The Hunt Begins

Chapter 3: The Hunt Begins

The next morning, Grim felt the warmth of the suns rays on his face, beckoning him out of bed. A smile formed on his face for a brief moment as he stretched out his arms and legs out. As he did he felt something he never felt before. . . . . a blanket. He opened his eyes and looked down at his stomach, a worn out quilt laid on top of him on the couch. He strained his thoughts to try to remember when he had a blanket on him, but failed. He shrugged his shoulders and removed it from himself, getting up and rearranging his robe and cloak to hide behind it properly. He looked around the weary room and chuckled to himself. “That’s right, that pegasus brought me here yesterday. She was so nice, best I retreat from here before she awakens from her-”

“GOOD MORNING!!” shouted out a cheerful voice from the bedroom across from the living room. The sudden shout startled him and made him jump. Wings sprouted from his sides and took off upward, slamming onto the ceiling, leaving a small creak and then landing back down. The grey mare rushed in to see Grim laying on the ground, shaking the dust off. “Opps, sorry about that Grim. I didn’t mean to scare you” she explained innocently. She looked down at the floor embarrassed as Grim got back up, dusting himself off.

“It is fine. You startled me is all. I am not use to socializing with ponies, so this will take some time getting use to” He chuckled a bit before turning away.

“I didn’t know you were a pegasus, I haven’t seen you use your wings”

“I don’t tend to use them very often, no reason to. Walking is healthier” Grim explained blankly. Dernaty looked down at the plate of spaghetti and it was clean and back up at him.

“So how was it? I only cook for myself so I’m not sure how my cooking really is” Grim followed her gaze and smiled.

“Yes, it was quite good indeed. I do not get warm meals such as these. Compared to eating bread, this was a cuisine” he complimented with a smile. The grey mare smiled back at him, lightly blushing, and took the plate into the kitchen.

“So has life really been so rough for you?” Grim glanced over at her and then walked towards the window.

“No, not to me” he answered blankly, showing a hint of annoyance. A hint which she didn’t catch.

“So where did you come from?” Grim sighed as he looked outside, a gathering of grey clouds headed towards the city. ‘Appears to be rain approaching. I wonder if it’s planned?’ Grim thought to himself.

“Far away from this desolate land” he replied quickly. Dernaty looked over from around the corner in the kitchen with a concerned look on her face. a pair of rubber gloves over her hooves and a bandana over her mane, holding her hair back.

“I am guessing you don’t like to talk about yourself, do you?” she asked innocently. Grim turned to her, keeping his face hidden, only his mouth was ever shown, a small smile flashed from under his hood.

“You are a bit dim, aren’t you?” he asked back bluntly. She giggled nervously and went back in the kitchen.

“Yea, I get that a lot. I’m not very smart, I admit, but I try my hardest either way. Sorry if I am. . . . well. . . a bit slow” Grim looked back out the window, down the streets.

“It’s fine. I don’t particularly care. We are not born into this world perfect. Perfection is just a blind illusion that drives us to be something we can not. Perfection is a sin, for no pony can become perfect, and is pointless to strive for such a goal” Grim explained coldly, watching Dernaty’s reflection in the mirror. She smiled and looked back towards him.

“But isn’t that what makes us perfect?” she asked innocently, continuing to clean the kitchen. Grim raised an eyebrow confused and turned back to face her.

“And what exactly do you mean by that?” She stopped to met his unseen gaze, lightly blushing and giggled cheerfully at him.

“Well. . . Because we are flawed, it makes us perfect in some way. Perfection is different in everyone’s eyes. A pony who is completely perfect to one pony, is completely flawed in another. So it is true, perfection is an illusion, but only if you allow it to be. For perfection can be as real as you want it to be. For no matter how flawed you are, there is some one in this world that finds you perfect, no matter your flaws” the blond pegasus explained with a bright smile on her face. The dark hooded pony stood there dumbstruck, his jaw dropped as he stared at her.

“How. . . what. . . how did you. . . where did. . . “ he stood there stammering and confused. His mind completely scrambled. Dernaty couldn’t help but giggle.

