Chapter 1: Intro

Start up sequence: mode reboot

Question would you like to start up in safe mode? [Y/N]

[N]

Loading last memory files…

Run Stop_Memory_File_Execution.exe

Reason?...

Last memory files are too painful

Next course of action?

Very funny brain, can we stop this now?

As you wish. So let us find out where we are now.

What are you talking about? We are in our stupid ass wrecked apartment in the god damned city that hates us and is run by the criminal underground. We have next to no money left and no friends or family left to turn to. Damn it I hate this place so much. What is the point of fighting it anymore. I should just-

WILL YOU SHUT UP WITH THE BITCHING AND MOANING AND OPEN OUR GODDAMN EYES ALREADY!!!

As you open your eyes, what you see doesn’t make any sense to you. Instead of being in the city and inside your wrecked apartment home on the bad side of an even worse town, you find yourself curled up at the base of a tree overlooking a small grassy field in the middle of what looks to be a forest of some kind. The sun is shining and there is a gentle breeze blowing and you can see wild flowers scattered across the landscape before you. It’s their smell that fills your nostrils rather than the normal smell of fresh vomit and stale garbage from the alley next to your room. And rather than the couple upstairs arguing about who cares what and the sounds of early morning traffic, it is the singing of the birds and the buzzing of the bees that makes up the background noise. The total result of this scene is like a reawakening for your down and beaten soul. You take a moment to just stare in wonder, taking it all in.

What…but…how…where…brain where are we?

How the hell should I know? This is what you get for making choices without me. Why don’t you ask blood pumping organ since you seem to value him more than me!

Heart… Why is brain so mad at me? Where are we? What is going on?

Who cares, man? Everything is alright and we are back on the right path, man. Brain just needs to, you know, like chill out man. So Like man,we don’t need to worry because, like man, from here on out everything is going to be like totally groovy, man.

Right, forgot Heart was a hippy. Am I going to get any answers out of the rest of you guys or am I on my own here for now?

Sex drive: you’re on your own here, and don’t bug me unless you see a cutie!

Instinct: ….safe….

Morality: I got nothing, but you know what is right and what is wrong.

Logic: I need more information to go on before I can make a reasonable guess about our surroundings and how we might have endeavored to come to them at this here place in time.

Yep, fat lot of good you all are right now. Ok brain lets have that last memory file.

No.

What?

No, you do not get to see that last memory file, this is what your get for not including me in your life choices.

What why you-

“SNAP”
You shake yourself out of your inner agreement and look around. …. There in the bushes you see it, low and near the ground, a pair of large yellow silted pupils and they looked…hungry.
Danger…Feline….Flight
Don’t Leave Backpack!

Backpack? You glance around and resting on the side of the tree just out of reach is your old boy scout camping backpack. It looks like it has some stuff in it as well. Ok….need a plan here. Large feline cat looks hungry and might want to eat me; I have no clue where I am other than that I am in a forest with no sense of direction and no idea where the nearest safe place is.

When in doubt act like you own the joint, if they think you’re the head boss then that is enough to make you the head boss.

Thanks brain but this is a panther or a tiger or something not a bunch of stupid bounces at a club or a gang on the street.

You have a better idea? Look, grab your pack and pull out Snaxe and then try to walk calmly away. See if we can’t avoid getting into a fight with this thing.

Fine but if I get killed because of this then I am blaming you.
You try to rise calmly to your feet; you even think you manage to do a pretty good job at playing the part, a slight bit of trouble when you first take a knee to push yourself up though. You can feel Snaxe’s comforting weight in your coat pocket. You can feel those eyes watching every movement you make as you raise to your full height of five feet and six inches and in one swift smooth practiced action you pivot on your right heel, bringing your left leg back into defensive position and draw Snaxe out of your pocket, turning to directly face the bush and those eyes.

Quite…you stare directly into those eyes and the stare out at you. This standoff goes on for several moments as you manage to hold eye contact with that feline beast in the bushes, all the while instinct is yelling at you to turn and run as fast as you can and your brain is telling him to shut up.

And then it happens, those damn eyes glance down, turn away, and you can see the rustle of the undergrowth as that predator goes off to look something that won’t put up as much of a fight.

You let out a deep sigh. “Well that was something, looks like this place is not quite so peaceful as it first looks to be. All right let’s see what I decided to pack for myself and then on to figuring out where the hell I am.”

You take a moment to empty out your coat and your backpack onto the ground to see just what you had, and as it turns out it looks like you had all your earthly procession into your backpack or on your person. A depressing statement considering that your backpack was not even half full.

You had two 50 yard coils of rope, a box of orange peanut butter crackers, two changes of clothes, three water bottles and your canteen all full, your meditation mat, a bed roll and blanket, a pocket knife and a Swiss army knife, a flint and steel, a drill bit set and an interchangeable screwdriver, three different sizes of pliers, a small wrench and a large one that you sometimes used in combo with Snaxe, a lighter, your lucky leprechaun hat, two fake snakes that you had used many times over the years to prank people with, a yo-yo, three rolls of duck tape, two- 100 yard rolls of rebar ties, a rain coat, flashlight with a set of batteries, car keys, cell phone (dead of course you never kept the damn thing charged), your wide brimmed hat that you used for hiking, your wallet with 26.53$ in it mostly in ones with a five and a bunch of change, your normal everyday shoes (you where wearing your steel toe work boots currently), a pair of sunglasses, a book on survival from back in your years as a boy scout, your favorite book series of all times Dragon Joust, a first aid kit, and lastly a group picture of all your friends from college.

