Chapter 5: The Forbidden Forest

Both KitKat and Amethyst knew forests. KitKat had more experience with proper forgotten (and sometimes forbidden) forests, since a large part of her job involved delving into them. But it would be remiss to not mention that Amethyst lived within spitting distance of the Everfree Forest which was creepy in its own right.

And of course besides the kind of forest that was a vague outline on a map, maybe with ‘Here there be monsters’ penned inside the margins, there were plenty of other forests, more normal, more appealing to travelers and adventurers alike.

So in that regard, the fact that at the entrance of this forest*—as much as a forest can be said to have an entrance, since one can enter it wherever she wants**—there was a sign helpfully stating that this was the Forest of Forgotten Files was rather insulting.

While in some cases, signs are quite helpful at informing one where one is, especially in a world that hasn’t invented GPS and Google Maps, the fact was that instead of the forest floor being littered with leaves as one would expect, it was littered with leaves of paper.

Which was just as well, because neither mare would have fully understood if instead of leaves of paper meant to symbolize a file, it had instead been littered with ones and zeros which would have been a more accurate representation. Or, if we’re really going down that rabbit hole, it could have been scraps of magnetic charge on magnetic media, or else differing pits on optical media.

Then again, since ‘forgotten files’ sort of implies ‘old,’ it could have also been punch cards. Those are made up of material similar to the manila folder that Amethyst was still carrying, and if either mare had lived in a more modern Equestria, would have borne a passing resemblance to Scantrons used in testing at school. It’s the same tech, but kids can’t be trusted with hole punches, only #2 pencils.

Anyway, the sign informed them that they were at the Forest of Forgotten Files rather than the Timberland of Trash or the Greenwood of Garbage or the Stand of Scantrons.

KitKat tucked her horse into her Horse Pocket, and Amethyst did the same with her motorcycle. While the Department of Transportation could have made better inroads into the forest, they hadn’t. Likely because it had been forgotten, as its name implies.

“Right, I’ll take the lead,” KitKat offered, unslinging her tabarzin. “While I of course don’t know what threats await us in these woods, I’m familiar with forests.”

“I’ll cover your . . . tail.” Amethyst averted her eyes from KitKat’s well-muscled derriere (which she couldn’t see under KitKat’s armor, but she could imagine it. Sometimes imagination is better than reality).

Amethyst drew a gun, a Desert Eagle point five-0 (favored by Bullet-Tooth Tony). With no way of knowing what threats the forest might present, she didn’t know yet which gun would be most appropriate for the situation. The Deagle was good for close- and medium-range work and had fantastic stopping power.

As the situation evolved, she could switch to a different weapon, if needed. But the fact that KitKat had picked her axe implied close-in work.

Although, now that Amethyst really thought about it, KitKat only had one weapon that she’d seen so far. That did raise some questions, and they were ones that she couldn’t easily answer. Was KitKat a one-trick pony? Or did she have yet-unseen depths of character and martial skill?

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The question that Amethyst couldn’t really answer came down to philosophical differences between the two ponies. The unicorn preferred dispatching her enemies quickly and efficiently, ideally from the longest range possible. KitKat preferred getting in close, getting her hooves dirty in her work.

It could be debated which philosophy was better, and it probably will be in the comments if anybody’s brave enough to admit they’re actually reading this. Suffice to say that Sparkler’s style revolved around never being overrun, while KitKat was at home hacking her way out of a pile of enemies, and had the scars to prove it.

And this naturally made them a good pair; combined, they had skills in ranged combat and melee combat. Especially since guns never run out of ammo unless it’s vital to the plot—heroes don’t shoot blanks out of their symbolic phalluses.

•••

It’s impossible to say how many threats there were in the forest. How many fell creatures lurked in the shadows, how many crept across limbs or through the fallen leaves. Every now and then, Sparkler’s gun would bark and something would tumble out of a tree or be sprayed across the leaves litter, forever spoiling the file. Her head was on a swivel and if anything gave the slightest hint of suspicious movement, she dispatched it with fifty calibers of prejudice, swiftly and the opposite of silently.

In fact, instead of birdsong the only sound in the forest was rapid gunshots and an occasional silence as she reloaded, thus setting up that at a critical point later on she might run out of ammo.

As for KitKat, midway through the forest she sheathed her tabarzin, since there was little likelihood that she’d get a chance to use it. She was going to have to speak with Amethyst about that after they got out of the forest; this was supposed to be her turf.

But then she remembered that at the Binary Bazaar, she had been the one who’d negotiated for the Mystical Malware Musket, even though when it came to guns those were more properly in Sparkler’s wheelhouse.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Sparkler remarked, breaking the brief quiescencebetween gunshots.

“I was thinking of how weird it is that our roles are being reversed,” KitKat commented. “Seems like that’s a setup for later.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same.” The unicorn unleashed a flurry of gunshots, putting paid to another cluster of monsters—or maybe they were just shadows. “Someone wise once told me that the battle plan only lasts until contact with the enemy.”

“Contact . . .” KitKat sighed wistfully. “I need contact. What’s the point of living if I’m not gonna get my hooves dirty in close-range combat?”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

KitKat’s eyes flashed. “Don’t patronize me. I’m not some shrinking violet. You holster your gun and let them come to us and I’ll show you what I can do.”

