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Description
The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been wandering through the Everfree Forest for several hours now, and it was beginning to weigh down on Spike.  His feet were getting tired, he was getting hungry, his nerves were on edge from being in the Everfree Forest for so long, plus he was getting the feeling that Apple Bloom and her friends had no idea how to make a map.
  "Girls, we've been out here for hours!"  He whined.  "Can we go home now?"
  "Keep yer spines on, Spike."  Apple Bloom retorted.  "We're makin' good progress."
Spike looked over her shoulder to get a look at their 'progress'.  The map was nothing more than a bunch of crudely drawn trees and paths with labels like 'bush shaped like a pony' and really big rock'.  He sighed.
  "Look, it's getting late, we've eaten all of our snacks, and I'm sure everypony's missing us, so let's just go home, okay?"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at Spike and then at their map.  Their faces fell.
  "All right, Spike."  Apple Bloom said in resignation.  "Let's head..."
A rustling in the bushes cut Apple Bloom off.  She and her friends huddled close to Spike and the five of them stared at the bush in fear.
  "What's in there?"  Sweetie Belle asked timidly.
  "I don't know, but it can't be anything good."  Spike said fearfully.
  "Only one way to find out."  Scootaloo said, sounding braver than she felt.  Uttering a battle cry, she leapt into the bush and began brawling with whatever was in it.
  "We can't let her fight that thing alone!"  Twist said.
  "Yer right!"  Apple Bloom agreed.  "C'mon!"
With that, Apple Bloom, Twist, and Sweetie Belle leapt into the bush.  Spike stayed where he was.  The battle went on for several minutes until the victorious Cutie Mark Crusaders dragged out their battered foes.
  "Snips and Snails?"  What're y'all doin' out here?"  Apple bloom said when she got a good look at them.
  "We should be asking you the same thing!"  Snips countered.
  "We're out trying to get our cutie marks."  Sweetie Belle answered before her friends could stop her.
  "Wow.  That's neat."  Snails said.
  "How's romping out here gonna getcha your cutie marks?"  Snips asked.
  "By being Cutie Mark Explorers."  Sweetie Belle answered, again before her friends could stop her.
  "Ha!  I knew it!  I knew you were trying to show us up!"  Snips said triumphantly.
  "Now how did y'all know we were here?"  Apple Bloom asked, her eyes narrowing.  "Y'all weren't spyin' on us, were ya?"
  "Well...uh..." Snips said nervously, backing away from the advancing fillies.  "No!  Of course we weren't spying on you!  Right, Snails?"
  "Yeah, we were."  Snails replied.
That was all the Cutie Mark Crusaders needed to hear.  They angrily leapt on Snips and Snails and began throttling them again.  The two colts fared no better against the four fillies than in their first fight and were receiving a severe beating.  At one point, Scootaloo kicked Snips in the gut, knocking him into a tree and jarring loose a dead branch from said tree, causing it to fall into another group of bushes with a 'clunk' and an "Ow!"  At that sound, the foals all stopped fighting, their attention grabbed by the noise.  The sources of the "Ow!" came out of the bushes, rubbing their heads where the branch had hit them.
  "Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!"  Scootaloo seethed.  "Spying on us too, huh?"
  "I don't have any idea what you're talking about."  Diamond Tiara sniffed.
  "Oh, really?  So y'all just take walks in the Everfree Forest every day?"  Apple Bloom asked sarcastically.
  "What I do is none of your business, blank flank!"  Diamond Tiara snapped.
  "I'd say spying on us makes it our business!"  Sweetie Belle said in a rare moment of smarts.
  "Yeah!  Tho juht what do you and your lackeyth want from uth?"  Twist demanded.
  "We don't have to tell you anything!"  Silver Spoon said, trying to sound fierce.
  "Yeah!  And I'd rather die than be seen with those mutants!"  Diamond Tiara agreed, waving a hook at Snips and Snails.