“Are you ok? I didn’t break you now did I?” she played around. Grim turned away, looking back at the window has his face burned red, he thought his fur would catch on fire at a moments notice.

“No, I am f-fine. I am just surprised you could say such a deep and meaningful explanation on the concept of perfection” the dark pony replied. hiding his facial expression. The grey pegasus smiled cheerfully at him and continued to clean up.

“Well thank you. That means a lot coming from you” Grim watched her from the window, smiling as he watched her clean with a bright and cheerful smile on her face. She was the only light in this world that he has ever seen. The whole world is a dark and horrid place, and she was the only light that shined from it. He wanted to protect it, watch over it, guide it if possible. “By the way, your gender was never told, you are a stallion, right?” she asked curiously from the kitchen. Grim thought for a moment before answering.

“That is what they say, right? It would be safe to assume that I am a stallion” he replied carefully. Dernaty smiled at him and then returned her focus to cleaning.

“That’s nice to hear” Grim turned to her curiously.

“Why?” She giggled, lightly blushing but not looking up at him.

“Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it” Grim held his stare for a few moments more but shrugged off the thought.

“Anyway, I must go for an enthusiastic walk around town” Grim announced blankly. She looked up at him with a small smile.

“Going to kill off the evil of city?”

“A VERY enthusiastic walk” Grim replied with a smile. Dernaty nodded to him, knowing there was no stopping him.

“Very well, stay out of trouble, alright? I’ll make sure no pony knows that you are here so that you have a safe and warm place to stay at night” the blond mare offered. Grim smiled and headed out the door, closing it behind. He took a deep breath and headed down the stairs. As he left the door onto the streets, a wisp of cold air greeted him, A feeling that he had to adjust to for a moment. Once done, he walked a few steps out the door and saw a poster on the building. He took it down and looked at it, smirking to himself.

“A bounty already? I have just arrived here and they are already onto me, impressive. They are fast here” he read the bounty to himself out loud.

“Wanted dead or alive, The Reaper! No name available at this given time. Pony is a male with torn dark grey robes and a hood. Origin unknown, age unknown, reasoning unknown, living status unknown. Wanted dead or alive for one thousand bits. Report any sightings said of suspect to authorities or any information. Suspect is reported armed and dangerous. Approach with caution” Grim chuckled as he tossed the poster aside. “So now the corrupted will come to me. Saves me a bunch of time and energy”

He walked down the streets of the city, seeing into the windows of the homes. Inside he could see families fighting amongst themselves, husbands cheating on their wives and fists fights between sons and fathers. He could feel all of their corruption, all of the evil in this city. The stench that rose from the streets and homes almost made his eyes water. “It reeks of sin in this city. I have so much work to do here, I do not even know where to start my process of cleansing” The dark pony spoke to himself. He felt a strong presence behind him. As he glanced over quickly he could see a group of rugged looking ponies following him a good thirty to forty feet behind him, snickering amongst themselves and most of them keeping their eyes on him. He turned back and smiled. “The blood of the evil shall be spilt today” he whispered to himself.

They followed him for a good thirty minutes, Grim looking around at the streets and signs as if he is lost. After a few moments longer he headed down an alleyway he knew was a dead end streets. Once he was surrounded by brick walls, he turned around and saw six ponies wearing similar outfits. Leather jackets, hard metal bracelets, fingerless gloves, and some carrying holsters for small arms. The one up front stepped up towards him, smirking at him.

“You must be the infamous “Reaper” we have heard so much about. There is a good price on your head, and we want a piece of that!” he explained. Grim smiled back and looked up at him, keeping his face hidden at all times.

“Is that so? Are you sure you have the right pony?” he asked calmly. The leader put his hoof in his pocket and searched around for something. After a moment he pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to him, holding onto it with his mouth.

