Lance sat on the bed of the master bedroom, holding a radio in his hoof that emitted a low hum. He sighed dejectedly, his ears pinning back with the revelation that, had his troops stayed out there just a day longer, they could have gotten sick or possibly worse. He was silently thankful that Rhinoc alerted him when he did, though now another pressing matter presented itself: facing his three right-hoof ponies and attempting to come up with another plan, hopefully without sparks flying.

Speaking of his right-hoof ponies, he began to wonder what they were getting up to now. He hopped off of the bed, tossing the radio over his withers to hear it plomf on the quilts before trotting out into the hall. Sparing a glance to the other doors, he found all of them shut, and suppressed a groan of exasperation. He made a beeline for the lift, pressed the down button the moment he boarded, and waited for it to escort him down, figuring the other doors were all locked.

"A wedding… I just had to arrive on a damned wedding..." Lance grumbled as the lift shook, closed its door, and started descending. He resisted the urge to facehoof. "Anna's probably gonna pluck my wings and make a brand new feather duster when she hears this…" He wanted to will the lift to go faster, but held his breath as it continued on its way; no sense trying to get the thing to hurry up, as the last thing he needed was a broken lift. After a few minutes, it stopped, shuddered, and opened the door, revealing the exact trio of unicorns he was going to fetch standing just outside of it. Lance blinked and went wide-eyed, taking in their expectant looks. "Where were you?"

Anna frowned, and her ears fell back. "We were going to get you, actually," she muttered. Her face hardened, and her voice rose, "Armin telepathically told me what he knew. Th-the whole of Delta could've gotten sick! Why did you send them out?!"

"Yep. I'm getting plucked," Lance thought with a sigh. Regardless, he figured he'd best explain himself before any hooves touched so much as a pin feather, "To get Applejack and her friends out as swiftly as possible, should things turn south."

"And?" Natalie pressed, a brow raising.

"I told them to pull out as soon as Rhinoc telepathically notified me," Lance answered. "He's probably going to convince Applejack and her expedition party to return, if he hasn't already."

Matt nodded at that, a small but satisfied smirk forming on his muzzle. "So… what do we do?" he asked.

Lance sighed. "Wait for them to come back, check everybody over, and all of that happy horseshit before we even try anything else. Shining may want to toss in sixteen bits instead of the usual two, and an earful about decorum on top of that," he answered, figuring that was as good an answer as any.

Anna's expression eased, and her ears perked up a bit. Then her tail hiked straight up and swished, which caught Lance's attention. He turned to her and frowned. "If you're still in heat, could you not do that? I really do not want my fifth leg to poke out," he groused.

"The closer I am to that hellhole," Anna hissed with a furious blush forming on her face and her eyes flashing red as she wasted no time lifting a hoof before jutting it out towards an approximated direction of Greenwood, "the worse my heat burns my crotch."

Lance's wings drooped. "So… you can't go near it either…" he murmured. Anna gravely nodded and dropped her hoof. "At least… not until you decide to go towards that step… or until your heat ends unimpeded..."

Anna's tail dropped back down, tucking itself between her rear legs. "Still not keen on getting mounted," she muttered. "And… I don't want anybody to be accused of pulling rank…"

Lance sighed dejectedly, silently admitting that Anna had a rather tragic point. He decided to switch to another topic, "Should we wait on the deck, or go back up?"

Matt and Natalie exchanged glances, then turned back to Lance and shrugged in unison. Anna decided to answer for them, "Let's head back upstairs. I need to do something about this…" Her tail swished as she finished, "problem."

In that moment, her three colleagues turned red as tomatoes at the implication, and it certainly didn't help that a bitter scent had now wafted its way to all of their noses. Wordlessly, they boarded the lift, pressed a key, and waited for it to take them back to the bedrooms. They remained silent as the lift ascended, stopped at their destination, and opened the door. The very second said door slid open, though, Anna teleported to the other side of the hall and ran into the master bedroom as though her hooves had caught fire, leaving Lance and the others to catch up.

