My Little Pony Heart of Friendship: Tales of the Outbound

By the time they’d managed to catch up to Gyre she was already waiting for them at the top of a hill above the incline leading into the woods. An exasperated Sloop stepped forward. “I thought you said your house was by the water?”

Gyre appeared to be taking some kind of measurement with one closed eye, pointing a palm forward on an extending arm. “Yes, I did say that my house was by water.”

“So… Why did you rush all the way back here then, Gyre?”

Gyre rolled her eyes and made a gesture in an arc following the slope in the land. “Because this is the best way to my house!”

Sloop, dumbfounded, gestured back the way they came. “But the lake is that way! Lake. Water! Like you said!”

“Sure, my house is by the water, but you won’t get there by heading directly to the lake!”

Sloop paused for a moment, then attempted to convey his thoughts by moving an upturned hand held forward. “So… Is there another big source of freshwater away from the lake?”

Gyre shook her head with an amused grin. “No, silly! If you want to get to my house, you have to go towards the lake!”

Sloop tried to keep himself composed, but he began wringing his hands rather fast. “But… You lead us away from the lake, dear sister!”

“Well, how else are we supposed to get to the zone where my house is?”

“You keep using the word zone. Which zone do you mean? The north, south, east, or western zone of the lake?”

“None of those! We need to go to the zone where I built my house!”

That whole exchange made Applejack’s head spin. She tightly shut her eyes and held a hoof to her forehead. Rarity trotted up alongside her and giggled. “Reminds you of talking with Pinkie, doesn’t it?”

Applejack took a deep breath, then nodded back at her, smiling. She turned to Percival. “Was she like this when all y’all were younger?”

Percival held a finger to the lower part of his face for a moment. “Well… I probably shouldn’t toss around stereotypes and assumptions so much, but… Gyre and Sloop have always exemplified the natures of the Air and Water tribe respectively to us. Water is smart, methodical, and practical. Air is wise, intuitive, and conceptual.” Percival looked at Gyre at the apex of the slope. “Gyre has always been the type to mean what she says over saying what she means. Always relaxed when Sloop gets uptight. Nobody really seemed to understand her, but she never seemed to care about that, and she’s also been able to make sense of anything and find solutions that made all of us feel stupid over how obvious they were in hindsight.

“In fact, she didn’t even stay at Prancing Pony for long. She spent years bouncing from guild to guild, soaking up everything each of them had to offer and leaving for the next when she mastered everything. It wasn’t the most typical thing to do, but it definitely helped that her family status and ability to pay any fine or charge allowed her to live like that for so long. At the tail end, she settled on serving a full apprenticeship at the courier’s guild, but right when she was about to join as a full member, The Central Administration announced the abolishment of the guild system. After that, she just disappeared. Her family had magic in place that could tell she was still alive, but nothing could tell us where she was, exactly. And we weren’t sure if she was trapped somewhere or just didn’t want to come back.”

Sloop had given up on trying to make sense of what his elder sister was saying and just opted to let her show than tell like he used to. After finding contentment with whatever measurements she was taking, she licked a finger and held it upward. She brought both palms together, appearing to center herself. Suddenly, she just hopped forward into open air and with a flick, the heels on her boots flipped back on an elaborate hinge mechanism that even Rarity could’t find a reason for.

Amid her hangtime, a pair of ring-like wheels of solid cyan light with four broad spikes each appeared floating in the diagonal gap between her arch and heel. She hit the slope once gravity reasserted itself and she started rolling, rapidly accelerating forward, dashing off past Sloop who barely evaded his sister’s charge.

When Gyre disappeared back into the woods, Sloop did an about-face, taking off after her tailwind with a rough “Ohforgoodnessakesgyre!” Attempting to catch up by releasing a bright red arrow with an extending palm and flinging himself forward jumping into it. He took off with a rapid footfall upon meeting the ground. A nearly dumbstruck Applejack and Rarity galloped behind following, Percival morphing his lower body into a centaur-like structure to keep up.

Sloop managed to keep up close enough to keep Gyre in sight. When the sparkling lake started coming into view, he released another arrow and leaped into it for another dash to get to a closer position. However, once Gyre cleared the treeline, her body suddenly started trailing sparkles in her wake. He abruptly started doing the same once he passed the line. Before he knew it, Gyre vanished in a bright flash right before crossing into the water. Then, so did he.

Sloop didn’t know where he was. He just felt like he was hurtling, tumbling in inconceivable directions all at once at impossible speeds. All he could see was a swirling, glimmering void of infinite lights. And for some reason, a school of fish passed by that somehow shifted into a flock of birds and back again, over and over.

