A Short Tale

Chapter 4: Cry For Help

As Travian trekked deeper into the foreboding forest, he started to feel magic attempt to enter him. It was psychological magic, or at least so he felt. In a forest like this, it probably would turn the trees against him for all he knew. He observed the surroundings, attempting to let his more savage side out to locate his breakfast and most likely dinner. His sense of smell helped slightly, but it was his sense of sight that let him see a few tracks that belonged to a moderately big feline. He started to follow the tracks, keeping silent as he moved along the forest. Fortunately, he didn't have to meet any unwelcome denizens of this magical forest yet.

The tracks were getting fresher and larger, so he took lighter steps to follow them. After all, he didn't want to alert the creature he was tailing. Travian, however, fell straight to the ground when he heard a massive roar that was close to his location. Much too close for comfort, anyways. He turned around to see nothing. Then, he thought for a few seconds and looked up. What he beheld was a horrifying sight.

A lion, or so he remembered it being called, with wings was soaring directly at him, claws bared. He tried to pull out his pistol to take down the air creature, but was too slow and too stunned to do anything as the massive creature slammed directly into him. Thoughts of anger surged through his head. 'Why isn't my armor properly working? I should have been faster, I shouldn't have fallen, I-' His thinking then met with his memory. He forgot that without the helmet, his armor doesn't work nearly as well. It still had the same protective values, which he was thankful for, but nearly everything he did was more sluggish. He was also 'heavier'. While his weight didn't change, besides adding the helmet's weight, his steps would have been lighter on the ground. It would have been due to him being able to control the weight better, but he was an idiot and didn't bring the helmet.

The creature then attempted clawing him with its massive claws, barely even scraping the armor. Thankfully, his armor was equivalent to that of a tank, should he be speaking in terms of toughness. He finally got a single grip on his pistol, but after all his effort, it was undone. He felt a sharp, stinging pain in his chest. He looked down to it to find a massive... "You're a scorpion too?!" He yelled at it, only soliciting more pain and a roar. If his helmet was on, he knew that the poison that would inevitably be in there wouldn't have even affected him. Things were not looking good for Travian, and he felt it. He started to feel something fade in his head for some reason... Maybe the poison had something to do with lightheaded-ness?

He decided that it was time to get out of his suit of armor. However, there were several problems for him at the moment. One was that he was on the ground with something standing over him. Two, he was pinned down by a scorpion tail on a flying lion. Three, he probably couldn't be bothered enough. After what seemed like a century, the stinger removed itself from Travian. When it exited, he just couldn't remember necessarily what was going on, but focused for just a moment on what was ahead. He realized what he had to do, and that was to use his head.

He lifted his head up to the lion's face and opened his jaws. He then bit down on the lion's face, probably giving it a scar. It didn't really hurt it so much as it caused it to flail back, holding its face. It didn't even have that great of a taste. Too much fur, if he was going to be honest. Travian rolled over, realizing that his pistol had dropped out of his holster. He tried so desperately to grab it, but his efforts were proven beyond futile as the lion was leaning back over. He decided it was time to run. Quickly, he grabbed a low lying branch and hauled himself up. The intense pain he felt was only mild now, so he could move at a sluggish pace. His feet picked themselves up as he tried to run. He would go back the same way he came, and be back with Flutterwhy to heal. It was a solid plan that couldn't fail.

Of course, the overly mutated lion caught up to him, throwing him against a tree. He remembered the knife he always had, and tried to remember in the heat of the moment where it was. The lion then launched a strike at his chest. The blow scratched the case of his knife, which was in his vision next to the stinger of the lion's tail when it was penetrating him. He reached for it with a great deal of difficulty, and grasped the hilt. He pulled it free just in time to deflect a claw. He then found the one place he could stab the small blade into in order to escape.

He plunged the knife into the eye of the beast, causing it to blast back. It roared out in pain, but Travian could have cared less. He picked himself up on the tree and ran out into the same direction he came. The lion should have been dealt with, so he could expect a rather safe trip home. Unfortunately, he was rather bloody and wounded, so he might attract unwanted predators. He also might scare the ponies, since they seemed not to be used even to that forest's trees which was the least threatening thing about it. For some reason, he actually cared about what the ponies thought.

When he found the cottage, he tried going around back to find his helmet. He was mortified to find it was missing. His knife, his pistol, and now his helmet was gone, and all he had to show for it was several wounds and a suit of now useless armor. His day was not going as fabulously as planned, and he knew it all too well. He then remembered this place had a little river he could take a bath in to remove the blood and grime. The water and wounds might not be sterilized, but he didn't care. He just needed to clean himself to look even slightly presentable.

