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“Are those gremlins still behind us?”

Beauregard turned on his perch on Juniper’s back. A rather large build up of dark cloud was sailing over the horizon, lower than the rest of the normally white clouds, and picking up speed.

“Yep, still following us!”

Ponderosa groaned. “Well hell that didn’t work. Shoulda killed a couple of em.”

The cluster of clouds above opened again. Spurts of yellow static burst from the muzzles of their strange weapons. Zapping, cracking, and booming, the bolts of lightning slammed into the ground in front of and behind the fleeing ponies, carving gouts of dirt and splitting rock, almost as fast as the galloping hooves kicked up dirt clouds in their panicked flight. One of the bolts came frightfully close to Ponderosa’s side, making him jump with surprise.

“This has got to be the absolute worst thing to happen to me this week,” Ponderosa huffed. “I shouldn’t even be surprised that you and your little partner are the cause of it. I lost another hat back there because of you!” Ponderosa was one to always wear a fashionable hat, unfortunate for him, running around in the desert dodging trouble and monstrosities had a bad habit of losing them.

“Hey, at least we know what happened to all those apples!” The small goat kid shouted from his place on Juniper’s back, his front hooves gripping urgently around her neck. All around them bullets of lightning whizzed passed like angry bees.

“Stop wasting breath whining and run!” Juniper shouted as she jumped over a large rock.

“That ain’t a whine! That is a complaint!”

“Just keep running, Ponderosa!”

“As if I have a choice in the matter!”

They were running at full tilt, not a speed that could be maintained for much longer. Not as if they could ask for a break, there wasn’t enough cover to duck behind. Wasn’t much to see beyond the Macintosh hills which were long behind them. No overhangs, outcroppings, caves, or even any cacti. Their only hope was to reach Appleloosa and sound the alarm, though Juniper loathed the idea of bringing those horrible gremlins back to her home, at least by now every pony would be awake. Maybe some of them were out looking for them at that very moment. The rocks spit and grazed them but stopping meant death.

“Gah!” Ponderosa jumped when a lightning bolt plunged down between him and Juniper, causing him to lose ground. “Land Sakes that was damn near close enough to shave off my cutie mark.”

“Beauregard!” Juniper called to the little goat clutched to her back. She couldn’t look back at him lest her hoof fall into a gap and send them falling down so fast she’d break her own neck. “Can you get a bead on those gremlins?”

“One is in my sights!” The little goat, with a zen like concentration, was able to turn around on her sprinting back and aim his wrist wand. It glowed alight, releasing a bolt of plasmatic blue magic. It streaked up so fast it appeared to blink, vanished into the dark cloud that had been following them all the way from the Badlands, followed by a belated ‘crack!’ Suddenly the cloud was green and three of the gremlins fell out of it, plummeting to the ground with nary a thud as the cloud dissolved.

Beauregard whooped. “That got them! Take that you apple thieving varmints!”
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Cloud Gremlins (creatures from the comic books) were sneaking into the orchards at night and stealing hundreds of apples. Juniper Jewel and Beauregard Peep decided to put a stop to that. Ponderosa Pine followed them later just in time for the fire fight.

I kept changing and reworking Juniper's cutie mark. Think I finally found one I'm satisfied with. Woo!

Upvotes at import: 45 | Stars at import: 30
Posted previously at: 2016-12-19T06:47:53 | Posted previously by: Ranch