  "Hey, you take that back!"  The offended  Snips snapped.
Soon, the forest was filled with the sound of arguing voices.  This went on for a little while until Spike yelled "ENOUGH!"  The ponies all stopped arguing and looked at him, having forgotten he was there.
  "Look," Spike sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.  "I get that you guys don't like each other, but could you please save the arguing for later?  In case you've forgotten, we're in the middle of the Everfree Forest, we're on our own with no supplies, and it's getting dark!"
To drive his point home, Spike pointed at the sky, which was already orange with the setting of Celestia's sun.  The ponies let Spike's words sink in; yes, they had axes to grind with each other, but none of them wanted to be in the Everfree Forest at night or let their parents find out where they'd been all day.
  "All right, Spike," Apple Bloom said for a second time.  "Let's go home."
  "Uh, which way is home?"  Snails asked.
The ponies and Spike looked around, but could see no way back to Ponyville.
  "It's that way."  Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara, and Snips all said at the same time, each pointing in a different direction.
  "It's this way!"  Apple Bloom said hotly.
  "No, it's this way!"  Diamond Tiara snapped.
  "No, this way!"  Snips retorted.
The three ventured further into the woods, still arguing.  Snails, Spike, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Silver Spoon, and Twist reluctantly followed, each feeling cold dread in the pits of their stomachs.

It was about this time that the mane six had returned from their adventure of the day and were heading for home.  Twilight entered the library and called out, "Spike!  I'm back!  Did you have fun with Apple Bloom and her friends?"
No answer.  No cynical or snarky reply, only silence.
  "Spike?  Spike?  Hello?"  Twilight called as she began to search the library for her assistant.
At the same time, Rainbow Dash arrived home at her cloud mansion.
  "Yo, squirt!  I'm home!"  She called while gliding through the door.
Nothing.  Usually Scootaloo would come running eagerly at the sound of her sister's voice, but now there was nothing.
  "Scoots?  Scootaloo?  Hey, where are ya, kid?"  Rainbow Dash called, going to search the house.
Meanwhile, Rarity had gotten back to the Carousel Boutique.
  "Sweetie Belle, I'm home!"  She announced.
Save for the muffled music coming from upstairs, there was silence.  Rarity went up the stairs, calling to her and Sweetie Belle's cousin, who was living with them.
  "Vinyl Scratch!  Have you seen Sweetie Belle?"
While this was happening, Applejack had returned to Sweet Apple Acres.
  "Apple Bloom!  Ah'm back!"  She called.  "Are y'all and yer friends hungry?"
No response.  Just the sounds of Big Macintosh and Granny Smith going about their business.
  "Hey!  Any of y'all seen Apple Bloom?"  Applejack called to them.

"That way...that way...that way..."  Apple Bloom, Snips, and Diamond Tiara said wearily, leading their bone-weary companions to a clearing where they all collapsed.  Snips looked around.
  "You were right."  He said to Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara.  "It was that way."
  "Well, this is just peachy."  Spike grumbled, climbing onto a log to rub his sore feet.  "Now we're even deeper in this Celestia-forsaken forest, alone, and with no way to survive."
This all slowly sunk in with the ponies.
  "I want my momma."  Snails whimpered.
  "This is all your fault!"  Diamond Tiara snapped at Apple Bloom.
  "Mah fault?"  Apple Bloom repeated in shock.
  "If you and your dumb friends hadn't come here..."
  "Hey, nobody asked ya ta follow us!"
Before the two fillies could begin fighting again, Spike intervened.
  "Will you stop it?"  He yelled.  "Fighting's what's gotten us stuck here and it sure won't help us get out!"
Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom turned to divert their rage to him when Twist spoke up.
  "Hey, what'th that?"
  "What's what?"  Silver Spoon asked.
  "There!  That light!"
Sure enough, where Twist was pointing, there was a bright light shining amongst the trees.
  "Now what could that be?"  Sweetie Belle asked.