After what felt like an eternity of this, the next thing he knew, Sloop found himself plopped face down into the grassy ground barely five seconds later. His head finally clearing after the brief rest his state provided, he raised his face, starting a groan, then paused it as his eyes went wide at the sight before them. He smoothly got up standing and swept his gaze all around him, each sight leaving him more and more confused. He scratched his head and raised his brow in an uncertain expression. “Gyre…? Gyre…? Where are you? More importantly, where am I?”

“I told you, this is the zone where I built my house!” Sloop jumped back, hollering. Like she used to do a lot when they were younger, his sister literally dropped in from above before answering his call for her.

Sloop quickly recomposed himself, again. Correcting the position his hat sat on his head. “Zone, nothing! Are we even on the same island?” Sparing another moment to look around, Sloop could still hardly believe his own eyes.

They appeared to be in the middle of a giant islet inside of a colossal body of water. Theirs wasn’t the only one, the whole place was dotted with islands rising high up like sea stacks. Each one had multiple layers of plateaus big and small forming surfaces and paths for bright green vegetation like grass, tropical ferns, and palm trees. Many were connected by bridges of geologically-formed terrain, other empty spaces and many small lakes at the bottom of various waterfalls seemed to have their gaps exceeded by numerous log bridges. Surrounding this body of water were cliffs that stretched even higher into the sky dotted with waterfalls above pouring into the lake and big trees growing out of the side of the sheer slopes below.

Gyre looked away thinking, holding her hand to her chin. “Hm… We must be! I’ve always been able to go back to the main island from this zone and do the same back and forth in the other zones!”

Sloop gaped at that for a moment. “You mean…” He winced, motioning all around. “...there’s MORE places like this on this demented island?”

Gyre made a big, bright grin at that and fervently nodded. Sloop paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and let out a groan, pinching at his face. Bringing his face back up, he pointed at his sister with a pair of fingers. “Okay… So if you’ve been living here and can navigate all that insanity easily enough, I assume you can tell me where you spotted Crazy Joe?” Suddenly, on a distant islet at the end of a chain of four, a huge, loud explosion went up; the bright, erupting flames going up and billowing at their peak in a mushroom cloud. Gyre turned back to look at Sloop, then casually pointed out at it. Sloop rolled his eyes, then they went wide. “Wait… I got here by accident chasing you! And… we left my other, highly capable friends behind! If we went back the way we came, could we-?” However, Gyre frowned at that and shook her head no, getting yet another groan out of her brother. “You know, if you would have said something…” Gyre’s eyes went wide at that, and she made a slight intake of breath, but at Sloop’s despondent grimace, she could only make a sympathetic smirk and shrugged.

Sloop tightened his expression and rolled his eyes. Then he straightened up, held face high for a moment, and summoned his arrowguns. He took off running, following the shortest path down the islet towards the way to the next one with Gyre running behind. The next one had a much more confusing topography with several possible routes, but with a bit of concentration, his compass element guided him down the one that would lead him to his destination the quickest. When Gyre saw this, her eyes went wide and she started shouting to get her brother’s attention. In his present state, Sloop couldn’t register his sister’s cries. He also didn’t notice some of the foliage to the side ahead of him start rustling as he approached, and something big dashed out charging and knocked him to the ground on collision.

His training kicking in, Sloop followed-through on his momentum to roll to his feet and stood up quickly, pointing his weapons at this assailant. However, even his focused brow raised at what he saw: It was a bug, a beetle. A ladybug specifically, and a big one at that. The apex of its shell would have been as tall as the top of the head of a standing dog, and Sloop did not like the way it snapped its mandibles at him.

The ladybug charged again. Sloop let loose a barrage of three bullets, but the ladybug made a sudden diagonal dart forward, avoiding Sloop’s initial attack. Once it got close, it made a lunging tackle at him, but Sloop dodged with a dash to the side and followed up with a quick point-blank hipshot, blasting the thing helplessly onto its back.

However, he tensed up when he heard another disturbance in the surrounding vegetation. Three more ladybugs scuttled into place, surrounding him in a triangular formation.

Sloop aimed and fired a shot diagonally. The bullet passed two of the ladybugs passing the empty gap between them. One of Sloop’s compass points appeared in a red flash and rebounded his shot, blasting into the side of one of them to flip it over like the other.

Sloop took off, taking advantage of this break in the enemy formation and turned to face both of his remaining enemies. Both ladybugs made a headlong charge towards him in a pincer formation. Sloop aimed with both arrowguns, twisting them to point both of their tops parallel as both began to glow. He let off a triple-size bullet flying towards the ladybug to his right, but as it made another diagonal charge, his big bullet hit another compass point he left near his previous spot in in the battlefield, bouncing it to hit the rear of the ladybug and sending it flying over the plateau behind him.

Getting an idea from that development, Sloop flicked one of his arms and erected an arrow of energy pointing upward, diagonally in his direction. He jumped into this emanation and was sent spinning in a backflip upward, landing at the high ground and pointing his weapons at the last interloper.