“This is you alright. Dark grey robes, torn to hell, hooded. I am pretty sure this is you” he threw it aside and stared him down with a fierce glare. “You caused some trouble, butchering those ponies like you did, so now we are gonna bring you in for some coin!” Grim looked at the group and counted their numbers. The leader was a crimson pegasus, two behind him were earth ponies, one small but the other large in size, and the last three where unicorns.

“You should know I have no intention on coming with you gentle colts quietly” Grim stated calmly. The leader smiled brightly at him.

“I was so hoping you would say that. One thousand bits, dead or alive. My favorite line to read. I love it when they fight” he looks back at his friends with a confident smile on his face. “It’s one punk, I got this boys. Just stay back and watch how a real bounty hunter takes down a cocky bastard like this!” he exclaimed. As he took his first step to a charge, one of the unicorns stepped forward.

“Wait, the poster reads ‘approach with caution’, maybe you should listen to it” he advised. The leader turned back with a cocky expression on his face, chuckling at him.

“Please, he is one pony. We actually know how to fight, if he starts to over power me some how, just move your flanks over to help, simple as that, got it?!” he snapped back. The unicorn nodded and stepped back.

“Right, sorry. We will back you up, just give the word” he replied and stayed back. The leader turned back and pulled out a bowie knife from his side, placing it in his mouth and tapped his metal bracelet, revealing a dagger.

“Now, let’s begin!” He charged head first at Grim, shouting out a battle cry. When he was a few feet away, he kept his eyes on him as Grim’s eyes turned red, piercing through the darkness of his hood and a flash of red shot out of his sleeve. Before the bounty hunter could change his attack, his arm was severed and quickly to follow his head before he could even feel the pain. Grim stood two steps behind the bounty hunter as his arm fell to the ground, the body following suit. As the group watched in fear, Grim smiled a cruel smile as the head landed in front of him, staring over at them with a face of shock.

“Wh-wh-what the bucking hell?!?!?!” one of them shouted out in panic.

“H-he killed him, just like that! In one swing!!” another cried out. The unicorn who warned their leader fell onto the ground in panic as he kept his eyes locked onto Grim, who pierced through his eyes with an icy gaze of his blood red eyes and sent a freezing shiver down his spine and even into his very soul. Everything was screaming for him to get up and run, but his body refused to move. The smaller earth pony turned to him and tried to pull him up.

“Come on dude! We have to get up, we have to fight him! Our boss would want us to kill this son of a bitch!” he claimed. The unicorn refused to get up, mesmerized from Grim’s death glare. “Dame it, Slug is frozen! It’s just us four now!”

“Then let’s toast this mother bucker! For Boss!” They cried out as they all drew knives, chains, and small pistols. Grim smiled and rushed forward towards them, meeting them halfway.

“You’re gonna die you worthless piece of sh-” the smaller earth pony started, his head was decapitated before he could finish his own words. The others panicked a bit but kept up their stances. Some swing knives and chains while one of the unicorns cocked back his pistol and aimed it at Grim, getting him down the sights.

“Hold him still so I can get a shot in and end this!” he demanded. They tried to do so but Grim was messing with them, dodging their advances left and right with ease. After a moment he went up to the other unicorn and slashed off his horn, making him scream in pain and back down. Grim turned back around quickly and cut the bigger earth pony down the center with one slash with his blade, blood splashed onto the walls and onto the ground, his body fell in halves.

“This is too much, I’m out of here!” the last pony cried out as he tried to fly away. As he extended his wings for take off Grim rushed past him and severed his wings, a stream of blood left the wings as they fell to the ground, along with their owner. He crashed onto the ground and screamed in pain and agony, crawling back to all four hooves. Grim came down for a slash through his back but a loud gunshot stopped him. He looked over and saw a bullet missed his chest by a few inches.

“Got ya!” the unicorn called out as he fired his pistol again. The bullet left the barrel and into Grim’s shoulder, pushing him a little to the side. The unicorn fired again into the chest, then again and again until the clip in the gun was empty. “Piece of cake” he whispered with glee. Grim gasped as he felt the pain of the bullet, taken by surprise by the small barrage of bullets. He looked up and smiled as a dark and eerie mist started to pour out of the holes of his body, the surviving bounty hunters staring in horror.

