Oncoming Storm: What Lurks Beyond

Chapters

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
It All Starts Going Wrong
Things Get Groovy
Bad Vibrations
Epilogue

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Road trips are always fun. Who does not love the chance to go out and see somewhere new and spend some time relaxing in a new locale? What is less fun is the process of getting there. Especially when it involves being stuck in a vehicle with several teenage girls of varying levels of stir-craziness after being packed in a vehicle for several hours.

Rainbow Dash groaned, massaging her thighs. “Ugh, I’m cramping up, Storm. You mind stopping so I can stretch out a bit?”

I sighed and took a deep breath. “We are only a few minutes away from the cabin, Rainbow. Just be patient.”

“Fine,” Rainbow did her best to stretch her legs out in the back seat, earning a few token grumbles from Twilight and Sunset as her legs slipped into their space. “Sorry. Least your jeep has plenty of leg room. Cloud’s car is great and all, but it’s a little small to be stuck in for a couple hours.”

Star glanced up from her phone for the first time since we’d started the road trip, but only long enough to roll her eyes. “Patience.”

“Easy to say when your legs aren’t the ones cramping up,” Rainbow grumbled not-quite under her breath.

“It’s just a couple more minutes,” Sunset assured her. Then she swooped in to change the subject to something a bit safer. “It was really nice of your uncle to let us go camping on your land.”

Much to everyone’s shock, Star actually opted to interact with someone without using her phone. “Uncle Tor’s great like that.”

“Yeah, Cloud took me out there once,” Rainbow chimed in. “It’s a pretty cool place, I think you’ll like it. The water in the lake nearby is great, there’s plenty of forest for Fluttershy to go hanging out in and find animals and stuff, and we’re far enough into the woods that Pinkie can make as much noise as she wants without anyone telling her to keep it down.” She paused, then shrugged. “Well, except for us if it’s two in the morning and we’re trying to sleep.”

“I’m sure she knows how to exercise some self-control,” Twilight said, perhaps a touch optimistically. “Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this. We haven’t really been out camping since Camp Everfree, and that sort of...”

“Well, this time we probably don’t need to worry about the head of the camp going mad with power and rampaging around with uncontrolled Equestrian magic,” Sunset finished for her.

“Good thing, too.” Rainbow grinned and pumped a fist. “I can’t be the only one who’s pumped for a weekend with a cabin to ourselves and absolutely no adult supervision.”

“Yeah, it should be a lot of fun,” Sunset agreed. “Just remember we’re supposed to be helping out with the cleanup while we're there.”

I nodded along. “Dad is taking a youth group up there in a couple weeks, and he would like it to look reasonably presentable.”

Twilight frowned. “How bad is it?”

Rainbow shrugged. “The place looked fine last time I was up here, and Cloud’s parents aren’t exactly the types to trash the place with wild parties.” She glanced over at Star and myself. “Can’t imagine yours are, either. A priest and a head-doc aren’t the sorts to go wild.”

They were not. I cleared my throat. “The larger issue is that we just had loggers clearing out some of the old trees, and that left behind a bit of a mess.”

Star deigned to interact with the real world again. “Fire hazard. Biggest stuff’s gone, but there’s a lot of little stuff and leftovers that need cleanup. Can stock up on firewood from the trees the loggers didn’t want, too.”

“Are those the same guys that one friend of Fluttershy’s was protesting against?” Sunset asked.

“Yeah, Tree Hugger.” Rainbow sighed and shook her head. “I swear, with a name like that it’s like her parents wanted to predestine her to be an environmentalist hippie.”

“She seemed nice enough,” Sunset murmured. “Just a little ... um ... spacey.”

“S’one word for it,” Rainbow murmured. “I mean, I guess she’s not bad or anything, and she’s so laid back it doesn’t bug me when Flutters invites her along for stuff. Just ... I dunno. I wouldn’t really hang out with her or anything if she wasn’t along with Fluttershy.”

“So not on your friends list as much as your friend-of-a-friend list,” Star said. “Guess that explains why she’s not tagging along for the cleanup. Dad and Uncle Tor were gonna pay some landscapers to do it, but then we got volunteered.”

“Oh.” Twilight frowned thoughtfully. “Hopefully that won’t be too bad to deal with.”

I shook my head. “Considering there are eleven of us, the work should go quickly.”

Sunset grinned. “Especially when we can use a little magic to speed things up. I say as soon as we get there we get everything taken care of so we can get that out of the way and just enjoy ourselves for the rest of the weekend.”

“Sounds good to me,” Rainbow groaned and rubbed her legs. “Getting a little exercise would be nice after being cooped in a car for a couple hours.”

“So what’s it like out there?” Sunset asked. “Anything special about it?”

“Just a lot of wilderness,” Rainbow answered. “The next cabin isn’t for miles, and that’s just a shack the logging companies use whenever they’re working in the area.” She smirked. “So don’t worry if you hear any chainsaws off in the distance, it doesn’t mean we’re about to be the stars of Splattergoria XIII. So looking forward to that, just two more weeks ‘til it’s out. Think we could make a movie night outta it?” She held up a hand to cut off any objections. “Assuming Fluttershy’s okay with skipping? Hate to leave her out, but...”

“Yeah, that’s not her kind of movie.” Sunset sighed and shook her head. “And we already nearly scared her off from movie night entirely after the last ... incident.”

Twilight flushed and sank down into her seat. “The book won a lot of awards, and it was an animated movie about rabbits! I thought she’d like it!”

“I thought it was awesome,” Rainbow chimed in. “Never knew rabbits could be so hardcore. Though I guess if it’s my kinda movie, that’s a warning sign that it might be a bit too intense for ‘Shy.”

“We all make mistakes,” Sunset concluded. “Let’s just learn from it and move on.”

“Next time, GTS before you watch it,” Star murmured, not even looking up from her phone.

I turned off the highway and started heading down a gravel road into the woods. The sudden explosion of green as the jeep went beneath the canopy was almost disorienting. Sunset rolled down a window and grinned. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about how isolated we are. There’s not even a paved road.”

“Welcome to the middle of nowhere.” I slowed down a bit more, just to be safe. “It is great land for camping, especially since Uncle Tor and Aunt Nim loaned us enough milspec camping equipment to live out here if we really wanted to.”

Twilight smiled and nodded. “I do like the idea of being well prepared. I’m pretty sure I brought everything I needed.” She pulled out her phone and started swiping through several pages of notes and lists just to be sure.

Sunset groaned and leaned back in her seat. “I won’t complain after what happened at our last campout.” She grimaced, and an irritated growl entered her voice. “You’d think a brand new tent that says it’s waterproof would be able to handle a little rain.”

“That was way more than a little rain,” Rainbow pointed out. “The swimming hole overflowed and flooded our camp. The water was so cold it could’ve given us hypothermia.” She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “And that’s why we don’t camp out at Applejack’s anymore. That, and we all got sick of only eating apples.”

“Unless you like MREs, eating acorns or feel like hunting, you will not find any food in the woods at our cabin,” I let her know. “On the bright side, these tents are good for anything short of a hurricane, and if the weather gets too rough we can always fall back and stay in the cabin.”

“Sounds good.” Sunset grinned. “Roughing it a little bit is fine, but there are limits.”

“We do have electricity and WiFi,” I assured them. “You can tell by the fact that Star’s head hasn’t exploded the instant she was cut off from the internet.”

Star shrugged, not even bothering the look up from her phone. “I’ve got a cantenna and backup batteries just in case.”

Rainbow grinned. “I don’t know if Star is capable of surviving in a low-tech environment. Cutting her off from the internet would be like making Fluttershy watch Splattergoria or forcing Rarity to wear plaid.”

“What’s so bad about plaid?” Star actually looked up from her phone from that. Probably because she loved her flannel shirts almost as much as her phone.

Rainbow shrugged. “Nothing, just ... um, everyone says plaid is really unfashionable, and Rarity is super into fashion. So, you know...”

“Bandwagon fallacy.” Star went back to tapping on her phone, but she didn’t drop the conversation. “Flannel breathes without giving up too much heat, doesn’t stifle like synthetics, pairs well with most undershirts, is machine-washable on any setting, and goes well with pretty much any set of work pants. Also, the colors look better. Plaid's been around for longer than written history—they’ve dug up bodies from almost three thousand years ago wearing it. Oh, and did you know that the very first color photograph ever taken was of a plaid ribbon?”

Rainbow blinked and stared at her. “Holy crap, you know a lot about plaid.”

Star smirked and tapped her phone a couple more times. A second later Rainbow’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up. “Cute. A gif saying my Google-fu is weak. You know you could’ve just said that out loud with a lot less trouble than finding a gif and sending it to me.”

“Maybe it’s less effort for you,” Star murmured.

“It’s only a matter of time before Star gets that phone implanted directly into her brain,” I remarked.

Star scoffed and rolled her eyes. “With how fast these things get outdated? I’d be getting brain surgery every six months. Plus they’d probably put out a buggy update that’d make me punch myself in the face all the time or something.”

“Would that be a bug or a feature?” I quipped. Star scowled and angrily tapped at her phone, making mine buzz a moment later. “Driving, I cannot check it.”

“It’ll be worth the wait.” Star shifted in her seat so she could focus entirely on her phone without any risk of making eye contact with me.

Twilight chuckled and pulled out her own phone. “I’m surprised we can actually get a cell phone signal this far away from civilization.”

“Reception can be a bit spotty,” I warned them. “There might be some spots with no signal, but usually a bit of wandering around will be enough to fix it.”

Rainbow grinned. “You might not be as bad about it as Star is, but we know how much you hate to get cut off from all your science tools.”

“They’re incredibly useful,” Twilight offered in her own defense. “Really, I’m so used to having access to them that it’s weird not to.”

“I know what you mean.” Sunset chuckled and pulled out her phone. “I spent most of my life in a place where phones don’t even exist, and even I start feeling off if I can’t use mine for a while. Made my last visit to Equestria a bit weird whenever I wanted to text someone or do a quick internet search for some fact-checking.”

Star shrugged. “Like I said, my cantenna should get us taken care of. And if it doesn’t, I can always get my drone set up as a signal booster.”

Twilight grinned. “I saw you loading it up. Is that one of the new F1X3Rs?”

“Sure is,” Star confirmed with a proud grin. “I know they’re not quite as good out of the box as some of the other brands, but nobody buys an F1X3R to run it stock. There’s no point in having one if you haven’t modded it like crazy.”

“I am sure you have used it to find several dozen new ways to violate everyone’s privacy rights,” I groused.

Star shrugged. “If you have something you feel like you need to hide, you probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. Besides, not like I need a drone to figure out all your secrets, Skunky.”

“You are such a creeper.”

“But I’m not crazy,” Star shot back. “Mom’s an expert, and she had me tested. Not my fault if people post their private info somewhere public because they’re idiots about protecting their personal information.”

“But that does not mean you should go looking for it,” I countered. “And I doubt you limit yourself to publicly available information.”

Star rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid. If I tried to hack into some government or corporate database I’d bounce off all the security, and they’d catch me in an instant. Unless I used half a dozen proxies linked to a burner phone that was registered under a fake name tied to falsified credit card information...” She paused in tapping at her phone for a second. “Strictly a hypothetical answer, of course.”

I scowled at her as best I could without taking my eyes off the road. “Star, I swear, one of these days you’re going to—”

“Hate to interrupt you two having another sibling-off,” Rainbow cut in, “but isn’t that the cabin right up there?”

I blinked and returned my full attention to driving, realizing that I’d almost missed the turn-off for our cabin. I quickly slowed down and made it, heading down the driveway before coming to a stop in front of it. Calling it a cabin might have been a slight misnomer; it was built in the style of a classic log cabin, but most cabins weren’t two stories tall with an attic. The extra space was rather needed whenever we had a large family gathering or when Dad used it for one of his youth programs.

As soon as I pulled to a stop Rainbow bolted out the door, groaning and stretching her legs. “Woo! Space! How I missed you!” She started jogging in place, then transformed into a prismatic blur as she circled around the cabin several times.

“Someone went a little stir-crazy,” Sunset remarked.

“I’m half surprised she didn’t run here to start with,” Twilight agreed. “Maybe she was afraid of ruining her shoes again, but it’s not like she couldn’t bring a spare pair.”

“At least she is in a better mood now.” I opened up the back of the jeep. “Everyone get your gear. That includes you, Star—if you want to bring so many electronic toys for a simple camping trip, you can haul them all in yourself.”

Star rolled her eyes. “Like I’d trust you with carrying my stuff,” She grabbed an especially large backpack and pulled it on, then tucked her drone under one arm and her cantenna under the other. “Have to make a second trip for the rest of it.”

Twilight smiled and stepped over. “I can get the rest, I only brought my backpack.” She reached down and grabbed Star’s heavy reinforced tech carrying case, grunting a bit as she strained to pick it up. A second later her hands started glowing as she applied her magic to the task instead, but the sudden absence of all that weight sent her staggering backwards.

My hands were free, and I instinctively caught her before she fell on the ground. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay.” She glanced up at me and flushed slightly. “Oh. Hi. Sorry. Arms. Falling into. Clumsy.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded painfully awkward.

“It is fine.” I gently helped her steady herself. Then I stood there, feeling faintly embarrassed and extremely self-conscious. I was not sure why. She stumbled, and I caught her before she fell. That was perfectly ordinary. So why did I feel like everyone was staring at me and judging me for having done so? And why was I struggling to think of anything to say to her, while also feeling like it was extremely urgent I say something?

Before I could come up with anything, Star came running over. “Hey, careful with my stuff, Skunky! If you break that you pay for it!”

“I did not even touch it,” I grumbled. I had only touched Twilight Sparkle. She had been very warm. Surprisingly so.

“Sorry.” Twilightly sheepishly passed over the case. “I was just trying to help.”

Star snatched it away from her, grunting a bit at the weight as she cradled it against her chest. “Didn’t ask you to help.”

“Star!” I grabbed her by the elbow as she started to turn away. “She is a guest here. You could at least try to be a bit hospitable.”

Star blinked and stared at me for a second, then turned back to Twilight and ducked her head, not making eye contact. “Right. Sorry. Kinda protective of my tech. Especially when Mom and Dad weren’t sure about getting some of this for me in the first place because of the cost, and would probably read me the riot act if anything happened to it.”

“It’s okay.” Twilight’s shoulders slumped a bit, though she tried to force a smile “Sorry, I ... think I’ll just go over here then, and leave your stuff alone.”

Star shuffled back, her eyes dropping down. “Look, sorry I snapped at you. It’s expensive and I don't really like others handling it. You know how it goes.” She coughed and looked over her shoulder. “Anyway, the cabin's ready, so, uh...” She frowned and stood there for a couple seconds. “Um, want me to get your backpack while I’m on my way in?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” Twilight refused to meet her eyes, staring down at the ground.

“Okay.” Star looked down at her case for a more seconds. “I was just ... yeah.” She sighed and shook her head, murmuring under her breath, “What I get for trying to talk in meatspace.” She got out her phone and started tapping at it as she headed into the cabin.

I cleared my throat and tried to fix the damage Star had caused. “Allow me.” I took her bag without any trouble; compared to all the camping gear it was fairly light. One thing I could say for private military education: I had a lot of experience at walking long distances carrying heavy loads of gear. Adding one more bag to my load for the cabin barely even made a difference, and it should hopefully make her think better of me than Star. I did not want my sister to leave Twilight with a poor impression of us.

Twilight blinked as I got her bags. “Oh. Um, thanks.” She followed along behind me as I carried everything into the cabin. I just set everything in the foyer; we had yet to decide where things would be stored and who would be sleeping where. I was not even sure how we would want to divy up sleeping space, beyond a few obvious things like Cloud and Rainbow doubtlessly planning to share a tent.

As if summoned by my thoughts, Cloud pulled into the driveway. Rainbow grinned and zipped over to open up the driver’s side door for her. “Hey, slowpoke. I thought I was gonna be stuck waiting forever!”

Cloud climbed out and slugged her shoulder. “Hey you. Guess I should be flattered you’re this antsy after a couple hours away from me.”

“S’not like it’s a one-sided thing,” Sparkler chimed in as she got out of the passenger seat. “For the whole trip Cloud’s been pining for you like a parrot for the fjords. S’why you got booted to Storm’s jeep, would’ve been a huge distraction the whole time.”

Cloud and Rainbow both rolled their eyes in near-perfect unison before Cloud grinned and waved at me. “Hey Storm, we still planning to use this trip to quietly get rid of the brat duo?”

“We do have plenty of places to hide the bodies,” I agreed. “Though we might have brought a few too many witnesses.”

Cloud grinned. “After being stuck out here with Sparks and Star for an entire weekend, I think they’ll be happy to make the jump from witnesses to accomplices.”

“I feel the love,” Sparkler deadpanned. “Like a knife, right in my back.”

Applejack came in right behind Cloud, driving her farm truck along with most of our tools. She hopped out of the cab with a grin, surveying the damage left behind by the loggers. “Just a lotta little stuff to clean up, ain’t nothin’ a little work can’t fix. Ah’ve dealt with worse after a storm hits the orchards, and that’s just with me, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom.”

“So how long do you think it’ll take?” Sunset asked.

“You are the one who knows the most about this sort of thing,” Rarity added as she slid out of the passenger side of Applejack’s truck.

She frowned and looked the scene over, rubbing her chin. “If Ah hadta guess, Ah’d say maybe two, three hours. Which probably makes it closer to four whenever things go wrong, ‘cause they always do. ‘Course, that’s without figuring magic into it.”

Twilight smiled and nodded along. “Not everyone’s powers will be useful here. Sorry Sunset and Cloud, but I don’t think we’ll need to read minds or shoot anything. But obviously Applejack can carry the heavy stuff, Rarity and I can get to anything over ground level, and Rainbow’s speed is just useful no matter what.”

“What about me?!” Pinkie cried out as she got out Cloud’s backseat. “I can, I dunno, blow up anything we need to get rid of?”

“I’m not sure blowing things up would make the place cleaner,” Sunset pointed out.

