AN: I DON'T OWN THE PICTURE ABOVE

The six ponies met at the edge of the Everfree Forest, some of their saddle bags bulging and spewing out supplies from over packing while others were fairly lightweight. Surrounding the sketch of the Tree of Harmony with her midnight blue magic, Winter showed everypony what they were looking for. Rushed notes were scrawled around the drawing, which she decided to read to them too.

"According to the notes, it's likely that the elements won't be visible once we get to the tree. We'll have to do some problem solving once we get there in order to find the elements." Winter explained.

Flora swallowed nervously, "And w-what if we run into creatures in there?"

"We'll take care of them no sweat." Whirlwind said with a smirk.

"This is gonna be so cool." Geode grinned before adding. "In an adventurous 'let's save the world' sort of way."

Everypony was alert as they walked through the Everfree Forest. Winter lead the group forward with Whirlwind right beside her. Eagerly following the two best friends, Geode tried to make light of that fact that they were in a dangerous forest. Although Blaze clearly wasn't as appreciative as the mares were and Tidal Wave remained fairly serious.

"For Celestia's sake, not everypony can claim they've been through here! Isn't this at least a little exciting?" Geode pointed out, turning to face the Blaze, Tidal Wave and Flora with a smile.

"Sure, but that doesn't change what goes on in here." Blaze countered, rolling his eyes.

Tidal Wave sighed, "Look, it's great that you're trying to put our minds at ease, but I just want to get in, get what we came for, and get out."

"Come on guys..." Flora spoke up. "It's terrifyin' enough without him sayin' positive stuff. Can't we just let him?"

"Yeah, he's not hurting anything!" Whirlwind agreed, coming to the crystal pony's rescue.

"We should be taking this place seriously instead of being so carefree about it." Tidal Wave asserted.

"And you talking the whole way doesn't help either!" Blaze insinuated.

Biting her lip, Winter tried to reason with the bickering ponies, "This really isn't the time to be arguing."

However, they didn't seem to hear her over their pointless feud. Coming to a stop at a pond in their pathway, she took the opportunity to face the five ponies behind her. She tried again, slightly louder, but they still didn't seem to hear her point. Not used to being assertive, Winter started to fly over the pond, when she heard splashing and disturbance in the water underneath her. What she saw caused her to shriek.

A large dark green creature with a powerful body rose from the blue-green water. It's teeth poked out of its mouth and it's strong jaws were open and ready to snap closed at a moment's notice. Within seconds, Winter's eyes were met with the yellow eyes of a cragadile. The shouting of her travelling companions ceased, and were replaced with screams as they saw the beast. Terrified, Winter began to fly back to where the others were, but the cragadile wasn't willing to give up its breakfast and lurched at the alicorn, water splashing out of the pond and onto the beaten path.

Winter looked back, only to see the cragadile bite down onto her tail. Panic flooding her system, she flapped her wings faster, trying to force her braided tail out of the creature's mouth. Before she could so much as free even part of her tail, the cragadile slammed her down into the pond. Forced down beyond the surface with such strength, her head hit something hard while her hooves and legs scratched against rocks in the murky water. With adrenaline induced speed, she shook off the impact and leapt out of the water.

Upon touching down on the forest floor, she thought she was going to be followed by the cragadile, but instead found the creature being met with attacks from the others. Geode stomped down on the ground with his front hooves and immediately crystals shot up from the ground, hitting it on the underside of its jaw. It growled and whipped its tail around only to be met with a fire attack from Blaze.

"If you want to get to her you'll have to take us down too!" Blaze cried, ferocity in his eyes. "And that won't happen!"

"And no one hurts my best friend either!" Whirlwind shouted, flapping her wings and throwing down her hooves from above the cragadile, the force of her winds slamming it down into the water.

Gathering the water from the cragadile's impact, Tidal Wave flung a giant ball of water at it, throwing it off balance as it tried to stand. Before it had time to recover, vines from the surrounding trees tied themselves around its mouth and tail, Flora's green aura surrounding them. It was at this point that Winter finally got back to her senses and fired a beam from her horn, freezing the water and trapping the beast in its place.