You stop and stare at the picture for a bit letting the memories of a happier time in your life wash over you. There were not that many people in the picture, including yourself, there were five people. In the picture you saw Tim and Jim hanging off each other with that big stupid grin they both had shared. They had gone off to join the military during college and you never heard from Jim again, Tim had sent you a few texts every now and then. However, you stopped getting messages from him about four years ago and in his the last message you had gotten, he told you that Jim had been KIA.

Right next to you in the picture was your best friend David and you were giving each other a fist bump. David had been your buddy since before you could remember and he was the only constant friend you had as you grew up. You two used to get into so much trouble together from rigging the school intercom system to play Baby Baby anytime someone tried to use it to getting into fights with the local gang of bullies. You two were going to be best friends for life if it had not been for the fact David had been killed in a car crash shortly after you both had graduated from college.

His death had hit you hard since he did not die in the car crash but due to the fact that help had not managed to reach him in time, the emergency response person at the scene had told you that he had passed away just before they had finished using the jaws of life to get the roof of the car off. You had spent the next half a year re-inventing the jaws of life and when success was finally achieved you were able to sell your invention for enough cash to life well on for a while.

The last person in the group and the only female was Amber. You had known her since high school; she was cute with blonde hair and brown eyes, more than willing to kick your ass for you whenever you messed up, and absolutely obsessed with dragons. You had liked her for a while but did not know if you liked LIKED her, however you were content with your friendship and didn’t want to mess that up.

After David’s death and downward inventing spiral into reclusiveness she was one of the few people who bother to make sure you at least saw the light of day on a weekly basis. With your invention complete you were feeling close to her and since you were stable cash wise you thought you would try and take your relationship with her to the next level.

To this day you could still not figure out what had happened next. You went to her house with a box of chocolate and some flowers like you had seen in all the romance movies, knocked on her door and presented her with your gifts and asked her out. Instead of saying yes or no she asked for your phone and when you gave it to her she deleted herself from your contacts list and asked you to go home.

The next day you went to see her and her house had been boarded up and all her stuff was gone. Not knowing what had happened to your friend you chased down every lead you could think of, her family, her friends, the other tenets of her apartment, local gangs, the Police. You had even hired a professional detective to search for her and even he came back with nothing. Everything had been a dead end; it was like she had utterly disappeared from the face of the planet.

Hey, now is not the time to be lost in memories like that. In case you forgot we are in the middle of the woods here and we know there are at least some creatures in here which are big enough to consider us to be something that should go good with an order of fries.

Yah kid, don’t keep pinning after some pair of legs. She made her choice now you had to get over it.

Thank you brain. Thank you sex drive. Anyone else want to point out how I am fucking up right now?
….
No? Ok, good, so which direction should we head in?
….
Prefect, well it is good to see our 11 or so odd years in the boy scouts is being put to such great uses. Ok, first rule find a river and follow it most civilizations cannot exist without a ready source of water and will build near such a source or least manipulate it in some way that we can follow back to civilization.

You pack up most of your belongings into your backpack; however you put Snaxe and your large wrench into your inner coat pockets along with a packet of crackers for a meal later and sling your canteen over round your neck. You heft on your backpack, put on your wide brim hat, and throw on your sunglasses. At this point you stop and stand absolutely still, focusing all of your energy on your ears and even going so far as to close your eyes.

Water, the sound of rushing water is what you were looking for. Slowly turn in place straining your ears for that sound…is that?...yes, yes it is…gotcha. You let a small smile cross your features and open your eyes. How long had it been since even such a small smile could be seen on your face, you wonder. Meh, not the time. You had found running water now it was time to see just how much you had found.

=====================================

Unseen by you as you exit the clearing two sets of eyes slowly turn away and retreat into the forest.

“well Ice, do you think we should tell the boss about this creature?”

Ice, or Ice Chile, a powdery blue Pegasus, put his hoof to his chin in thought. The creature he had seen did not look all that impressive but it had managed to stare down that wild cat. Still compared to the other creatures that the group had been gathering that was not a big deal. It didn’t show any outward signs of special abilities and considering how small it was compared to most of the beasts it would likely end up as a snack for one of them.

“nah, lets leave it GJ, it would likely just get eaten by one of the bosses other pets.” he said to his earth pony partner.

“aww, that’s no fun. I was hoping to watch them tear that thing apart bit by bit,” she whined at him.

“GJ….” Ice said in a warning tone, “ you know that these creature are part of the bosses plans and not for your personal-”

“Ya, ya, I know, I know. Boss has his plans to overthrow bla bla bla.” she had heard this lecture before, most recently after she had put the popping cat in the same cage as the hydra to watch the bloody carnage. “Hey if we hurry maybe we can catch ‘Scout’ and hear the news before he makes it back to the camp.” she says bound off into the forest before her partner can stop her.

“GJ! get back here,” Ice calls out after his partner.

======================================================

(back at the base camp)

“ ‘Scout’ what do you have to report.”

“ Yes sir, it is as you suspected sir. The target is indeed currently living in Ponyville. I also confirmed the presences of one of the secondary targets as well. A miss Twilight Sparkle is currently running the local library.” ‘Scout’ said, careful to never look up from his kneeling position. The last ‘Scout that had done that had been butcher and orders had been left behind to feed the remains to the hydra along with his own promotion.

“Perfect. Have the teams increase the number of captures creatures and to make ready for phase two. That is all, you are dismissed.”

“Yes sir. ALL HAIL BLACK FATHER SIR”

“yes all hail black father.”

Author's Note

it is a bit in the making spelling errors, writers block, life in general, and teacher doing a major homework dump but the first chapter is finally up. just a bit about the character and introducing a villain will get to some real story shortly