“Ah wouldn’t be so quick to say that,” Applejack cut in. “Odds are we’re gonna have a ton of leftover wood to burn off, an’ smaller chunks of wood burn up a lot quicker than big logs. Still need enough to keep a proper fire goin’ for the campout and keep the slash piles properly set up, but as long as she can keep the kabooms smallish they’d help a lot. Heck, that’d be handy for clearing out stumps too.”

Pinkie grinned. “Turn big logs into little logs without kersploding everyone, check.”

Rarity smiled and started hauling her first four bags towards the cabin. “Well, best of luck with that. I’ll make you all something to snack on and get some cold drinks for us while you all get started.”

Rainbow smirked and nudged Applejack. “Told you she’d try to find an excuse to get out of all the hot sweaty dirty outside work.”

Applejack chuckled. “Yeah, only question was how quick she’d do it.”

Rarity shot both of them a withering glare. “Are you sure you want to insult the person who’s going to be making your food, darlings?”

Sunset swooped in to settle the disagreement before it boiled over. “I could use something to eat, and I bet everyone else is pretty hungry after the road trip. Thanks, Rarity.”

Sparkler grinned and started following behind her. “Tell you what, I’ll give emotional support and taste-test everything she makes.”

Cloud snagged her by the back of her shirt before she could get away. “Not so fast, brat.”

Rainbow grinned. “Yeah, Rarity gets away with it ‘cause she’s actually pretty good with food and ‘cause she’d be so miserable doing dirty outdoor work it’d bring the mood down for everyone. You’re just being lazy.” She smirked and turned to Applejack. “What’s the most unpleasant task we have to do? Cuz I think Sparkler just volunteered for it.”

Cloud chuckled. “Pretty sure Dad asked us to set up a compost heap, and Sparkler has a natural talent for piling up a load of crap.”

Sparkler groaned and rolled her eyes. “Everyone sees these two are totally bullying me, right? Shouldn’t you do some magical friendship thing to fix it and teach them a lesson about how they should be nice to me and not ask me to do chores?”

Cloud scoffed. “Nah, we’re just teaching you about hard work and responsibility. Think of it as your way of paying me back for saving your life while you were packing up. I don’t know what made you think trying to sneak off with some of Mom’s microbrews was a good idea, but if she’d found out you’d be lucky to just get grounded out of going on the trip and doing all the chores for a month.”

Sparkler sighed. “Oh come on, what’s the point of having a big teenage getaway with no adult supervision if we still have to follow all the rules? Movies and TV told me I’m supposed to get drunk, do drugs and have lots of sex the instant Mom and Dad aren’t there to stop me.”

“We are not going to be having that kind of weekend,” I cut in. “There will be nothing but good clean fun once the work is over, and the wildest I expect we’ll get is staying up way too later playing games and talking. Now then, we should draw up some sort of game plan to get the work done as fast as possible.”

“So we need a list? Pinkie grinned and pointed to Twilight. “‘Cause lists are her jam. But don’t put jam on her lists, ‘cause then they get all messy and she gets super-grumpy, though it’s not too bad as long as you explain that it was an accident because you like a lot of jam on your sandwich and really she shouldn’t have a super-important list on the lunch table anyway, ‘cause duh—accidents are gonna happen.”

Twilight waited until Pinkie was done with her tangent before pulling out her phone. “I actually talked things over with Applejack beforehand to get some idea of where to start. I’ll need to make a few revisions now that we’ve seen the actual conditions on the ground, but that’s just a few minor tweaks. After that it’s just a matter of assigning jobs to people according to their talents so that everything will get done in the most efficient manner possible. Naturally the people with applicable magic will get priority job assignments since they’ll have the biggest advantage, while everyone else will take what’s left.”

“Stupid magical powers,” Sparkler grumbled under her breath. A second later she smirked. “So, question: the working theory is that Cloud got magic powers ‘cause she and Rainbow have been going at it like two of Fluttershy’s rabbits, right? ‘Cause if that’s all it takes to get magic powers ... well I’m not sure where I sit on the gay-bi-straight continuum, but I can definitely fake it for a quickie if it lets me shoot lightning outta my fingers after.”

Everyone stared at with varying levels of disgust and exasperation, myself included. Twilight summed up everyone’s thoughts as she made a note on her list. “Aaand Sparkler gets to make the compost pile.”

True to Applejack’s prediction, there was still a fair bit of work to be done when we hit the two hour mark, mostly on account of a particularly nasty thin little thorn-covered vine that seemed to have sprouted up almost everywhere a tree had fallen. Twilight had to make a few more schedule changes to make sure only people with heavy pants worked there. Sparkler’s one attempt at clearing a patch in her customary short-shorts had ended with her retreating after less than a minute, with Fluttershy needing to treat several small cuts on her legs. Eventually we unleashed Pinkie on any large patches we found. A few of her explosions reduced most of the vines to mulch.

When we found a particularly large group of vines clustered around a stump that resisted Pinkie’s efforts at destruction, Applejack hit upon another solution. “Ah reckon we just found the perfect place to set up a slash pile. That’ll see to ‘em.”

“When in doubt, fire fixes everything,” Sparkler agreed.

“It seems as good a place as any,” I concurred, grabbing a cold bottle of water off one of Rarity’s hovering diamond-shaped fields. Strange as it was to see snacks and water bottles hovering around the area on magical platforms, the benefits were hard to dispute. Even if she was not out here getting her hands dirty, Rarity was undeniably helping out by making it much easier for the rest of us to work.

“Welp let’s get to it.” Applejack grabbed two large logs and started hauling them over. “Twi, Rainbow, could y’all get the light stuff?” The two of them immediately set to the task, making me feel rather useless when each of them had gotten a dozen tree branches piled up in the time it took me to haul one over.

Between the three of them using their magic and the rest of us working along with mundane means, we had it all set up fairly quickly. Rainbow grinned and bounced on her feet. “So, want me to go get some marshmallows?”

Applejack shook her head. “Nah, this fire ain’t built right for cookin’ on it—not to mention the diesel’d ruin it.”

Rainbow gagged. “Ew, no kidding. What gives, AJ? I thought you were one of those country gals who could start the fire by rubbing two sticks together or something. Just soaking it in gas and using a lighter is doing it the lazy way.”

Applejack shrugged. “Ya’ll wanna spend an hour rubbing sticks carefully nurturing that little spark into a proper fire, you go right ahead. But if Ah’m doing it, we splash some diesel on the biggest logs, then set about half a newspaper on fire and stick it in there to get it going. We’re probably gonna have two or three more slash piles to get started ‘fore we’re done, and while Ah ain’t afraid of a little hard work, there’s no reason to go outta our way to make it harder than it has to be.”

“Just because she works harder does not preclude working smarter,” I agreed.

“Exactly.” Applejack nodded. “So, if one of ya’ll could go get the gas can outta my truck.” She snagged Rainbow’s arm before she could speed off. “At normal walking pace—if ya go tearing off like you usually do ye’re liable to spill half of it on the ground and the other half over yourself.” She smirked. “And then Cloud won’t give you the time o’ day.”

“I’m not a fan of stinky diesel girlfriends,” my cousin agreed.

“I’d wash it off,” Rainbow whined.

“Spoken like someone who ain’t never spilled diesel on themselves,” Applejack concluded with a smirk. “It takes a lot more’n soap an' water to get rid of it.”

Rainbow groaned and rolled her eyes. “Yeesh, okay, I’ll be careful.” She zoomed over to the back of the truck. “Okay, so where’s it at?”

“In the back of the truck.” Applejack called out to her. “It’s a big orange gas can, you can’t miss it.”

“Well I don’t see it!” Rainbow shouted back.

“It’s an orange plastic can that’s bigger than your head!” Applejack answered. “And that wasn’t a crack about your ego, though Ah wish it was!”

“Too slow to think of a good one,” Rainbow shot back with a smirk. She climbed into the back of her truck, poking around a bit. “Seriously though AJ, it’s not here!”

Applejack grumbled something under her breath and stomped over. “Dangit Rainbow, it’s right—huh? Where the hay is it?! You can see the cords where I had it tied down, but...”

“Maybe it fell out the back?” Pinkie suggested.

I shook my head. “You had about three gallons, right?” Applejack confirmed as much. “That would have weighed at least twenty pounds, and you had it tied down. I don’t see how it could’ve fallen out unless you left the gate open or something.”

“Maybe someone stole it?” Rainbow suggested.

Applejack shook her head. “It was there when we left the gas station. Unless someone jumped into the back of the truck while we were goin’ down the highway and stole it off us without anyone noticing anything funny...”

“Not likely,” I agreed. “And a thief that skilled would probably take something more valuable than a few gallons of fuel.”

“Huh.” Applejack stared at it for a few seconds, then glowered suspiciously Rainbow. “Ah swear, if this is one of your pranks...”

Rainbow held up her hands. “Whoa, easy there cowgirl. If it was a prank I wouldn’t give it away. Besides, what kind of prank could I even do with three gallons of gas? Drive something? Set it on fire? Make everyone’s clothes really gross and stinky?” She counted them off on her fingers. “Not even a prank, way too dangerous to be worth it, and seriously not cool—especially when you guys would spend all weekend making me pay for it.”

“They’d never find the body,” Sunset confirmed. “Especially once Rarity got her hands on you.”

Rainbow paled. “Messing with Rarity’s clothes? Yeah, I don’t have a death wish. At least Cloud would kill me quick.” She frowned and tried to shift attention off herself. “Now, if you want someone dumb enough to do a poorly thought-out prank that’d piss everyone off, Sparkler’s a good choice.”

Sparkler shook her head. “Oh hell no I’m not. I tease and joke, but I know not to cross any lines. Especially when I’m the bratty little sister half of you probably don’t even want coming along in the first place. If you do a prank that backfires they’ll just be pissed at you; if I do it, I never get invited on another trip again.”

“Well it didn’t just get up and walk off on its own,” Applejack groused.

“Not unless there’s some weird magic thing going on,” Pinkie pointed out. “Kinda like what happens any time we go anywhere together.”

Everyone grimaced and traded wary looks as an uncomfortable silence settled over the group. I cleared my throat. “We probably just put it somewhere else. I am sure we will find it if we look around for a bit.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sunset agreed. “I bet we set it down somewhere.”

We spent almost half an hour searching before we gave up, no closer to finding the gas can than we’d been when we started.

Author's Note

As always, thanks to my pre-reading and editing team for all their hard work. Also, I would like to thank all my dedicated Patreon supporters. You guys are awesome.

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It All Starts Going Wrong

I threw the last of the branches on top of the smoldering pile with a distinctly unladylike grunt, then wiped my sweat-matted hair out of my eyes. I scanned the nearby area and finally found no more detritus to remove. “I think that is the last of it.”

Sparkler groaned and flopped onto the forest floor. “Thank god, I’m boiling.”

“Just a bit of honest sweat from a hard day’s work,” Applejack declared, wiping her own brow. “Or a lotta sweat, if Ah’m being honest.”

“Honesty is supposed to be your thing,” Rainbow pointed out, flopping tiredly against Cloud. “And no kidding. Even with super-speed, that took way too long. Though it is cool to know I can use my powers to help start fires.”

“Super speed means super friction,” Sunset pointed out. “It’s a lot easier to start a fire by rubbing sticks together when you can do it several times faster than humans are normally capable of. It’s the same reason your shoes melted that one time you went super-speeding around for too long.”

“And that is why, for once, I am grateful for Rainbow’s appalling lack of taste in footwear,” Rarity announced, breezing in with two more trays of cold drinks. “Imagine if she’d done that to a pair of Guccis.” Rarity shuddered melodramatically. “But let’s not dwell on such nightmarish things. Lemonade, darlings? You all do look quite bushed, if you don't mind me saying so.”

“Yes!” Pinkie grabbed a glass and chugged it down. “Blech, I’m so hot and yucky-gross out that people are gonna start calling me a Stinky Pinkie!” Her eyes shot open and she clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh no, that's too catchy!”

Everyone else followed Pinkie’s lead in downing their lemonade, and with only slightly less alacrity. Cloud let out a contented groan after finishing her beverage. “Thanks, Rarity. So ... we drawing lots on who gets to use the shower first?”

“Probably oughta figure out somethin’,” Applejack agreed. “Maybe not just make it purely random though, considering someone would lock up the bathroom fer a few hours when it was her turn.” She pointedly cleared her throat and looked at Rarity.

Rarity sniffed and refused to meet her eyes. “I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, darling. However, considering the rest of you were working outside and got quite a bit messier than me, I don’t mind letting everyone else go first.”

Applejack smiled. “Works for me. Long as you don’t mind goin’ last, you can take as long as you want primpin’.”

“I am hardly primping,” Rarity shot back with just a hint of haughtiness. “I am simply taking appropriate care with how I present myself. Not all of us can pull off the unkempt beauty look.”

Applejack stared at her for a long moment. “Ah ain’t sure if that’s an insult ‘cause you’re sayin’ Ah’m scruffy-looking, or a compliment ‘cause you’re sayin’ scruffy’s a good look for me.”

“I think we are all a bit unkempt after several hours of working outside,” I pointed out. “Which is why we are all so eager to hit the showers.”

“Exactly,” Sparkler smirked, and I saw a mischievous gleam in her eye that boded ill. “You know, if we really want to clear out the showers as fast as possible, Rainbow and Cloud could double up and save some time.”

Cloud sighed and pulled one of the ice cubes out of her lemonade glass, then tossed it so it bounced off Sparkler’s nose. “Such a brat.”

“Yup,” Sparkler agreed shamelessly. “And anyway, probably not the best idea. They’d make a mess, and I wouldn’t wanna be the one to use the shower after them.”

“Anyway,” Sunset cut in before Sparkler could get going, “isn’t there a lake right pretty close by? The water looks clean, and I’d rather not have an hour-long wait for the shower if there’s an alternative.”

I quickly confirmed the proposal. “We usually swim there whenever we come up here, and it has always been fine. Sounds like a great idea, as long as everyone brought suits.”

“And it’s not like we can’t skinny dip,” Sparkler grinned, reveling in the outraged and annoyed looks that remark earned her. “What? We’re all girls here.”

Rainbow groaned and rolled her eyes. “Okay, all in favor of a ten-on-one splash fight against Sparkler soon as we’re in the water?”

We all raised our hands. Even Star looked up from her phone long enough to turn on her fellow brat. When Sparkler gaped at her Star just shrugged. “You’re asking for it.”

Tempting as it was to enjoy our brief alignment of interests, I could not resist the chance to poke at Star. “You know you will have to go without your phone while we are in the lake.”

Star scoffed. “Waterproof phone in a waterproof case.” She paused a moment, frowning in thought. “Still expensive. Better be safe, Mom and Dad’ll kill me.” She sighed and very reluctantly put it away in her pocket.

“What new spoor of madness is this?” I teased. “Star voluntarily turning off her phone to interact with us lowly meatspace denizens?”

“Don’t get used to it,” Star murmured. “Gonna get my suit.”

“I shall do the same,” Rarity announced. “It does seem like a lovely day for a swim.”

“I’ve got extra suits if anyone forgot theirs!” Pinkie grinned, bouncing on her heels. “I always keep spares on me in case of swimsuit emergency.”

“I think we’ll all be okay,” Twilight declared, adjusting her glasses. “A swimsuit was one of the things on the list for us to bring.”

“Right,” Sunset agreed. “But someone could’ve forgotten theirs. We don’t all triple-check our packing checklist before we leave on a trip.”

“Well you should,” Twilight grumbled under her breath.

“Don’t worry, if anyone made an oopsie and forgot your auntie Pinkie Pie’s gotcha covered!” She reached behind her back and pulled out several bright pink two-piece bathing suits, all covered with her own face in a variety of ridiculous expressions.

Rarity stared at the swimwear. “I'm almost frightened to ask how you made those.”

“It’s maaagic!” Pinkie announced, waggling her fingers. “Or a custom order I made online. But really, aren’t those the same thing?”

“No,” I explained. “They are not.”

“Awww...” She pouted, her gaze dropping down to the ground. “So nobody needs one of my suits?” Nobody did. Pinkie shrugged, then chomped down on one of them. “Oh well, good thing I ordered the edible ones! This one tastes like strawberries!”

Rainbow Dash stared at for several seconds, then chuckled and shook her head. “Pinkie, you are so random.”

A short time later we were all dressed and ready for the day. Rainbow Dash sprinted out ahead of the group, leaving behind a multi-colored trail. “Last one to the lake is a Sparkler!”

Nobody took her up on the challenge. After all, beating the girl with super speed in a race was a non-starter. Once it was clear nobody would go for it, she doubled back to rejoin the group. As we walked out I couldn’t help but notice Cloud had a new suit. “What happened to your old one-piece?”

Cloud shrugged and waved to the open belly of her two-piece suit. “I do three hundred sit-ups a week. Might as well show off what that gets me. Besides, Dash likes it.”

“Darn right I do,” Rainbow agreed shamelessly.

“Good answer,” Sparkler announced, stepping out in something that only barely qualified as enough clothing to maintain decency. “Since she’s got me doing all that exercise too, I might as well follow your example.”

Cloud took one look at Sparkler, then groaned and averted her eyes. “I don’t know whose example you think you’re following Sparks, but it’s not mine. I think you mixed up your bathing suit and your underwear.”

Rainbow snorted. “No kidding. You’d get kicked out of French beaches for wearing that.”

“Bah, you’re all a bunch of prudes.” Sparkler strode past us. “How come it’s okay for Cloud to wear a more revealing suit and not me?”

“There’s a big difference between me wearing a sport top and you wearing something that looks like it was designed for horny guys to slip dollar bills into,” Cloud answered.

“Plus I want to see this,” Rainbow added, waving to her girlfriend. “Nobody wants to see what you’re shoving in our faces.”

Rarity cleared her throat. “Normally I would love to debate the merits of her fashion choices, but perhaps we could let the matter rest to focus on relaxing and enjoying ourselves?”

“If even Rares doesn’t wanna talk clothes, ya know it’s gone on too long,” Applejack agreed. “Let’s just ignore her an’ have some fun.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Sunset concluded. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s get swimming!” She draped her beach skirt over a nearby tree branch, then waded out into the water. Most of the others followed her lead. The lake did look especially lovely today, with placid clear blue waters framed by trees that weren’t quite large enough to interest the loggers or be a fire hazard.

