Chapter 3 - wolves and hunters

“BOOOM”

You are suddenly awakened by a loud noise outside your traveler’s willow. You get to your feet and peer outside of the little tree’s sheltering leaves that block most of the view of the outside world.

Nothing seems to be out of place to you though as you look around the area and as you scan farther away from your shelter you notice a rainbow in the sky.

“Nice to see some things are still the same.” You say as a slight smile crosses your face. You had always liked seeing
rainbows and they always reminded you of those carefree times in your life. So you stood there and watched as the rainbow slowly faded into the morning light, reflecting on those happy memories.

”Honestly what has gotten into me I have been to depressed of late. It’s a new day, on a new world, time to make a fresh start here and see what I can make of it….life goes on I guess…..Time to meet the locals,” and with that the rainbow has faded away from sight and you turn around to start packing up camp.

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

“SPIKE!!!”

“mehhanda.”

“SPIKE!!! WAKE UP!”

“mehhen, Twilight what is it.”

“Spike we need to send a letter to Princess Celestia, Zecora spotted some strange looking creature heading towards Ponyville.”

Spike, finally awoken by Twilight’s statement got out of his bed, stretched, yawned, and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes as he thought to himself. *Great it’s one of those days, so much for hoping for a nice nap in this afternoon while Twilight was off with the Rainbow and Pinkie Pie.*

The little dragon hoped out of his bed and made his way downstairs to find the main area of the library, now a literal whirlwind of books, papers and scrolls with the offending unicorn sitting in this magic made tornado. *Great Twilight is at it again. I wonder what it is this…WHOA* the little dragon’s thoughts are interrupted as he had to dive for cover to avoid being hit by a particularly large reference book as it went zipping by.

“TWILIGHT!!!”

“Oh good you’re up,” she said, the books and scrolls coming to a rest as she turned her attention away from them. “I need you to send this letter to the Princess. It is a request for a detachment of royal guards to come here at once. This time we will be ready for whatever this creature is.”

Spike took the letter that floated over to him from her magical grasp and with a quick bit of flame the letter was on its way. The job taken care of, Spike turned his attention back to Twilight, “alright so what is the big deal with this creature. Is it big with giant claws and why is the library a mess?”

“What well umm I was trying to find a match for the creature Zecora described in when she came over last night. As for what it looks like Zecora said…” Twilight floated a scroll over to her and opened her mouth to start reading it, but spike quickly waved her down.

“The translated version please, I have a hard time following her with all her rhyming.”

“Right, well from her description the creature is about twice as tall as a pony, it walked on its back two hooves most of the time, slept in the top parts of the trees and seemed able to climb fairly well, it had a little mane on its head and he seems to have a multicolored body that changed color from day to day, but it’s face and lower forelegs were furless. She first saw it deep in the Everfree Forest in a practically dangerous part she says is a host to many apex predators like packs of Manticores, timber wolves, and hydras. She was near a river when she saw it and it spotted her and started to chase her but luckily she lost it in the woods by using a potion to hide herself and her presence from the creature. She followed the creature for a bit before coming to inform me about it since it seemed to making a bee line for Ponyville.”
“Ah uh, so why the letter?”

“Well I figured that since this creature came from such a dangerous area that it must be able to survive well enough against those kinds of creatures it might even be a predator itself since it chased after Zecora, so I am taking the precaution of having some extra hooves around to help us deal with it if it is a problem. I just wish I could figure out what kind of creature it is, there is nothing in these books that matches its description. Oh maybe it is in…” and with that the whirlwind of books and scrolls started back up.

At this Spike rolled his eyes at this. Twilight was his best friend and loved her dearly but did she really have to wreck the library each time she had to look something up?

He let out a very tired sounding sigh and got to work trying to at least maintain some semblance order in the library.

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

Lopping along at a steady pace across a grassy field, you enjoy the warmth of the sun as it shines down on you. Deciding to take William’s advice you had left the river you had been following thus far and instead had kept to following the tree line of the forest.