  "Ghosts?"  Snails guessed fearfully.
  "Or maybe another pony!"  Apple Bloom said.
  "Hey yeah!  Maybe they know their way around the Everfree Forest and can help us!"  Scootaloo chimed in.
  "Well, what are we waiting for?"  Diamond Tiara said, agreeing with the Crusaders for once.  "Let's go!"
With that, the ponies ran towards the light, like moths to a flame, with Spike trying to keep up.

It had been long...far too long since she'd last eaten well.  No new food had come to her for a while now and her pantry was becoming more and more bare every day.  If this kept up, she'd have to go out and hunt her food, and she didn't like to do that.  It was much easier when her food came to her, plus she didn't like to leave the forest.  The sun burned and tormented her, not to mention she might run into...wait.  What was that?  She ran to her window and looked outside.  Several shapes were approaching.  Those shapes could only be one thing: food!  Her hunger had finally been answered!  How many were there?  One, two...nine!  Nine!  She'd never gotten that many at one time before!  Oh, what luck!  But wait...the ninth one... it looked different than the others...in fact, it was different!  She'd never eaten one like that before...come to think of it, the only one of its kind she'd ever seen before was the beast...and that was something she preferred not to think about.  What she needed to do now was focus on the task at hand...and get her food.

  "Guys, maybe we should rethink this."  Spike said, gazing nervously at the cottage.  It was painted black and box-shaped, with two strategically placed windows that looked like eye and made the door look like a yawning mouth.  It was surrounded by a strange knobby white fence and had strange white stones lining either side of the front walk.
  "We don't have a lot of options, Spike."  Apple Bloom said.  "We can't afford to turn this opportunity down just 'cause it looks scary."  The other ponies nodded in agreement.
They walked up to the front door and Apple Bloom raised her hoof to knock when the door opened, creaking louder than any other door they'd heard before, spilling light onto them.  A pony stepped out.
  "Come in!  Come in, my little ponies."  She said in a voice that sounded like it hadn't been used in years, waving a beckoning hoof.  She was a unicorn, with a pitch black coat, a gray mane and tail that were so wild, tangled, and unkempt it would've given Rarity a heart attack, and a cauldron for a cutie mark.  But her most distinguishing characteristic was her eyes; one was a normal eye, but the other a slit-like pupil, like a dragon's eye.  But the foals were willing to overlook all this to accept her invitation and head inside when Spike grabbed their tails.
  "Could you excuse us?"  He asked the unicorn while dragging his friends aside.
  "Come on, you guys!"  He whispered.  "A creepy-looking pony, living in a creepy-looking house, in the Everfree Forest!  Does this seem at all legit?"
  "Hey, just because she looks different doesn't mean she's bad!"  Sweetie Belle protested.
  "Yeah, Spike, are you even listening to yourself?"  Scootaloo scolded.  "Being frightened of someone just 'cause of how she looks."
  "Well, her mane is awful..."  Silver Spoon muttered.
  "Frightened?"  The mare laughed like this was the most ridiculous thing in the world.  "There's no reason to be scared of me, I just love foals.  So come in, have something to eat.  There's enough for all of you."
  "Actually ma'am, we were hopin' you could show us the way out of here."  Apple Bloom said.
"Oh, of course."  The mare said.  "Of course I'll show you.  But you all must be hungry and I just can't let you venture into through the forest hungry.  So come in and I'll give you all such good food. "
When she finished talking, good smells of all kinds wafted from inside, so good even Spike couldn't help but be taken by them.
"You can do what you want, but I'm going inside."  Snips said, heading in.  The other ponies followed him in and the mare stepped aside to let them by.  She looked at Spike and raised an eyebrow.  He looked at her, then back at the forest, weighing his options.
"All right," He said with great reluctance.  "I'll come in.
The mare smirked triumphantly as Spike walked in and shot her a distrustful look.  Chuckling maliciously to herself, she shut the door.