Then the water’s stillness shattered as Rainbow shot past us. She couldn’t resist showing off, zipping past everyone and using her magical powers to go so fast she managed to walk on water. Moving that fast kicked up a huge spray behind her, and it didn’t take long for her to swing around and splash everyone still standing on the shoreline.

Cloud snorted and flipped her newly wet hair out of her eyes. “Show-off!” she called out after her girlfriend.

Rainbow slowed down just enough to smirk and wave to us. “You know you love it!”

Cloud chuckled and smiled fondly. “True.” She looked along the shoreline, then grinned and pointed to a rope hanging off one of the old trees. “Nice, it’s still there. I might not be able to super-speed like Dash, but...” She jumped and grabbed the rope, swinging out over the water. She timed her landing perfectly, splashing into the water right in front of Rainbow and sending her tumbling.

Rainbow surfaced a second later, sputtering indignantly. “Dangit Kicker! Why’d you hafta—I’m gonna...” She growled and playfully tackled Cloud under the water. The two emerged a second later, grappling for dominance in a way that involved far too much lingering physical contact to be a serious contest.

Sparkler grinned as she watched the two of them, then pitched her voice to resemble the narration on a documentary. “Having spotted its partner, the wild Boe now engages in a mating display to show its sexual prowess. The wild Cloud feigns resistance, but is clearly taken in by her charms.”

Rather than respond to my bratty little cousin, I ignored her and took my turn on the rope. I had to swing a bit wide to make sure I didn’t land too close to Rainbow and Cloud. That resulted in me cannonballing into the water a bit closer to the shoreline than I’d planned. Not into shallow water, thankfully, but I did wind up splashing some of the people who were just starting to wade out into the lake.

I surfaced to find a thoroughly soaked Twilight Sparkle standing in front of me, wiping off her glasses. “Well, I suppose I should’ve known I’d get wet sooner or later.”

Unfortunately, she said that just loud enough for the brats to hear her. Sparkler smirked in an especially devilish way and loudly called out, “Did she just say Storm got her wet?”

Star evidently decided this was worth testing out the waterproofing on her phone and case, whipping it out and pulling up an audio clip with suspicious speed. “Ohhh myyy!”

Twilight’s cheeks lit up and she let out a nervous sort of squeak, while I was just annoyed by the two of them being exactly as they always were. Rather than attempt any sort of verbal response I reached down and grabbed a handful of the nastiest muck I could find at the bottom of the lake, then chucked it at both of them. They let out a satisfying scream as the muck hit them dead on. If nothing else, it was a start to exacting retribution.

While they tried to wash themselves off, Applejack grinned and strode up to the side of the lake. “Ya’ll can have the rope, Ah don’t need it.” She took a running start, and a second later the gem hanging around her neck glowed as she leapt high into the air, easily sailing over everyone’s heads and landing out in the middle of the lake.

Rainbow paused in her contest with Cloud to call out after Applejack. “And you call me a show-off!”

“You are a showoff,” Applejack called back. “Me bein’ better at it don’t change that!”

“Why you...” Rainbow let go of Cloud to focus on her new opponent. “Hey Cloud, truce to team up against Applejack?”

Cloud shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Sunset sighed and chuckled to herself. “I see the horseplay’s started already.”

Pinkie popped out of the water next to her. “Nice pun, Sunset!” She paused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “So do they still call it horseplay in magical pony land? I mean, you’re horses so everything would be horseplay already. Ooh, what if they call it humanplay? That sounds kinda weird to me, but I bet calling it horseplay sounds weird to ponies too...”

Pinkie continued rambling on, but I put her out of my mind when I spotted Twilight Sparkle on the shoreline, slowly approaching the rope. “I suppose I could give it a try.” She grabbed the rope and got a running start, only to trip over a tree root. She kept hold of the rope, so instead of falling on her face she dangled awkwardly as she swung out over the water. A second later the lost her grip, flying out with an awkward half-somersault that ended with a painful slap as she landed belly-first on the water.

I winced at the impact. Just hearing it hurt, let alone imagining what she must be feeling. I quickly swam over to her side. “Are you okay, Twilight?”

Twilight groaned and slowly surfaced, coughing and holding one arm over her belly while the other held her glasses in place. “I’m okay,” she squeaked out.

Rainbow came over and gave her a quick pat on the shoulder. “Owww ... points for effort Twi, but the judges are gonna have dock you a bit on style.”

Sunset joined us as well, giving Twilight a light, friendly punch on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, we’ve all belly-flopped. Come on, let’s just have a good time.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie took a deep breath and dove under the water, only to emerge a short time later covered in lake weeds. “Blaarrgghy! Beware me, for I am the Lake Monster! Raaaawr!” She slowly shambled her way over to Rarity, who quickly swam away from her,

“Okay.” Twilight smiled at Sunset, then carefully splashed some water at her. “It looks like everyone else is goofing around, so...”

“Might as well join in on the fun,” Sunset agreed, responding in kind.

I was about to make my own tentative entry into the contest when a massive wave struck the back of my head. I turned around just in time to catch a second one to the face. Thankfully I managed to avoid getting any water up my nose or in my mouth, but the attack still left me sputtering indignantly.

Star and Sparkler grinned back at me before splashing me again. “Vengeance!” Sparkler crowed. “You’re no match for our combined bratly power!”

I tried to rush them, but Sparkler splashed me in the face again. That distraction gave Star an opening to flank me and quickly dunk my head under the water. I shook her off a moment later, but she knew she’d won that round. “You’re gonna lose, Skunky.”

Much as I hated to admit it, she was probably right. I could beat Star one-on-one thanks to being older, more experienced, and more physically active, but with Sparkler backing her up I was at a huge disadvantage. Fortunately, I was not alone. “Cloud!”

My fellow big sister took one look at the situation and realized how dire it had become. “Gondor calls for aid! The brats are teaming up!” She rushed over and tackled Sparkler from behind, then lifted her up and sent her flying halfway out of the lake before she crashed back down into the water with a mighty splash.

I couldn’t manage anything quite so dramatic with Star, mostly because she had the good sense to start swimming away as soon as her teammate was out of the picture. I had to settle for grabbing her by the ankle as she tried to flee, leading to a startled yelp as her momentum vanished and she sank beneath the lake’s surface. I let her go a second later, satisfied now that I had reaffirmed the natural pecking order.

The two brats swam clear of us, grimacing at the taste of the ashes of defeat. Or perhaps just regrouping, judging by what Star said next. “Phase two?”

“We gotta,” Sparkler agreed.

Star took a deep breath, then dove under the water. Moments later Sparkler began to rise as Star lifted her up onto her shoulders. Sparkler threw her head back, cackling like a supervillain from an especially cheesy movie. “Mwahahahaha! Just when you thought you were safe, Brat-Tron stalks the waters once more! Bow before your Brat Overlords!”

Cloud grinned. “So that’s how it is? Fine, if it’s a fight they want, let’s give it to them! Team-up time, Rainbow!”

“We’ll get ‘em!” Rainbow rushed over and hopped onto Cloud’s shoulders before she had time to brace herself. The two of them wobbled for a moment, but then Cloud grabbed onto her legs to steady her. “Form Robo-Mecha-Bot-i-Tron and let’s kick brat butt!”

As the two teams started closing in on her, Applejack grinned and paddled over to Rarity. “Hop on up, Sugarcube—we’re not missin’ out on this fight!”

Rarity pulled the last bit of lake weed out of her hair, glowering at Pinkie Pie. “I do have a certain lake monster I need to avenge myself upon.”

Pinkie gasped. “Who?!” She looked down at her own plant-draped form. “Oh, right. Oh no, I gotta get a teammate! Hey Fluttershy, do you want to join me? We can become Mecha-Shiva!”

Fluttershy shrank down. “That’s okay Pinkie. I think I’d rather just see what lives on the lakebed. Um, thanks.” She adjusted her snorkel and quickly dived down under the water.

“Go figure, Fluttershy doesn’t like roughhousing.” Sunset grinned and turned to Twilight. “So looks like everyone’s teaming up, do you want to—whoa!” She yelped as Pinkie emerged from underneath her, hauling her up into the air. After the surprise wore off she shrugged, then grinned down at her new partner. “Alright then, let’s get ‘em Pinkie!”

Pinkie grinned and started charging into the fray. “Go Go Super-Sunset-Pinkie Rangers!”

Twilight frowned after the two of them, probably a bit put out that Pinkie stole Sunset right in the middle of their planned team-up. She sighed and took off her glasses, stowing them in her suit. “Alright, have fun you two.” She tried to smile, but it looked just a little brittle.

A quick scan of the lake battlefield confirmed the rather obvious fact that we were the only two left without teammates, not counting Fluttershy. That suggested a rather obvious solution. I approached her and cleared my throat. “Well...”

Twilight turned to me, a faint uncertain frown on her lips. “Oh. You, um, you want to work together?”

I shrugged. “We are the only two left without teammates. We can either team up or sit out the contest entirely.” I thought about it for a moment, then conceded. “Or you could attempt to talk Fluttershy into joining, but...”

“I don’t think I could talk her into it, and I don’t think she’d have much fun if I did,” Twilight agreed. “Alright then, I suppose there’s no harm in giving it a shot. The worst that would happen is we won’t win a game with no real rules or any way to really determine an agreed upon winner in the first place.”

“Very well then.” I dropped down into the water and waved for her to get on. Despite being a year younger than her, I was taller and in much better shape. I was the logical choice to take the bottom, and she would likely be more comfortable if I let her be on top.

“Okay, I think I’ve got this.” She tried to get onto my back, but her legs slipped off my shoulders as soon as I tried rising up. “Sorry, I haven’t done anything like this since I was a little girl playing with Shiny, and now I’m a lot older and you’re not my big brother.” She tried again, with no more luck than last time.

“You are leaving your hips too far back,” I advised. “You need to align your center of mass with mine as much as possible.”

“Uh, right.” She nodded slowly. “That makes sense. Balance the weight in the middle to make it more stable. So I just need to, um...” She made a third attempt, this time moving quite a bit more forward. It still was not quite enough, so I shifted back a bit until I could feel her suit pressing against the back of my skull. Twilight let out a soft squeak at the contact, but thankfully remained in place rather than tumble off my back again. “Sorry...”

“It is fine,” I assured her. She started wobbling a bit as I rose up, so I quickly clamped my hands down on her calves to hold her steady. That got another cute little startled squeak out of her. I kept my hands in place even after she had steadied, just in case. They were surprisingly nice legs—not toned like mine, but certainly not flabby either and with a few hints of newly formed muscle indicative of recently adopting a slightly more active lifestyle.

Twilight coughed and shifted her hips a few times, slowly finding the best balance for both of us. Once she was comfortably perched on top of my back she coughed and spoke up. “Um. Okay. So, I think I'm getting a feel for it.” I couldn’t really see her face too clearly from my current position, but I could swear she was blushing. “Um, forward?”

I nodded and started towards the melee, trying to set a slow, steady pace to give her a bit more time to get used to this. Though considering we’d shortly be going into battle against teams that seemed a lot more comfortable working together, the fact that just walking forward was a challenge boded poorly for us.

Thankfully Rainbow and Cloud seemed quite occupied by their battle with Star and Sparkler, striking a righteous blow against little sisters and punishing them for the crime of acting bratty. That just left us to face the winner of the contest between the Pinkie-Sunset team and the Applejack-Rarity duo.

That battle proved to be a close one; Applejack wasn’t quite as nimble as Pinkie, but she was a solid, immovable rock. It might have been interesting to see how the contest between the two of them and their contrasting styles would have played out, but the battle wound up being decided by the top pair. The contest between Sunset and Rarity was close up until one of Rarity’s false lashes came loose, and that distraction gave Sunset the opening she needed to send Rarity tumbling off Applejack’s back.

With that foe vanquished Sunset grinned and tapped Pinkie’s shoulder, pointing towards the two of us. Pinkie growled playfully and started stomping towards us. “Chaaarge! Today is a good day to PARTY!”

Twilight wobbled on her perch once more as I angled in to meet them. The last thing we needed was to let Pinkie have all the momentum for the first exchange; that could turn the battle into a five-second-long crushing defeat. The stakes might not be as high as they would if we were up against Star and Sparkler, but I still wanted to put in a good showing.

As it was, both of us had to pull up short to avoid slamming into each other head-first. The awkward stop mid-charge bought Twilight a few seconds to get her bearings, but Sunset was quick on the attack as soon as she was in range, planting a hand on her shoulder and shoving back. If not for my hold on her legs she would have tumbled over.

Sunset grinned, a gleam in her eyes. “Nothing personal Twilight, but you’re going down. I might not be as competitive as Applejack and Rainbow, but I do like winning.”

Twilight’s response was nowhere near as strong. “Ah!” When Sunset’s next shove nearly knocked us both over I suddenly felt some weird sort of external force steadying both of us, and I saw a faint lavender glow encompassing both our bodies.

“Hey!” Pinkie called out, glowering up at her. “No powers! Or at least, I thought that was the rule ‘cause we wanna put everyone on equal footing. If I can start using kersplosions it wouldn’t be fair, even if it would be a lot more fun!”

“Sorry,” Twilight murmured. “Instinct. Though I don’t think everyone’s following that rule.” She pointed over to where Cloud and Rainbow were fighting the brats. Judging by how Rainbow was noogieing Sparkler so far fast her arm was a barely visible blur, it seemed like a safe bet she was applying some level of magic to it. Not that I could complain, considering her target.

“Don’t worry about it, Twilight,” Sunset cut in as she squared up for another round. For a moment I could swear I saw her gem and eyes both glow, and then she rushed in for her next offensive. Twilight tried to block her, but Sunset slipped past her defenses with seemingly no effort, landing a powerful double-handed shove that sent Twilight reeling. I tried to compensate, but that just meant that I went down along with her.

We both surfaced a moment later, coughing and more than a little tangled up. After she’d fallen off my back Twilight had instinctively grabbed onto me, which made getting both of us back above the water a bit more complicated. Not that we seemed worse for the wear, bar a little coughing after we surfaced. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Twilight assured me. “Just...” She trailed off uncertainly.

A second later I realized what must have been on her mind: when she’d grabbed me on the way down her hands somehow wound up firmly attached to my ... womanly attributes. I felt my own cheeks warming up as I fully grasped that she was essentially groping me.

If there was any doubt in my mind that it was purely accidental, that vanished when she hastily removed her hands with a terrified squeak. “Gurp!” She coughed several times, her cheeks positively flaming. “Sorry! I’m really sorry about grabbing your breasts! It was an accident, I’d never do something like try to touch your breasts on purpose! Wait, that’s—I mean, um, not that there’s anything wrong with your breasts or anything! They’re actually nice! If I ever wanted to touch another girl’s breasts yours would right at the top of the list!” A second later what she’d said seemed to sink in. “Wait! That’s not what I meant at all! I was just ...” She groaned and buried her face in her hands.

I cut her off before she could work herself up into any more of a frenzy. “Don't worry about it, accidents happen when we’re goofing around like that.”

Cloud stared at me like I had grown a second head. “Did Storm just use a contraction?”

Star was so stunned she completely forgot to hold Sparkler in place, dropping our cousin into the water. Sparkler surfaced a second later, sputtering. “She what?! I thought she had some kinda hangup where she wasn’t even capable of saying those!”

“No kidding,” Rainbow agreed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say one in all the time I’ve known her.”

“It is not that big of a deal,” I groused. “Just because I normally do not use them does not make it some earth-shattering event when I do. Now then...” I turned back to Twilight. “Once more unto the breach?”

She nodded and slowly climbed back onto my shoulders. “Yeah. Um, awkward accidents aside, this has been really fun.”

After several more hours of fun and relaxation, it was time to set up camp for the night. The tents went up with relatively little trouble, and there was more than enough left over wood to set up a proper campfire. Then we broke out all the usual accoutrements of campfire cooking, namely marshmallows and hot dogs. Most of us had one or two cooking over the fire, while Pinkie had what looked like a small bush with over a dozen marshmallows and three hot dogs all roasting.

Cloud and Rainbow were huddled up off to the side, leaning against each other and whispering as they cooked their respective food. “I still don’t get why you like to set your marshmallows on fire before you eat ‘em.”

Cloud shrugged and blew out her marshmallow, then bit into it. “I like them crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You are such a weirdo sometimes.” She leaned in for a quick kiss. “Though smooching you is pretty sweet when you’ve got a little bit of marshmallow goop on your lips.”

Cloud snorted and slugged her shoulder. “Now I have to question whether you’re kissing me because you love me, or just to steal any bits of leftover marshmallow.”

Rainbow grinned impishly. “Both, obviously.”

I shifted my attention over to Star, who seemed to have fallen back into the phone zone, ignoring everyone else around her. I gave her a quick poke to pull her out of her trance. “Hey Stalker, your food is getting burned.”

Star looked up from her phone. “No it’s not, Skunky. Just because you think your beef is burned if it doesn’t moo when you bite into it doesn’t mean the rest of us overcook ours.” She rolled her eyes, but didn’t slip back into her phone trance so I would call that a win.

Once we had all made decent progress on tearing through our supply of campfire food, Sunset leaned back and looked over the group. “So, which campfire tradition do we want to start with? “Ghost stories? Truth or dare?”

“Or we could do a sing-alooooong!” Pinkie grinned and pulled an accordion from behind her back. “Who wants to get started?” When nobody randomly burst into song she sighed and put her accordion away. “Fine...”

Fluttershy frowned down at the fire, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “I’d rather not do any ghost stories.”

“Truth-or-dare then,” Sparkler declared.

Sunset waited a bit to see if any other suggestions came up, and when none did she shrugged. “Okay then, truth or dare wins by default. So who wants to start?” Sparkler’s hand instantly shot up. “Anyone else?” Sunset called out. “Anyone at all?”

“Bah, why’s everyone so scared of letting me go?” Sparkler whined. “I wouldn’t do anything too horrible. Just a little awful and bratty.”

“Ah’ll go then,” Applejack volunteered.

Rainbow snorted. “Truth would be pretty boring with Miss Honesty, so I guess it’ll be a dare.”