*Now Elag there is this path that will lead you straight into town and if you follow it further you will find yourself on the front porch of Rarity’s wonderful dress shop. All you have to do is once you leave the forest follow the tree line east until you find a huge pile rocks the path is a stone’s throw past that mound.*

A large pile of rocks….sounds like a quarry to me, which means that if they have a quarry then that means that they have some form of mining, which would suggest metal, if they have metal then that means we can apply one of our trades like blacksmithing or one of our engineering disciplines. I think we have our “in” for the society.

Logic don’t you think that might be a little bit of a stretch? I mean he just said it was a pile of rocks.

True but he also said front porch, dress shop, and town which means buildings and constructions we can at least do.

Logic, I get that having a plan is nice, in fact always having a plan and a back-up plan is a great idea but we don’t even know what the locals look like or if we will fit in. I mean for all we know they could be flying pigs or something----

“AH SAY SOMEPONY, HELP ME!!!!!!” a southern female voice drawls out, breaking your inner dialog.

“Wha…..” looking around it is clear you have walked a fair ways, but not the point right now.

She sounded like she was in some major trouble. We have to go help her.

Shut up, I know that! Look, where is she?

Quite….listen for her.

Closing your eye and focusing your ears, you change how you perceive the world around you. Without the visual cues from your eyes you see the world like a blank read out map of what it is. A slight breeze blowing brings the rustling of the grass and the trees into display, the soft splashing of a nearby creek then reveals itself.

Then you notice two things the first being a creaking noise similar to the swaying of the trees in high winds mixed with the noise found when wood is rubbed against wood and the second being the absence of the sounds of small animals. There are no birds cheeping or rodents chattering away.

“Come on where are you? Call out again,” you whisper.

“HELP!!!”

Zeroing in on the call for help, you start to run. The voice was coming from just over the next hill

“HOLD ON, I’M COMING,” You bellow out in a deep voice as you reach the top of the hill, “What the….”

You pause at the sight before you. About fity feet way and emerging from the tree line stands what looks to be massive wood wolf. It had huge wooden stakes for teeth and its fur looked to be made of dark bark and most startling of all were its eyes.
The eyes on this thing glow a sickly yellow green color. Looking at the thing sent shivers down your spine. The thing had an aura of fear radiating from it and you turn on your heel your only though was of running. You had to put as much distance between you and whatever that thing was as fast as you could. Step back turn and---

“Oh sweet Celestia, HEEEEELLLLP!!!!!”

WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING!!! WE HAVE TO SAVE HER

But…I….

NO BUTS!!! GET GOING

What can I even do against something like that?

And what kind of man would you be if your abandoned a helpless girl to a beast like that?

I….I….Fine, get the others and if we die fuck you morality.

Turning back around you charge forward.

Like hey man, what is going on, man?

Is it not obvious heart, morality has yet again gotten us into a severally one sided fight thanks to his code of ethics.

A fight yer say, givme givme givme. What are we going up against…OH SWEET MOTHER OF CALZOO!!! What is that thing?

Don’t look at me nothing we have ever heard about even comes close to matching that thing.

Bub, are we really going to fight that thing? The Dame had better be at least god dam eight that puts out!

GUYS NOT HELPING!!! ABOUT TO GET INTO FIGHT FOR LIFE HERE!!

RIGHT, battle stations everyone. Instinct I want you at secondary controls, SD keep us at adrenaline level one, brain and logic I want a full tactical analysis of that thing and a battle plan yesterday. Morality help SD maintain energy levels and we better get that dam you did the right thing feeling after this fight or SO HELP ME I AM GOING TO…

Drowning them out as you race towards what was an unquestionable death; you feel the adrenaline start to kick in as time seems to slow down. Your mind clears of all inner turmoil as everyone takes their position, and a small smile comes to your face. It felt good when your mind was all working together.

Ok my goal is to save that girl from whatever that thing is. Where is she?

Your eyes scan the ground until coming to rest on the rock pile were you see a cowboy hat, some orange colored thing and the orange colored thing looks to be pinned under a large rock

…Forty feet away…

You shed your backpack; it was heavy and would slow you down too much for the protection it provided.

…Thirty feet away…

Reaching into your coat you draw out Snaxe and the large wrench

…Twenty feet away…

You can now see clearly what that thing trapped by the rock is. It looks to be a horse wearing a hat. That can’t be the girl calling for help can it?

