Skyfall

Chapter 32: Pest Control Day 2

“Wake up Tristan.” I woke up to those words echoing in my head. I groaned as I got on my feet before pushing the tent flap aside. Out of the tent I briefly took my helmet off to let the cool morning air blow across my face before putting it back on.

Shadow Rose was standing by the dead fire looking at me. “You're up, good.” Shadow Rose smirked as she tossed me a rectangle package with granola yogurt written in big blocky letters.

“Anything exciting happen?” I asked as I took a bite of the ration and the cardboard taste did not disappoint.

“No, the talisman did its job.” Shadow Rose walked back to the tent and entered, I heard the rustling of fabric inside. I quickly finished the ration and joined Shadow Rose in breaking down the camp.

Soon enough Shadow Rose and I were back to walking through the Everfree Forest. The only sounds that filled the forest were our footsteps, insects and distant roars. I held my magnum in my right hand, my hud displaying the twelve rounds in the magazine and the hundred and twenty I had in spare. I always was thankful to Discord for the enchantments on my weapons that dealt with any ammunition problem I would have otherwise had.

“So how did you end up as an agent of the crown?”

Shadow Rose turned her head towards me. “Short of it, I had no one to help me learn to control my hunger when I first became a vampire and I went on a hunger induced rampage. After just waking from a haze, guards captured me and took me to the Princess for judgment.”

Shadow Rose idly kicked a small rock in front of her, sending it hurling into a tree. “After I told her what I remembered from that rampage and the events around it, the princess gave me a choice. Become an agent of the crown and get training in my new abilities and help control my hunger or be executed for my crimes.”
“Celestia seems big on the forgiveness thing, though I have only our stories to go on.”

“Yes, the Princess likes to reform criminals and give them a way out of life imprisonment or execution. It has led to Equestria always having numerous agents able to carry out a variety of tasks that the normal military and guard in this more peaceful age are ill suited to.”

“Wait then where were you and the other agents when Nightmare and I took over the country?

Shadow Rose kept grasping and releasing the hilt of her blade while clenching her right hand “We were given orders to not interfere with Nightmare Moon and sent to neighboring countries to monitor them and make sure Equestria was not taken by a surprise invasion in a time of perceived weakness. Even if she was overthrown, if invasion was inevitable we were to alert Nightmare Moon in whatever way we could preferably without exposing ourselves.”

I stopped in my tracks dimly aware of my surroundings as I absorbed what I heard. I knew Celestia was a good person that cared for her subjects. I learned that much when I acted as her captor. But to hear she had her best stand by to act as an early warning system even if Nightmare Moon was victorious was a level of dedication to her people and country that I couldn’t imagine.

“Chief watch out!”
“Tristan watchout!”

The shouts from both Nightmare and Shadow Rose snapped me back to reality. I looked to see a manticore midair about to pounce me from my right. I threw myself back and fired my magnum. The roar of the beast echoed through the forest like the three rounds that left my gun before the Manticore and I crashed to the ground.

I was lucky, I managed to dodge just in time to not get trapped in a contest of raw strength with a manticore. The Manticore was not so lucky, Shadow Rose was able to use those short seconds to sprint back and before the Manticore could recover she plunged her sword through its throat, twisted then ripped the sword out. The manticore could only helplessly thrash and gurgle as blood poured out of the messy hole in its neck

I was able to quickly get up and back far enough to avoid the manticore’s flailing about before it stilled seconds later.
I looked over to Shadow Rose standing a couple meters to my right. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Shadow Rose turned to me concerned, “what happened there?”

“Got careless, lost in my head. I won’t let it happen again.” I started walking in the direction the manticore came from before I could see her expression.

Armed with serviceable knowledge that like many predators manticores do not tend to range far to hunt, we looked for signs of where the manticore came from. A task that we both found surprisingly annoying. Still we had a job to do so we carefully combed the area looking for any tracks, claw marks, kills and whatever else we could think to keep an eye out for.

The effort was slow going taking us well over an hour what a skilled tracker probably could do in half that time. The forest was humid and hot so by the time we found what seemed to be the den Shadow Rose looked miserable the fur not covered by her armor was matted with sweat. I could not imagine what it felt like under the armor. I silently thanked the armor’s gel layer for its temperature control properties.