Sparkler poked Sunset in the ribs. “Nooo, it has to be me. I volunteered first, you can’t just skip me.” She sighed and shook her head. “Look, I promise I’ll go easy to start things off.”

Sunset sighed. “Okay, fine, Sparkler goes first.”

My bratty cousin grinned in a particularly mischievous manner. “Excellent. So ... who to go after? Cloud’s the obvious choice, but I can bug her anytime I want. Though not usually in front of so many people at once...”

Cloud sighed and rolled her eyes. “And she’s already up to her usual tricks. Just remember the rules on what you’re allowed to suggest.”

“No dares or truths the majority agrees are out of line,” Sunset confirmed. “And even without that you can just outright refuse if you really don’t feel comfortable. It’s supposed to be a fun game, so if something would ruin the fun for anyone there’s no point in doing it.” She shot a pointed look Sparkler’s way. “So nothing that crosses the line.”

Sparkler held up her hands. “Believe me, I know my limits. Same as my bratting rules when it comes to messing with Cloud, I don't pull stuff that’d hurt anyone or piss you off. I’ve been having a blast so far, and I’d rather not get uninvited to any future trips.”

Rainbow folded her arms over her chest. “Sure, you won’t cross the line. But I bet you’ll do something that’s pressed right up against it.”

Sparkler grinned. “Ladies, I think we have a volunteer. Truth or d—oh who am I kidding, we all know you’ll pick a dare. So I dare you to do 100 push-ups in ten seconds.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright...” She got into position and became a prismatic blur as she tapped into her magical powers. She was moving too fast for me to keep up a proper count, but everyone seemed to agree it was close enough.

Once she was done Cloud snuggled back up with her. “Not much of a dare, Sparks.”

My cousin shrugged. “I did promise I’d start things off easy, and it’s kinda hard to think of any good dare that would really get to Rainbow. At least, not without breaking one of the other rules. Maybe ask her to do some super-gushy sweet talk to you, but that’d make me want to barf just as much as her. Least this way I got some payback on her for noogieing me.” She smirked. “Feel free to show us a proper one when it’s your turn.”

“Well it’s my turn now,” Rainbow frowned, looking everyone over. “Daring my own girlfriend would be boring. That, or I’d end up carrying a sleeping bag around asking someone to let me crash in their tent. So ... hmm ... Sunset! Truth or dare?”

Sunset grinned. “Dare me.”

“Alright…” Rainbow smirked. “I dare you to get on all fours and be your most pony-like: trot, whinny and prance—all that good stuff.”

Sunset glowered at her, then sighed and shook her head. “Fine.” She got down on her knees and balled her hands up into fists, walking along on them. “And you’ve been to Equestria, so you know we don’t go around whinnying and prancing. Not to mention my anatomy’s all wrong for it right now.”

“It’d be boring to watch you act like a pony while you’re a pony,” Rainbow pointed out.

Star watched the spectacle for a few seconds “Is this ... racist? Speciesist? Feels like it’s some kind of -ist.”

“It’s fine,” Sunset concluded as she finished her performance and sat back down. “Anyway, my turn. Fluttershy, truth or dare!”

Fluttershy let out a startled squeak. “Oh! Um ... truth.”

Sunset tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Okay, what’s your darkest secret?”

Fluttershy shrank down into herself. “I don't, um … I don’t like Zephyr’s cat.”

Sparkler’s response echoed everyone’s thoughts. “That's it?”

“I told him I loved her!” Fluttershy whimpered. “Even though she’s a mean cat who chases Angel Bunny around and I have to be careful what animal friends I bring home! I want to like her but it’s just so hard!”

Sunset stared at her for a bit longer, then slowly nodded. “Okay then, that answers the question. It’s your turn, Fluttershy.”

“Oh dear.” She took a deep breath, looking over the entire group. “Um, Pinkie? Truth or dare?”

Pinkie answered with a huge smile, practically bouncing in place. “Truth! No, dare! I mean truth! Ooooooh, Can I do both?!”

“Um, maybe?” Fluttershy glanced over at Sunset, who shrugged and nodded. “Okay then. Um, what’s your favorite animal?”

Pinkie tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, aside from Gummy my favorite animal is a party animal!”

Fluttershy nodded. “That makes sense. And for the dare... Would you be nice enough to give Angel a good combing?”

Pinkie’s smile smile slipped away. “I thought we weren't gonna do anything dangerous for the dares!”

“Angel’s not dangerous,” Fluttershy insisted, though she might have had an easier time making that case if the rabbit in question wasn’t glowering daggers at Pinkie while brandishing a carrot like a small orange dagger. “But I guess if you don’t want to brush him, that’s fine too.”

Pinkie took one look at the rabbit, then shivered and hugged her legs, rocking back and forth like a traumatized child. “No ... no.” A second later she perked back up, seemingly her normal self once more. “My turn! Star! Truth or dare?”

Star shrugged. “The truth’s a lot more dangerous, so let’s do a dare.”

Pinkie grinned like she’d just spotted half a dozen cupcakes. “I dare you to turn off your phone and leave it off for the rest of the night.”

I let out a low, impressed whistle. “Making her go without her phone for hours? She will start manifesting withdrawal symptoms within five minutes. By the half-hour mark she will find a large flat stone to tap away at so she can at least pretend she still has her phone fix. And if she has to go to sleep without checking social media first ... I do not know if she would actually be capable of sleeping, or if she would just stay awake all night shaking.”

Star glowered at me and shot several particularly colorful gifs my way, then sighed and turned her phone off. I was a bit surprised when she passed it over to me. “If there’s anyone we can all agree would keep me honest, it’s Skunky.” She gave that just long enough to sink in, then smirked at me. “So Storm ... truth or dare?”

I glowered at her, refusing to let her see me sweat. “Dare. Hit me with your best shot.”

“I plan to.” She remained silent for a long moment in a transparent attempt to build tension for the reveal. To her mild credit, when she did ultimately reveal her intentions they were nefarious enough to justify the dramatics. “Storm Kicker. I dare you to...” She leveled a finger at Twilight Sparkle. “Kiss her. Not just a quick peck, a real kiss.”

Despite all the forewarning, my jaw still hit the ground.“Wh-WHAT?!”

Twilight’s mouth gaped open in shock, and her cheeks had already turned beet-red. “You want her to ... um...”

Sparkler grinned and slapped her fellow brat on the back. “Wow, Star. Props—I think you managed to break both of them at once.” She turned to Twilight. “Though really, what’s the big deal anyway? You already got to third base with Storm, this is just going back and letting her get her fair share.”

Rarity looked between the two of us. “I suppose it was inevitable the dares would get a touch risque, but I wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

Applejack snorted. “Last time someone tossed out a kissing dare, you were all for it.”

Rarity shot her an arch look. “I certainly don’t recall you complaining about it at the time, darling. In fact, I seem to recall you being quite enthusiastic about your side of it.”

Star cocked her head to the side. “So there’s precedent for kissing being a perfectly valid choice for a dare?”

“Yes and no,” Sunset answered. “There’s precedent for it being okay for Rainbow to dare Rarity to kiss Applejack in those specific circumstances. This is different.” She turned to me and Twilight. “It’s completely up to you two whether you want to or not. No pressure, and nobody will think less of you if you don’t.”

“I will,” Star cut in.

“Nobody who counts will think less of you,” Cloud countered.

“It’s okay.” Twilight turned to face her, her cheeks still flaming. “I mean, I-I guess that would be okay. It’s just a little kiss, r-right? It’s not that big a deal...”

I took a deep breath and tried to put the shock out of my mind. Star had doubtless come up with that dare specifically to outrage and embarrass me. Therefore, the logical move was to deny her the reaction she wanted. Just do the dare without making a big production of it, and move on to the next event. Oh, and start plotting my revenge. “Yes, I suppose we could do that, so long as you are also willing.”

Sunset frowned and looked between us again. “Look, despite what your sister and cousin might say, there’s no peer pressure on this. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

Sparkler rolled her eyes. “They’re both willing, stop trying to talk them out of it.”

I looked at Twilight and took a deep breath. “Well, um, I suppose we should...”

Twilight tucked a bit of hair behind her ear and adjusted her glasses. “Right. Um, so did you want to ... or should I ... um...”

We were still trying to work out the logistics of how to handle the kiss when events overtook us.

We had only just started leaning towards one another when a massive crash echoed through the woods, and we both instinctively jerked back in surprise. I frowned, staring off into the distance and trying to find the source of the noise. “What was that?!”

“I don’t know,” Twilight answered. “But it sounded big.”

Applejack stared out into the darkness. “If that was some kinda critter, it was a lot bigger than anythin’ Ah ever heard. Fluttershy, can you...?”

Fluttershy nodded and took her little crystal necklace in hand. “Um, hello? Is anyone out there? If you’re just a hungry bear or something, I don’t mind sharing my food.” After several more seconds she called out, “Um, excuse me, does anyone else know what that noise was? Sorry, please, not all at once ... okay ... okay.” She sighed and shook her head. “None of the creatures know what’s going on either.”

Rainbow bolted to her feet. “I’ll go check it out. If there’s some sort of crazy monster or something out there, I’ll kick its butt.”

Cloud grabbed her wrist before she could start moving. “No running around the woods in the middle of the night all by yourself. That’s just asking for trouble.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Not that I don’t appreciate the concern, but I can handle being out in the big scary woods by myself.”

Cloud frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “And what happens if you trip over a root or run into one of those thorn vines when you're going sixty miles an hour, and we're all miles away from you?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Cloud, you’re being ridiculous. I’ll be fine.”

“She’s got a point, Rainbow,” Sparkler cut in, showing off the band-aids on her legs. “Those vines cut me up pretty good before I put on long pants, and I didn’t do more than brush against ‘em. If you run into them while you’re super-speeding along, it’d probably be almost as bad as running into barbed wire.”

“Think about it this way, Dash,” Cloud continued. “We just heard a weird creepy noise out in the woods. One person wants to go out all by themselves, far away from where anyone can hear them or help if they’re in trouble. If we were watching one of the Splattergoria movies, we’d be joking about how the person doing that was dead meat.”

Rainbow grimaced and nodded. “Yeah, okay, you made your point. Though we all know if this was a horror movie, I’d be the hero who takes out the big bad monster and gets the girl.”

Cloud glowered playfully at her. “If you’re about to imply that I’d be the damsel in distress, I’ll kick your butt so hard you’ll wish you’d gone running off into the woods to investigate the spooky noises all by yourself.”

“Leaving aside the debate about who would be the hero and who would be the damsel, perhaps we should all fall back to the cabin?” I suggested. “If there is some sort of wild animal or anything else out there, I would feel much safer if we had a solid wall between it and us.”

Sunset nodded. “If it is just some sort of wild animal who smelled our food, a tent’s not going to be enough to keep them out.”

Rainbow groaned. “So we just coop ourselves up? How are we supposed to find out what’s going on when we’re stuck inside?”

Star raised a hand. “I can send F1X3R out for recon. Battery’s good for almost 4 miles, plus it’s got an LED light next to the camera.”

“Now I wish I’d brought my drone too,” Twilight sighed.

“One is still much better than none.” I took a quick scan of the campsite. “Does anyone see a problem with hunkering down and letting the expendable stalker-drone do the scouting for us?” Star quickly grumbled something to me. “You spent that much on that thing?!” She scowled at me, and I sighed and massaged my temples. “Fine, fine. I have no idea why Mom and Dad let you spend ... ugh, never mind. Alright them, the only-slightly-more-expendable-than-us creeper-drone will go out and check the area while we hold down the fort.”

Sunset started grabbing her belongings. “That seems like the best way to keep everyone safe while still finding out what’s going on out there. Hopefully it’s nothing, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Star planted herself in front of me, crossing her arms over her chest. “Need my phone back if I’m gonna be running F1X3R.”

I sighed and handed it back. “Yes, yes. This is a bit bigger than a campfire game.”

“Right.” She turned it back on, then smirked at me while it was booting. “Though don’t think you’re off the hook for my dare just because there’s a wild animal running around. Just putting it off for a bit.”

I rolled my eyes. “That would be your top priority.”

Thankfully we all managed to get back to the cabin without incident. By the time Star had her laptop out, F1X3R set up and ready to go, and her VR headset configured, I was starting to wonder if maybe we had all overreacted. After all, it could have just been a perfectly normal bit of forest noise we had all been panicked by. I was almost tempted to head back to the campsite, but at this point it seemed better to be safe than sorry.

Other than Twilight, Star, and Sunset working on setting up all the technology, the rest of us were stuck on the sidelines watching and waiting. Rainbow and Pinkie were standing sentinel at the windows while Cloud nervously paced back and forth. The others were busy working out sleeping arrangements for how we would fit eleven people in a single cabin as comfortably as possible.

Star donned her VR headset, holding the drone’s controller in her hands. “Okay, connection looks good on my end.” She hit a few buttons, checking that everything worked properly. “Control check is fine. Video showing up on the laptop too?”

“Looks like it,” Sunset confirmed, enlarging the video feed to cover the whole screen.

“And I’ve got the satellite photos of the area,” Twilight answered, holding up her phone. “Between that and the GPS tracker on your drone we shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping track of where we are and where we’re going.”

“Good.” She fired up the drone’s rotors, smiling as it went airborne. I opened the front door, and she carefully eased it out before sending it up into the sky. “In hindsight, really wish I’d picked up that night vision upgrade. Not that getting a camera with 3x optical zoom and 4K resolution was a bad call either.”

“What do you even need that much resolution and zoom for?” Sparkler asked, showing unusual reasonableness in questioning her fellow brat. A second later she backpedaled. “You know what, I’m probably happier not knowing. Long as it helps us figure out what’s going on, I’ll just be grateful for your flagrant disregard for privacy.”

Star shrugged. “Not like I’ve got it breaking into people’s houses or anything. I checked the law, everything F1X3R is designed to do is perfectly legal. At least, long as I don’t take it into restricted airspace or anything, and Mom cleared it up the one time I sent it too close to base.”

“Pity,” I murmured. “I had such high hopes that would end with Star in a military prison for years, or at least booted off to reform school.”

I couldn’t see Star’s facial expression with the VR headset on, so instead she just said, “Sparks, do me a favor and flip Storm off for me?” Sparkler obliged her fellow brat. “Thanks.”

Pinkie let out a loud gasp and stumbled back from her perch. “Hey everyone! I can see someone else in the window!”

“That’s your reflection, Pinkie,” Rainbow deadpanned.

Pinkie let out a frustrated groan. “It’s not my reflection, Dashie. There’s someone else out there! They were all weird and green!”

Everyone else scrambled over the window, trying to spot Pinkie’s mysterious interloper. There was nothing out but darkness and trees ... though it was a fairly dark night that made it hard to see deep into the forest. Perhaps whoever Pinkie spotted had already slipped off into the safety of the trees. They could be standing ten meters away and we would not have a clue.

Applejack frowned down at her. “Pinkie, if this was one of your jokes or flights of fancy...”

“It’s not!” Pinkie snapped. “If it was a joke it would’ve been funny! What’s funny about scaring everyone when we’re already really nervous?” She paused, then amended, “Well okay, maybe it would’ve been funny if I did a really goofy monster roar or something, but that’s completely different.”

“Settle down,” Sunset chided both of them. “The last thing we need right now is to start sniping at each other.”

“Well said,” Rarity agreed. “I know we’re all a bit stressed and on edge right now, but fighting with each other will just distract us when we need to stay focused.”

I stepped up to window to get a closer look, but saw nothing. Perhaps Pinkie was just jumping at shadows? Considering how nervous we all were it would not be a surprise. The green person she thought she saw could easily have just been some of the foliage shifting in the wind combined with an active imagination and quite a bit of fear.

I was about to dismiss the sighting as nothing when I spotted a flash of orange out of the corner of my eye. I slowly opened the window so I could get a better look at what lay directly beneath it. What I found put a new spin on things. “I found our missing gas can.”

Applejack stuck her head out next to mine. “Well Ah’ll be...” She frowned down at it. “Ah sure as hay didn’t put it there, and Ah can’t imagine why any of y’all would move it here.” She leaned halfway out the window to get a closer look. “And them vines are awful grown up around it when it couldn’t have been there for more’n a couple hours.”

“The green lady probably put it there!” Pinkie concluded.

“If she even exists,” Rainbow grumbled under her breath.

Before that debate could reignite Star interrupted everyone. “Son of a ... well I just found out what that huge noise was. There’s a downed tree blocking the road out. No, two—three of ‘em! No way we’re getting past that without some heavy equipment.”

I did not like the sound of that at all. “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

Cloud grimaced and nodded. “So we’ve got freaky stuff going on, and now three trees just so happen to fall in way that blocks the only way out of here? That sure looks like somebody’s gunning for us, especially when next we’ve got a missing can of gas turning up right next to the house we’re all staying in. If a bad guy set the house on fire while the only road in or out was blocked off...”

Everyone grimaced at where that line of thought lead. However, Twilight quickly brought up a counter-argument. “No one could have just chopped down all those trees without us noticing, right?”

Applejack frowned and shook her head. “Trees that thick don’t just fall down on their own in calm weather, especially not three of ‘em all perfectly placed to block the road. But she’s got a point—we would’ve heard a chainsaw, and doin’ that kinda work with an axe in the dark would’ve taken a while.”

Star brought her drone around to get a closer look at the fallen trees. “They weren’t cut down—they’ve still got their roots attached.”

“So what knocked them down?” Rainbow asked. “Don’t tell me we’ve got some sort of evil tree monster or something. ‘Cause if this turns into Evil Dead, I am so outta here.”

“We are a bunch of teenagers all alone in a cabin in the woods,” Sparkler agreed.

“Let’s not panic,” Sunset ordered. “There’s no evidence the trees came down by foul play. I’ll call for help getting the road cleared. Star, keeping checking the area, and everyone else keep your eyes and ears open and your power crystals on you.” She glanced my way. “Um, if you don’t have any magic...”

“I will check if Dad and Uncle Tor left their hunting rifles here,” I finished for her. “It might be overreacting, but I would rather be ready for whatever comes.”

Author's Note

As always, thanks to my pre-reading and editing team for all their hard work. Also, I would like to thank all my dedicated Patreon supporters. You guys are awesome.

