The Protectors

I still don't get those two. I mean, we just woke up in some cave a couple of minutes ago, and now here we are listening to some anthro male horse thing tell us the history of anthro horse world. How have these two not freaked out yet? How have they just accepted this whole mess to be fact? It may just be me being the only girl the group, but I just can't take this at face value. However, the only things that would make sense at this point would be drugs. And even though I would chalk this up to a hallucination, aren't those usually really trippy?

As of right now, we were still sitting around the fire listening to the stallion tell us this world's history. He had just about caught us up with what had happened before, whatever it was that put him in this situation. And I must say, only an idiot would believe him. I mean come one, unicorns, earth ponies, pegasi, alicorns(a fusion of all three) hydras, sirens, and two Princesses who could supposedly control the sun and moon?! This place just screams child's fairy tale! There is no way two freaking anthro horses can control celestial bodies, even with magic! And if they can, why the hell only them?! Why can't others do it too?! I mean, I thought magic could be done by anyone in anyway, shape or form, not just in certain small ways such as moving the earth or flight. If you have magic, you ought to be able to blast fireballs out of your hands regardless of it you had a horn!

"And after Tirek was defeated, unicorn Twilight Sparkle, became alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle," the stallion continued. The fire had gone down a bit as his tale went on, and the sun had gone down. Now the little clearing we were in only had one source of light, the fire.

Mike, Nick, and I had been steadily eating our supply of fish. Whenever the fire ran out of cooked ones, I would grab a couple and place them on the sticks we had already used. The stallion seemed a bit taken aback at first, but after Mike explained how we were omnivores and wouldn't eat anything sentient, he calmed down. We all had to take off our facial wear in order to eat, so the stallion had gotten a good look at our faces. His gazed seemed to linger on me when he examined us, don't know why.

Once he was sure we were still listening, he started back, "After that, the Element of Magic was stolen from Twilight Sparkle by a old unicorn student of Celestia's called Sunset Shimmer. She went through a mirror and escaped into a human version of Equestria. After following her, Twilight came back with Shimmer, however she had turned her good and brought her down the path of friendship," I scoffed a bit at that, but it went unnoticed since I had my mask back on.

Pfft, 'magic of friendship' what a load of bull. I mean, yes friends are important, and they can help you out on more than one occasion. They can pick you up when you fall down, stay with you till the bitter end, hell you might say they're like guardian angels.

But, even that has its limits. Like this horse-guy said, even the Elements of Harmony(the symbols of friendship) were corrupted by the God of Chaos, Discord. Friendship can do amazing things, sure, even transcend death. But, when your friends are shot with a bullet, stabbed by a sword, or get sick with a fatal disease, even friendship can't help them then. All that it will get them, is a few happy days before they end up six feet underground.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in friendship. I believe friends are important. However, I wouldn't base my entire life, hell existence, around that one concept. And the thought that this place has survived this long with just that one concept, I don't buy it. There has got to be some behind the scenes work going on. But, I guess we'll have to find that out later.

"And well, that is pretty much, our whole history up until two years ago," the stallion finished.

I swear that if Mike or Nick say anthing other than 'That is ridiculous' I'm going to lose it.

"Ok, so let me get this straight," Nick said.

That's it!

"You have got to be kidding me!" I yelled out, getting all the guys attention. "You two can't seriously just be accepting all of this?! According to this...thing, we are currently on a planet that could only be thought up by a little girl! There is no way this place is real! I mean, watch! I betcha this things head comes right off!" I advanced on the 'stallion' and grabbed him by his ears. I pulled and pulled with all my might, but only succeeded in getting him to grunt out "Stop it! That hurts-OW! Get it off!"

Nick came up to me and my prisoner and pushed us apart, "What the Hell is wrong with you?!"

If he could see my eyes, I'm sure he would've saw the fire in them, "What's wrong with me?!" I pointed my index finger at him accusingly, "What's wrong with you?! There is no way you could've just accepted this as real! There has to a reasonable explanation-"

"Then what is it, Blur?" Mike said to me.

