Red in Tooth and Claw

"Well, princess, I don't know what animal this came out of."

The veterinarian had analyzed the tooth for a full day. Twilight had left it in her care and then gone to try and find entries in books in her library about large predators again. It covered the usual, dragons, giant spiders, manticores, drakes and hydras. Then there were more exotic creatures, like the powerful wyverns, giant basilisks and strange and elusive cockatrices. But nothing behaved like the mystery creature stalking the Everfree.

The veterinarian held up the tooth. "I'm not saying that this thing is nonexistant. I've just never seen an animal with these teeth before. I can tell you what this tooth is used for though." She slammed the tip down on the counter, embedding the tooth deep into the cedar wood. "It's a cutting tool. The creature here probably has narrow jaws to give it a scissor-like bite. It likely bites and then pulls back, stripping the flesh from the bone. At the same time, this is a powerful bite if it can crack bones to get to the marrow. This likely isn't it's only weapon either. From what I understand, most cuts left in the victims of this animal are too clean to be bite marks. It probably has at least one set of claws, with blades at least as sharp as this tooth." She pushed the tooth sideways, creating a long gash in the counter. It didn't even follow the grain of the wood. "Another interesting thing I found is that this animal has serrated teeth. It's bite is likely ridden with bacteria. An infection from this creature wouldn't take long, assuming you didn't die from massive blood loss first."

Twilight watched the tooth power through the counter with a grave expression. She stared at it for a while after the vet finished, pale with horror from her description of this animal's method of killing. It was nothing short of a monster. A living weapon. It needed to be found.

"Princess?"

Twilight took the tooth. "Thank you for trying, at least."

"What are you going to do when you find this thing?"

"No idea... If it hurts anypony, I'll probably have to kill it. It's already killed a cow. I should kill it for that."

The vet looked down with a grave expression, then nodded. Twilight took that awkward silence as an opportunity to walk out. A creak of the boards above her on the front porch nearly made her bolt as images of grey feathers disappearing over a rooftop danced into her head. The feathers here were pastel yellow though. As was the pony they were attached to. Fluttershy had tears in her eyes as she lighted in front of Twilight.

"Twilight, please tell me you were joking! You won't actually kill it, will you?"

That face was hard to deny, and Twilight didn't like to make her friends sad, but she had no choice here. "Fluttershy, I may have to. It's already killed one of your bunnies and a cow too! If it hurts anypony else, I'll have no choice... Were you eavesdropping?" Fluttershy nodded. "Then you heard the vet. This thing is dangerous."

"W-Well, you heard how specialized it was! T-Twilight, it's just a-a predator! It's only doing what it does!"

"That's no excuse."

"Can we at least learn about it before you..." Fluttershy trailed off as her words were replaced with squeaks. She really was trying hard not to cry. Twilight's expression softened.

"Yes Fluttershy, we can learn about it first."

Fluttershy simply nodded and turned to walk away. She held her head low as she left. Twilight sighed and started to walk home. She hoped this would all be-

As she walked, she went past one of the panthers. The one with the shasqua. Everything seemed normal about him. His sword was ordinary, but at the same time looked very elegant. She looked at the handle as she went past. Shasquas were designed as one handed sabers. This one had no guard, but it did have a gold pommel attached to the brown leather of the handle. As she looked down the sheath, she noticed a grey feather, cut presumably by the blade, attached to the handle. She was in a short enough distance, and decided to use an identification spell.

All she got in return was a hiss.

She immediately turned, and let him go a few feet before she started to follow him. Her mind raced. If he knew what this thing was, was it possible he brought it here? Was he responsible for the monster terrorizing the countryside? If so, why had he brought it? He must be a poacher, as she thought. That gear that Pinkie had mentioned, in the balloon, it must have been their gear for trapping. She wondered ow they all factored into the team. This one was probably the leader. The wounded one, maybe a tracker or second in command. The third was probably an engineer. But what about the unicorn?

The panther rounded a corner. Twilight followed, and as she rounded the corner and realized she was in an alley with a drawn saber pressed to her throat, she figured she hadn't been as stealthy as she wanted to.

"Why are you following me?" The panther said, with cold eyes drawn into slits.

Twilight needed to think of something, fast. Wings, a horn, and a crown probably didn't matter to this guy. She pulled out the tooth. "You're looking for this too?"

The panther grabbed the tooth and gave it a good look. "Where did you find this?"

"A dead cow. Care to explain? You obviously know what this is."

"You're quick to judge. I don't have to tell you anything."

"You're going to kill it, right? Sell it to the highest bidder? Did you bring it here?"

He gave back the tooth and sheathed his sword. Maybe Twilight had been a bit too quick to jump on the situation. It was too late now. She needed this guy if she wanted to find the creature, so she grabbed him with magic. "Please help me!"

He turned with a growl, but the soft, quiet sound of Fluttershy clearing her throat stopped them both.

"Twilight, that's quite enough."

"Fluttershy? How did you find us?"

"Well, I saw you following him." Twilight made a mental note to find and read a book about stealth. She and Fluttershy both turned to the panther. "Sir, my friend here has been terribly rude, and I'm sorry for that, but she's right. You do seem to know something about a creature she wants to find as well. Could you please tell us what you know? Maybe we could help each other."

The panther considered her words for a moment, then nodded. "Deal." He took a book and pencil out of Twilight's saddlebags and wrote something in the book, much to her dismay. "Meet me at this address at sundown."

***

It leapt through the trees with speed and coordination matched by nothing else. Every day, it woke up not knowing what the food would be for that day. There was a certain beauty to that. Waking up not knowing what the day would bring. Not having to protect a brood or pack. It didn't need them. It could kill on it's own, and the things around here were soft, weak, and tasty.