Description
The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been wandering through the Everfree Forest for several hours now, and it was beginning to weigh down on Spike.  His feet were getting tired, he was getting hungry, his nerves were on edge from being in the Everfree Forest for so long, plus he was getting the feeling that Apple Bloom and her friends had no idea how to make a map.
  "Girls, we've been out here for hours!"  He whined.  "Can we go home now?"
  "Keep yer spines on, Spike."  Apple Bloom retorted.  "We're makin' good progress."
Spike looked over her shoulder to get a look at their 'progress'.  The map was nothing more than a bunch of crudely drawn trees and paths with labels like 'bush shaped like a pony' and really big rock'.  He sighed.
  "Look, it's getting late, we've eaten all of our snacks, and I'm sure everypony's missing us, so let's just go home, okay?"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at Spike and then at their map.  Their faces fell.
  "All right, Spike."  Apple Bloom said in resignation.  "Let's head..."
A rustling in the bushes cut Apple Bloom off.  She and her friends huddled close to Spike and the five of them stared at the bush in fear.
  "What's in there?"  Sweetie Belle asked timidly.
  "I don't know, but it can't be anything good."  Spike said fearfully.
  "Only one way to find out."  Scootaloo said, sounding braver than she felt.  Uttering a battle cry, she leapt into the bush and began brawling with whatever was in it.
  "We can't let her fight that thing alone!"  Twist said.
  "Yer right!"  Apple Bloom agreed.  "C'mon!"
With that, Apple Bloom, Twist, and Sweetie Belle leapt into the bush.  Spike stayed where he was.  The battle went on for several minutes until the victorious Cutie Mark Crusaders dragged out their battered foes.
  "Snips and Snails?"  What're y'all doin' out here?"  Apple bloom said when she got a good look at them.
  "We should be asking you the same thing!"  Snips countered.
  "We're out trying to get our cutie marks."  Sweetie Belle answered before her friends could stop her.
  "Wow.  That's neat."  Snails said.
  "How's romping out here gonna getcha your cutie marks?"  Snips asked.
  "By being Cutie Mark Explorers."  Sweetie Belle answered, again before her friends could stop her.
  "Ha!  I knew it!  I knew you were trying to show us up!"  Snips said triumphantly.
  "Now how did y'all know we were here?"  Apple Bloom asked, her eyes narrowing.  "Y'all weren't spyin' on us, were ya?"
  "Well...uh..." Snips said nervously, backing away from the advancing fillies.  "No!  Of course we weren't spying on you!  Right, Snails?"
  "Yeah, we were."  Snails replied.
That was all the Cutie Mark Crusaders needed to hear.  They angrily leapt on Snips and Snails and began throttling them again.  The two colts fared no better against the four fillies than in their first fight and were receiving a severe beating.  At one point, Scootaloo kicked Snips in the gut, knocking him into a tree and jarring loose a dead branch from said tree, causing it to fall into another group of bushes with a 'clunk' and an "Ow!"  At that sound, the foals all stopped fighting, their attention grabbed by the noise.  The sources of the "Ow!" came out of the bushes, rubbing their heads where the branch had hit them.
  "Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!"  Scootaloo seethed.  "Spying on us too, huh?"
  "I don't have any idea what you're talking about."  Diamond Tiara sniffed.
  "Oh, really?  So y'all just take walks in the Everfree Forest every day?"  Apple Bloom asked sarcastically.
  "What I do is none of your business, blank flank!"  Diamond Tiara snapped.
  "I'd say spying on us makes it our business!"  Sweetie Belle said in a rare moment of smarts.
  "Yeah!  Tho juht what do you and your lackeyth want from uth?"  Twist demanded.
  "We don't have to tell you anything!"  Silver Spoon said, trying to sound fierce.
  "Yeah!  And I'd rather die than be seen with those mutants!"  Diamond Tiara agreed, waving a hook at Snips and Snails.