Upon seeing the light blue alicorn standing, the others rushed over to her. Heart still pounding, everyone tried to catch their breath and recover from the event.

"Winter, oh thank Celestia it didn't drown you!" Whirlwind said, flinging herself onto Winter and hugging her.

"Stupid cragadile! Did it hurt you?" Blaze asked, the ferocity from the fight still in his eyes.

"I'm fi-" Winter barely started talking when she was cut off.

Flora gasped, "Oh goodness, you are hurt!"

Winter didn't notice before, but the cuts on her legs weren't just scrapes like she thought. Her legs were stained red around the deeper cuts and now that she was focused on her injuries, her head was pounding. Flora retrieved the first aid kit from her saddle bags and addressed what needed attention. The earth pony was so gentle, the only thing that Winter really felt was the sting of what Flora used to clean the cuts. Luckily the cuts weren't major enough to prevent Winter from standing, and as soon as she thanked Flora she stood up.

"You guys were amazing!" Winter complimented.

"It was nothing." Geode said with a shrug.

Blaze on the other hoof smirked, "Maybe we are kinda amazing."

"We only did what we had to do though." Geode responded, a slightly puzzled eyebrow raised.

"Geode, dude, when a lady pays you a compliment, you take it."

After a second Geode began laughing, grinning wider than most ponies would do in their situation. Blaze began to chuckle along with him and Winter smiled at them. At first she was worried everypony wouldn't get along - especially after their bickering. But they pulled it together when it mattered, and hope shone in her midnight blue eyes. Even Tidal Wave smiled and used his magic to take the water away from Winter and her saddle bags.

A shattering sound broke the happy moment, and the six of them focused their attention on the cragadile, who was starting to break free of the ice. The vines around its mouth were also fraying, and they took it as a sign to "get a move on" as Flora put it.

"If that thing comes after us I'll burn it to a crisp!" Blaze promised.

"And I'll make sure to get a few more hits in!" Whirlwind added.

Once they were far away from the beast, they were all able to calm down. Their breathing and heartbeats returned to normal and they were able to continue along the path calmly. Conversation of the event slowed, and just when it seemed like they would continue in silence, Winter turned to Flora.

"How did you know to take care of the cuts on my legs?" Winter asked, head tilted a bit to one side.

"Oh, I took a first aid course a while back. I'd figured it'd be helpful someday!" Flora answered with a smile, then it faded slightly. "Of course, at the time I hoped my first patient wouldn't be Blaze coming to me after a fight."

Winter couldn't help but ask, "Wait, Blaze, you got into a fight?"

"Well, before you judge me the guy was asking for it!" Blaze defended himself.

"You know you could have avoided it." Tidal Wave cut in a small, playful smile on his face.

"Seriously, you too? You're my best friend, help me out here!"

The friends' teasing and storytelling came to a halt when everypony stopped where the land suddenly dropped off into a chasm. For the three of them with wings, it looked like a short flight down. But for the others who couldn't fly, it looked like a problem. At first, they all concluded they would go around it. But when they saw a pale glow come from some sort of cave or cavern below, they knew it was worth investigating. They all started forming a plan to get everypony down when Geode called to the others.

"Hey, there's stairs over here!" Geode called to the others, already making his way down.

With reassuring nods all around, they followed the adventurous crystal pony down the old staircase.

AN: That was SOOOO fun to write! I hope guys enjoyed it as much as I did. What do you think?

Also, if you want, now that all the main characters are introduced, tell me your favorite OC character so far and why. Completely optional! I'm just curious XD So if you want to feel free to use an inline comment here. :)

And, I'm not very crazy about this Wattpad update but hopefully you found my new chapter quickly amongst the many notifications you probably have (I myself found I had over two hundred yesterday).

-TheSecretAlicorn

I OWN THE PICTURE ABOVE!