Natalie groaned and turned to Matt before burying her face into his shoulder. "Doesn't even move a damn hoof out the door before teleporting… nooooo, she just couldn't wait," she grumbled, her voice muffled.

Matt nodded and turned to Lance. "Want us to soundproof the shower again?" he queried.

Lance hastily nodded, his face now turning a few shades darker, until it was as red as his mane. "And get to it, before she starts her caterwauling. I don't want anybody coming into the room and asking if she's alright," he grumbled in reply. Matt and Natalie did not need to be told twice; before Lance even took one step forward, they darted down the hall in a frenzied gallop to get to the master bedroom as fast as their legs could carry them. Their movements were so sudden and swift his mane and feathers fluffed up as their tails brushed right past him.

Lance disembarked the lift, perking his ears to listen for any sound other than Matt and Natalie galloping as they reached and then veered into the master bedroom, and apart from the low hum of horns glowing and the sounds of cloth rustling and water running, he caught nothing. He waited for a few seconds, hesitant to return to the room, wings twitching nervously as he struggled to make the decision whether or not to join them already.

"Lance, she's in a soundproof double-wrapped bubble!" Natalie called, an air of exasperation in her voice. "And she pulled out my box of goodies from under the bed and raided it again!"

Lance spread a wing and slapped himself in the face with it before cantering to the master bedroom, muttering about how the 'box of goodies' was Natalie's problem to deal with and not his. His pace was a lot slower than that of his compatriots, with the teleportation factored in, though he did not drag his hooves one little bit. He could not afford to dally, as there was a very pressing matter to attend to.

As a result, and much to his chagrin and consternation, he arrived just fast enough to see Natalie juggling an ordinary brown, hock-high box with holes in its sides as she slipped in a small stick-like object through one of said holes. The object in question being bright pink with mottled spots on it, and a golden crystal cemented into a very flat foot gave him a clue as to why Anna supposedly pulled the box out. He also saw a dome of orange, sparkling with flecks of red and gold, encasing the toiletries' corner.

Natalie blushed and slid the box back under the bed and turned to Lance, finding him leveling a withering glare in her direction, somehow made even worse by the fact that he was blushing so furiously it was a wonder his face hadn't turned a shade of brown yet given his coat color. "You do realize that, if you converted your little toy stash and its container into thaumic energy, she wouldn't pillage it, right?" he hissed, his voice so level and blunt that, were it a more physical force, it would have knocked her onto her haunches.

Natalie's ears fell back, and she blushed from the admonishment. "I would, if I didn't use crystals to power some of them…" she groused.

Lance's brows straightened so rigidly one could have balanced a pencil on them with no trouble whatsoever. "Anna does that with all of the crystal arrows that don't end up stuffed into her quiver," he pointed out blithely, "what the fuck is stopping you from doing likewise?"

Natalie shuddered and blurted out a statement before she could even start processing it, "R-remember the time sh-she tried to romance a-a doorknob while she w-was sleeptrotting?"

Lance's wings immediately spread to half-mast, and his rear legs shuffled, resulting in his body swinging as though his forehooves had been anchored to a pivot point. "Y-yes… what does that have to do with anything?" he tried, his voice cracking and straining a little.

Natalie's pupils shrank when she realized what had ended up leaving her mouth before she engaged her brain. Her knees wobbled, threatening to buckle. "N-nothing?" she answered, her voice a little weaker than she'd have liked.

"Exactly," Lance hissed, eyes narrowing so slightly the only clue Natalie had in regards to their movement was the twitch that followed immediately after. He stopped pivoting in place, maroon to the torn tips of his ears—whether in embarrassment, or anger, she could not tell which of the two it was, nor if these emotions were both warring for precedence. "We'll continue this little discussion… later tonight, preferably after Delta Unit and Shining's group return. Do I make myself clear?" he said.

Natalie gulped audibly and nodded hastily. Lance nodded back just once, turning to Matt and leaving his now-nervous subordinate to ruminate on how, exactly, he'd continue the discussion he'd just postponed with her. Matt, impressively, managed a stiff pose with only a small frown betraying any emotion he may have been feeling up to that point. "Yes?" Matt asked.