I was about to answer, when I caught name he had called me, "What? My name's-"

"Blur, I know. Now, please continue, Blur."

Through my mask I squinted at him, trying to read his eyes. All I saw were sparkling green eyes, and a mask that covered up any movement of his mouth. "Right," I said, "Well the only things that make sense are either this is a lucid dream or, we are all in comas back home."

Mike shifted a bit in place, but remained sitting, "Well, if this were a dream, we would be able to think up anything we wanted to and it would appear." He closed his eyes and seemed to be concentrating for a second. When he opened them again, he looked around the clearing, then back to me, "I just tried to imagine a huge tiger steak in the campsite, and it's not here. So this is not a dream. However, it is not a coma either, because, if it was, we would already be awake since time would pass by quickly in our world."

I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it. I opened it again, then shut it again. He was right. There was no reasonable explanation for this to not be real. Which means that I am currently on a planet, inhabited by biped ponies, with possibly no other humans except for these two. Mr. I can tell all your secrets just by looking at you, and the gamer who talks to himself all the time.

"No Author, I will not go bang my head against a tree for no reason!"

Case and point....

The fire had started to dim, so I walked over to a tree and cut down some wood. I picked up the three dry branches and brought them to the fire, not even noticing the wet leaves on them. It was like I was in a trance, my body acted on its own.

I'm not dreaming.

I'm not on earth anymore.

Heh...heh...heh..hehehe.....

I was jostled from my mental collapse by someone putting their hand on my left shoulder. It was Nick, "Hey now, don't get all crazy on us."

"Me? Crazy?"

"Yeah. I mean, sure non of this makes any rational sense, but when the possible gets kicked out the window all that's left is the impossible. Which, is how me and my bro here came to terms with everything. We figure 'Hey, why worry about it?' The bright side is, we're alive, we've got some sick ass gear, and a world to save. If that isn't enough for ya, I don't know what is."

I'm not entirely sure what it was about that speech. Just something in those words, made me brighten up. I smiled underneath my mask, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right," he said patting me on the back, "I'm an MC, I'm supposed to be right."

I shook my head, "True that."

Our guest cleared his throat to get our attention, "Well, if you're quite done trying to tear my head off, I have some questions of my own."

Mike turned to him, "Oh, then by all means, ask away."

Nick sat down next to me and we all leaned in to hear the stallion. The flames cackled with the newly burning wood used to fuel it. "First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Skyhold."

He went silent for a second. Then I asked, "That's it?"

"Yes, we slaves are only given first names, so our masters don't have to talk to us for very long."

"So you are a slave?" I asked, a little bit of relief coming off of me.

"Yes, have been for over 18 years. Before I go further into that though, I must ask, what are you?"

Mike took over the explanation, "We, my companion, are what is called humans. H-u-m-a-n, human. Or homo-sapien for the scientific term. We are from a planet know as Earth, where we are the dominant species. I am known as Predator, for I can move through forest with high speed and take out my prey quickly and efficiently. I am acutally very kind and do not attack unless provoked or someone else is in danger."

"Sompony." Skyhold said.

"I'm sorry what?"

"Here we say 'somepony' not someone."

"Well, we are not from here, so we shall say someone," Skyhold considered that, then motioned for Mike to continue. He pointed to Nick, "He is known as Bomb, for he can be kind and funny one minute, then explode and cause an untold amount of damage to his enemies." Then he pointed to me, "And, as you already know, she is known as Blur, for she can move faster than the eye can keep up with."

At the mention of my gender, Skyhold jerked up and prepared to run, but Mike stopped him with a hand. "Do not worry yourself, Skyhold. We humans come from a world where slavery is a serious affront to all humanity. It has been outlawed, but there are still some humans who practice it. But, those who do and are caught, are either sent to Jail or killed. You are in no danger, please, sit." He looked hesitant, darting his eyes between Mike and I. Then he seemed to relax and sat back down. "Now, it is our turn, why are you a slave?"