Shadow Rose took out her canteen and swallowed a couple mouthfuls of water. “How are you unaffected by this heat?” Shadow Rose groaned.

“Simple my armor has a layer that regulates temperature and deals with moisture. It keeps me comfortable in any conceivable temperature”

“Lucky.” Shadow Rose grumbled.

“I thought there were enchantments for climate control?”

“There are, I just had the great idea to have them reduced in favor of better defensive and self repair enchantments.”

At the mouth of the cave we readied our weapons before carefully entering. The cave entrance was about two and a half meters wide and five meters tall

The rancid smell of rotten meat hit us all at once as I engaged my helmet's night vision. The further we walked into the cave the bigger it got with the occasional stone pillar connecting the floor and ceiling. After only a few minutes of walking we saw a manticore curled up like a cat, its chest gently rising and falling.

Shadow Rose and I slowly and carefully creeped towards the beast. I carried my magnum in my right hand with the unpowered energy sword in my left. Once we got within a couple meters of the manticore we both sprung into action.

Shadow Rose drove her sword into the manticore’s neck before twisting the blade and ripping it out. The beast's roar came out as a gurgle as blood entered its damaged windpipe. Before it could even attempt to get up or thrash about I activated my energy sword and jumped plunging the blade into the other side of its throat, the plasma blade cauterizing the area as I dragged the weapon across the back of its neck severing the spine. To make sure the manticore did not suffer for long I aimed my magnum at its head and rapidly unloaded the remaining nine rounds into the manticore’s skull.

By the last round the face of the manticore was unrecognizable but I was very sure the beast was very dead. I reloaded my weapon and deactivated the energy sword

Covered in blood from the kill, Shadow Rose looked at the corpse. “Two manticores in a day, not bad.”

“I hope your armor is self-cleaning.”

“My armor is, my fur is not.” Shadow rose grumbled turning towards me. “How is your armor spotless?” Shadow Rose pointed at me, her cat-like eyes widened.

“Discord.” I replied as if it explained everything which it kind of did.

Shadow Rose slowly nodded. “So your armor is in fact a magical artifact.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I guess. I never thought about it.” I waved my hand forward. “Let's get out of here before the smell gets worse.”

Shadow Rose looked at the manticore’s corpse then the path towards the exit and nodded.

The walk out of the cave was just as quiet as it was on the way in and before long we were at the cave’s mouth. Both of us were ready to search out a place to set camp for the night
Just as we were about to back track to a nearby river we found on our way to the manticore den the ground below my feet rumbled, seconds later my motion tracker lit up with a large red dot on the edge.

I could only shout “Incoming!” as the trees in front of us exploded sending bits of wood in every direction before us was a four headed hydra it’s draconic eyes looked everywhere at once before spotting us it’s charge did not stop.

As time slowed adrenaline and instinct took over I was only vaguely aware of Shadow Rose springing into action sword in hand. I pulled my assault rifle off my back and dived out of the path of the Hydra spraying its torso with bullets, some ricochet off its scales sending sparks through the air, some hit and dropped to the ground, but a few found flesh.

As the monster stopped and turned towards me for another attack I rolled out of my dive and reloaded my spent weapon. I saw Shadow Rose attack the beast, two of the heads and the tail whipped and lashed out at her as she danced around the monster while the two middle heads focused on me snapping at me with furry burning in their eyes.

This time I fired my rifle in bursts aiming at the heads. I could see the frustration and anger of the hydra increase as the seconds went by, its faces and necks sported minor wounds.

One of the heads lunged for me, teeth bared, I moved out of the way like the other attacks before it but this time it did not retract its head quite as quickly. I smiled as I took advantage of the moment and my fist connected with the head's jaw in a brutal uppercut.

The hydra was stunned by the blow, all the beast's actions pausing for a moment. I unloaded the remaining ammo in my rifle into the stunned head’s eyes. The head went slack, the other three forgot about Shadow Rose and attacked me with reckless abandon.

I weaved between the striking heads as I swapped my rifle for my magnum. I saw the beast’s left leg suddenly buckle then Shadow Rose appeared at my side. The fight was almost over, I could see the fear and rage mix in the hydra’s eyes as the world seemed to stop for a moment. Then everything snapped into action.