Lance retracted his wings and huffed through flared nostrils. "Let's wait for Anna to finish up first before we start attempting to cobble together plans." He glanced very briefly at the dome-covered toiletries' corner, seeing a very faint silhouette moving in a gyrating manner.

Matt, too, looked at the toiletries' corner and heaved a sigh of relief. "I think I see why you wanted private shower stalls…" he muttered, seeing Lance nod out of the corner of his eye. He could've sworn he heard a faint hum, but chose to keep his lips zipped on the off chance that it was his imagination.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Sunset had graced Greenwood as the hours began to wane toward night, and the barrier had gone up—which really, really annoyed Shining Armor to no end, as he stood at its edge with his group. Everyone on both sides of the barrier watched as the elder pounded upon the shield with his hooves, but alas his efforts were fruitless. The villagers glared at him as though of one mind, and at their head was the band of dark grey unicorn stallions. "You mingled with outsiders, you coot," one of the dark unicorns hissed, his voice somehow coming through crystal clear despite the barrier.

"You are hereby exiled. Go, and never return," scolded the second.

The third sneered, the expression twisting his face to a manner that was disconcerting. "It's a shame, really, but then again… you were always a hopeless bastard," he mocked, his tone rather smug. "Just like that little thirteen-year-old filly, and everypony else who came before her… her fate, their fate; now yours. Enjoy your last days."

The elder found himself embraced in three identically-green magical auras that came from the dark unicorns' horns, and before he could even register it, was sent flying into Shining Armor with enough force to send them both sprawling to the ground. As the two landed and then scrambled to get up, with the aid of Flash and Rhinoc's helping hooves, the villagers turned from the barrier and trotted into the village to attend to other business.

"You sexually-depraved monsters!" the elder shrieked with narrowed eyes, trying to run back to the barrier even though Flash Sentry moved to grapple him by the barrel. "One day, your ovens and batter-makers won't work anymore if you keep this hopeless charade up! What will you do then?!" The villagers vanished into Greenwood, ignoring him with huffs and snorts as they went.

"Calm down!" Flash ordered, spreading and flapping his wings as the elder's eyes turned red. With all of his might, even though his bones were old, the elder determinedly took a few steps forward, only to halt when he felt wings pushing on the air and driving him back. For a few seconds, the poor stallion stood there, glaring at Greenwood for all it was worth, before his eyes turned green and he fell to his haunches.

"Th-they'll breed themselves into oblivion…" the elder muttered, his glare easing into a look of pity. "Who will they turn to when that day comes?"

"Those ponies are as stubborn as a pack of mules," Applejack snorted, shaking her head. "I say we leave them alone right now, and give 'em time to cool off." The elder turned to her and frowned solemnly, and she returned the expression. "Hey, we know a place where you could stay the night at."

Rhinoc turned to Applejack and paled considerably at her unspoken meaning. "You're seriously not suggesting…"

Applejack nodded without even looking at Rhinoc, cutting him off instantly. "Only other place would be Ashwood itself, I'm afraid," she pointed out.

Rhinoc's shoulders sagged a little at that. "I… guess we could make an exception," he muttered under his breath. "Though I can still hear it now: 'really, why?'"

"We'll deal with his hootenanny later," Applejack snorted, flicking her tail dismissively. She smiled at the elder, but her eyes slanted and her muzzle warbled a little. "We'll keep ya safe until we get to the other safe place."

The elder's jaw quivered, and his eyes began to water as a wobbling smile framed his muzzle. "Y-you will?" he stammered, his tone laced in disbelief, though his eyes began to glisten with hope.

"You let us spend the night in your place and even made food for us. I think it's time we returned the favor," Applejack extrapolated, her smile widening a little. She lifted a hoof and wedged it between Flash and the elder, patting the latter on his withers with a gentle motion. She turned to Flash and nodded to him, and slowly he lifted his forelegs and flew off of the ex-villager. "And besides, you're the only friendly pony in this messed-up area, and I wouldn't forgive myself if I left ya hangin' out here."

The elder's smile had, likewise, widened. "Y-you really…" He stopped rambling as he saw Shining nod.