“No, no no no no NO!” the pegasus cried out in terror. Grim stood back up, the holes sealing up and a black mist swirling around him and smiled menacingly at the last two standing.

“Do you know what they call me in the other cities? The Angel of Death, The Grim Reaper, The Dark Paladin, but you mortals-” he slashed outward quickly, cutting off the pegasus’ legs and stabbed his blade into the unicorns chest, both screamed out in pain and eyes of terror.

“Please, just let us go. Please?” the pegasus pleaded as he looked up to see his friend’s lifeless body tossed aside and the dark, demonic pony slowly turning to him, his blood red eyes gleaming through the shades of his hood.

“You all have been judged, and found guilty!” he took a step closer towards the pegasus, blood dripping off of the blade from his sleeve. The pegasus tried to crawl away from him but Grim grabbed his arm and pulled him up, pinning him to the wall. The blade’s point hovered over his chest.

“Please, we can work something out, right?” he asked in a pleading manner, his eyes welled up and leaked tears, they ran down his cheeks and fell onto the blood soaked ground.

“Your crimes are that of assault, theft, rape, and murder. You are corrupted, your sentence is death!” Grim stared into his eyes and plunged the blade into the pegasus’ chest, his eyes shot out in pain and horror and slowly closed, the life draining out of them. Grim sighed as his mist slowly faded away back inside of his robes. “The blood of the innocent flows out of you and has been returned into the earth. What lives you have ruined shall be repaired. Rest now, for your life of sin is over. Rest in peace and may the gods have mercy upon your soul as you ascend to the great beyond” He chanted, he pulled his blade out of the now dead pegasus and lowered him gently to the ground. He turned around to find the last unicorn standing up, glaring down at him with his knees shaking.

“Oh my, I actually forgot you were still there. Your judgement and crimes are the same, as well as your sentence” he aimed the blood covered blade at him with a reassuring smile. The unicorn took a deep breath and pulled out two sawed off shotguns out of his holsters and aimed them at Grim with a scared but determined look burning in his eyes.

“You killed my friends. . . . and now I will revenge them. . . no matter what!” he shouted in anger. Grim took a step towards the traumatized pony with a smirk on his face.

“Then shoot me. You have a clear shot at my chest, that will actually do some damage. So do it. Pull the triggers, blast a few slugs into me. Hit me, shoot me, fight me!” Grim challenged. The unicorn took a step back as Grim got closer, but did not fire.

“Stay back, I will do it!” he threatened. His quivering started to truly show as a tear ran down his cheek. Grim looked his eyes on the scared unicorn.

“You’ve never killed a pony before, have you?” he asked coldly, taking another step towards the unicorn. The unicorn in question struggled to keep his focus on levitating his guns, the guns slightly shaking.

“I will shoot you, I will blast a hole right through your chest!” he threatened again, taking another step back.

“Then shoot, because if you don’t shoot me-” Grim raised his blade for a swing for the unicorn’s head.”- then I will kill you” he started walking towards the unicorn. The unicorn held his ground and focused on his guns, squeezing the trigger on one of them and shot off both barrels into Grim’s chest, knocking him back and spraying his blood onto the ground. His blood was pitch black, like the night. Grim fell onto the ground, his body still and motionless. The unicorn panted for a moment, staring at his body as the blood left the hole that he left in him. After a moment he sighed in relief and closed his eyes.

“Finally, it’s over” he whispered, relaxing his clenched muscles.

“Not quite” Grim whispered. The unicorn’s eyes shot open and saw as Grim rose from the ground and got back on all four hooves, keeping his blade arm up towards the bounty hunter. “Sadly. . . . that won’t be enough to kill me” The unicorn became frightened all over again.

“NO! Stay back. . . . I’m warning you!!” The unicorn threatened again, this time his voice getting shaky.