“I think—” Sparkler thought, and then spoke again. “We’re better off getting as efficiently as possible to Cypher-Dragon’s cave (I assume) and then combining our resources and skills for the final battle, which implies we ought to get through this forest with as little damage as we can. In fact, given the nature of the world we find ourselves in (here she regarded her nude form) it’s possible one of us will wind up saving the other in an unexpected way. And maybe we’ll even fall in love by the end.”

“I’ve already got a stallionfriend,” KitKat said. “And he’s probably looking for me already. He’s a portal specialist.”

“It’s not cheating if it’s with a mare,” Amethyst reminded her. “That’s straight out of the bro code.”***

•••

While they were distracted, the Fire Nation attacked.

Did I say the fire nation? I meant the mole ponies. They may be beneath you, but nothing’s beneath them.

And it was all because Sparkler had her portal gun pointed muzzle-down.****

For all her skills at identifying distant enemies and dispatching them with ruthless efficiency, a collection of creatures who burrowed hadn’t yet crossed her sights (both in the metaphorical sense and the literal sense). They boiled up out of the ground like so much bad molasses and molepiled the duo.

As the Mythbusters once proved, an axe was a more effective weapon against hordes of ~~zombies~~ enemies, at least if you had the endurance to swing it. Better yet, every swing counted, it never jammed, and the backswing could cause damage, too.

Every one of Sparkler’s shots was perfection; every one of Sparkler’s shots sent blood and gore spraying out in a fatal fountain, sent one more molepony to the promised land.*****

But there were only so many she could target, pull the trigger, and dispatch.

KitKat operated with no such handicap, and her tabarzin was only an accent to the delicate dance of combat. She struck with her hooves, kicking enemies back. She open-handed shoved as the need arose, or shoulder-checked, everything in service of giving her axe room to work. Big, two-handed swings when she had room, the axe coming down with a fatal finality. Short jabs when they were crowded in close, slashing with the blade, always aiming for a weak spot, a chink in the armor they weren’t wearing.

She blocked with the handle and she blocked with her bracers; she ignored foes scrabbling at her armor trying to get in, trying to get past the hard exterior to the nugat-y center.

Amethyst winced back as a very close-range shot left her in range of the aftermath; KitKat relished being coated with the blood and entrails of her enemies. She kicked away a molepony who’d just spilled his guts across her hooves, and leaned in with her axe, briefly bathing in the hot fresh jugular blood of an opponent who’d just met one of its blades.

There was a ring of bodies around Amethyst, one full mag’s worth (and when the Deagle went dry, she switched to a shotgun for its devastating close-in work), while KitKat was starting to stand on a pile of bodies.

Both styles of fighting were perfectly cromulent, but KitKat’s method was more cromulent in the current situation.

•••

After what seemed like forever but was really only twelve paragraphs, the mis-portalized moleponies were all defeated and left for dead where they lay. Some of them required a mercy stroke or just a ‘to make sure’ gunshot.

Plot-wise, the Forest of Forgotten Files had been a good bonding exercise for the two protagonists. Both of them had a particular set of skills, and both of them had been at least somewhat skeptical of the other’s abilities, but this skirmish had put paid to the doubts: both sets of skills were equally valid, and as Harmony has taught us, combining their differences into one cohesive unit enabled them to bypass an obstacle on their path to success.

One thing they hadn’t noticed in the Forest of Forgotten Files was that some of the scattered leaves were sapient enough to try and attack our plucky heroes. Since they were only sheets of paper, or maybe thicker sheets of manila, there wasn’t a lot they could do, but anybody who’s ever had a paper cut—especially in the web of a finger—knows what paper can do if it has a mind to do it. And the forgotten papers in the shadowy realms of the forest certainly had a mind to do it, make no mistake.

Unfortunately (for them, not for KitKat and Amethyst), they could only attack from ground level, and from there there was naught they could do but ineffectually strike against hard hooves. Oh, sure, they scratched up Amethyst’s hoof polish enough she’d be embarrassed to go to a gala without a touch-up, but that was it. KitKat was even less affected; she never used hoof polish, and small cuts and scrapes were a consequence of her job and not even worth mention.

•••

After defeating the moleponies and also after pointedly ignoring the presumably perilous paper cuts, Amethyst and Sparkler exited the forest****** and they took a moment to gather themselves before venturing on. KitKat opened her Pouch of Holding Emergency Cheese and extracted a wedge of emergency cheese and the two of them munched on that and then both summoned their mounts back for the next leg of their journey, and that’s the end of this chapter.

Author's Note

*in this case, where the path went into the forest
**and if we’re being honest, the boundary between ‘forest’ and ‘not forest’ is kinda vague. You know when you’re not in it, and you know when you’re fully in it, but the crossover area isn’t really defined.
***source: trust me bro
****you thought that detail was insignificant, didn’t you?
*****assuming that molepony religion rewards those who die in combat, rather than it being a more pacifist religion which bans killing and sends those who kill to The Hot Place
*******helpfully indicated by a ‘you are now exiting the Forest of Forbidden Files' sign