"Those ponies in that shield…" Shining lifted a hoof and gestured to Greenwood as he spoke, "are some of the worst I have seen. If they are heartless enough to boot out foals and the elderly, then I wonder what that says about them." He dropped his hoof and looked the elder in the eye, and his voice softened as he added, "But you're different; you still have a heart, and one of gold at that. We'll make sure the curse is lifted, while you're there to see it."

Blueblood also nodded to the elder, a small smile creeping at his lips when he saw the elder beaming at his words. "While this promise is one we intend to keep, we mustn't dally," he interjected, turning to the northeast. "We must get back to… the other safe haven."

"He's right," Rainbow agreed with a nod, spreading her wings. "Want me to go on ahead?"

Shining looked at Rainbow and shook his head. "No; at least, not until we get away from the barrier," he stated. His horn began glowing as the sky started to darken, and everyone fell into step behind him. He craned his neck to look at the elder one more time. "Stick close. I don't know what comes out of these woods at night, and frankly I want to avoid that sort of trouble if we can." When the elder nodded, he turned ahead and started heading towards Ashwood with a slightly hurried pace.

Taking roughly the same path they used to get to Greenwood the night prior, Shining made sure everyone else was in tow behind him, going slow for the sake of the elder now with them. Night fully fell within an hour or so, and the only detour the group took was to drop by the Mighty Oak and enlighten him to much more recent happenings, though even he could not do anything about it, thanks to the shield. The elder, after seeing the Oak, had a slight spring in his step that made even the ever-wary, insanely prepared Rhinoc crack a small smile.

On the way, as the light of the moon started sending its silver tendrils through the branches of the desolate place, they stopped at the abandoned house past the obsidian patch. "What's in there?" Rainbow asked, tilting her head.

Rhinoc strode to the front doorframe, his horn aglow. "It's what I want to know. This house has been bugging me since yesterday, and I don't know why," he muttered. The room was, as the elder's guest room, pitifully small; the blasted place did not even have a flight of stairs that he could see. Curiously, the window of the place had been recently smashed to pieces, its dusted fragments only barely managing to reflect his and the moon's light. Trotting deeper into the abode, something else caught his eye—a dresser that was missing its drawers had a rumpled, dirtied gown that was not there yesterday. Coming closer still to inspect the anomaly, Rhinoc found his stomach twisting into knots.

It was snowy white, of that there was no doubt. But it was stained and torn in places with only tiny patches of pure and unblemished white here and there, and sleeves that could only support small forelegs. The sleeves were maybe large enough that Maria could fit her tarsi into them, but no bigger than that, while the rest of the contours were frayed and hole-riddled. A large, glaringly crimson splotch was set into the piece where the rump would meet with the fabric, forming dried rivulets trailing all the way down to a filthy golden trim.

This large red spot was accompanied and accentuated by several smaller blots that were scattered willy-nilly across the entirety of the outfit. A hole had been torn in the red spot, and a thin, reflective membrane of some sort clung to the inside of the gown. This membrane's origins, though, were something Rhinoc knew not, nor did he want to beg the question of what it had been previously attached to.

With the outfit was a tiny veil, fragmented into noodle-like filaments that sported ends so frayed he could see the individual threads and count them with perfect accuracy if he were of a mind to. A little crestband finished the piece, studded with cracked and flaking gems of a very faded green. Like the gown itself, it too had been tarnished by a red hue. The crestband was dented, and what parts of it that weren't red were a tarnished silver instead.

Both were topped off by meager shards of glass that stuck out of the outfit like crude nails. Rhinoc lurched again and turned to the floor, seeing more dried stains leading up to the window forming little hoofprints, with some of the glass shards sullied in a crimson hue he did not notice until now. With them were little golden horseshoes, warped and scratched beyond compare, also soaked with red.

He felt a twang of sorrow, coming to the conclusion that whomever was wearing this dress had met a very grisly end, but tried to leave in their last moments—to no avail. He turned and left the house, and the last shred of physical evidence that suggested that an unfortunate soul was there, paling once more as he came face to face with Shining Armor. "Tattered and bloodied wedding outfit in there, and the window's broken. Somepony was inside that house," Rhinoc muttered.

