind. On further inspection, I found that it was an apple orchard. Thank god, cause I was really hungry. I hadn't realized it until now, but damn, yes I was. The last time I ate was last night, and that was more than twelve hours ago. Plus, y'know, fighting a bunch of wooden dogs probably consumes quite a few calories.
After pulling my helmet off, I grabbed an apple off the tree and bit into it. DAMN, was it good. I don't know if I thought it was so tasty because I was just really, really hungry, but I didn't care, cause that apple tasted like heaven in a fruit. I finished off four more of them, then put my helmet back on and continued my walk through the orchard. I felt kinda bad for eating someone's crop, but they had a lot of fuckin' apples here, and I was really hungry.
It was shortly after my late lunch that it occurred. By it, I mean... well, you'll see.
I was walking through the orchard and came across a treehouse. It was a really nice one, too. Pretty girly, but it was evident that someone had done a bit of work making it look nice. Well, what they thought was nice. there were hearts on the door, and the shutters. Probably some guy's idea of a great birthday present for his little girl.
It was then that I found myself upside down.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS: MONSTER HUNTERS!!!!!!!" What the fuck?
"Awww, we still don't have them. Guess we're not monster hunters either..." What the fuck?
"Well, we'll just have to keep searching!" What the fuck?
"YAAAAAAY!" What the FUCK?
In front of my face (which was dangling a few feet off the ground) were three small horses. Except one was white with a pink mane, one was yellow with a red mane, and one was orange with a purple mane. That's not how horse colors work!
Even worse, the white one had a horn, and the orange one had wings! WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!??
The three of them ran off to the tree house, slamming the door shut, evidently having forgotten all about me.
"HEY!" I shouted. "A LITTLE HELP?"
The yellow one poked its head out the door of the treehouse.
"Oh! Guys, we forgot about the monster!"
"Not a monster!" Damnit, stupid horses.
"Oh, we should go help him down."
"Yeah, even if he is a monster, it's not nice to just leave him... hanging around." UGH, puns. I HATE puns. Well, not always. But I hated that one. "GET IT??" The treehouse erupted in laughter, the three little horses giggling up a storm in their little hideout.
"I'm sure that was very funny, but I'M STILL HANGING FROM A TREE!"
They immediately ran out of the treehouse, and the one with a horn shot a small energy blast at the rope that was holding my foot - oh, shit.
I fell down, and I would have broken my neck if I didn't know how to land properly. That is to say, rolling up into a ball so that my head wasn't sticking out.
"Sorry, mister! We were just trying to get our cutie marks!" What the fuck was a cutie mark? Some gay tattoo? And why would tying me up in a tree get them a stupid tattoo? And why were they allowed to get tattoos? And why were they talking?? Oh, I have so many questions...
"Yeah, we're the Cutie Mark Crusaders! We won't stop until we find them!"
"And we will find them! We know we will!"
"Yeah, and we won't give up until we do!"
"I already said that."
"No, you said we won't stop until we find them."
"That's the same thing!"
"SHUT UP!!!!!!" I blasted all of them away from me, which unfortunately had the effect of making them all scream and go running towards the group of buildings in the distance. Wait, buildings?
I took off after them, following them through the maze that was the orchard towards the large barn that sat in the middle of the endless trees. When I got close enough, I heard the screaming stop (they had kept screaming the entire time they were running) and now they appeared to be talking to someone.
"Applejack, there's a monster chasing us!"
"A monster?" Great, they were now talking to a large, orange technicolor horse. Well, I say large...
"Yeah, he's a big scary monster and OH MY GOD HE'S RIGHT THERE!!!!" The yellow one pointed right at where I was hiding, behind one of the smaller barns.
I went back to hiding, and snuck around the barn. I might've gotten somewhere, but I suddenly found myself bound by a lasso. Turning around, I saw that it was the orange horse who had lassoed me.
"Now, feller, you surrender peacefully, an' I won't have ta hurt ye." Aaaand she had a Texas accent. Brrrrilliant.
I broke the rope with little effort (which was a bit surprising) and started to run, but something tripped me, and I fell flat on my face. When I went to get up, I was met with two hooves in the face.
Nighty-night.
Author's Note
Whoops! I know I said it was gonna be an Oryx displaced story, but I'm sooooo changeable!
In reality, I just thought that Sauron was a better pick for a displaced than Oryx, and to be honest, I just wanted to write this more than I wanted to write the Oryx displaced story.
Anyways, I'll try to get another chapter out in a couple of days (maybe a week)
EDIT: I have rewritten the entire thing because I thought that I could write it differently like right after I published it, and I thought that it would be better, and intense insecurity and perfectionism don't make a great pair.