The last ladybug paused, as if sizing up the situation. Suddenly, it lifted its shell-like elytra and extended its membranous wings, taking off directly to Sloop. He let off three more shots that the big bug swayed on its course to avoid. When he finally had the creature dead in his sights, he squeezed the handle of his weapon to find that he was out of bullets, only suddenly remembering the one he left as the keystone to sustain his rune array back at the beach.

Right when Sloop could hear the snapping of the giant ladybug’s mandibles as they flew right for his throat, the creature was sent tumbling down as something hit it hard in the side. Sloop looked in the direction the projectile flew back and saw it return to the raised foot of Gyre, stopping to reveal that his sister’s energy spur had turned a darker solid blue as well as changed shape, becoming thinner and more tapered as the spikes inverted their position into four curving spokes meeting in the center of the circle the wheel made.

Carefully descending his platform with the aid of his elemental magic, Sloop made his way back to congratulate his sister. “Your wheel element came to my rescue again, Gyre. First time in a long time, but welcome nonetheless!” Gyre grinned and blushed, scratching the back of her head. Sloop gestured in the direction of their destination. “So… I take it there’s more where that came from, right?” Gyre gave a sympathetic look and nodded with a smile. Sloop nodded with a determined expression and gestured to the path ahead. “Alright! Lead on, sis!” He re-materialized his arrowguns, furrowing his brow in concentration as they reloaded in a pair of flashes. “Just let me know if you need any obstacles cleared!”

With the elder leading the way, the Masters siblings proceeded onward. In spite of taking a longer series of paths, Sloop now had the forbearance to appreciate Gyre’s firsthand experience with this familiar-looking yet totally alien landscape to lead him away from any more hidden perils. Suddenly, Gyre held up a hand signaling Sloop to stop as they came to a rope bridge stretching over a pond, a sign that this may be a very visible peril they must face.

Gyre made a series of gestures that likely only someone with Sloop’s degree of familiarity could decipher, getting the point to prepare some magical defenses. He deliberately swept his weapon-carrying hands across the outer part of his forearms for a moment. Giving another determined nod to Gyre, she turned back and proceeded at a slow, deliberate pace across the bridge followed in turn by Sloop.

Once they were halfway across, Sloop barely had half a second to register disturbances in the water on either side of them before the things under the surface leaped out at them. Sloop raised his forearms and sent them flying back where they came, short-bodied fish as big as the ladybugs before with huge mouths full of razor-sharp teeth. Gyre, meanwhile, leaned out of the way of each oncoming charge with grace that could have only come from anticipation provided by extensive firsthand experience.

Coming up onto the third island in the chain, they approached a steep valley running horizontally down the center between the different leveled plateaus, the only way across a narrow land bridge with a rocky underside. However, scuttling in sideways, a giant crab barred their way, snapping its raised claws at them. It was a bit taller than the ladybugs and counting the points its legs touched the ground would have been as wide as three of them side-by-side.

Sloop immediately struck a stance, aimed, and let loose a clip-emptying barrage at this new obstruction. The crab merely braced itself, holding its claws in as each of Sloop’s shots ricocheted off its sturdy shell, Sloop flinching when one was sent in their direction. After reloading, he lowered his weapons and turned to Gyre, who turned her head to him. “This one’s really sturdy. It won’t move to attack once it stands its ground, but it needs a really heavy blow to bring it down.”

Sloop made a confident smirk, raising one of his arrowguns pointing upward. “I would say that heavy blows are your department, but we both know that you’re practically a department store by yourself! Now, if only someone with good taste could do the decorating…”

Gyre giggled at her little brother’s clever joke, then turned back to the big, snapping crab. Hardly adjusting her already perfect posture, she held a hand forward and in it appeared one of the hinged handles on her very distinctive weapon in a flash of a warm-colored light.

Sloop knew that Gyre’s weapon was classified as a focus like Percival’s: A nonspecific object the user exerted an influence over either through a built-in enchantment or the object falling under the domain of their magic. Gyre’s was the latter, but he was still shocked to see it as the day she pulled it out of the pile of garbage they passed on one of their family’s outings and added the metal leafs and thin, ring-like handles herself. He was simultaneously as amazed as the day she’d made it her own after it turned red orange.

Gyre hefted to her side the spoked wagon wheel as tall as the length between her knees and shoulders and noticeably broader than the length between said shoulders with the slightest of ease, making a big, innocent, wide-eyed smile. Gyre got a running start, swinging her weapon to grasp it in the other handle before making a single twirl. The crab braced itself, but could do nothing as Gyre released one of her grips to send the weapon swinging outward with another twirl, crashing into the big critter and sending it flying into the crevice below.