The orange horse opens its mouth and yells, “HHEEEELLLPPP!”

Guess it is. Ask questions later if still alive. Plan: free the girl, cover her retreat, drive off or kill the monster or die trying.

…Ten feet away…

The horse girl seems to notice you. A look of terror comes to her eyes as she sees you charging her. The wolf monster has noticed your presence, its face taking on an evil looking grins at the sight of another prey rushing into its trap.

…Five feet away…

Leaping the last few feet with flying front kick at the boulder pinning her leg, you manage to knock the boulder over. The girl just stairs in stunned silence, while seeing that its prey is free the wolf monster changes from the calm lope to a ground eating rush.

“What are you waiting for?!?! RUN DAMN IT!!” you bellow at her as you turn to face the oncoming beast. This galvanizes her into action. She takes a few steps before turning around.

“What about ya’ll?!” she asks concern clear in her voice.

“I’ll be behind you!” you try to reassure her, “NOW, GO ON GET GOING!!” With that she nods and finally takes off heading down the dirt path.

The wolf seeing this alters it course to chase after her. In a clean swift motion you slide your right hand to the bottom of the wrench hang your arm low and raise you left knee high before whipping body forward in a high step and slinging the wrench in a full body overhead throw.

The moment the wrench flies from your finger tips you know the throw is good. You had only hoped to get a good hit on the beast and draw its attention onto yourself; however, the wrench soars right into the monster’s ear with the audible sound of metal on wood.

The wooden wolf lets out a yelp of pain, spinning to face you. Its glowing green eyes seem to burn with hate for you. From your position you can see the horse girl round a small hill and disappear from view. The wolf looks over its shoulder and sees the same thing before looking back at you.

Wiggling Snaxe at the monster and trying to sound as intimidating as you could, “It is just you and me pal. I am giving you one chance leave or I am going to mess you up and build my next shelter out of your skin.”

As predictable this threat really does not work considering that the wolf is six times your size and who know how much heavier. In fact the wolf does the complete opposite of running away, it starts to approach. The thing has an evil smile on its face as if it was thinking about the most painful way to kill you.

Taking a defensive stance you try to find some weak point. Something that would cause this thing enough pain to drive it off because between its natural armor and the size put most of its vital out of reach, the chances of you killing it were slim at best.

Your best bet would either be in between the toes or the underside of the paws.

The wolf pauses a bit off from and crouches down and lets out a low growl that sends small vibrations that you can actually feel. It is like being next to jerks with the muscle cars at the stoplight that have the base on their stereo cranked up to the max. The posture seems familiar to you.

It is about to pounce!

ALL RIGHT ALL TOGETHER NOW!!! SD, go to adrenaline level two when that thing jumps.

The wolf leap launches itself into the air and time goes from a crawl to almost standing completely still. The wolf’s body seems to just hang in the air to your heighten sense from the adrenaline level two rush. The wolf’s body eclipses the sun and its deadly sharp claws are coming down directly at you and yet the fear you felt moments ago seems to have vanished.

Leading with your right shoulder, you springing forward into a rolling dive under the wolf’s paw. With Instinct guiding your actions you bring Snaxe up and feel the weight of the strike at you drag it along the bottom of the paw above you. Completing the roll by slapping your open right hand on the ground brings you to your feet under the belly of the beast.

Capitalizing on your actions you plant your left foot doing a hard pivot and grab Snaxe with both hands for a powerful blow aimed at its equivalent of the Achilles tendon. Snaxe’s blade edge cuts deep in to the beast sending wood chips flying leaving an impressively large cut behind. The blow jars both of your hands as Snaxe comes to a stop with the top five inches of Snake in buried in the beast’s hide.

The wolf yelps and leaps backward away from the pain and the worst happens as Snaxe is torn out of your grip leaving you unarmed. The weight of its body landing sends a shockwave through the ground, staggering you. The wolf holds up its paw and a look of confusion comes to its face as it tries figure out what just happened. As it examines Snaxe sticking out of its paw you can clearly see the wound you inflicted on it.