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Things Get Groovy

I sighed and turned off my phone. “I managed to get through to the local sheriff, but they will not send anyone until the morning.”

Sunset scowled. “Why are they taking their time?”

I shrugged. “They were not inclined to wake everyone up in the middle of the night, and dealing with that many fallen trees would likely require chainsaws and heavy equipment which they prefer not to operate in the dark. They are not willing to treat it as an emergency when we do not have any proof that it was anything other than a normal treefall and we have more than enough supplies to make it until morning.”

“Right.” She sighed and sank down on the couch. “If we told them the whole story they’d probably think we’re just a bunch of high-strung nervous city girls jumping at shadows. And everyone’s parents are hours away; they probably wouldn’t get here until morning anyway. Looks like we’re on our own, so let’s concentrate on taking care of ourselves for now.”

“Assuming there’s anything to worry about.” Twilight frowned out the window. “I mean, how much has actually happened? Trees fall down all the time without foul play being involved, and the gas can getting moved could have just been a matter of someone getting it out of the way while we were all working and forgetting they’d moved it.”

“Three trees falling all at once isn’t normal,” Sunset pointed out.

“It could have been a domino effect with how close together the three of them are,” Twilight countered. “Or it could just be someone playing a practical joke on us.” Her eyes flicked over to Rainbow and Pinkie, then Star and Sparkler.

Sunset shook her head. “This is a bit elaborate for any of us to set up, and I think if it was some sort of joke whoever was doing it would’ve come clean before we called the cops and broke the guns out. Rainbow and Pinkie know a prank is only funny if everyone’s laughing.”

“Star and Sparkler know their limits too,” I confirmed. “Especially when most of you do not know them very well. A really mean-spirited prank that has people genuinely upset is not the sort of impression they want to make.” I grimaced out the window. “There is still no sign of any danger. If there was some hostile force, I think it would have followed up on downing the trees by now.”

“Unless whoever’s doing this is just waiting for us to relax and let our guard down.” Sunset tapped a pen against her lips. “I just ... call it a hunch, sixth sense, instinct, whatever you want—I think we’ve got another magical threat on our hands.”

Star spoke up, sounding kind of oddly distant due to being focused on her VR headset. “Already got F1X3R checking everything in its range. Even without the night vision upgrade I should be able to spot anything weird. I’ll need to start pulling it back in twenty minutes for a fresh battery, so we might want to have someone watching the windows after that.”

“Better to be safe than sorry,” I agreed. “We can do some more investigating in the morning while the authorities clear the road. Running around the woods at night would make us far too vulnerable to an enemy, and adds dozens of other dangers completely unrelated to anyone who might be threatening us.”

“It wouldn’t be that dangerous if we all have flashlights and stick together,” Sunset countered. “I know it’s still a risk, but I really don’t like the idea of us just sitting in here blind while anything could be going on out there. I want to do something.”

Twilight sighed. “If there is magic involved, there’s no reason to think that our flashlights would keep working. Normally our magic doesn’t interfere with technology, but there are plenty of precedents in folklore for the two not getting along.”

“And the forest at night can be very disorienting,” I pointed out. “Sound travels oddly, and trees would break up the illumination from our flashlights. Even if we plan to be careful and stick together, you all know about the saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy. We have a safe base here, and I see nothing we could gain by looking around that would outweigh the risks of leaving it.”

Sunset sighed and flopped back on the couch, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “I know, I know. I just hate being cooped up in here waiting. We’ve got a problem, and I feel like I need to get out there and do something about it.” She groaned and got off the sofa, pacing over to her bags. “Might as well burn off some energy while I’m this pent up.”

I was a bit surprised when she pulled a sword out of her duffel bag, drawing it from the scabbard. I had known she was in the fencing club with Cloud, but having an actual sword was a step up from that. “Is that an old cavalry saber?”

“Yup.” Sunset gave it a quick flourish. “Picked it up at the army surplus store for pretty cheap. I would’ve loved to get something a bit heavier like a falchion or a kriegsmesser, but those aren’t exactly on the discount rack.”

Star twitched, probably wanting to do an internet search to find out exactly how much it would cost to buy one of those swords. Thankfully, the drone kept her too occupied to bother with such things. As Sunset did a few quick practice moves with the sword to keep herself occupied, Twilight stretched out to take up the couch space she’d abandoned. “I’m fine with staying here until morning. If there’s anything out there in the dark, I’d rather the drone spot it.”

“Drones are better at spotting things than people anyway,” Star murmured. “At least, until people learn how to fly and everyone carries a camera with 3x optical zoom and 4k resolution.” She went silent for a long moment. “Admittedly, the flying part of it can be handled by magic, if half of what I’ve heard happened at the Friendship Games is true.”

“A lot of it is,” Twilight confirmed. “Having wings sprout out of my back was weird.”

The image of Twilight Sparkle with wings was a curious one. After studying her for several seconds, I decided they would likely suit her. If nothing else, she was attractive enough that new appendages could hardly detract from her beauty. Not that she possessed the sort of classical beauty of the sort one would hear immortalized in poem or see in a statue; her glasses were too thick, her hair was in a simple ponytail rather than immaculately styled, and she hadn’t bothered with more than the most perfunctory cosmetics. I suppose if one were being technical she was more cute than properly beautiful, though her bookishness and tendency to be just a touch awkward leant her an approachable air that many true beauties lacked. In fact—

My phone buzzing tore me from those idle contemplations. I picked it up and discovered a new text from Star. Stop undressing her with your eyes, Skunky. It’s creepy.

I scowled and set my phone aside. “I am doing no such thing, and you are in no position to accuse anyone else of being creepy.” I crossed my arms over my chest and did my best to glare at her. “Should you not be focusing on the drone?”

“Multitasking.” A hint of a smirk showed up on her lips. “Long word, multiple syllables. If you don’t know what it means I can show you how to look it up.”

“I know where you sleep,” I groused. If not for her being in the middle of some rather important work, I might have done more than just grumble a mostly idle threat. As it was, the matter quickly faded from my mind when I spotted something on the drone’s video feed. “Is that the house the loggers use whenever they are working in the area? I did not know F1X3R had that much range.”

“It doesn’t with the stock battery and transmitter,” Star answered with a proud grin. “But what’s the point of limiting myself to stock components? Sparks even got Blossom to do a bit of custom work on it.”

Sunset frowned at the building. “Check it out. If there is anyone messing with us, an unoccupied building within hiking distance would be a perfect hideout.”

“What I would do,” Star murmured. I refrained from commenting on the fact that she had put thought into how to creepily stalk people. “Definitely getting that night-vision camera soon as I have a bit more cash saved up.” She sent the drone circling around the shack, pausing when she got to a window. “You guys seeing this?”

“A broken window,” I confirmed. “And those vines growing through it look extremely thick, considering the building was occupied a week ago.”

Twilight frowned at the scene. “If the window only broke in the last week, there’s no way the vines would be that thick already. And I can’t imagine the loggers would have just left it hanging wide open and uncovered if it broke while they were there.”

“They would have at least taped some cardboard over it or something,” I agreed.

Sunset broke off her sword practice to take a closer look. “I’m getting a strong magic vibe here.”

“And these aren’t just little creepers either,” Star pointed out. “Place looks like it’s been abandoned for years. Doesn’t make any sense, unless Poison Ivy just moved in.” She moved the drone up to the broken window, getting a look inside. “Crap.”

Twilight grimaced. “That can’t be blood, can it?”

I leaned in to get a better look at the screen. There were several dark reddish-brown stains on the broken glass, and what looked like a handprint on one of the walls. There might have been more on the floor, but it was made of darker material that made it even harder to tell what the smeared substance might be.

Star shrugged and announced the same conclusion I had reached. “Hard to tell for sure. It’s dark, and even a zoomed-in camera can only tell me it’s dried up dark reddish-brown stuff. Context sure makes it look like blood, but for all we know it maybe someone spilled ketchup and didn’t clean it up. Not to mention that with the window wide open some wild animal could have decided to check the place out and cut itself on the broken glass.”

“Possibly,” I agreed. “But even if it does ultimately turn out to be something harmless, I think we can all agree that for the moment we should assume the worst.”

Sunset sighed. “If past experience is anything to go by, we’ve rarely been wrong doing that when weird stuff that looks like it could be dangerous magic starts happening.”

“Super.” Star grimaced as she moved her drone around to get more footage. “I don't care what’s causing this, I just want to be nice and safely away from it. Maybe you guys are used to dealing with all these crazy magical shenanigans, but everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound way too dangerous to mess around with. Especially for us normies.”

“It’s pretty dangerous for us too,” Twilight murmured, hugging herself as she worried at her lower lip. “I mean, a lot of the wild bits of Equestrian magic we run into want to feed off our powers to get even stronger.”

I stepped over to her side and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Do not worry, I will not let anything happen to you.”

“Oh.” Twilight’s cheeks lit up as she looked at me. “Um, thanks.”

I removed my hand, feeling a touch self-conscious about the fact that I had been touching her so casually. It might be seen as overly familiar, and Star would doubtless try to tease me about it later. “In light of this, I think we should sleep in shifts and have some sort of guard posted for the rest of the night.”

“Probably a good idea to make sure at least one of the people with magic is up,” Sunset agreed. “No offense Storm, but if there is a magical threat you and Star might not able to do much.”

“Perhaps not,” I conceded. “But I will not assume that until I confirm that whatever we are dealing with is immune to bullets.”

Twilight Sparkle wrote up the watch schedule for the rest of the night. That left me a touch confused and curious when I began my shift and found out that my watch partner was Twilight herself. Given that she was the one who made the schedule it struck me as unlikely that the two of us had been paired up by coincidence.

However, now was hardly the time to allow myself to be distracted by this ... whatever was developing between us. We were on watch duty, and that took precedence over minor personal matters. I took up the hunting rifle Cloud had left behind and thoroughly checked it over. Not that I doubted my cousin’s diligence, but one of the first rules was to always check your weapon.

Twilight shot a nervous smile my way as I worked. “You know how to use that?”

I nodded. “Yes.” Our family picked their hunting rifles with all the care one would expect of a military family. I dimly recalled Mom and Uncle Tor debating the merits of the .306 and .308 back when they first set up the hunting cabin. Though Mom would likely be annoyed to hear I had gone against her wishes in the matter, I had opted to take Uncle Tor’s .306 instead of her .308. Star needed the lower recoil a bit more than I did. In either case, a bolt-action rifle with a four-shot magazine and one more in the pipe would do just fine for seeing off anything that cared about being shot.

Twilight chuckled nervously and ran a hand through her hair. “Right, your whole family’s in the military. I guess you grew up around this stuff.”

“I did,” I confirmed. “If anything, my sister and I are unusual because Mom and Dad are both in rear-area positions. They practice enough to keep certified, but a psychologist and a chaplain are not exactly on par with Aunt Nimbus. Though perhaps that is for the best, as Aunt Nimbus’ preference for bow hunting cost us a good rifle for Sparkler.”

“Right.” Twilight frowned to herself. “Well if three guns and all of our magical powers aren’t enough to handle whatever’s going, we’re in so much trouble that I doubt a fourth one would make a difference.”

“Point,” I conceded. With that matter settled, I ventured for a little small talk to pass the time. “Your brother is in the army as well, right?

Twilight nodded. “He’s a lieutenant, yeah.” She smiled fondly, relaxing back against the couch. “He’s always wanted to go into the army, or be a cop. Something where he could help protect other people.”

“It sounds like you are very proud of him,” I commented.

“Of course,” Twilight answered. “What he does is really important.”

A dry smile tugged at my lips. “Well, nice to know you approve of my planned profession.”

“I would be pretty unappreciative if I didn’t,” Twilight answered. “I mean, you’re doing it for the same reason he is, right? To protect people?”

“Yes, that and family tradition.” The mention of family tradition brought an obvious question to mind. “Do you plan to go into the service alongside him?”

Twilight sighed and shook her head. “I wasn’t planning on it, no. Even before all the crazy magic stuff happened, army stuff just really doesn’t sound like what’s right for me. I mean, I like books, not guns.” She sighed and took her glasses off, wiping the lenses. “Though to be honest, I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing. I mean, with my grades I’ll probably get into a really nice college and get a degree, but past that...” She shrugged helplessly. “And that’s assuming I can still have a kind of normal job and future with everything else going on.”

“It is quite a lot to deal with,” I agreed. “And really, there is nothing wrong with taking your time considering your options before committing to anything.”

“Exactly.” She shot me a hint of a sheepish grin. “Though last time I tried to make a checklist of all my options it wound up getting so long it was a bit unwieldy.”

“I can imagine.” Smart, talented, and attractive ladies like her would have no shortage of options. “May I ask you a question?”

Twilight shrugged. “Sure, go ahead.”

I took a deep breath. “Why did you leave Crystal Prep?”

Twilight’s cautiously friendly smile faded into an uncomfortable grimace. “I didn’t really feel like I belonged there. I mean, no one really seemed to want me around other than Cadance, and maybe Cinch when she saw a way to take advantage of me. Most days everyone just ignored me, and the one or two times I tried to socialize...”

I took a deep breath. “I wanted you around.” My cheeks warmed up a bit. “That is to say, I was ... I never really knew you then, but there were times I thought I should reach out to you.”

“Oh.” She sighed and brought one arm across her chest to rub the other. “Let me guess, you didn’t ever talk to me because you were worried about how everyone would look at you if you were hanging out with weird, nerdy, awkward Twilight.”

I winced at the tone, and the light her words cast me in. “I would not put it that way.” In all honesty I had never had much concern for the various school cliques. The junior cadets were already a rather insular group on account of our more martial bent, and only a few like Fleur had really managed to integrate well into the rest of the student body. However, that made the fact that I had never approached Twilight all the more damning. I shrugged helplessly. “I suppose a good opportunity just never arose.” Even as I said it, I realized what a poor excuse that was.

Twilight didn’t seem to think less of me for the answer. Instead she slumped back on the couch. “Right, maybe that. It’s not like I was making it easy by high school. After getting through elementary and middle I’d just gotten used to being off in my own world with my books, ignoring everyone else.” She let out a frustrated groan. “I mean, what was I supposed to do? It’s not like I was completely antisocial or anything: I tried to make friends! It just never worked out. The friends I made during elementary either moved away like Moondancer or wound up going to a different school like Minuette and Lyra. Once they went to a new school they had new friends, and even though we tried to keep in touch it wasn’t easy when we had nothing new to bond over. I tried to make new friends, but either we had nothing in common, or we didn’t get along, or they had better friends they actually wanted to hang out with.” She buried her face in her hands. “I guess I eventually just gave up and resigned myself to the idea of not really having friends. If you’d ever tried to talk to me I probably would’ve just ignored you and kept my nose buried in whatever book I was reading.”

“That still seems a poor excuse for me to not even make the effort.” I grimaced and tried to think of a good way to explain my actions. “I suppose I always told myself I would do it next week, and there was no rush. After all, you were in a class above mine and did not look like you wanted anyone to talk to you. And then before I knew it I had run out of time entirely. If I wanted to get to know you better, I should have.” I cleared my throat. “I cannot change the past, but now seems like a good time to at least move forward as I should have long ago. Would you like to be friends?”

Twilight bit her lip. “If you want to. I mean, it’s not like we’ll get a whole lot of opportunities to hang out when we go to different schools now.”

“Ah.” My eyes fell to the floor as I suddenly felt very foolish. Of course she would not be interested now that she had moved on to a new school and found new friends.

Twilight groaned and slapped her forehead. “Sorry, I’m ... not always good at this type of thing. Sunset’s trying to work with me on the whole social skills thing. You know, making friends. And talking with people. Or carrying on conversations. Or not making everything awkward. Or ... I think I’ll just shut up now.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, what I meant to say is that of course I’d like to be friends, even if we don’t get to spend as much time together as I will with the friends I go to school with.”

I smiled and got up, walking over to her and extending my hand. “Shall we make it official, then?”

“Sure.” She started to stand up to shake my hand, but either I had misjudged how close I was standing to the couch or she leaned a bit too far forward. Either way, the effect was that she wound up headbutting me in the chin. I staggered at the unexpected impact as my teeth clacked together, and Twilight instinctively tried to help steady me. However, the grab wound up compromising my balance instead of saving it, and it was all I could manage to make sure we both fell down onto the couch instead of the hard wooden floor.

After a few moments of disorientation I managed to grasp our new situation. I was reclining flat on my back on the couch with Twilight Sparkle on top of me, and her face mere inches away from mine. Her arms were still wrapped around me, and my own seem to have reciprocated the gesture to keep her from falling onto the floor.

Our respective positions were somewhat awkward. “Are you alright?”

“Fine.” Twilight chuckled sheepishly. “I should be asking you that. I’m the one who headbutted you while trying to shake your hand. Sorry.”

“It is fine.” Seemingly of their own accord, my hands shifted to the small of her back, resting there in something far more intimate than holding onto her to make sure she did not fall onto the floor and hurt herself.

Judging by the way a hint of pink slowly crept into her cheeks, Twilight was fully aware of what my hands were doing. “I should ... probably get off of you.” She let out an incredibly forced laugh. “You know, since I clumsily fell on top of you in the first place. Not that there's anything wrong with you. Or this. Just, um...” She shifted to side a bit, making both of us a bit more comfortable, and her own hands mimicked mine. “We’re just together, the two of us. Getting along, with this nice—thing we’ve got going on. Friendly, you holding me.” She leaned in a bit, resting her cheek on my shoulder. “Things being a bit scary. This being pretty nice...”

“Yes, this...” I swallowed a nervous lump in my throat. “You do not need to get up if you do not wish to. In fact ... I would like it if stayed exactly where you are, presuming you do not feel the need to leave.”

Twilight looked up at me, nervously licking her lips. “I’m not in a huge rush.”

I felt the heat rising in my own cheeks. “Good.”

