Twilight, Fluttershy, Pupa and Chrysalis continued their trek deep into the night, the moon watching over them with its glorious white glow. Pupa let out a loud yawn and laid himself down on Chrysalis’ back, drifting off to sleep almost instantly. Twilight, meanwhile, lagged behind the group, struggling to keep her eyes open. Late night study sessions were one thing, but actually walking non-stop for three hours was another thing entirely.
Suddenly, a crack, followed by a loud thud, was heard. Fluttershy and Chrysalis turned around in shock, only to realise it was just Twilight tripping over a log. Fluttershy walked over to help her up.
“Oh my, are you alright?” she asked, offering a hoof.
Twilight, still half asleep, flailed her own hoof around in the air a bit until it finally found Fluttershy’s, and the Pegasus helped her up.
“I think we should rest for the night - if that’s okay with you”, Fluttershy suggested, turning her attention back to Chrysalis.
“Every second we waste is a second, well, he could be using to attack more changelings, or build more defences.” Chrysalis hissed bluntly. “We don’t have time to rest.”
“Well it’s just… um… eep” Fluttershy responded, physically backing away and crouching down a little in fear.
“Just what?” Chrysalis demanded.
“Oh, n-no, please. It’s not even a sensible suggestion anyway. I’m sorry for wasting time.”
“I think maybe what she’s saying is the boxes in the pancake sauce,” Twilight interrupted, staggering around about a metre behind them.
This was enough to get Fluttershy to speak up. “Well, I mean, it’s just - if we’re not well-rested, our enemy will have an advantage right? Like how when you get nocturnal animals to stay up during the day, they end up dropping their food everywhere.”
“That’s a… strange analogy,” Chrysalis commented, before turning to Twilight, who had involuntarily fallen asleep while leaning against a tree. “However, I see your point. Let’s find somewhere to stop for the night.”
After around ten minutes of searching, Chrysalis found her somewhere. She led Fluttershy, who was now carrying Twilight Sparkle on her back, into a dark cave, in the side of a large rocky outcrop. Chrysalis lit up her horn, causing hundreds of fuzzy, brown bats to come pouring out of the area.
“AAAAAAAAAH!” Chrysalis screeched, waking up both her sleeping son and Twilight, causing them to go rolling onto the floor as the bats continued to fly past.
Fluttershy, meanwhile, decided to introduce herself to her new-found friends.
“Oh, hello,” she asked one of the bats gently, causing them to turn tail and gently land on her nose, “what’s your name?”
The bat screeched in response.
“Oh, EEEhhhKH? That’s a nice name. I might just call you Eeky?”
The bat nodded, its friends now beginning to gather around calmly.
“I’m sorry we disturbed you Eeky. We were just looking for a place to stay for the night. We’d still like to stay here actually - i-if that’s okay with you?”
The bats chattered amongst themselves for a few minutes, before one of them gave Fluttershy a reply.
“Good news everypony,” Fluttershy said softly to her three trembling companions, “we’re allowed to stay the night, but we have to turn the lights down.”
“Thanks - I guess?” Chrysalis responded, baffled by whatever just happened, before turning her horn down.
“Banana sprinkle,” Twilight managed in a grateful voice, before falling asleep on the spot.
Pupa followed suit, snuggling up beside Twilight and covering himself with her wing, and soon Fluttershy and Chrysalis joined them in a big, snoring heap of cuteness.
In the empty darkness outside the cave, a pair of glowing red eyes could be seen, watching intently for a few seconds, before dissipating into the night air.
“Help! Help! I’m trapped!” Twilight cried out at the top of her lungs as the sun had barely begun rising, causing the bats to begin swarming again in panic and waking all three of her friends. “Chrysalis has betrayed me, we have t-”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and lit up her horn, not even moving from her sleeping place. The green cacoon around Twilight broke in half and she was ‘freed’ instantly.