Skyhold looked somber as he spoke, "That, is because of the EPL, 'Equestrian Preservation Law.' Two years ago, after Princess Twilight's Castle of Friendship(Pfft) was finished, she noticed what she called a 'problem that could spell the end of Equestria.' Apparently, in our kingdom there is an overabundance of females. For every 5 colts and fillies born to a family, 4 are fillies. As such, after talking to the other Princesses, Twilight passed the EPL. It says that every male must have a female master, no matter who or what they are. It was originally made to increase the breeding rate, so more colts will be born. However, love was never put into the factors. As such, it ended up just putting all males into slavery."

"Wait, if you guys have magic, why didn't you just turn some of the females into males to increase breeding rates?" Nick asked.

"We did, the results.....weren't pretty," Skyhold shuddered a bit.

"Anyway, we pretty much have almost no rights, and are treated like animals. We are raped in the streets, forced to work on plantations, forced to walk on all fours and wear no clothes, and most of us are beaten everyday.

The worst part, are the Collars. They restrict our magic, causing unicorns to lose their spell casting, earth ponies to lose their strength, and pegasi like me lose our ability to fly."

"But wait," I asked, "If the Collars stop you from flying, why do you have your wings cut?"

"That, is extra insurance from my master. AKA my mother." No one said a thing at this confession. What can you say to something like that? Why would you do that to your own son?

"We slaves," he continued after a moment, "have been able to categorize the masters by tiers. Tier 1 are the good masters. They treat us like ponies, not animals. They give use extra water, food, and real housing. Even so, a gilded cage is still nothing more than a cage.

Tier 2 masters are the average masters. Nothing really special or bad about them.

Then, there are my mother's tier. Tier 3 masters. These master's are the worst of the worst. They beat their slaves for even the smallest infraction. Sometimes for no reason other than it's fun. Them, they aren't fine with just having the Collars on us. They think they need more to keep us in line. They cut off unicorn horns, put earth pony hooves and hands into iron restraints, and, well you can see what they do to pegasi. They are always running short on slaves, so you can easily tell them apart because they'll be the ones at auctions."

Mike nodded his head, "Thank you for the information, but I have begun to notice our light is burning low," he indicated the dwindling campfire. The light was so far gone, that only our small ring of people, and pony, were visible in the dark gloom. Mike stood up, "I think we shall have to save the answers to some questions for another time. I would like for me and my friends here to be able to sleep somewhere that is not in this clearly dangerous forest. Tell me good sir, do you know where the nearest hint of civilization is?"

Skyhold shook his head, "Yeah, Ponyville. But I'm not going back there. I just got away from the SRF and there is no way I am going to just deliver myself into their waiting hands. Thanks for saving me, but I would advise you guys to stay as far away from there as possible! They don't care what you are, if you're a male they're gonna put you in chains!" He glared at me, "But your 'female friend' here will probably be welcomed with open arms!"

I glared back at him, "Hey! I'm not the enemy here!"

"You mean not yet!"

"Why you-!" I clenched my jaw, then took two deep breathes in and out. "Ok, I understand why you would have trouble trusting me. But I promise you, I won't betray you," I said with my most sincere, motherly tone, probably muffled by my mask.

He didn't answer, he just huffed and turned his back to me. Mike broke back in, "Now, can you at least show us the direction of this 'Ponyville'? While I know that you doubt we will be able to get in without being made slaves, I promise you that we will take the utmost caution."

Skyhold once again shook his head and got up. I shied my head away a bit, so I could only see his back. I was thankful for my mask 'cuz it hid my blushing face. He began to walk towards the south of our little encampment. He stopped on the edge of the forest and pointed north, "Go straight until you reach a dirt road. From there just keep going east and you should get to Ponyville before Celestia raises the sun. Good luck, you'll need it." Then he jumped into the bushes of the Everfree and was gone.

"Man, my legs hurt." I groaned for about the tenth time since we started this walk. After Skyhold had left, we put out the fire and began making our way in the direction he pointed to. We were able to find the road easy enough, it only took us about 5 minutes. However, we had been walking for about 15 minutes east and we still didn't see any hint of this so called 'Ponyville'. I am starting to think that he may have been lying to us, the asshat! Accuse me of betraying them?! Argh!