Of course, his plans had to be ruined when he heard a quiet gasp behind him. 'Oh, please don't make me turn around.'

"Longshot! The girls thought something bad happened to you because you went missing... It's good that you're back." Travian really didn't want to turn around.

"Ha. Yeah, I guess something bad could have happened to me." He didn't have anything to eat all this time as well. "I just had to think to myself on my walk, is all. If you don't mind," he coughed a little bit, "I'll just go take a bath."

Another hammer then slammed upon him, as though he were the anvil of the world. "Oh, and Twilight came by to talk to you, but you weren't here... So she took the thing you put on your head... She said that she wanted study it and was sure you would be okay with it." Travian couldn't help but feel annoyed at such a thing. Twilight had the guts to come here and steal the one thing he needed all this time. She also assumed the exact opposite of what he would say were she to ask!

"That's great. I'll see her later, I suppose. As for right now, I'm not feeling too great, so a bath would be wonderful." Fluttershy then gasped again, a common enough occurrence. She must have thought he was some sort of wounded anima- He just realized at that moment what Fluttershy saw him as. 'Oh please no.'

"You're not feeling good? Why didn't you tell m-" She was fluttering over to him when she saw his battle wounds, stained armor, and broken pride. "O-oh... M-my..." He was about to respond when she said, "You need to come inside so I can patch you up... Please..."

A thought struck Travian. "Wait... You're a doctor?" He really didn't take her as a doctor, what with her not working at a hospital, or at least as far as he knew.

The answer worried him. "Well, no, but I have worked with animals for a lot of my life!" That really didn't help him try to calm down. He wasn't an animal, he was a lizard-person! He was a proud, mutated human semi-being! Then again, it looked as if he couldn't say no.

There was a pause before he finally responded. "Fine, but get Twilight to bring my helmet over. I need it." He was rushed into the cottage and black magic occurred before his eyes. The inside of the building was larger than the outside. This was the official first time he had gone into the cottage, and he was not pleased. "What kind of black magic is this?!" Fluttershy hushed and rushed him off to the couch that he would soon recognize as the couch of poor fate. 'Why do they have couches if they aren't gonna sit on them?' Travian's thought was interrupted by Fluttershy opening her mouth to speak.

"Do you need anything before I get Twilight?" Travian shook his head, soliciting a smile from the little horse. "Okay, I'll be right back to get you all better." She hurried out the door, leaving Travian alone in the cottage. At least, he thought he was alone, until a bunny he knew and hated appeared.

"Don't you come next to me. I'm not feeling well, but I can still get off this couch and kick you all across the world and all across the nation. All I need is a little motivation." The bunny didn't leave him alone though. Even after the rhyme he just pulled, it pounced up onto him. "... You know I hate you. So. Much. Right now. Get off or I will-" His face twisted to the side as the bunny's palm smacked against his face. He paused and turned back to look at the bunny. "Did you just slap me?" It nodded. "Do you have dreams of death? Because I'm about to make them a reality if you don't get off me. I'm still hungry, you know." The bunny paid attention to that. However, it just stood there.

It quickly got off as Travian brought himself up. He may have been given orders to stay on the couch, but he will not stand for his rep as 'fearless BA you don't wanna mess with' being tossed away. He lowered himself back down, a smile creeping upon his face. Suddenly, the scenery around him became black as his eyes closed. He was hoping to get some rest while waiting for the ponies. The empty darkness slowly filled with dreams of the past.

He arose at the sound of the door opening. He received an "Oh my gosh!" at his appearance by the purple ringleader. In her magical field of telekinesis, she held his helmet, but that dropped after her surprise. "What did this to you?" She asked as she ran over to him.

"There was the lion thing that could fly. It had a tail, which stabbed me right around here." He pointed in the general direction of his wound. "Now can you please get my helmet and place it in my arms?"

"But wouldn't that hurt?"

"Don't you see all the cares I am just shedding for this?" That last one got her to bring the helmet over. He quickly put his helmet on, getting it adapted to his injured suit. 'Huh. Not even a week here, and I get into a fight.' This fact did not bode well for him. Finally, his helmet was attached completely, and it's lovely voice sung into his ears. Or at least his equivalent of ears... They were more like fins ,really. Normally, he covers them because of how stupid he feels with them exposed.

"Welcome back, Longshot. One person attempted to hack into us through magical access. Performing system and biological check..." A loading bar appeared over his view, which was the only thing visible on his red visor. He couldn't hear nor see the ponies around him. The loading bar completed, giving him the delightful voice again. "Warning," that wasn't so delightful, "Suit integrity not at one hundred percent. Poison found within veins: Manticore poison. Symptoms: Forgetting memories, low amount of pain. Body healing at slowed rate."