“Oh.” Twilight said sheepishly, realising what was actually going on as she saw Pupa easily open his cacoon in a matter of seconds. “Thanks for the… uh… sleeping bag?”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and lay back down, only to find Pupa tugging at her wings.
“Wake up mummy, wake up mummy!”
He ran around her in circles a couple of times, before repeating the tugging. She noticed his leg looked a lot better, though he was still limping a little.
“We need to get going, and kick the bad guy’s flank!” Pupa continued.
“Alright, alright” Chrysalis said, accepting the fact that sleep was all but over for the day. She made her way out of the now brightly-lit cave, which looked quite a lot smaller and cosier in the day, with smooth rocky walls, full of tiny holes, populated of course by bats.
Twilight and Pupa skipped along happily behind her, but Fluttershy stayed put.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked.
“Don’t think so” Twilight answered with a shrug.
“Not to my knowledge” Chrysalis added.
Pupa stood there and thought for a moment before finally jumping excitedly in realisation. “Oh right, thankyou bats!”
The bats chattered happily, Fluttershy translating it as “you’re welcome”. She didn’t have the heart to tell her friends they were actually sighing with relief.
A few uneventful hours passed as the group left the forest for the grassy plains beyond. As the grass began to get taller and drier, Pupa started playing and frolicking around in it like an excited puppy let off his leash.
Fluttershy decided to join him, and soon the two of them were bouncing around without a care in the world.
Suddenly, Fluttershy froze in place, before quickly grabbing a still bouncing Pupa’s back leg and quietly pulling him to the ground.
A huge, black, shadowy figure, dwarfing even Chrysalis, swooped above them. It was soon joined by two others.
“Oh no,” Chrysalis whispered to herself.
“What - are those things?” Twilight asked
“No time to explain. Run! Now!”
“But -“
“Take Pupa and get back to Ponyville as soon as you can! I’ll distract them!”
“But what are they?”
Chrysalis sighed. Stupid ponies and their curiosity. Just run already.
“Mantigons. Giant predators. They prey exclusively on changelings - draining their love until they are nothing but lifeless husks - but that doesn’t mean they’re above killing any non-changelings who get in the way of their next meal. NOW GO!”
“What, you expect us to just leave you to get eaten by these things?”
All four members of the party ducked as another one of the mantigons swept even closer to their heads.
“Yes! Yes I do!”
“Well your expectations are wrong! Pupa, get in the middle of the group where you’ll be safe. Chrysalis, you go up front, lead the way. Fluttershy and I will cover Pupa on both sides. Got it?”
“This is madn-“
“Got it?”
“Alright, yes, fine! I can see the edge of the badlands in the distance. There should be some kind of hole or crevice to hide in, now run!”
With that, Chrysalis darted towards the yellow sands on the horizon, Twilight and Fluttershy close behind. Pupa, however, was struggling to keep up.
“We have to slow down, Pupa’s falling behind” Fluttershy gasped as a third mantigon came close enough to brush against her mane. It seemed to share features of an insect and a reptile, and it was monstrously huge, but it was moving quickly to ascertain anything else.
“We can barely outrun them as it is,” Twilight protested.
“Got any better ideas?” Fluttershy snapped. “Oh my, I’m sorry”, she quickly corrected herself.
There was a moment of silence before Twilight came to a realisation, “actually, I do,” before taking off into the sky.
“Are you crazy” Chrysalis screeched, “the sky is their element, get back down from there!”
“They may be faster, but we’re more agile. They haven’t managed to change direction even slightly to swoop at us properly.”
Chrysalis sighed and took to the air, there wasn’t any better option. Fluttershy and Pupa joined her.
The mantigons continued to swoop at the ground below the group as they took off into the air, their scent still lingering on the ground. It was a critical head start.
“Alright, fly!” Twilight demanded and the four of them zoomed towards the sandy wastes up ahead at the highest speed they could muster. Twilight quickly managed to get ahead of the group, while Chrysalis trailed behind.