Shining's face hardened. "Would it be possible to find whoever was in the outfit?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from coming out as a sibilant hiss.

Rhinoc pursed his lips and contemplated the question, before grimly shaking his head. "We'd need the whole military contingent to scour the area, and we've already gotten on Greenwood's bad side. The bloodstains were large enough to let me know that, whomever it was, they very likely did not get far." His ears fell back. "And if the pony turned into a tree… a pretty big if, considering the amount of blood I saw in there..."

Shining frowned, sensing where Rhinoc was going with his train of logic. The elder came over, went inside to inspect the grim scene, and trotted out with a sullen frown just seconds later. "Poor dear…" he muttered solemnly. "To be attacked on a wedding day…" Rhinoc nodded, sensing his understandable unease. For a moment, the group stood in somber silence, contemplating what to do next when a distant, shrill scream rent the tranquil night air. Rainbow responded by spreading her wings, flying over, and seizing Blueblood within the span of three seconds.

"H-hey!" Blueblood protested, struggling to get out of Rainbow's already-tightening grip. It was no use; within five seconds after the initial grab, he was forced to stand on his back legs, his forehooves flailing with all of the grace of windswept wet newspaper.

"Sorry guys, but I'm afraid I gotta fly ahead," Rainbow explained before lifting Blueblood and taking off at terminal velocity, and the only thing she left in her wake was two sets of hoofprints and a few shed feathers that fell after she had left. Blueblood shrieked in surprise as he was spirited away, but soon his cries faded with distance.

"I have a feeling he's gonna need another puke bucket whenever he lands…" Flash groused, flaring his wings. He looked to Shining. "Want me to tail her?"

Shining nodded. "Please do, Flash. I've heard about her recklessness when she first arrived here…" he muttered dismally. "We'll catch up." With that, Flash took to the air and tried his best to fly after and find the hapless Blueblood and the once-again reckless Rainbow Dash.

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Blueblood's stomach had turned upside-down and back again as Rainbow went careening through the night, the whistling of the wind and the hooves carrying him doing their utter damnedest to make him lose his lunch. He barely heard the source of the scream as blood rushed to his head and pounded at the walls of his veins and arteries in an attempt to carve its way out, but he held his tongue, fearing that would fly out as well were he to open his mouth in these circumstances.

Rainbow, he decided, didn't seem to personally care either way. She heard the screaming, engaged body before brain, and before he knew it a decent chunk of Ashwood Forest passed right under their hooves. Still more of the desolate wood flitted by at such speeds he couldn't tell which shade of brown belonged to what, even with the moon's light illuminating the area. They went in circles, up and down, and every few seconds Rainbow glanced down to find out what the source of the sound was, but she caught nothing. This dragged on for several nauseatingly long minutes, during which Blueblood's stomach found that it did not know which way to start cartwheeling. Then, just as suddenly as they'd lifted off, Rainbow stopped on a dime, glancing around this way and that as she heard several low and distant hums.

Blueblood squeezed his lips shut as bile rushed up to fill his mouth. He forced himself to swallow, already green in the face and wondering what in Tartarus his usher got distracted by. Wearily, he glanced around, finding several dark forms descending onto Ashwood. They were massive things, bigger than the Valkyrie Tank, but other than that he could not discern what in Faust's name they were, let alone ascertain their purpose. Not even the light of the moon gave their appearances away; only their darkened forms and their distance did so in its stead, though soon they vanished from sight.

He looked up at Rainbow, who looked down at him and shrugged to the best of her ability. "I dunno either," she admitted. Her mouth opened to utter something else, when another scream, this one much more shrill and loud, pierced the air, giving Blueblood barely enough time to collect himself. Instantly, the two darted their eyes madly about, looking under themselves for even the slightest trace of a source when, a couple of miles away, a tree swayed in the moonlight all by its lonesome.