“I am simply an idea, a dream, and ideas and dreams are bulletproof. Those shells of yours won’t-” Grim started. The unicorn pulled onto the trigger of his other gun and blasted Grim’s head apart, black blood splashing all over the walls and the ground. His guns shaking as he panted in fear, staring in disbelief at the remains. The blood sizzled and evaporated from the surfaces on which they landed and turned into black mist, reforming onto Grim.

“Why can’t you just die!” He screamed out as he started to reload his guns. Grim regenerated and rushed at him, cutting off his arms and pinning the poor unicorn onto the wall. He screamed in agony from losing his arms.

“Because I can not die, not until the world is ridden from the evil it was plagued with. I will not die until the last source of evil has been vanquished!” Grim cried out as he aimed his blade at his chest.

“Wait. . please. . . I beg of you, let me live! I’ll do anything!” the unicorn pleaded in terror. Grim shook his head.

“You are going to a better place, trust me. Your life of sin is over”

“I can tell you who put the hit on you though!” Grim’s blade stopped as he spoke those final words.

“You know who wishes for my death? Please tell me” The unicorn stared at Grim as hope shined into his eyes.

“Yea. . . yea I know who did it. They run this town, nothing happens without them knowing it. They run everything” Grim released from the unicorn bounty hunter but still held him to the wall.

“Continue” he whispered intently. The unicorn nodded his head.

“Yea. . they control everything that happens. Every crime that happens here they most likely gave the order for. They are as corrupted as they come. They even ran most crime jobs from the other cities. Manehatten, Detrot, Phillydalphia, even Griffondor, the capital of the gryffins. THey control it all. They are known as the seven deadly ponies!” he explained, trying his hardest to prolong his life even further. His head started swimming and was getting light headed from the blood lost. Grim though and processed everything that the unicorn had just said.

“If this is true, then these are the ponies that I have been searching for. Where are they?” Grim asked aggressively.

“No pony knows where they all are, just certain ones. I know where one of them is. Lust Dust. He runs the Pony Pleasure Palace up the street. Just go to Stone Square, take a right on Powder ave, and then take a left at Sugar Cup St and you will see it, can’t miss it. I promise it is the truth!” the unicron swore. Grim released him from the wall, letting him go.

“I believe you. Thank you very much for assisting me in my endeavours. You have saved me some time” The unicorn smiled brightly but still winced from the pain.

“Sweet, so does that mean I can-” he didn’t get to finish his sentence as Grim swung around quickly and shoved his blade through his chest.

“You still sinned, you are still guilty for your crimes, and must be punished. Your sentence is death either way” The unicorns eyes shed one last final tear as he stared up at him, his eyes open in fear and betrayal until they half way closed.

“The blood of the innocent flows out of you and has been returned into the earth. What lives you have ruined shall be repaired. Rest now, for your life of sin is over. Rest in peace and may the gods have mercy upon your soul as you ascend to the great beyond” Grim chanted as he lowered the body to the blood soaked ground, gently closing the deceased pegasus’ eyes. He got back up, sheathing the blade back up his sleeve and followed the dead ponies instructions.

“If this information is correct, then I can track down one of the seven deadly sins, then next, the entire group! I must be shift about all of this before any pony catches on and makes this quest all the more annoying for me” Grim whispered among himself.

After what seemed like hours of odd stares and verbal insults amongst his walk, he finally stood in front of his target. A large jade building, easily eight stories high. The building had a large neon sign reading “Pony Pleasure Palace” on it. “A gentle colts club. I wonder who this sin is” Grim said to himself annoyed. “either way, this is where I will find my target, and while I am at it, I shall cleanse the entire building in the process. Remove as much sin as I possibly can!”

Author's Note

So here is the next chapter for Pony of Death. It appears something mystical is at work here with our dark hero, Grim. What does he mean by the seven deadly sins? Could he be talking about the seven deadly ponies? What does he plan to do with the palace? (although we can all pretty much guess what he is gonna do) What is he going to do about Dernaty? What is Grim hiding about his past? So many questions, and so many answers on the way in the next chapter. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. Have a good morning/day/evening. I ope to see you all in the future chapters ahead. As always, bye bye for now