Clearly it will not be putting much weight on that leg without risking the tendon being severed completely. Hopefully might just decide continuing this fight is not worth the risk. However, that does mean we would end up losing Snake which would be a shame, still it looks like this fight just might be an easy one for------

You stare in horror at what’s happening before you. The wound you dealt takes on a green glow and nearby twigs and sticks fly towards it. In less than a second the wound is gone. Snaxe is pushed out and drops to the ground as the wound closes. The look on the wolves face seems to say 'Who is going to mess who up now!'

Really logic, you had to say that is was an easy fight!

This time instead of pouncing, the wolf comes right up to you swing a paw out so fast at you that you are barely able to duck under. It rains blow after blow mixing in side swipes, stomps, and jabs with its claws. For your part you duck, jump, dodge and wave under this hail of blows, putting your flex ability to good use and trying your best get out of range of its paws. It almost seemed like it was playing with you with the way it was acting like how a cat plays with a mouse that it has captured before eating it.

Despite it only ‘playing’ with you were not able to completely dodge each attack. You had several cuts all over your body, including a pretty nasty one on your upper thigh that was bleeding pretty badly. You can feel the warm blood from it start soak your pants.

Finally the wolf’s attacks stop. Panting heavily and with pain starting dull your mind, you look up and can see a smirk on its face is clear as day. It was having fun, it was going to uses you as some sort of toy for its amusement until it got bored with you and then after that it was going to eat you. It was so dam confidante in this outcome it was giving you a bit of a rest before it started to play again.

“That’s it!!....hahh…..You bastard you die!!!.....hahh….Even if that means that I have choke you to death from the inside! ON MY WORD I SWEAR THIS!!” You angrily declare. Your blood boils and you push through the pain of your injuries. No idea how to accomplish that feat but you’d be damned if you broke your word.

Then something odd happens. The color of the world flickers gray and then takes on a red tint to it. Not the blood red tint that massive amounts of pain can bring on but a sort of cherry red tint that outlines objects rather than colors them.

You don’t get to die just yet whittle baby.

Energy fills your body, the fog of pain and the fatigue seems to dim slightly, your ability to think clearly seems to return. The red tint to the world is fading away and normal colors are returning. The last things to return to its normal color are the sickly green-yellow eyes of the wolf.

What just happened?

STAY FOCUSED DAMN IT; WE CAN WORRY ABOUT IT AFTER THE FIGHT! Any of you mutt heads have a plan of attack?

Guys, I have a plan, a crazy stupid plan but it might just work.

Deciding you have rested long enough decides it’s time for some more fun. It swings it paw in low and along ground much like how a cat would bat at a toy.

This time however instead of trying to dodge to huge paw coming at you, you turn to face it head on. Standing up on your toes and placing your hand out in front of you as if to block the attack.

You don’t even make an attempt to move out of the way. Instead, the moment your hands make contact with the paw, you jump backward for all your worth using your arms and the momentum from the jump to cushion the blow.
Even with all of that the paw was still the size of your whole upper body and it hit like a freight train.

To say that it hurt would be an understatement but now however you were trailing with the paw and as the wolf reaches the limit of its range of motion the paw you’re riding on does a little flick upwards.

Now thanks to Newton’s First Law, this means that you are sent skyward. You pull your pocket knife out and into your hand in an instant as you hold it out in front of you, flying directly at your target. The wolf, still looking at the spot you had been standing trying to figure out where you disappeared to, never saw you coming as you plunge the knife and a good bit of your arm into its eye. Your arm feels as if it is being torn from its socket as the force from your impact runs through it.

The wolf jerked its head violently sending you flying again. And so with what goes up has to come down, so while you don’t crater into the ground you are sent bouncing along the ground. You can feel your ribs break on the first impact and the scent of blood fills your nose and your vision turns red from this new pain.