Finally, his view was restored and he could see the ponies staring at him. "Wait... You're saying you got stung by a manticore?"

"... That's what it was? Thought it was just a flying lion. Oh well. Is it poisonous?" He knew the answer, but wanted to hear them anyways.

"It's one of the worst poisons out there! It is completely incurable, and causes you to forget everything in your life!" Right as she said that, he felt a needle poking into his side by his suit.

"Removing poison." Travian almost laughed because of the convenience of this, but he stayed his fake tongue. He just shrugged, hoping she wouldn't give him any more bad news.

"So what did you want to talk about earlier?" Twilight looked shocked.

"You are recovering from a manticore attack, and only barely, and you want to know about that?!"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "I don't see the problem here. Fluttershy here is gonna fix me up, right and proper, and I have complete confidence in her." A lie, but a nice sounding one anyways. His hand was waving towards Fluttershy, and he got another little smile. Maybe even a hint of a blush.

Twilight knew she couldn't win, so she instead decided to leave it all together. "I'll just... Talk about it to you later. For now, I have to do something for the princess."

'Princess? Oh gods, royalty.' He didn't even see Twilight as royalty, but apparently anyone can be working for the royal family here. Though why the princess, he didn't know. Surely there was a king or queen above them. That would have been better paying, and maybe she wouldn't have been in a little village like that and instead in a castle. Well, preferably away from Travian. She stole his helmet, and he was rather angry at her. She left rather abruptly, probably infuriated at Travian for his lack of care. He turned his attention to Fluttershy. "So do I need to do anything, or can I just relax?"

"Well, you could probably just lay back and sleep... If you want to, I mean." Travian decided this was the perfect time for something grand. He sat back and prepared for the moment he had been wanting to have for some time.

He whispered a command to his helmet. "Output audio, zero." Fluttershy wouldn't need to hear him for now. "Send signal to TaSM. Establish auditory connection." The TaSM belonged to his brother. It was short for Time and Space Manipulator. No matter where he was, he was supposed to have a perfect signal. It was cheating, but at least it wasn't magic. Soon enough, it picked up the little thing and he heard his brother speaking.

"-hoped I pleased you enough. It was a pleasure to me, at least." Then there was a pause. "... That's wierd. This thing says it's getting a signal. Time to test... Hello, random signaler! How 'ya doin' there?"

"... You know it's me, right." A gasp was heard.

"Cousin! It's been too long. You should have called me sooner. Anyways, you need money?" Travian loved and hated the randomness of his brother who believed him to be his cousin.

"No. Look, I kind of got stranded on a planet." He was interrupted.

"Ah! So you do need money. Tell you what-"

"A magical planet." There was a silence, and he wondered if the line was dead or he had hung up.

"You know how I am around magic." His tone got incredibly serious.

"I know, but I need to get off the planet." He dreaded the answer.

"A purge will be necessary, you know." He didn't want to purge this planet. It had sentient beings on it. Good sentient beings! Not stupid, war craving humans.

"We can't just do that! There are sentient beings on the planet! Look, just get here by whatever means you have without purging. Please." The silence he had gotten was long.

"... Very well. But only because you have been such a dear person to me." The signal then died, assuming he hung up. Not even a good bye after so long.

Travian turned his audio output back to normal to find Fluttershy looking at him awkwardly. She was about to speak, but Travian beat her to it. "So, doc. Am I gonna live?"

"Yes... But you need to remove... whatever that is covering the area around the wound." Travian remembered that he didn't really talk about his suit much, so they didn't know what it was. They might not have even known what clothes were! Well, that white unicorn named some ridiculous name was a... Fashionista? They might have clothes. Then again, it would be awkward for horses, deciding they are quadrupeds, or whatever those four legged creature things are called.

"Right." He removed his helmet, but then received a look from Fluttershy. "What? I have to remove the entire suit." She then looked away for some odd reason. He was just stripping down for the doctor, nothing out of the ordinary. After all, these ponies didn't wear clothes, at least from what he had seen. He proceeded to remove the suit, having to get up and remove it. He received plenty of  "be careful"'s from Fluttershy, but that didn't stop him from being reckless. It was within his nature to do so. If he was going to be honest, it was nice hearing her voice... Eventually his suit was laying upon the floor, and he was naked. Fluttershy was looking off to the side at this point. He laid back down on the couch. "Proceed with the operation." He looked down once at his body, finding there to be more than just the piercing in his torso. There were scores of claw marks and bruising along his sides. Even a few cuts were spotted by his weary eyes.

Fluttershy looked flustered when she turned her head back around. Travian put his view to the ceiling and then to the dark void of the realm of sleep. Before he even had time to regret his hunger, he immersed himself fully into that realm.