Twilight started to lean a bit closer, even as her own cheeks lit up. I was a bit stunned when she suddenly blurted out. “I don't like girls!” That hung in the air for a long, awkward moment. “I mean, I do, obviously. All of my best friends are girls. Except for Shining, and he’s kind of different because he’s also my big brother. I call him my BBBFF, Big Brother Best Friend Forever. Or there’s Spike, but he's a dog so he really doesn’t count. So the point is that I like girls, but I don’t like girls. I think. Or at least, I thought. Now I don’t know what I’m thinking! I’m sorry, this doesn’t make any sense, does it? It doesn’t even make any sense to me, and I’m the one who’s saying it, how could it possibly make sense to you? All I know is that yesterday I never would’ve thought of kissing another girl, and now I’m kind of wishing we hadn’t gotten interrupted before we went through with that silly dare Star put us up to.”

I stared at her for several seconds as I slowly untangled everything she had just said. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” She groaned and started to pull away from me. “And after listening to all of that you probably think I’m some sort of weirdo and don’t want anything more to do with me.”

I kept my hold on her before she could get too far away.”No, it is ... I think I understand how you feel, and I don’t think you’re weird or want you to go away.”

Twilight blinked, a shy smile slowly spreading across her lips. “You used a contraction again. Two of them, actually. Isn’t that supposed to mean something?”

“That does seem to be a common theory,” I conceded.

Twilight leaned a little bit closer. “Well, um, you probably noticed I really like science. And, well, in science one of the important things to do is to, uh, test a hypothesis to see if holds up. So, if, well, we could um, do that. Test the hypothesis. If you’d like.”

I was about to answer her when I heard a strange crunching noise. My eyes flicked to the side, and I spotted something most unexpected.

Pinkie Pie. Sitting in one of the comfortable chairs with a bowl full of popcorn. She shoveled another handful of it into her mouth, then smiled and waved at us.

Twilight spotted her and let out a startled yelp, bolting back away from me. “Pinkie! What are you doing?!”

“Whaaat?” Pinkie rolled her eyes. “I gotta start my guarding shift in half an hour, and I was kinda snacky so I made some popcorn, and now I’m eating it.” She stared at us for a long moment, then added, “If you’re mad ‘cause I didn’t make any for you, then you can un-mad yourself, ‘cause I don’t mind sharing.”

Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m good, Pinkie.”

“What about you, Stormy?” Pinkie asked. “You don’t mind if I call you Stormy, do you?”

“I do not mind, and I do not want any popcorn, though thank you for offering.” I rose to my feet and coughed. “I think I will go get a soda.” My eyes flicked over to Twilight. “Would you like anything as long as I am up?”

“If you don’t mind,” Twilight murmured, not quite looking at me. “There should be plenty of the strawberry-flavored soda left.”

“I will get you one, then.”

Twilight shot a tense smile my way. “Thanks.”

“I'll go with you!” Pinkie volunteered. “All that popcorn made me super-thirsty.” Once the two of us were alone in the kitchen she shut the door behind herself. “Sooo ... Twilight’s super-nice, isn't she?”

Ah. Had she come here to discuss what she had seen? Considering I still could not make heads or tails of exactly what had almost happened between myself and her, that would make for an awkward discussion. “Er ... yes, she is.”

Pinkie’s normal bubbly smiled faded away as she frowned at me. “Buuut she’s not very experienced. And really sensitive. Almost as much as Fluttershy is, probably because she’s still getting used to having lots of friends. Soooo, since her cute big bro isn’t here to say this kinda thing, I’ll just point out that I have magical powers that can make explosions, and I really don't like it when my friends get hurt.”

Well, that was not the turn I had expected this conversation to take. “So noted.”

“Great!” Her usual perky smile was back in place a moment later, and she got one of Twilight’s strawberry sodas from the fridge along with a cherry one for me. “Here you go. Oh, and you two might wanna wait until you’re off watch duty to finish up your little experiment. Not trying to be a party pooper, but you’re kinda supposed to keeping watch out for bad guys, not just watching each other.”

“I will bear that in mind.” I could hardly disagree with her that our minds had very much not been on keeping an eye out for possible threats. “However, for the moment I think everything is al—”

As if summoned by my words and a sense of dramatic irony, a massive vine came crashing through the windows.

Twilight stumbled back with a startled shriek, while Pinkie Pie’s eyes shot open and she spat out the soda she’d been in the middle of drinking. “This is diet cola! Ew, come on!” She cocked her head to the side. “Oh, and also, there are a bunch of crazy murder vines coming after us.”

I rushed in and wrapped an arm around Twilight’s waist, pulling her away to safety. I also snatched up the rifle, though a second after arming myself I realized I did not have the best weapon for the situation. I quickly shoved Twilight behind me to keep her safe, then took a shot at the nearest vine. The bullet left a satisfyingly large hole, but did little to stop the vine itself.

“What are those?!” Twilight gasped.

“I dunno what they are, but what about the others?!” Pinkie shouted. “Especially Rarity, they’ll interrupt her beauty sleep!”

I stomped down on a vine that was trying to wrap itself around Twilight’s ankle. “They will have to take care of themselves for the moment.” It sounded a touch heartless, but we already had our hands full dealing with the threat right in front of us.

“I guess this supports the theory that this is magic!” Twilight’s hands lit up as she telekinetically grabbed the sofa and dropped it on the vine, pinning it down far more effectively than my foot could ever hope to manage.

“I got it!” Pinkie grabbed one of the cushions and held onto it until it started glowing. Then she chucked it at the vine, where it exploded and reduced the encroaching plant to a mass of green pulp. “Yes! Score one for the Pinkinator!”

Three more vines every bit as thick as the first burst through the window. I put two more shots into one of them and managed to place them close enough to each other to cripple the vine’s progress, but that was only one third of the job done. The other two vines shot straight past me, aiming at Twilight. She snagged them with her magic, trying to hold them back, but judging by her clenched teeth and the sweat beading on her brow it was not an easy task.

I took advantage of the restraint to put two more point blank shots into the plant, but it did not seem to do enough damage to stop even one of the two vines, and now I was out of ammo. There was no time to reload, so I had to resort to less sophisticated methods, swinging the gun and slamming the butt against the damaged section to try and finish what the bullets started. Unsurprisingly, blunt force was not terribly effective at cutting vines.

“Pinkie!” Twilight called out. “Break them as I hold them!”

“Sure thing! Get clear, Stormy!” As soon as I removed myself from the blast area Pinkie tossed another one of her exploding cushions, pulping both of the vines. As before, the destruction only seemed to draw more of them in. It almost felt like we were up against a hydra; for every vine we destroyed, two more came rushing in.

I tried to grab another one of the vines, but it was too strong for me to do much more than slow it down a little bit. Then the thorns along the vine cut into my skin, and despite my best efforts to hold on it slipped out of my grasp, barreling towards a seemingly defenseless Twilight Sparkle.

An orange blur shot past me as Applejack tackled the vine, using her magically enhanced strength to do what I could not and force the vines back. “Ain’t no crazy plants gonna hurt mah friends long as Ah’m here!” She wrestled the vine and pinned it to the ground, then pulled out her pocket knife. “Ain’t no self-respectin’ farmgirl goes without a knife, ‘cept when it ain’t allowed!” Normally the pocket knife wouldn’t have been enough to carve through a thick vine, but with Applejack’s magical muscles behind it she made short work of the plant.

“I’ll tie them up!” Twilight called out. “You two get rid of them!”

“Sure thing!” Pinkie pulled off one of her socks and chucked it at the vines, where it promptly exploded like a hand grenade. “Hope they stop coming soon, ‘cause I’ve only got one more sock left and after that...” She sighed. “I gotta start carrying stuff for exploding when bad guys come after us. Just not a deck of cards, or I’d get sued.”

I found a few pieces of debris to toss Pinkie’s way for extra ammunition, but as I did so I realized something: while the other three were fighting desperately to hold off the attacking plantlife, none of them had even come close to me. Even when I had tried to wrestle them down or attacked them they hadn’t really fought back. They had just carried on towards their true targets. “Why are the vines ignoring me?”

“It must be because you don’t have any magic!” Twilight called out. “It’s the most obvious thing separating you from us.”

Applejack snarled and tore one of the vines in half. “Gotta be some way we can use that to—” She yelped as a vine snagged her by the ankle and pulled her off her feet. Several more vines immediately shot out for her other ankle and wrist. “Git offa me you dadgum—” She snarled and managed to free her limbs a few times, but she could not seem to fully shake off the vines.

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “Twilight! Runaway Apple!”

Twilight snarled and threw more magic at the vines, and while she did a good job of holding them at bay for the moment it didn’t move us any close to stopping them. I frowned and glanced down at the one vine I’d successfully disabled with my gun, or the ones Applejack had destroyed with main strength. They’d both stayed down, and they were about the only vines that seemed to still be dead. Between that and the fact that they seemed drawn towards magic users...

“Take THIS!” Pinkie snarled and threw one of her shoes at the mass of vines near Applejack, blowing them to pieces and showering her with plant gunk. She sighed, slumping down and wiping sweat off her brow. “Twilight ... I’m running out of things to throw! Especially when I don’t wanna risk blowing up AJ too!”

“I’m trying to get her loose,” Twilight grunted. “But if I pull any harder it could end up hurting her instead of the vines!”

“Well someone get me outta here ‘fore this turns into somethin’ outta one of them Neighponese cartoons!” Applejack snarled and thrashed against the vines, but by now they’d hauled her up into the air where she had no leverage to resist them.

Clearly it was time for radical action. I rushed over to the window and dove out through it, right past all the encroaching vines. I heard Twilight’s panicked voice call out after me. “Storm!”

Just as I’d hoped, the vines completely ignored me as I rushed past them. The worst I suffered was a few more scratches from passing too close to them. It was a blind spot I intended to make the plants pay for. I sprinted to the tool shed and threw the door open. My first instinct was to grab a machete, but then I spotted a somewhat more absurd but undoubtedly more effective option. Considering the madness of the entire situation, I saw no reason not to go along with things at this point. I armed myself and said the only thing I possibly could under the present circumstances. “Groovy.”

I revved up the chainsaw and charged towards the mass of vines breaking through the living room window. The window formed a natural chokepoint they all had to go through, thankfully one they hadn’t managed to widen yet. The chainsaw did exactly what it was designed to, carving straight through the thick mass of plant matter like a knife through butter and splattering me with all manner of severed plant bits and sap in the process.

After what felt like several minutes but could not have been more than a few seconds I’d carved through all the vines, leaving behind a mass of severed stumps. The still-living sections of the vines writhed about like they were in pain, but I was not about to give them the chance to recover. I set the saw aside and grabbed the gas can from beneath the window, splashing the contents all over them. While I was doing that, I kicked some of the vines out of the window. “Someone help me set them on fire!”

A second later a glowing can of diet cola came flying out the window, landing right next to the vines. It promptly exploded, igniting the fuel and setting the vines ablaze. For a moment I could swear I heard the plants screaming, and the burning vines snaked their back into the forest, writing about in pain as they withdrew.

While Applejack snarled and pulled the last of the vines off herself and Pinkie cleared the window of the remaining vines to help me get back in, Twilight slumped down on what was left of the couch. “Is... is that all of them?”

Pinkie frowned and looked over my shoulder, where the burning vines were still barely visible as they fled deeper into the forest. “I think they’re gone for now, but...”

“Whatever our enemy is, I fear we only wounded it,” I finished for her as I climbed back through the window. “This is likely only a respite before it returns.”

“Storm!” Twilight rushed and wrapped her arms around me. “What were you thinking?! You scared me to death when you jumped out the window into the middle of all those crazy vines! Are you okay?!”

“I am fine,” I assured her. “And there was no danger, the vines were all ignoring me.”

“They’d been ignoring you so far,” Twilight countered. “Jumping right into the middle of them wasn’t a smart way to test the hypothesis!” She pulled back from me and frowned, giving me a quick once-over. “And you’re not fine at all, you’ve got cuts on your arms from that crazy stunt! We need to find a first aid kit.”

“Hmm?” I glanced down at the scratches on my arms from my attempt to wrestle with the vines, and likely a few more I had picked up over the course of the battle. None of them seemed particularly deep, and with all the adrenaline in my system I had all but forgotten about them. For a moment I was tempted to brush off her concerns, but that was likely not a wise course of action. Untreated open wounds were not a good thing to have under the circumstances.

Before we could worry about that Sunset came rushing into the living room, her saber out and all but covered in plant matter. “You guys okay?! I tried to get to you to help out, but we had our hands full upstairs.”

“We’re okay,” Twilight assured her. “Well, I mean, we’re scared, shaken up, and Storm’s hurt and needs a first aid kit, but we’re all alive and intact. Is everyone else okay?”

Applejack’s eyes shot wide open. “Rares! Is Rarity okay?!”

“And Star?” I asked. “Cloud and Sparkler?”

Sunset held up her free hand to forestall any further questions. “Everyone’s fine. Rarity’s shields were actually a huge help in holding them off and letting me and Cloud take them apart while Rainbow ran interference.”

Applejack let out a relieved sigh. “Okay, good...”

“Indeed.” It was an immense relief to know Cloud was alright. And Star and Sparkler. Even if they were brats who frequently made it their mission in life to inflict suffering on me, they were family. That last was more important than all other considerations.

“I think we need a team huddle.” Pinkie clapped her hands and shouted. “Team huddle guys!”

The others all joined us in the living room, most looking a bit worse for the wear. Fluttershy managed to find our first aid kit and would have seen to the cuts and scrapes on my arms if Twilight had not insisted on taking over for her. She might have regretted volunteering, considering she had to clean all the plant gunk off my arms before she could even start applying disinfectant and bandaging my wounds.

Once I was wrapped up she shot a nervous smile my way. “So, that was pretty scary.” She glanced around the torn apart living room completely covered in exploded plant matter. “And very messy.”

Pinkie chuckled sheepishly. “Guilty as charged. Magical explosion powers are pretty good at stopping baddies, but they do kinda make a mess.”

“I think we can all agree that this is better than the alternative,” I said. “And if anyone asks, we can just blame the damage entirely on the plant monster.”

“Let’s just hope your parents’ home insurance covers attacks by magical plants,” Sunset murmured. “But let’s not get too relaxed just yet, this was probably just the start of it all.”

I frowned and nodded. “Those vines were only interested in the people with powers, and they tried to drag Applejack off. That makes me think they were just proxies.”

Sunset grimaced and nodded. “A lot of the bad guys we’ve run into seem interested in stealing our magic or at least using us as a power source. Looks like whoever’s behind the killer plants is trying to do the same thing.”

“So what are we supposed to do about it?” Rainbow grumbled. “We gotta find them to stop ‘em, and that’s gonna involve running off into the forest in the middle of the night with no clue where to go or what we’re looking for.”

“But staying here and waiting for another monster attack isn’t an option either,” Sunset pointed out. “If we surrender the initiative it’ll let whoever’s behind this just wear us down. Considering how many of those vines there were, they’re probably pretty expendable. Help might be coming in the morning, but even if we hold out that long I doubt the local road-clearing crew is going to be able to handle an attack by plant monsters.”

“Not to mention the bad guy is probably going to take out our cars if it turns into a siege,” Cloud pointed out. “Not that I love the idea of running away and leaving the killer plant monster free to do whatever it wants, but I’d rather fall back for now and come back loaded for war.”

Star nodded. “Already found a place that sells herbicide in bulk about an hour away from here. Under the circumstances, I think we wanna pick it up by the gallon.” She shot a look my way. “Maybe get a couple more chainsaws too, since the guns weren’t working so hot for anyone but Cloud.”

“Exploding fire bullets did give me a bit of an edge,” my cousin conceded.

Rainbow turned to me. “Did you really use a chainsaw against the plant monster? ‘Cause that is seriously awesome. Please tell me you remembered to say something cool right before you started chopping it up.”

“I went with ‘groovy.’” I shrugged. “We are a bunch of teenagers in a cabin in the woods being attacked by an evil tree, and respecting the classics seemed like the best choice.”

Rainbow grinned like a kid in a candy store. “Cloud, when did your cousin get this awesome?” She smirked a bumped her hip. “You better up your game, or I’m gonna start thinking I hooked up with the wrong Kicker.”

Cloud rolled her eyes and punched Rainbow in the shoulder. “Focus, Dash. Less jokes, more getting serious about the big bad evil thing trying to eat us.”

“So what is our plan?” I asked. “I might be able to follow the vines back to the source considering they were rather large and on fire, but tracking anything at night is an uncertain proposition. We can use F1X3R for an advance scout, but there is only so much we can do with it, especially if we’re going to be out in the field.”

“Yeah, it’s not ideal,” Sunset agreed. “But staying here and waiting for the next attack isn’t an option either. Fluttershy, can your animals do some scouting for us as well?”

“I’ll ask,” she murmured.

“Alright then,” Sunset cracked her knuckles. “Let’s go on a monster hunt.”

Twilight sighed. “I had a feeling you would be saying that.”

Pinkie frowned and tapped her chin. “I’m gonna need to stock up on ammo. Maybe steal some gravel from the driveway? Or use up the rest of the diet soda.”

Sparkler raised a hand. “Speaking of ammo, I don’t suppose Cloud’s in the mood to share the magic bullets around?”

Cloud sighed and shook her head. “Tried that back when we were testing my powers. They only work if I’m the one pulling the trigger.”

“Dammit.” Sparkler sighed and shook her head. “So, uh, any volunteers for magic-ing me and Star up? Because without some sort of powers we’re pretty much dead weight when it comes to dealing with evil plant monsters. I spent most of the fight just reloading for Cloud. So, I figure Twi’ll be up for giving Storm magic powers and Rainbow’s off-limits, which leaves...”

Sunset sighed and rolled her eyes. “For the last time, that was only a working theory about how Cloud got her powers, and even if it’s right it was probably due to Rainbow’s magic being in flux while we were at Camp Everfree. Not to mention I’m pretty sure there needs to be an emotional connection as part of the process as well, not just the physical side of it. Even if the theory that magic can be transferred via intimacy is right, what you’re shooting for wouldn’t work. So let’s just focus on dealing with the bad guy.”

“Right.” I took a deep breath. “So if we are going hunting for the source of all this trouble, how will we know what to look for?”

Sunset grimaced. “I’ve got a sinking feeling that we’ll know it when we see it.”

Author's Note

As always, thanks to my pre-reading and editing team for all their hard work. Also, I would like to thank all my dedicated Patreon supporters. You guys are awesome.