The next impact brings the feeling of a white hot piece of iron is being pressed into your back. You close your eyes and try to seal off your mind in an attempt to shield yourself from the pain and eventually you come to a stop, face down in the dirt.
“Worst idea ever!” You manage to mumble to yourself as you open your eyes. You’re having a hard time focusing. The world seems to be spinning and everything is seen through blurry red cover. Even with that you can still see the massive form of the wolf moving towards you with some sort of green gas flowing from its mouth now. The look in its eyes are clear day, they say ‘You are so dead now’. Your plan to stab it in the brain had failed and it had taken the kiddy gloves off.

With a lot pain you raise to your feet. You had gambled with that last attack and lost you were going to die if just from your injuries alone. You were determined to face death standing, fighting to keep your promise.

The gas billowing from its mouth starts to blanket the ground around it and spread outward. The wolf starts to expand its chest and before you can get your sluggish body to react it launches a huge jet of whatever that green stuff at you engulfing you in it.

The an odd odor fills the air becomes to breath, your lungs and nose feel like they are on fire and your eye feel like they are burning in hell.

Unable to keep your footing as you lose your scenes of balance, you fall to your knees. Your life flashes before your eyes. You see flashes of your 5th grade graduation followed by a bad date a friend had set your with. One particular memory however plays all the way through.

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

You are maybe 6 or 7 and have wondered into grandpa’s workshop. You smelled something coming from it and had gone in to investigate. You found grandpa working on a pile of lumber.

“Grandpa, what-ca doing?”

“Oh, hello Elag, I am just weather proofing some of this wood. I am going to use it to rebuild the deck.” He says turning towards you with a good natured smile on his face.

“Is that why is it so smelly in here, grandpa?”

“Smelly, it is not smelly in here Elag.” He says with a twinkle in his eye. He was trying to mess with you and both of you knew it.

“Grandpa, it stinks in here. My nose feels like it is on fire.” You whine at him not wanting to play his game.

“Well, yes Elag that is the reason why it is smell in here, your likely smelling the terpene I am using on the wood.” He says giving in and giving you a straight answer for once.

“Why is terpene so smelly grandpa?”

“Well Elag, pine tree make it to keep bugs and insects from eating them all up.”

“But pine trees aren’t smelly grandpa.”

“Well that is because they don’t have as much terpene in them as what I am using. That is why I am adding some to make sure those nasty bugs stay far away.”

“Well I guess that makes since.” Nodding to yourself.

“Hey you want to see something cool?” Grandpa asks in a secretive tone with a mischievous glint in his eye. You knew the look well, it was the one that lead to stuff that if mommy found out about she would yell at you and grandpa.

“I won’t tell mommy.” You say eagerly to find out what he had planned.

“That is my grandson,” he says proudly bringing a smile to your face in pride. He grabs an empty water jug, the kind that they use in offices, and the can of liquid paint he had been using. Going back behind the workshop so what we were doing couldn’t be seen from the living room window where mom likely was talking with Grandma, he empty half the can into the jug and pulls out a lighter. “Now Elag, terpene as you pointed out is very smelly and that is a good thing because it is a warning sign. If you are going to be working with wood you will want to memorize its smell for your own safety.”
“Why is that grandpa?” curiosity etched into your face wondering what grandpa was up to.
“Well Elag…” a huge grin on his face as he holds the lighter over the opening of the jug and clicks it. A huge jet of flames shoots out of the jug, taller than the workshop, “terpene gas is highly flammable.”
You have a huge smile plastered to your face.

“DAD WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW!!! IF ELAG IS OUT THERE SO HELP ME I AM GOING TO!!!!!!”

You and grandpa share a look before both of you making a break to his truck. Pealing out of the drive way the two of you spend the rest of the day at your favorite sweet shop knowing you where coming back to an angry mom.

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

As the memory fades away you reach into your pocket and pull out your lighter.

“Thanks grandpa, see you soon.”

*Click*

FFHHHHOOOOOMMMMMMM

Author's Note

Chapter 3 everybody. an action scene that kicked my butt. it and a gang of school work, job work, insane family, a mental breakdown of a friend, and of course writer's block all tried their damn-est to prevent it's creation. hope you all enjoy it. chapter 4 is looking to be just as hard to write as this one was thought for the complete opposite reasons.

i would like to thank you all who are trying to read through my horrible grammar and let you know that hope is on the way as i have taken up an online grammar course.