  "Hey, you take that back!"  The offended  Snips snapped.
Soon, the forest was filled with the sound of arguing voices.  This went on for a little while until Spike yelled "ENOUGH!"  The ponies all stopped arguing and looked at him, having forgotten he was there.
  "Look," Spike sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.  "I get that you guys don't like each other, but could you please save the arguing for later?  In case you've forgotten, we're in the middle of the Everfree Forest, we're on our own with no supplies, and it's getting dark!"
To drive his point home, Spike pointed at the sky, which was already orange with the setting of Celestia's sun.  The ponies let Spike's words sink in; yes, they had axes to grind with each other, but none of them wanted to be in the Everfree Forest at night or let their parents find out where they'd been all day.
  "All right, Spike," Apple Bloom said for a second time.  "Let's go home."
  "Uh, which way is home?"  Snails asked.
The ponies and Spike looked around, but could see no way back to Ponyville.
  "It's that way."  Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara, and Snips all said at the same time, each pointing in a different direction.
  "It's this way!"  Apple Bloom said hotly.
  "No, it's this way!"  Diamond Tiara snapped.
  "No, this way!"  Snips retorted.
The three ventured further into the woods, still arguing.  Snails, Spike, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Silver Spoon, and Twist reluctantly followed, each feeling cold dread in the pits of their stomachs.

It was about this time that the mane six had returned from their adventure of the day and were heading for home.  Twilight entered the library and called out, "Spike!  I'm back!  Did you have fun with Apple Bloom and her friends?"
No answer.  No cynical or snarky reply, only silence.
  "Spike?  Spike?  Hello?"  Twilight called as she began to search the library for her assistant.
At the same time, Rainbow Dash arrived home at her cloud mansion.
  "Yo, squirt!  I'm home!"  She called while gliding through the door.
Nothing.  Usually Scootaloo would come running eagerly at the sound of her sister's voice, but now there was nothing.
  "Scoots?  Scootaloo?  Hey, where are ya, kid?"  Rainbow Dash called, going to search the house.
Meanwhile, Rarity had gotten back to the Carousel Boutique.
  "Sweetie Belle, I'm home!"  She announced.
Save for the muffled music coming from upstairs, there was silence.  Rarity went up the stairs, calling to her and Sweetie Belle's cousin, who was living with them.
  "Vinyl Scratch!  Have you seen Sweetie Belle?"
While this was happening, Applejack had returned to Sweet Apple Acres.
  "Apple Bloom!  Ah'm back!"  She called.  "Are y'all and yer friends hungry?"
No response.  Just the sounds of Big Macintosh and Granny Smith going about their business.
  "Hey!  Any of y'all seen Apple Bloom?"  Applejack called to them.

"That way...that way...that way..."  Apple Bloom, Snips, and Diamond Tiara said wearily, leading their bone-weary companions to a clearing where they all collapsed.  Snips looked around.
  "You were right."  He said to Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara.  "It was that way."
  "Well, this is just peachy."  Spike grumbled, climbing onto a log to rub his sore feet.  "Now we're even deeper in this Celestia-forsaken forest, alone, and with no way to survive."
This all slowly sunk in with the ponies.
  "I want my momma."  Snails whimpered.
  "This is all your fault!"  Diamond Tiara snapped at Apple Bloom.
  "Mah fault?"  Apple Bloom repeated in shock.
  "If you and your dumb friends hadn't come here..."
  "Hey, nobody asked ya ta follow us!"
Before the two fillies could begin fighting again, Spike intervened.
  "Will you stop it?"  He yelled.  "Fighting's what's gotten us stuck here and it sure won't help us get out!"
Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom turned to divert their rage to him when Twist spoke up.
  "Hey, what'th that?"
  "What's what?"  Silver Spoon asked.
  "There!  That light!"
Sure enough, where Twist was pointing, there was a bright light shining amongst the trees.
  "Now what could that be?"  Sweetie Belle asked.