When he awoke, he found his suit covering his crotch area, with the helmet off to the side, on the floor. He heard a few voices outside the house and saw that his wounds were stitched up. When he raised himself up, he saw the door open. In came Fluttershy and Twilight. Twilight focused on Travian and walked over to him. He started the conversation. "So what did you come by to talk about?"

"Well, actually I was here to see how you were and see if I could ask you a few questions." She had a bag to her side and pulled out some paper and a pencil.

"Alright. I'll answer whatever I feel like." She looked rather confused by his answer but then went on with her first question.

"What do you eat?"

'Well then.' He really began to hate the god of fate right now. "I am... I really don't want to answer the question without the knowledge and safety that you guys will keep silent about it." They both nodded their heads suspiciously. "Alright. I am a carnivore. A.K.A, I can't eat apples, hay, etc.. I eat meat. Animals." They both turned from suspicious to horrified. They had a carnivorous being within their household and reach of the town who had a tendency to find violence. "I do have a few rules!" He said that rather quickly. He slowed his pace as he said, "I do not eat sentient beings or pets. Or carrion, because that is just disgusting! Know what I mean?" He looked around to see not a single carnivore or even omnivore in the room. "... Wrong words, I suppose. Tough crowd, too."

Twilight had to clear her throat at his statement. "Well... Where do you come from?" Travian replied with a no. "What do you plan on doing?"

"I plan on doing really whatever comes to my mind." That may have been a terrible mistake, as he had just admitted basically 'Hey! I feel like eating you because I'm a carnivore and it came to mind! Rawr Rawr Rawr!' Maybe not the rawr part, but he definitely could do the rawr part if he felt like it.

She paused before asking again. "Are there more of you?" Travian thought carefully before saying no. No to the question, of course, but she didn't know that. "Oh... I'm so sorry for-"

"Not that no! I mean no to the asking, not to the question. Jeez Twilight, try paying attention instead of being a silly billy goat." Twilight paused. Travian just realized this may have been a huge insult.

"Did you just call me a male goat?"

"Yes. And a silly one at that." He signed his death warrant a few hundred years ago, he planned on it coming into effect a few years after signing it. It has never come to fruition, yet.

Thankfully she kept her cool. "Try not to call ponies that... It's rather rude and insulting. I realize you might be new to us, but that's no reason to call us names, you know."

"Oh of course Twilight. Why, I would never imagine to say that again! In fact, I would like to never talk in any way reminiscent to that! Because insulting others is totally not what I ever do, or ever want to do, or ever have done. And Fluttershy here is a tree! My oh my, how the world goes around." Twilight wasn't great with sarcasm, as he learned.

Fluttershy spoke up, but was quickly drained out. "Uhm... Actually I'd like to be a-"

"Maybe you shouldn't talk like that either! It's just a slight bit annoying." Travian could only laugh at her troubles with him. "Anyways! Next question! What were you doing to make a manticore attack you?" She muttered something away from him bitterly. "Though I think I know why already..."

"I was actually planning on eating it, but then it started flying." They both looked at him in terror. "What? You can't blame a guy for trying. I know, I know, I wanted to fly first! But it beat me to the punch..." He knew they were gawking at how he just said he wanted to eat it. He just loved messing with them. "Oh okay fine. It's within my nature to eat animals. Stop looking surprised." They stopped, but only to ask him another question.

"Why did you try hunting animals in the Everfree when you could have just gotten some fish by the river?"

"... Oh." He could have done that. "I should have done that." He was probably an idiot. "I'm an idiot." Fluttershy jumped to the opportunity to say he was wrong.

"Oh no, it's okay... We all have these moments."

'When did she get so close to me?' Fluttershy was next to his legs. "When you have these moments, you don't get close to death." He looked away, thinking deeply about his hunger. He raised himself up. "Anyways, I'm probably gonna to go get a fish or two." They both got a clear view of his unclothed body as he arose, causing his suit to fall to the side. They both looked away, a different shade in their cheeks. "You guys don't wear clothes, why should you get so embarrassed over me being naked?"

"Um... Well, usually... Our 'parts' are covered." Travian stood there for a few moments, thinking.

"Oh..." He looked down. "Oh." He looked back up. "Oh! Right!" He quickly got into his suit, one limb at a time. "Alright, you can look now." Then, they looked back at him. "So as I said, I'll just go get a fish." The doctor suddenly rained on his parade.

"Oh don't work yourself too hard!" She paused. "Otherwise your stitches will come apart." Travian simply walked around her, off to get his food.

"I'll be fine. I think." To this day, he had not died once. He was sure he would be fine.