Suspiciously, its branches drooped down when none of the other trees surrounding it even moved so much as a leaf, and a second, even higher-pitched scream, joined the first and dragged on for much longer. Rainbow strained her ears, trying to gauge what was wailing and where exactly it was coming from. The second source gurgled for a bit before resuming their shrieking. Her heart sank, and she raced towards the moving tree as she heard the thunderous sound of something massive stomping its way over. Within seconds, the sources' cries rose to chilling screams, with the gurgling one actually managing to give them both a slight headache as it reached a crescendo.

Rainbow wasted no time; she flew over, dragging Blueblood with, to the one tree that had moved. In seconds, she found a clearing that beheld a horrifying sight: a massive… entity seemingly made of black stones ambled to a cursed tree that was using its branches to shield a small foal, who was in turn cradling something between its forelegs. The tree tried to bat away the oncoming creature with its branches, but it only caused its spindly limbs to snap into pieces upon impact as the creature came closer and closer to the foal. Larger branches came in and seized the creature and firmly pushed, sending it back a few paces before it stopped.

"Hang in there, kid, we're coming!" Rainbow declared, rushing to the scene and right to the creature, getting between the entity and the tree as well as putting Blueblood on the forest floor to catch his breath. In the moon's light, she saw a massive four-legged creature as big as a standard house's bedroom, but did not get a good look at its features. Instead she ascended a few meters, descended again, twisted around and bucked the creature head-on with both back hooves, earning a pained cry as the attack sent it staggering further backwards.

Rainbow briefly turned to Blueblood. "Take care of the kid! I'll deal with… the whatever-this-is!" she cried, and when Blueblood shakily nodded, she immediately twisted back to face her adversary as it righted itself and glared at her with beady eyes. She found herself staring down a tortoise of all things, its scales black as coal with a shell seemingly hewn of obsidian, with one bladed horn jutting out of its forehead and two Celestia-sized stalagmites sticking out of its shell to form a wicked crescent shape. Quickly, she glanced at both back hooves and sighed in relief when she did not spot a single trickle of blood, or a bleeding gash, before once again facing the massive tortoise.

Blueblood turned away from the spectacle as Rainbow flew to the behemoth to whale on it some more, ignoring its earthshaking stomps, and instead lit up his horn to conjure a light to better illuminate the area. His eyes widened when he saw a small filly with widened eyes, barely bigger than Scootaloo, huddling at the cursed tree's roots. Her light green mane and tail were in tangles, and her grey coat had been stained by dried blood in a myriad of places and an equal number of scabbed-over wounds. Disturbingly, where the blood had gathered most was her very stained rump. In her forelegs was a much smaller, pale green foal with a dried umbilical cord still attached, kicking and screaming for all it was worth. He instantly trotted over, only for the cursed tree to start trying to bat him away, too.

"Leave… alone…!" the tree hissed, turning a horrifically-twisted scowl towards Blueblood.

Blueblood shook his head. "We're here to help the children!" he protested, using his magic to seize the branches and shove them away before he came closer to the wounded filly, who immediately scooted back to the tree. "They need shelter, and medical care, and you will not impede me from taking them to where it's available!"

He opened his mouth to speak some more, but the filly started screaming at him, "N-not g-going to b-bad place! Y-you can't make me!"

"Leave… now…" the tree protested, deciding to fold some more branches over in an effort to get Blueblood to trot elsewhere. However, he wouldn't back down; he instead sent the branches back with more force, that time outright snapping some of them. The tree retaliated, now bringing out a branch as thick as his barrel, ending in smaller branches that made it seem more like a clawed hand.

With this large branch, it seized Blueblood by his left foreleg and gripped tightly before lifting him up and bringing him to its face. "You no… help foals! You… hurt them! You just like… bad ponies of Greenwood!" the tree declared, bringing forth another branch even thicker than the one it was using to hold Blueblood, seizing his right foreleg before it began to pull in opposite directions.

"I am most certainly not anything even remotely close to what those degenerates are!" Blueblood shouted back, seizing the larger branches in his magic and pushing them toward himself to keep the tree from ripping his forelegs out of their sockets. He felt a slight strain just beneath his horn, and one in each foreleg as the tree tried with all of its might to resist his spell and rip him in half. "I require assistance!" he cried, but blinked when he realized Rainbow didn't immediately come to help him get out of the tree's grip.