Shadow Rose jumped up and over one head’s lunge and grabbed onto the back of its neck. I jumped towards the strike aimed at me twisting my body to avoid colliding with the beast's open maw, then with my free hand managed to find a rough enough patch of scales to act as a handhold. To my surprise I managed to put enough force in my jump that my weight and forward momentum countered it’s own and jerked the head’s neck back far enough that I heard the spine snap. The two remaining heads cried out in pain and thrashed about

With only some of my momentum slowed I continued forward and bounced off the hydra's back and tumbled onto the ground, my magnum falling out of my hand.

Fortunately the hydra could not capitalize on my vulnerability as the remaining two heads were busy with Shadow Rose who was hanging onto the side of one of the heads. It desperately tried to shake her off but her grip was solid. In one fluid movement Shadow Rose flung herself towards the front of the hydra’s head using the motion to drive her sword through the head’s eyes and into its brain.

I had gotten onto my feet and picked up my fallen weapon as Shadow Rose jumped off the now faltering hydra and gracefully landed. I jogged towards her as the ground shook from the hydra’s collapse.

As the adrenaline faded all the abuse I put myself through make itself very well known.

“You took a nasty tumble back there. Need any healing?”

“Hand is fractured in multiple places, a couple of bruised ribs, I probably tore up the muscles in my arms and legs from that jump.” I listed

Shadow Rose’s horn glowed and I felt the bones in my hand align and fuse back together while the pain in my arms, legs and ribs dull. ”Thanks.”

Shadow Rose grinned, “No problem Chief, though if I knew this would be a regular occurrence I would have brought more blood.”

“Next time I’ll be sure to write a note.” I shot back

“I’ll hold you to that Chief. For now let’s get to that river. I think some of the hydra’s eye seeped under my gauntlet.”

We walked through the forest side by side, avoiding roaming groups of timberwolves, some short chicken lizards that Shadow Rose called cockatrices and a damn gorgon.
We arrived at the river without incident. The shallow river sparkled under the sunlight, both sides of the river had a five meter semi circle devoid of trees though the branches of the massive trees on the edge of the clearing still blocked most light from entering, keeping the perpetual twilight the Everfree was known for.

“Come on Chief, the sooner we set up our tents the faster I can clean up.”

Before I could respond or help Shadow Rose was already at work and I could only watch as a camp complete with a campfire started to appear before my eyes like a video was being fast forward at four times speed. Finished setting camp, Shadow Rose started taking off her armor like there was a bomb on it..

I shook my head and dismissed all of my armor leaving me in shorts and a sweat soaked t-shirt. I walked over to the pack with our supplies and grabbed some soap and a towel then walked to the edge of the river.

Shadow Rose was already in the river, the water coming above her navel as she used soap and brush to furiously scrub off all the blood that soaked into her fur.

I undressed and stepped in the river ignoring the sudden chill of the water. I was lathering myself with soap when Shadow Rose noticed me. “Hey, help me get all the manticore blood off my back. It's a pain to do myself.

I walked up to Shadow Rose, “Sure,” I held out my hand. “Find a place to sit and give me the brush.”

Shadow Rose quietly handed me the brush before she walked to a slightly shallower part of the river and sat down. I started scrubbing her back with the soap while I used the brush and water to free the fur of the loosened blood.

As I did, I was reminded of helping Nightshine do much the same. I never learned how, but after a battle she would get blood on herself in the oddest of places not to mention her wings.

Nightshine would always ask me to help free her back and wings of blood. The first time she asked it had been a month since my arrival and she pulled rank, after that I just helped without protest or like with many things she would pull out the puppy eyes and damn if it didn’t work.

“You there Chief?”

My trip down memory lane ended there as my mind came back to the present. Standing in front of me was Shadow Rose wearing a grin. “Ah there you are Chief, enjoy your trip down memory lane?”

I felt the smile still on my face and nodded.

“Good,”

We both wordlessly finished washing up. Once finished Shadow Rose walked out of the river and started to dry herself off with the towel she left with her fresh clothes.

I followed her out of the river grabbing my own towel to dry off with before throwing on my clothes and heading to the tent.

Shadow Rose soon joined me in front of the tent, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts “Get some rest Chief, I’ll take the first watch.”

I was too tired to object so I crawled inside the tent, laid down on my bed roll and was out like a light.