The three mantigons noticed Twilight call out, and one of them let out a roar, prompting the others to follow as they chased after the group, rapidly catching up to them.
One of the creatures dove directly towards Pupa’s back, but Pupa effortlessly darted to the side, causing it to go spinning towards the ground.
The second manitgon roared and attempted several swoops at Twilight and friends from below and above, only to miss every time.
Adding insult to injury, Pupa dived at the creature and kicked it on the nose, before quickly darting away.
“Pupa, hero of the changelings, is victorious!” Pupa declared, before Fluttershy grabbed him by the arm just in time to save him from another attack, sending a very frustrated second mantigon faceplanting inelegantly into the ground below it.
“Please be careful,” she instructed Pupa gently.
“Hey, look, there’s sand below us, we’re nearly there!” Twilight announced. “Just a few more metres to those boulders over there - there’s a heap of hiding places.”
She pointed to a pile of large, jagged rocks, coated in red dust and sand and dotted with pony-sized holes and gaps.
Twilight was the first to reach the hiding place, a fairly large gap in the rocks, and Fluttershy, still holding Pupa by the arm, was there a split second later.
“Come on Chrysalis!” Fluttershy called out as the changeling zoomed towards the hole.
“Go mummy!” Pupa called out, before recoiling in shock as the huge form of the third mantigon revealed itself behind her.
Fluttershy covered her eyes and tried to look away, terrified, but she found herself peeking out of morbid curiosity.
Twilight didn’t think twice before spreading her wings and flying straight back out of the gap and into the open air.
“Over here, lizard features!” she called out, distracting the creature seconds before it would’ve hit Chrysalis, allowing the changeling to scramble into the hiding place in time. “You’re not worthy of being called a sauropsid!”
The creature roared in anger at having its meal taken from it, and zoomed into the air towards Twilight, who just ducked out of the way. She was too far from the entrance to get back at this point - fighting was her only option.
Twilight readied her horn, and sent a huge blast of attack magic into the mantigon’s mouth as it tried to swoop at her neck, causing the creature to go spiralling away in pain.
The mantigon cried out and shook its head, trying to get rid of the burning. Twilight swooped in for another hit.
BOOM!
It landed solidly on the mantigon’s nose, causing the creature to collapse onto the ground outside the boulder pile. Twilight took her chance.
She raced towards the hiding place as fast as she could go, breathing a sigh of relief at having made it, only to be dragged back out by the tail.
The mantigon, teeth firmly gripped around Twilight’s tail, swung the pony up into the air like a crocodile shaking its prey. Twilight held her stomach as she became sick from just the first swing. Then came another, and another. Pupa began crying inconsolably as he watched the creature begin slamming Twilight’s dazed form into the sandy ground, at least three times.
Just in time, Twilight snapped out of it and fired a huge beam of light magic directly into the creature’s eye. The mantigon let go and cried out in agony, allowing Twilight to run safely over to the others, where she received the tightest group hug of her life from Pupa and Fluttershy, both of whom were whimpering like Winona on a cracker night.
The mantigon tried to knock down the boulder pile in a fit of rage, but the pile stayed stable, and after a few more attempts, the creature gave up and flew off into the distance, leaving a huge cloud of dust in its wake.
“What in Tartarus were you thinking?” Chrysalis snapped at Twilight, who was now lying on the ground holding her throbbing head and trying to get the world to stop spinning.
“You’re my friend, I’m not going to leave you here!”
“Friend? You’ve only been on my side for a day!”
“Well fine then, ally. You’re my ally - and ponies never leave their allies in a time of need.
“I have no clue how your bizarre species continues to function!”
“The magic of friendship”, Twilight said with a giggle.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes in response.
“Well, thanks for using your magic of nonsense to save me anyway.”
“You’re welcome!” Twilight squeaked, hugging Chrysalis.
Chrysalis just stood there awkwardly.
Wow, she really did get hit hard, huh?