"I-I can't help right now!" Rainbow cried. Curious as to what was keeping her, Blueblood turned to Rainbow, finding that she now had some difficulty of her own with the tortoise. It had her pinned under its body with a massive foot, and she was using all four hooves to keep it from turning her into pulp, wings straining as she used them to push herself up from the ground without flapping them.

The tree's mouth formed into a twisted smirk, hanging slightly agape as its face tilted. A dark substance leaked from its eyes, staining its bark as it stared at Blueblood with an expression of malice. "Outsiders… weak…" it cooed darkly, the barest hint of a feminine tone lining its voice. "Outsiders… no help foals…"

Blueblood turned back and glared at the tree, though a shiver ran down his spine at the rather disconcerting expression it wore on its visage. He did the only thing available to him then; he lifted his rear legs, swung back before bringing his hindquarters forward and bucking with every ounce of strength in his body. The tree screamed as hooves landed solidly against its face, causing the bark to break and the flesh beneath to cave in with a sickening squelch thanks to the aid of momentum. Its branches released their hold on him, and he dropped to the forest floor on his side, grinning as the tree brought its misshapen branches to its face with a wail of pain.

Scrambling up, he turned to the filly and the baby before scooping them up in his magic. "Sincere apologies, but this must be done!" he stated as the filly opened her mouth to protest. Blueblood brought them close to his barrel and backpedaled sharply, just as the tree dropped its massive clawed branches to glare at him with a broken face that leaked dark fluids like a running faucet. He launched a bolt of magic at the tree, who deflected it with a branch, sending it into the sky to explode harmlessly above Ashwood Forest.

"Foal defiler!" the tree yelled, its roots shifting violently beneath the ground, forming cracks and upwellings of dirt from where it was cemented in place. "Foal needs proper stallion! Not outsider weakling!"

"Just what are you going on about?!" Blueblood demanded, turning to the filly to find her looking at him with stiff legs and pinprick pupils. The baby was looking at him with a similar expression, having stopped crying for the moment. He took a better look at them both, finding countable ribs and jutting hipbones on the filly's frame, while curiously the baby had a rather healthy amount of pudge. "And have you eaten at all?" he asked the filly, in a low voice. She shook her head.

"N-no trust you," the filly muttered. She, the baby, and Blueblood all shrieked in surprise as the earth heaved and massive tendrils erupted from the ground, sending dust and small pebbles everywhere. Rainbow and the tortoise yelped as well, and before anyone could move the tendrils wrapped around all of their legs, save those of the filly and baby. The tortoise shrieked as it was flipped away from Rainbow and onto its back, its pointed shell spearing the soil and cementing it in place with a terrible snap.

"Give me the children!" the tree bellowed as the tendrils yanked Blueblood from the ground once more, splaying his legs as far apart as possible. He looked down, seeing the tendrils end at the tree's trunk, and the tree's roots moving in an unnatural manner, with some even forming sharp thorns through the act of twisting about, thus creating splinters.

"I would rather face the wrath of my aunties than to leave starving foals in this accursed forest!" Blueblood shouted, once more glaring at the tree for all it was worth. The tree hissed, the sound akin to a screeching whine, when an orange blur shot past it, and then weaved its way through the tendrils. It snatched the foals from Blueblood's magic as it passed him and shot to the sky like a rocket, hovering just over the branches' edges.

Blueblood and Rainbow looked up, seeing a frowning Flash Sentry hovering above, the filly clinging to his armor and the baby in his forelegs. "Like hay you're getting the kids!" Flash yelled, shaking his head disapprovingly at the tree, who turned up to hiss at him animalistically. A low hum filled the air, and a few darkened forms carrying glistening, clock-shaped objects hovered at the edge of the clearing in his wake.

Past these new arrivals, though, something both intriguing and highly alarming caught Flash's eyes. More trees started swaying their branches erratically in the distance, and with their movements a chorus of anguished, enraged moans filled the air. This new cacophony almost drowned out the hum the new arrivals had brought with them.