  "Ghosts?"  Snails guessed fearfully.
  "Or maybe another pony!"  Apple Bloom said.
  "Hey yeah!  Maybe they know their way around the Everfree Forest and can help us!"  Scootaloo chimed in.
  "Well, what are we waiting for?"  Diamond Tiara said, agreeing with the Crusaders for once.  "Let's go!"
With that, the ponies ran towards the light, like moths to a flame, with Spike trying to keep up.

It had been long...far too long since she'd last eaten well.  No new food had come to her for a while now and her pantry was becoming more and more bare every day.  If this kept up, she'd have to go out and hunt her food, and she didn't like to do that.  It was much easier when her food came to her, plus she didn't like to leave the forest.  The sun burned and tormented her, not to mention she might run into...wait.  What was that?  She ran to her window and looked outside.  Several shapes were approaching.  Those shapes could only be one thing: food!  Her hunger had finally been answered!  How many were there?  One, two...nine!  Nine!  She'd never gotten that many at one time before!  Oh, what luck!  But wait...the ninth one... it looked different than the others...in fact, it was different!  She'd never eaten one like that before...come to think of it, the only one of its kind she'd ever seen before was the beast...and that was something she preferred not to think about.  What she needed to do now was focus on the task at hand...and get her food.

  "Guys, maybe we should rethink this."  Spike said, gazing nervously at the cottage.  It was painted black and box-shaped, with two strategically placed windows that looked like eye and made the door look like a yawning mouth.  It was surrounded by a strange knobby white fence and had strange white stones lining either side of the front walk.
  "We don't have a lot of options, Spike."  Apple Bloom said.  "We can't afford to turn this opportunity down just 'cause it looks scary."  The other ponies nodded in agreement.
They walked up to the front door and Apple Bloom raised her hoof to knock when the door opened, creaking louder than any other door they'd heard before, spilling light onto them.  A pony stepped out.
  "Come in!  Come in, my little ponies."  She said in a voice that sounded like it hadn't been used in years, waving a beckoning hoof.  She was a unicorn, with a pitch black coat, a gray mane and tail that were so wild, tangled, and unkempt it would've given Rarity a heart attack, and a cauldron for a cutie mark.  But her most distinguishing characteristic was her eyes; one was a normal eye, but the other a slit-like pupil, like a dragon's eye.  But the foals were willing to overlook all this to accept her invitation and head inside when Spike grabbed their tails.
  "Could you excuse us?"  He asked the unicorn while dragging his friends aside.
  "Come on, you guys!"  He whispered.  "A creepy-looking pony, living in a creepy-looking house, in the Everfree Forest!  Does this seem at all legit?"
  "Hey, just because she looks different doesn't mean she's bad!"  Sweetie Belle protested.
  "Yeah, Spike, are you even listening to yourself?"  Scootaloo scolded.  "Being frightened of someone just 'cause of how she looks."
  "Well, her mane is awful..."  Silver Spoon muttered.
  "Frightened?"  The mare laughed like this was the most ridiculous thing in the world.  "There's no reason to be scared of me, I just love foals.  So come in, have something to eat.  There's enough for all of you."
  "Actually ma'am, we were hopin' you could show us the way out of here."  Apple Bloom said.
"Oh, of course."  The mare said.  "Of course I'll show you.  But you all must be hungry and I just can't let you venture into through the forest hungry.  So come in and I'll give you all such good food. "
When she finished talking, good smells of all kinds wafted from inside, so good even Spike couldn't help but be taken by them.
"You can do what you want, but I'm going inside."  Snips said, heading in.  The other ponies followed him in and the mare stepped aside to let them by.  She looked at Spike and raised an eyebrow.  He looked at her, then back at the forest, weighing his options.
"All right," He said with great reluctance.  "I'll come in.
The mare smirked triumphantly as Spike walked in and shot her a distrustful look.  Chuckling maliciously to herself, she shut the door.