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Bad Vibrations

After a few minutes to take stock and rearm ourselves, we headed out into the woods to confront our mysterious enemy.

Much to Rainbow’s disappointment, I had abandoned the chainsaw for something a bit less dramatic, specifically a pair of machetes that would still be practical for cutting through brush. While using a chainsaw against living plants was less ridiculous than many of the other uses for it, chainsaws were still not really balanced or designed to be used in battle. The only reason I had gotten away with using one earlier was that the plants had all been stuck in a chokepoint, and I could hardly count on that happening again in the open woods.

Star frowned down at her phone and sighed. “Satellite photos aren’t helping as much as I’d like. With F1X3R recharging we have to use Fluttershy’s animals for scouting, and squirrels can’t read map coordinates or use a GPS to give me latitude and longitude.”

“I know, we have to use old-fashioned fieldcraft and skills to navigate instead of just typing everything into a phone and letting it do all the hard work.” I shot a deadpan look her way. “The unimaginable horror. It is almost like our training included these skills for a reason.”

Star rolled her eyes. “Sure, and next we’ll be smacking things with stone clubs and going ‘Ooga booga.’ Luddite.”

“Tech-addict.” I checked the edge of both of my machetes. Not quite as keen as I would have liked, but it was not as if I had the time to spend a few hours honing them to a perfect razor edge. They would at least be sharp enough to do the job.

Star frowned at me. “Should be packing something with a bit more reach.”

I sighed and shook my head. “You saw how useless bullets were against those vines. There is no point in bringing a ranged weapon if it is going to be completely ineffective.”

Star grimaced and did a quick check of her own hunting rifle. “Getting up close and personal isn’t a great choice either.” She nodded at the bandages on my arms, then to Twilight. “I will kick your butt so hard if you’re trying to be a big hero to impress her.”

I snorted. “As if you were capable of kicking my butt.”

Star frowned up at me, doubtless irked by the fact that I was taller and in better shape than her. Then she played her trump card. “KnightRanger32.”

“What?”

“Your password for all your social media.” Star smirked at me. “Easy to figure it out, and you really shouldn’t use the same password for all of your accounts. Makes it get easy to get into all of your stuff. Maybe I can’t kick your butt in meatspace, but if you get yourself hurt being a big stupid skunk hero I will destroy you in cyberspace. You’ll be a meme, a trending hashtag, and whatever other nasty ideas I can come up with. And you know me well enough to realize just how creative I can get.”

“Brat,” I grumbled, halfheartedly swatting at her.

“Ah, sibling love.” Sparkler flopped against the wall next to us, smirking. “Best expressed through teasing, threats, and mockery.” She picked up her rifle and joined Star in checking it over. “Thanks for arming me up, Storm. I was afraid I’d be stuck with the dinky little plinking rifle. Still don’t get why we only have three hunting rifles when there’s four parents who come up here to hunt.”

“Aunt Nimbus prefers to chase the deer down and kill them with her bare hands,” I deadpanned.

Sparkler stared at me for a few seconds. “Okay, normally I’d be sure that’s BS, buuut I can’t rule out that Mom could do that if she really wanted to.”

“It’s usually more of an ambush than chasing them down,” Star murmured, for once backing me up instead of undermining me. “Climbs up a tree and waits for one to walk underneath her, then she drops on its back and snaps its neck.”

“Riiight.” Sparkler closed the bolt, then took a deep breath. “Wish she was here. Just saying, we could use a super-badass SpecForce soldier right now. And...” She growled and shook her head, wiping at her eyes. “Dammit, I’m not some little kid who needs mommy to hug me and tell me everything’s gonna be okay and the monsters won’t get me.”

Star wrapped an arm around her. “How about a cool cousin saying it?”

Sparkler let out a breath and returned the hug. “Yeah, that’s fine. Especially when I can say it right back to her.”

“Indeed so.” I smiled and joined in on the group hug. “Remember, Star: as a big sister I am obligated to crush you beneath my heel, but I will also utterly destroy anyone else who tries to do that to you. Even if you are a creepy stalker who hacks into my internet.”

Star rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, love you too, Skunky. I’ll show you how to set up a better password once we make it outta this, set you up with a password manager or something.”

“So you can install a backdoor into my computer?” A second later I realized the flaw in my logic. “But you can already get in there anyway.”

“Same principle as the big sis rule,” Star murmured. “Nobody hacks you but me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Lovely to see such family solidarity.” I cleared my throat and focused back on the more important matters at hand. “Use guns if you want, but I would advise a backup cutting weapon. Bullets did not seem especially effective against the vines, and I am sure you recall the old saying about how a knife never runs out of ammunition. The first attack already put a considerable dent in our stores.”

Star sighed and nodded. “So we’re going medieval. Fine, what do we have available?”

Rainbow must have overheard the question, because she shouted over, “Come on, someone has to use the chainsaw!”

I shook my head. “Not the most practical choice, especially after I used all our spare gas to set the plants on fire. That said, considering we came to clear brush in the first place the two you should be spoiled for choice.”

Sparkler nodded. “We’ve got machetes, milspec K-BARs with saw-tooth serrations, and I think there’s a kukri around here somewhere.”

Star shrugged. “I’ll take a machete then. Spent half the afternoon swinging one around, I’m pretty used to it by now.”

“Your call.” Sparkler spent a minute digging through our supply bag until she found the kukri. “I like this one, blame Mom’s SpecForce roots. It’s like the perfect balance between a hatchet and a knife. So...” She took a deep breath and tried to hide the tremble that went down her spine behind a snarky grin. “Now that we’ve all equipped our chosen phallic symbols, we good to go?”

“As ready as we can be,” I murmured.

Cloud came over before we could get moving. The frown on her face gave me a pretty good idea what she was going to say before she opened her mouth. “Hey, Sparks. You sure you want to ... I mean, might be better to stay back at the cabin where it’s safe.”

Sparkler rolled her eyes. “Nah, I’m good. I mean, m’probably safer than you, since nobody took me up on my offer to make some magic. You sure you're good?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Cloud took a deep breath. “It’s just that it might be safer if you hang back. I mean, considering you don’t have any ... we’re a bit better equipped. Just saying, I don’t want anything happening to you, so hang back and keep outta the ugly stuff.” She nodded to myself and Star. “Same goes for you two. This is a big old magic duel thing, so play it safe and don’t try to be Batman in the Justice League.”

“Right, we don’t have billion dollar armor and a bunch of fanboy writers who’ll let us shrug off punches from guys who should turn us into a thin red mist with a single shot.” Sparkler went quiet for a minute, then grabbed her sister in a tight hug. “You don’t have super-durability either, just some fancy magic gun stuff. Stay safe, okay?”

Cloud returned the hug. “Will do.”

Sparkler smirked and poked her shoulder. “Just remember, if anything happens to you I’m telling Mom, and then she’s gonna come and kick your ass and mine.”

Cloud snorted and rolled her eyes. “Sounds like what she’d do, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your ass safe so Mom can kick it.” She marched off to rejoin the others.

Sparkler’s confident grin faded as she stared at her sister’s back. “Alright, let’s find out who’s messing with us and teach them why you don’t piss of the Kickers.”

“If we can, yeah.” Star sighed and frowned down at the ground. “Seems like Cloud doesn’t think we’ll be able to do all that much. Probably right. I mean, us using guns isn’t accomplishing anything more than burning through ammo she could be boosting up with magic, and that just leaves us flailing around with hunks of sharp metal like we’re still in the stone age.”

Sparkler frowned and shook her head. “No way. Even if we can’t do all the cool stuff, they’re gonna need someone watching their backs.”

“Not to mention that the vines seemed so interested in the magic-users that they all but ignored us,” I pointed out. “That was why I was able to sneak up on them with a chainsaw. Those are not normally noted as being a good weapon for stealth operations.”

Star grimaced and nodded. “So the vines ignored us, either because it wants them for some reason or it sees them as the only real threat.”

Sparkler shrugged. “If we’re invisible to whatever’s doing this, or even if it’s just not paying attention to us because it only thinks the magic gang is worth worrying about, then gives us a big edge. Lot easier for us to hit them if they don’t see us coming.”

“The vines ignored us,” Star pointed out. “No guarantee that’ll follow once we get to the big boss. Plants aren’t all that smart when it comes to target selection.”

“It is hard to say what we might encounter there,” I agreed. “But we do at least know that we hold an advantage against the vines when they are blindly questing for a target. I intend to use that advantage for all it is worth and seek out any other we might find.”

Sparkler nodded. “Dad always says that stacking up a bunch of little advantages is just as good as having one big one. Besides, I’m not sitting on the sidelines while Cloud goes running off to fight some crazy plant monster. Even if I can’t help as much as someone with super speed or magical shields, I can do something.”

Star sighed. “Yeah, I know. Just...” She grimaced and waved down at her phone. “Bit outta my element for this kinda thing. Cloud’s the best shot even before she had magic, and Skunky’s way better at all this outdoor stuff. I’m the tech-head, and it’s not like I can hack the crazy evil plant monster’s phone or something.”

I gripped her shoulder. “You are a Kicker. Even if you are not quite as physically fit or combat trained as I am on account of too much time in the basement creeping on everyone online, you are hardly a slouch. Now buck up, or else once we get out of this I will challenge you to a sparring match in front of the entire family. And beat you. Utterly. While everyone else watches. And then I will post it on the internet.”

Star stared at me for a second, then snorted and managed a faint smile. “You beat me? Never happen, and messing with me on the internet? Now you’re really overreaching, Skunky.” She brushed my hand off. “Alright, pep talk over. Let’s go be an awesome military family.”

We fell in with the rest of the group. I helped take the lead along with Rainbow and Sunset, trying to apply the fieldcraft lessons I had gotten in junior cadets. Sparkler joined Cloud at the rear of the group, helping her watch everyone else’s backs while also watching hers. Star was in the middle, her phone out as she did her best to pull up satellite photos of the area to help us navigate.

Thankfully we had an easy trail to follow. Foot-thick massive vines that had also been on fire thanks to my contribution to the fight left a great many signs of their passage. Between our own fieldcraft and Fluttershy’s animal scouts we had a fairly easy time finding our way. The problem was what we would find when we got there.

“So here we are, going deeper and deeper into the monster’s lair, closer to the source of its power,” Star murmured to nobody in particular. “Why do I feel like I should start calling up a bunch of Admiral Ackbar memes?”

I rolled my eyes and pressed on. The treetops seemed to close in on us as we moved deeper into the wild woods, blocking out the light of the stars and all but hiding the moon. The darkness seemed to press in around, amplifying even the most innocuous sounds. When Applejack stepped on a fallen twig, the snap sounded so loud I almost mistook it for a gunshot. I tensed up every time one of Fluttershy’s animals stirred in the underbrush, imagining that it might be the vines coming in for a another attack.

After what felt like an eternity but my watch insisted was only half an hour, the terrain started to shift. It took a bit to realize what exactly was different: we had crossed from the land around our cabin to the rest of the woods, the timber company’s property. Judging by the number of stumps and scattered branches, they had cut many of their own trees along with the ones taken from our property. Small surprise, as long as they had all their employees and equipment in the area.

These trees thinned and soon vanished, freeing us from the confines of the forest itself but leaving something equally eerie to replace it. The massive number of tree stumps and detritus littering the ground made it feel as if we were walking through some sort of arboreal graveyard. Though having a clear line of sight should have been an advantage, as we moved forward I felt more uneasy. If hostiles came for us now we had no cover, and while we would be able to see them coming the same applied to them seeing us.

As we moved forward, a dark shape slowly took focus ahead of us. Once we were finally close enough to get a good look at it in the darkness I realized it was an especially massive oak tree, large enough that it had to have been the tallest tree in the forest before the loggers came in. I was surprised they had not cut it down, but as I approached the reason it remained standing became horrifyingly clear. Several wrecked chainsaws and broken axes littered the ground near it, and large masses hung off the trees branches like especially large fruits. Human-sized fruits.

Sunset let out a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan. “I told you we’d know what we were looking for when we found it.”

Several seconds of silence followed, broken only by the flash of Star’s camera as she snapped several pictures with her phone. “Whoa.”

“That just ain’t normal.” Applejack rushed up to the nearest plant-wrapped humans to get a closer look at it, turning it a bit to reveal what had to be one of the lumberjacks. She gave him a quick once-over. “Looks like he’s still breathin’, just real outta it.”

“That is a relief.” I frowned as I considered our options. “We should free them, but I imagine attempting to do so will provoke a response.”

“I’m counting on it.” Sunset drew her old saber and walked up to the nearest of the captured men, drawing her blade back to cut him free.

A second before she struck, a vine wrapped itself about her wrist. The tree groaned and a section around the trunk seemed to almost split open like a doorway. A second later a figure walked out from the opening. She had green skin that had a rough texture to it, almost like tree bark, and there were leaves laced through her red dreadlocks. When she spoke her voice sounded surprisingly laid-back and relaxed. “Clear your auras of this violence.”

Rainbow was the first one to break the silence. “So it is Poison Ivy!” She shrugged at everyone else’s incredulous stares. “What? She’s got green skin, red hair, plant control powers, and she went after a bunch of guys for cutting down trees.”

“She is so getting sued after we rainbow-blast her,” Pinkie agreed.

Fluttershy stared at the newcomer for several seconds, frowning to herself. Then her eyes snapped open in shock. “Treesie?! Is that you?”

The strange woman smiled placidly. “Flutters my girl, it’s a pleasure on this journey to see you again.” She turned to the rest of us. “I’m Tree Hugger, radical to meet you all. Your vibes are some of the coolest I’ve ever seen.” She turned back to Fluttershy, a strange light entering her eyes and her smile shifting just a touch. “I can finally hear Mother Earth’s call, Flutters. Can you hear it too?”

Fluttershy shuffled and couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Um ... well, kind of, since I can talk to animals. But why are you doing this, Tree Hugger? What happened to you?”

“Mother Earth blessed me,” Tree Hugger stretched her arms over her head and let out an almost ecstatic-sounding sigh. “When the cutters tried to destroy this beautiful tree, I chained myself to it to stop them. That’s when the earth itself blessed me with the power to end her destruction.” She spread her arms out, encompassing the entire forest. “The world’s out of harmony, girl. We’ve broken it, beaten it, sold it, and ground it into something pretty for ourselves. We’re trading away the world’s natural beauty for concrete and plastic mazes where we see the light of computer and TV screens more than the sun.”

While that did sound like a fairly accurate description of Star, I was not about to concede to this Tree Hugger’s point. “So how does that extend to trapping these lumberjacks inside of a tree?”

“It’s all about restoring the balance,” Tree Hugger answered with a truly disturbing level of calmness. “They hurt the earth with the cutting and burning, so now their auras are being aligned with nature to cure the damage they caused. I know it’s kinda harsh, but we have to help fix Gaia before its chakra get so polluted we can’t reverse the damage.”

Sunset grunted and transferred her sword to her free hand, then chopped the vine holding her. “Yeah yeah, we get it. I’m all for protecting the environment, but don’t you think kidnapping people and draining their life is going about a thousand steps too far?!”

“It’s not very nice, Tree Hugger,” Fluttershy chided.

“Neither is destroying the earth,” Tree Hugger shot back. “If someone comes into your house and wrecks it, you ask them to fix the damage. Well the planet is everyone’s house, and I’m just helping these cutters fix all the trees they destroyed.”

Applejack frowned at her. “Don’t they plant a new tree for every one they cut down? Ah thought most of the companies did that, just good business.”

“Planting a couple little saplings doesn’t make up for all the destruction they’ve caused,” Tree Hugger shot back. “Just like having a baby doesn’t make up for committing murder. Besides, do you know how long it takes for a tree to grow this tall?” She waved back at the massive oak that she had apparently been staying in. “That’s why I’m keeping the cutters here. I just need to align their auras and open their chakras a bit, and the vibes will help the new trees grow a hundred times faster.”

Fluttershy frowned and shook her head. “Treesie, you’re holding them prisoner to drain their life force to regrow trees. Don’t you realize how wrong that is?”

“Oh, it’s all groovy,” Tree Hugger answered airily. “The whole process is organic and natural. It’s way healthier than all the processed food they normally eat. Besides, the earth mother’s song is saying it’s the right thing to do. Can’t you hear her song, Flutters?”

“Someone’s been taking a long ride on the crazy train to looneyville,” Sparkler muttered under her breath.

“Equestrian magic does that to some folks,” Cloud murmured back. “Something about all the power going into them when they’re not ready to deal with it. It’s part of why everyone was so cagey when I got powers.”

Fluttershy continued trying to reason with her friend. “Why did you send vines to attack us?”

Tree Hugger blinked a couple times, seeming to need several seconds to actually process the question. “They weren’t attacking you, they were just trying to bring you here so you could help. These cutters have weak auras, but yours burn bright like stars. I bet if you joined up with me we could fix the whole forest in just a few days instead of the months it’ll take with these guys.”

Rainbow snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, think I’m gonna pass on getting locked up in your crazy death tree so it can drain our magic.” She zipped over to one of the captured lumberjacks. “Now let all these guys go, or we’re gonna make you let ‘em go!”

“You guys really gotta stop harshing my mellow.” Tree Hugger sighed and shook her head. “Don’t worry, you’ll all understand once our auras are in harmony.” Vines erupted from the tree, shooting towards the others.

Fluttershy yelped in surprise as one of them snagged her waist and hauled her off her feet. “Tree Hugger! Let go of me right now!”

“Soon as everything’s in balance,” she answered calmly. “Though really, I think once I uncloud your chakras you’ll realize I’m helping you expand your consciousness and you’ll want to stick around. Just think of how many trees we could save working together! We’re going to fix the world’s balance by working together and usher in a new age of harmony between humans and nature.”

Fluttershy struggled against the vines, and several birds flitted down from the sky to start pecking and tugging at them. “How is hurting us going to make anything balanced?

“I’m not hurting you,” Tree Hugger answered placidly. “I’m expanding your mind and enlightening you. You might hurt yourself if you try to fight against it, but that’s why you need to expand your mind to new experiences and perspectives. Once the tree’s had you for a bit you’ll understand, and you’ll thank me.”