Sloop and Gyre went to the edge and peered down. The crab struggled on its backside for a moment, but its legs found some purchase and it flipped itself back up. It shook the mud off itself, then it scuttled sideways down the length of the valley.

Crossing the land bridge into the second half of the island, they came to a curving stretch of flat, wide land leading to a beach stretching into the shallow water leading to their final destination. Gyre stopped Sloop yet again, swinging her head around, and cupping her ear pointing upward. Moments later, Sloop could hear it too. A low, continuous buzzing. Zooming from beyond the raised plateaus at both ends of the land, a swarm of nine giant, narrow-bodied insects swooped in hovering above them. Judging from their characteristics, Sloop could tell that they were the mud dauber species of wasps, each of them even carrying clumps of dirt clinging to the lower half of their abdomens.

Suddenly, both Sloop and Gyre were sent dashing back as three of them abruptly flung large clumps of mud at them. At the spots where they hit the ground, the mud started giving off fumes and a patch of surrounding grass darkened and withered.

Normally, Sloop would take charge of this encounter, but he knew that Gyre had both the skills and know-how to meet it as well. He watched as his sister raised her foot yet again, a white ring of light forming against her heel turning yellow this time, morphing into a circle of six smaller circles with a gap in the middle. With a series of almost jab-like recoils, she let fly a barrage of six bullets of magic from this emanation. As they approached the wasps, they suddenly began to spread as if losing accuracy. Reflex took hold of the wasps regardless as they veered far out of the way of the geometric line the scattering cluster of projectiles made, but two of them took a direct hit and fell down to earth, their legs and antennae twitching.

Sloop made his move and raised his arrowguns to let fly a barrage of his own, but like the previous encounter, his sister’s attack proved far more effective in comparison as all the wasps he was aiming at deftly maneuvered to avoid each of his shots.

Sloop let out an annoyed groan after reloading his weapons. He started the maneuver to combine and transform them, but Gyre paused him with a touch to the shoulder. Sloop looked into his sister’s wide, honest eyes. “Are you making the thing you used to make that big signal at the beach?”

Sloop raised an eyebrow at this prompt. “Yes…? Why do you ask?”

Gyre paused for a moment, her eyes trailing off as she attempted to put her very abstract thoughts together into something to express with words. “Why did you have to transform your weapon to do that?”

Sloop paused in a more awkward manner, but decided to humor his quirky but dependable sister. “Well… That way it's more like a bowgun, the technical predecessor to these things. A weapon that allows you to exert an influence over the payload of your magic projectiles. I can also use it to let off a rapid-fire that splits one bullet into a burst of ten.”

Gyre raised a finger to one of his twin weapons’ current form. “Then why didn’t you use that for that bigger bullet you used on the ladybug?”

At that, Sloop’s eyes raised at a line of thinking even he hardly considered. “Uh… Arroguns are less specialized that way.” He raised one to point one barrel at the other’s body. “This model is specifically configured to exert more of an influence over the bullets themselves rather than the payload, like letting me pack multiple into a bigger one. These ones are a bit more agile for me than the bowgun as my weapon’s base form, just been using them for longer.”

Gyre gestured back to the flying wasps waving her open hand, the bugs pausing to betray their wariness of them. “Well, how is that influence any different from the influence of those emanations you leave behind when you move to a new position, then?” Sloop rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to give his reply, but as he looked over the words he was about to speak in his head, his brow raised as he slowly closed his mouth.

Gyre backed off as Sloop raised his weapons again with a new look of determination. He pointed them upward, pausing seemingly to twist them with his wrist as he aimed with one shut eye. Taking a breath, he focused on one wasp, but relaxed an arm and let an arrow gun droop. With a shout, he swung his weapon in an arc and let the bullet fly. Initially, the bullet took a normal, linear path that the bug anticipated and darted sideways to avoid. Then, the bullet made a sudden, dramatic curve, colliding with its target thanks to this new trajectory and sending it to the ground.

Sloop gave a confident smile before crying out and swinging out his arms to make a series of regular gyrations, letting each bullet in both clips fly out at specific points in the circles the weapons traced in the air. The wasps darted around, making a precise series of motions as they sensed and anticipated the trajectory of each new projectile, but they started falling one by one as each bullet deviated from its course, curving to hit their evasive targets. The ones that didn’t hit forced some of the wasps into the path of others before they could adapt to this new onslaught.

Once all the wasps were on the ground, Sloop pointed his weapons upward with arched elbows and opened his hands as they disappeared, taking one final breath. He turned his head to his grinning sister, who dashed towards him. Sloop met her charge and they converged with a high-five.

After their laughter died off, both of them took a moment to steel themselves. They faced forward and proceeded onto the final island where neither of them had any idea what could possibly be waiting for them.