As it went, it caught a glint of something through the branches. Curiosity overtook it, and it caught itself on the next tree, before running through the branches to... Oh no...

A metal box with bars instead of walls was on the forest floor, with two black cats and a hoofed thing with a horn standing around it. Cold, Icy fear gripped it as it looked at the three and their container. It took a sniff of the air and identified the individuals. The one who made the strange noise, the one it had wounded when they caught it, and the one that had tortured it in it's container. It's feathers had grown back since she had torn them out, but it was still a fearful sight. Where was the fourth? It pulled it's lips back as it stared at them, eyes narrowing. It's pupils constricted in a cold, fear induced rage.

They would catch it if it wasn't careful. and then they would probably kill it. It had to strike. It couldn't attack the way it had been, though. They knew it, and it's methods. It would have to improvise. It began to look around for the traps in the trees. Those had been it's downfall last time. It started to scan- There! There was one. It cut it quickly and quietly, setting an alarm. Then, it screeched. The three came to check, as it thought they would, and it went to cut as many traps as it could, making sure to hide them afterwards.

***

Twilight and Fluttershy found the address, which was a large apartment for four, and Twilight gave Fluttershy the tooth to hold. The only one in it now was the panther though. He was polishing his blade when they came in, and gave them a gesture to sit on a couch located in front of the room's window. They sat.

"So Princess, you want to hear of this creature?"

"Anything you can tell me is good."

He set his sword on the table. "We were in Zebrica when we stumbled upon a special location. An oversized river basin. It was quite nearly walled on all sides by sheer cliffs. Local zebra guides took us down a remote pathway leading into the basin, on the agreement that they would show us down and then immediately leave. They thought us crazy to go down there. The original hunter party was a size of twenty two, but all but four of us were killed by the beasts inhabiting the basin. You have never seen creatures like these, Princess, they were horrifying creatures, that could strike both fear and awe into even the most fearless hunters. A dragon slayer was among our group, and even he was afraid."

Twilight took all this in. First off, dragon slaying was illegal. She thought of brushes with the two large dragons in the Everfree forest. What creature could scare a hunter of dragons?

"There were plenty of creatures, in all shapes and sizes. Even herbivores, though they were not to be trifled with like the herbivores in this forest. Every creature here was rough and hardy, built to either fight or run for a long time. The hunt began early, with our teams tracking a large carnivore. This proved to be our first mistake. This was the one that killed and ate the dragon slayer, plus two others. But it was the least of our troubles. You see, the creature in your woods, he is a loner. Whereas most members of his species are fast, vicious and relentless, he was smart, calculating. Like us, he took his time when pursuing a quarry. The pack alone killed off thirteen members of the party. With six left, we took drastic measures. The one pony in our party was a unicorn. She had predicted the hunt going sour, because she is quite the pessimist, so she had a gateway leading back to an undisclosed location in Equestria. I could give you three guesses where.

"We were going to leave, but we thought, 'We can't return with empty paws.' So we set traps. We knew the pack hunters used the trees to move, so that is where we set our traps. His natural curiosity overtook him, and we caught the creature you now have in your forest. Our plan was to showcase him to fund a new hunt, where we would be better equipped to face the creatures in that basin, but he freed himself from the cage we kept him in. While escaping, he killed two members of our party and injured a third. Then, he was loose in the forest. Deeper than the old castle of the two sisters. We assumed he would stay hidden, collapsed the portal to prevent any leaks, and went back to Zebrica to gather our things, leaving some in the forest. We came to retrieve those things, and heard of the events here. Now, we wish to clean up our mess."

"Why didn't you just state that out front? We want it gone, right Fluttershy?"

"Oh, well, um-"

"We could help. Maybe we could even have Fluttershy use her natural talents with animals to ki- ah, catch it."

"Is it true?" asked the panther. "You could help?"

Fluttershy stammered. "I- I umm.. Well... No. No, I could not help you."

Twilight's jaw dropped. "Fluttershy, why not?"

"Yes, why not?" The panther inquired.

"Because it's the bats all over again! Twilight, you want nothing more than to see this creature dead, and this guy just wants to exploit what he admits is a naturally curious and kind creature for the sake of going and capturing more to exploit! And you both want to use me to do it!"

"Kind?" Twilight interrupted. "How can you possibly call this creature kind after all it has done?"

"When will ponies learn what predators are? Twilight, what is a predator?"

"In zoology? Any animal that lives by preying upon other creatures."

"Exactly! He's just doing what he does! He's actually very minimalistic by the looks of it."

"That's not true! Look at the creatures he's killed. A manticore, mostly intact, a cow, mostly intact, and a drake, completely intact."

"Some predators are picky. And we only just finished moving the drake. He was heavy. There was no way any predator with half a mind would have waltzed back into town to feed on that kill! It's too densely populated... Look at wolves for a moment. Do you like wolves?"

"Why yes. They're beautiful creatures."

"And have you seen their hunting behavior? They kill out of boredom. Without remorse or care. At least this animal only kills when it needs to!"

"And what's to stop it from hunting a pony next? Fluttershy, this thing was in your house! It could have easily killed you and been gone in minutes!"

"But it didn't! That's my point, and I'm sticking to it. I'm sorry Twilight, but I won't help you! I won't have a repeat of the bat incident!"

"This is bigger than the bats! This isn't about saving an orchard, this is about preserving a healthy ecosystem and possibly the citizens of this town! I'm doing this with the best of intentions, can't you see that?"

"Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best of intentions!" Twilight recoiled a bit. Fluttershy took a few breaths before continuing in a calmer tone. "As far as I'm concerned, you're no better than the group that brought this animal here in the first place."

With regret already hanging over her head from those words, Fluttershy turned and walked out, her mind resolute. She had to find this thing before Twilight and the panthers did. She had no idea where to start.