Rarity slashed one of her diamond-shaped shields through the vine holding Fluttershy, dropping her to the forest floor. “That is not how you treat a lady!” She threw up another shield to block vines going after Twilight’s back. “Stop this right now, or so help me...”

I spotted the threat in time to call out a warning to her, but there was no time for me to do anything else. I threw one of my machetes, but I might as well have been blowing against a hurricane. Rarity was so focused on defending her friends that she didn’t even realize she was in danger until one of the vines wrapped around her leg and hauled her into the air. Rarity shrieked, one hand grabbing her skirt to hold it in place as she flipped upside down as the magic from her shields started draining away.

Applejack snarled and jumped up at the vines, intent on freeing Rarity. Several more vines intercepted her in mid-air, hoisting and suspending her once more. With no leverage and nothing to anchor herself against, Applejack’s super-strength was far less effective, and despite her best efforts she could do nothing to free herself, let alone Rarity.

The rest of us closed ranks to try and protect each others backs, but Fluttershy tripped and fell on her way to us. Pinkie rushed out to help her, but that just let the vines snatch up both of them. Pinkie managed to make the first few vines who tried to grab her erupt in masses of sap and pulped plant matter, but the blast sent her flying back. She stumbled back to her feet, but her eyes looked a bit unfocused and she wasn’t very steady. The next vines had no trouble hoisting her up, and without Pinkie protecting her Fluttershy stood no chance.

“The balance is already coming closer,” Tree Hugger crooned. “Soon harmony will be restored and everything will be righteous.”

“Tree Hugger!” Fluttershy called out in vain. “Stop this! There isn’t anything balanced about what you’re doing!”

Tree Hugger shrugged. “Deer are balanced by wolves, rats by snakes, even the shifting foundations of the world through earthquakes and eruptions. Balance doesn’t play favorites, Fluttershy. It just is. If you’d just stop fighting, I’d be able to help you understand what I mean.”

“Maybe we don’t want to listen the crazy plant lady!” Rainbow snapped at her, rushing past us and jumping in between several vines so they would tie themselves up into a knot. “So what’s the plan after you grab us? Turn into some super plant monster that rampages across the city doing the whole Gaia’s Vengeance thing?”

“Mother Earth doesn’t hold grudges,” Tree Hugger smiled calmly. “Humans are the only ones capable of anger and hate.” Several vines shot out at ground level, one of them managing to trip her up and kill her momentum. “Can’t you hear her call? It’s beautiful. You just need to open up your ears and listen with your heart.”

“Gyah!” Rainbow yelped as she tripped, and vines hauled her away. “Lemme go, you crazy hippie lunatic!”

Cloud snarled and took aim at Tree Hugger. “Okay, I am done playing around sniping vines, eco-bitch. Either you let Rainbow go, or I swear...”

Tree Hugger cocked her head to the side and stared at Cloud. “Your aura is so weird right now. It’s pink and black, love and hate mixed together. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. You need to clear out your chakras before that gets all toxic on you. Don’t worry, Rainbow’s fine, and soon you will be too.”

A dozen vines interposed themselves between Cloud and Tree Hugger before my cousin could take her shot. The bullet did an impressively ludicrous amount of damage, punching a basketball sized hole though several of the vines, but that was nowhere near enough to penetrate the shield of plants. Pushing that much power into the old hunting rifle left the tip of the barrel glowing bright red and steaming, and when Cloud tried to work the bolt she withdrew her hand with a startled yelp. Just as well—if it was that hot, putting a new round into the chamber might have cooked it off.

Sunset stepped into the gap, swinging her sword to intercept the vines that went rushing in at Cloud. I would’ve stepped into help her, but a second later I realized I would just be getting in the way. Sunset’s eyes were locked on Tree Hugger, and her strikes were lashing out to parry and counter the incoming vines before they even struck. It must have been magic.

However, even if she could use magic to anticipate the attacks she could only move so fast, and her sword could only be in one place at a time. The vines soon began slipping past her defenses as they came in from multiple angles at the same time. I would have moved up to support her, but with how fast her blade was flying I feared getting in her way.

Eventually one of Sunset’s counters came in at a bad angle, and instead of carving through the vine her saber got stuck halfway through. An instant later the vine whipped backwards, yanking the trapped blade out of her hands. I tried to get over to her to hand off my machete, but the rest of the vines snatched her before I could get close enough. Without Sunset protecting her, Cloud got grabbed a second later.

We fell back again, myself, Star, and Sparkler forming a defensive triangle around Twilight. Sparkler brought up her gun and pointed it at Tree Hugger, but the barrel was shaking so much she dropped it a second later. “Mom and Dad could’ve put a cabin anywhere in the woods, and they had to pick the spot right next to Captain Planet’s evil twin...” She grimaced and shook her head. “Storm, now’d be a great time to come up with a clever plan.”

“We have guns,” Star pointed out.

Twilight frowned. “The magic’s what’s pushing her to do all this. I mean, I can’t imagine Fluttershy would normally be friends with a crazy ecoterrorist. Sunset always said the magic just makes you more of what you already are, so it probably pushed her from a peaceful advocate to ... this. She’s not in her right mind.”

“But we have to do something to stop her.” I sighed and shook my head. “Even if she is not fully culpable for her actions, we cannot allow this to continue.”

“Yeah, not letting her eat Cloud and everyone else.” Star brought up her rifle, and unlike Sparkler the barrel was not shaking. “Give her one last chance?”

Tree Hugger brought all of her captured victims over to her. “You’re all so ... harmonious. Your auras all congeal together like a kaleidoscope.”

I took a deep breath. “Tree Hugger, let them go or we will shoot to kill.” Warning her probably wasn’t a good idea considering she could use the vines to intercept our bullets like she had with Cloud, but... “You have five seconds. Four. Three...”

Tree Hugger looked over at us. “Oh, missed one.” The vines shot out at us, and while Twilight tried to force them back with her magic there were just too many coming in too fast. One of the vines wrapped around her waist and hauled her over to the others. “Flutters, do you hear something? It’s like there’s more, but Mother Earth’s song is so loud, and yours on top of it...”

Seeing Twilight taken away removed the last vestiges of doubt. “Take the shot.”

Star’s rifle cracked, but right as she pulled the trigger she closed her eyes, and her aim drifted off just a touch to the side. Instead of hitting Tree Hugger directly, it just blew off one of her dreadlocks. The vines all froze in place, and Tree Hugger whipped around to face us. “Violent auras. Why didn’t I see them sooner?”

“Oh crap.” Sparkler brought her rifle up to snap off a shot of her own, but panic sent the bullet even wider than Star’s.

The two of them started working the bolts, but I didn’t think there would be enough time. I snatched up Sunset’s sword in one hand and pulled out the machete in my other, then charged in. Perhaps not the best tactic on a personal level, but charging in with two blades held high would hopefully keep Tree Hugger focused on me instead of the two with guns.

It seemed to work, since Tree Hugger sent a dozen thick vines straight for me. Fortunately it seemed that whatever effect that made me invisible to them back at the cabin still applied to some extent; while she could still direct the vines to attack me, they seemed a bit clumsy and unfocused compared to the speed and power they’d possessed against Sunset and the others.

However, my plan quickly ran into a snag: closing in on Tree Hugger made Star and Sparkler hesitate even more than they already had been. Hard enough to consider shooting another human in the first place, and now they also had to worry about the risk of friendly fire on top of that. Perhaps I should have been touched they cared, but at the moment all I could think was that if they didn’t shoot Tree Hugger regardless of the risks, none of us were likely to get out of this.

Cloud Kicker must have reached the same conclusion, and evidently Tree Hugger’s efforts to stop me from closing in on her had taken her focus off holding onto her prisoners. “Star! Sparks! Get my hands free and help me aim!”

As the two of them started frantically hacking away at the vines holding my cousin, I closed in on Tree Hugger herself. I started to bring Sunset’s saber to bear on the girl, but just before I would have struck I met her eyes for a fraction of a second. They were ... human. Tree Hugger might have been transformed by magic, but she was no monster. I quickly shifted my aim to smack her with the hilt instead.

The blow still staggered her and sent her to the ground, and I intended to keep her there. I dropped the blades and fell on Tree Hugger, trying to get both arms around her neck for a chokehold that would knock her out and end the fight.

Tree Hugger snarled and pushed off against the ground, making up for a lack of training with a surprising amount of muscle and sheer fury. While she couldn’t have held me off forever, she did manage to keep me from placing my arms long enough to bring in a vine to slap me away. I hit the ground hard enough to send a painful jolt up my spine, while Tree Hugger stomped over to me, looking as close to angry as I had seen her in the entire fight. “What is wrong with all of you?! Have your chakras been clouded by the evils of this predatory world? Don’t you realize I’m the righteous one?”

I groaned and glanced up, spotting something that Tree Hugger had missed. Cloud had both of her hands free, and with Star and Sparkler helping to keep the rifle steady she had a bead on Tree Hugger. “Good, bad, I’m the girl with the gun.”

She pulled the trigger, and Tree Hugger went flying back like she’d been hit with a sledgehammer. The vines holding everyone instantly went limp, allowing us to free the others with almost no trouble. As soon as Rainbow was free she zipped over to Cloud, giving her a quick once-over before letting out a relieved sigh. Then she smirked and nudged Cloud in the ribs. “You gets points for using a Bruce Campbell line, but it doesn’t feel quite as spontaneously awesome as when Storm did it.”

As soon as she was free, Fluttershy rushed over to Tree Hugger’s side. “Treesie! Are you okay?!” Tree Hugger answered with a surprisingly alive groan for someone who’d just been shot with a .306.

Cloud let out a relieved sigh. “Okay, so the nonlethal bullet spell works. I mean, all the tests we did said it would, but...”

“There is a substantial difference between testing it and actually shooting someone with one,” I agreed. “How does it work?”

“Disperse the impact force,” Cloud explained. “Spread the impact over a wider area, but without any more power behind it. So instead of putting holes in people it just sends them flying and leaves one hell of a bruise.”

Tree Hugger groaned and slowly pulled herself up to a sitting position, struggling to stay even that upright. “Wuh ... whoo. Something feels out of harmony. These are some seriously bad vibes.” She stared at everyone around her and blinked a few times. The vines around us started twitching back to life as their mistress recovered.

Sparkler’s eyes widened. “She’s not done! Shoot her again!”

“No!” Fluttershy rushed over to the rest of her friends. “Hurry, we need to get the magic out of her before she can stop us.”

“Right.” Sunset grabbed Twilight and Rainbow’s hands, and the rest of them linked up. “Cover us, Cloud.”

Before I could even ask what they planned to do, everything vanished in a blinding flash of rainbow light.

Author's Note

As always, thanks to my pre-reading and editing team for all their hard work. Also, I would like to thank all my dedicated Patreon supporters. You guys are awesome.

Click here if you want to join the list of awesome people who support my writing.

Epilogue

Nobody ever talks about the really boring, mundane part of fending off a monster attack: cleaning up the mess after the final battle. The sun had started coming up by the time we got back to the cabin, and we could clearly see just how much damage had been done. There was not a single intact window, the front door was barely still on its hinges, and the outside walls were a disaster. Not to mention just about every interior surface had splattered plant bits, and there were a bunch of bullet holes that would be very hard to explain to our parents.

“Whoa,” the newest member of our group murmured. “Dude, your place got trashed.”

“That’s what happens when someone sends a bunch of crazy killer plants to try and drag us out of there to feed us to a tree,” Rainbow grumbled.

“Oh, right.” Tree Hugger blinked a few times. “My bad. I should probably, like, pay for the repairs or something.” She sighed and shook her head. “So much for that nice eco-friendly hybrid I was saving for.”

“It’s not completely your fault, Treesie,” Fluttershy reassured her. “Equestrian Magic can make you do things you’d never do under normal circumstances.”

“Still bad karma,” Tree Hugger answered. “Gotta balance the scales, Flutters. Shame the cutters bailed before I could figure out what to do to make it up to them, though I guess I can’t blame ‘em for wanting to get gone.”

“You did hold them prisoner for several days while draining their life force to make trees grow faster,” I agreed. “Not the best first impression.”

We all split up to start with the cleanup and assessment. While a part of me was tempted to take Tree Hugger up on her offer to do all the work herself, that would take rather too long to be practical. It seemed proper to at least make the cabin somewhat habitable before we left, or at least make sure it would not get any worse before we could get it properly fixed. Installing new windows was a job best left to professionals.

I got a broom and dustpan and set to work sweeping up as much as the broken glass as I could. After a few minutes of work, Twilight joined me and started using her magic to levitate the larger pieces into the trash bin. After dumping a particularly large load she sighed and shook her head. “We came here to fix this place up, and now we’re leaving it in even worse shape than when we got here.”

I dropped a pan full of smaller glass pieces into the bin. “I think curing Tree Hugger from ... whatever that was constitutes helping on a far more important scale. If nothing else, had her magic raged out of control for much longer it likely would have caused far worse damage.”

“Good point.” She grimaced. “I just don't want you and Cloud to get in trouble for all of this. Most parents wouldn’t believe we got attacked by magical monsters, and would just assume we wrecked the place as part of some wild out-of-control teenage party.”

“Then it is a very good thing they are aware of Cloud’s magical powers and some of the other events that have happened recently.” I frowned as I thought about the implications of that. Despite the healthy layer of skepticism most people had about magic, incidents like this seemed to happening often and publicly enough that it was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

“That’s good to hear, I think.” Twilight sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “This was supposed to just be a nice relaxing weekend. Mom and Dad were really happy about me getting outside for a bit instead of spending so much time cooped up in my lab. Instead, it just turned into another random magical disaster.”

“I suppose so.” I thought it over for a moment, then shrugged. “Despite that, we did have plenty of fun before the attack of the killer tree.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” She chuckled softly, tucking a bit of hair back behind her ear. “Though I think the desperate life-or-death battle against a killer tree that wants to eat our magic is the kind of thing that overshadows the rest of the trip.”

“It is likely to be the part that stands out the most in our memories,” I conceded. “However, it need not be the only thing we take away from this. It was certainly nice to get to know Cloud’s friends a bit better, and perhaps make some progress towards becoming friends with them myself.” My eyes flicked over to her. “Assuming you have no objection to that.”

“Um, right.” She adjusted her glasses and smiled at me, a hint of a nervous blush on her cheeks. “That wasn’t so bad, at all. Getting to know you. Even with the awkward running into and ... um ... other stuff.”

I felt my own cheeks warming as well. “I am glad you think so.”

Twilight coughed softly. “We could, you know, hang out later if you want. You could join up with me and my friends the next time we do something. Or, um, well we could go do something alone. Together. I mean, alone in that we wouldn’t have everyone else around, but together in that it would be both of us there. But not together together. I mean, unless—that is—” She groaned and slapped her forehead. “Sorry, I swear I’m usually articulate enough to carry on an intelligent conversation.”

“It is fine,” I assured her. “And I think I would like that.”

She let out a relieved sigh, then smiled at me. “Then let’s plan on doing that.”

“Very good.” I took a moment to carefully consider my next words. “Would that be ... what exactly would you want from that?”

She hesitated, biting her lip. “Oh, um, right. You know, time together, hanging out with each other, and ... um ... well what was it you wanted from me? I mean, is it just fun time with a new friend or would we be...” She briefly averted her eyes, her cheeks lighting up against. “That is to say, um, did you just want to hang out as friends, or would you be interested in um, you know, maybe us being something else?”

“I...” I closed my eyes and tried to figure out what the answer to that was. When I could not come up with a quick and easy answer, I opted for just saying what was on my mind. “To be quite honest, I am not entirely certain. Had you asked me before this weekend, I never would have thought I would be interested in another girl in any context other than friendship. Now...” I shrugged helplessly. “The evidence that my feelings have evolved to something a touch more complicated is rather hard to refute.”

“Oh.” She took her glasses off and cleaned them with her shirt. “Yeah, that is a bit complicated. I mean, I never would have ... but I think I do. I guess? Maybe? Probably, I suppose. I mean, the preponderance of the evidence does suggest some level of physical attraction, and as far as our personalities are concerned you seem like a nice person I could see myself being compatible with. I can’t really think of a compelling reason for us not to ... um, I mean if we both want to there’s no harm in ... I guess we could call it experimenting?” She chuckled nervously. “Yes, let’s call it an experiment. That way it sounds like science, which is way less complicated and scary than ... um ... this. So ... yeah, I think I’d like to do this experiment.”

I nodded along. “Yes, I think I would like to at least investigate the possibility as well.”

“So, um,” She smiled up at me. “I guess that means we’d be going on a date? I mean, that is the commonly accepted term for two people hanging out together to either engage in romantic activity or explore whether or not they’d want to do so. Even if calling it that makes it sound really weird and scary.”

“From what I have heard, it gets easier once one is accustomed to it.” I took a deep breath. “And yes, I would like to do that.”

“Great!” Twilight looked surprisingly relieved, as if she had been afraid I might reject her despite the course the conversation had taken. “So, um, when did you want to do that, and what should we do together?”

“We could always go see a movie or see a play,” I suggested. Before I could think about when we might do so my phone buzzed, and I idly tapped it. I had meant to silence it, but either I hit the wrong button or whoever sent the message was an especially malicious and bratty tech-head who took twisted delight in tormenting me.

My phone promptly belted out an impressively loud song. “And IIIIIIIII will always love—” I jabbed at the mute button, but that only changed the song. “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt—” I tried the volume buttons, but once more they did not work exactly as intended. “Never gonna give you up, never gonna—”

I snarled and opened up my phone to disconnect the battery. Twilight was blushing so brightly one might mistake her for an overripe tomato, and I suspected I looked much the same. I cleared my throat and did my best to regain my composure. “As far as timing is concerned, perhaps after I finish murdering my sister and burying her body in the woods?”

“Right.” Twilight chuckled softly. “Want some help with that?”

“Yes.” I smiled and gave her hand a quick squeeze. “If nothing else, it makes an excellent start to this grand endeavour.”

Author's Note

As always, thanks to my pre-reading and editing team for all their hard work. Also, I would like to thank all my dedicated Patreon supporters. You guys are awesome.

Click here if you want to join the list of awesome people who support my writing.