We were currently walking in a single file line, Nick at the front, me in the middle, and Mike at the back. We kept a steady pace, easily able to see each other, even in this late at night.

Suddenly, a question popped into my head, "Yo guys, wait!" We all came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road. I called Nick and Mike to me so they would get close enough to hear, "I've been meaning to ask you, Mike. Why did you call us those names back there?"

Mike said, "Because, Blur I do not feel comfortable with letting these ponies know our real names. So I would suggest that we keep these personas for as long as we can. This may just be me being paranoid, but still I would feel better if we were to all just address each other by the titles I used last time."

"Dude," Mike said, "Did you just decide that without our consent?"

"Yes, because it was best for the group."

"Mike-"

"Predator"

"-we all decide what is best for the group. That's is what makes us a group," Nick poked Mike's chest to emphasize. "No one person just decides things for everyone. That is not how a democracy works."

I saw a small twitch in Mike's eye, "I thought you would be happy."

I chose to join in at this point, "And it is a good idea. We are happy you had it. But don't just decide things without our consent. Always ask us our opinion first, OK?"

Mike nodded his head, "Ok, I'll try to do that more often now."

Grrrrrr

"Bomb, I said I would try to-"

Nick, who I will now call Bomb, wasn't paying attention. His head was turned towards the direction of the town, "That wasn't me dude."

I looked where he was, and my body went stiff.

Standing in front of our path, was a massive three head snake thing. The thing took up just about the entire path way, which was about 7 meters wide. Its scales didn't seem to have a specific color. Rather they pulsated with different colors, never staying the same one for long. It stood on four legs, each with three claws that seemed to drip with a green substance. Something in my gut told me that was poison. The heads themselves were each a different color. The leftmost one was blue with the same color split eyes. The rightmost one was the complete opposite with red scales and blood red eyes. But the one in the middle, this one had no scales, but golden skin all across it's hide.

I had only ever seen these things in cartoons and video games. There is only one thing it could be. "Hydra.." I mouthed almost too silently to hear.

I saw Bomb and Mike, who I will now call Predator, both slowly draw their weapons. "Guys, what are you doing?!" I whispered urgently, drawing my daggers on instinct.

"This thing is in our why. I'm going to try to scare it off. If it doesn't work, we'll need to fight," Predator said, drawing back a black barbed arrow.

"Are you nuts?!"

"No, I just don't want anyone getting hurt." Predator released the arrow. It embedded itself a couple of feet in front of the hydra, just missing one of its legs. The hyrda looked down at the arrow, then back to the man who fired it.

Rather than run off, it roared into the sky.

"Well that plan went out the window!" Bomb said readying his sword. The hydra charged, and letting out a battle cry of his own so did Bomb. He ran straight at the hydra, seeming to go for the golden head and ignore the others.

That was a mistake.

Just when he was about to swing, the hyrda backed off, and swatted him away with its right claw. He slammed against the tree and bounced off it back onto the ground path face down, breaking the tree as well. I cringed. Since I didn't here the sound of broken bones, I'd guess that his armor had absorbed the blow. But that bounce definitely knocked the wind out of him, cause he didn't get back up.

The hyrda seemed to want to take him out first, and slammed one of its talons into his left arm. That woke him, up cause he screamed out in pain. I looked and saw that only, a tip of the claw had actually made it through the armor and pierced his skin. But if that was poison, then Bomb didn't have a lot of time.

"Blur! Don't just stand there help!" I heard Predator say, as he nocked another arrow and fired it. The arrow struck the middle head's right eye, causing it to roar in pain and pull its claw out of Bomb. Red blood oozed out of the wound inflict by the shot. By the time it turned to face us, another barbed arrow went straight into its left eye, blinding the middle head and causing another roar of pain.

Shaking off the shock that had kept me rooted in place, I saw what Predator had done. If there was one thing I knew about hyrda's, it was this. There were two kinds, one that regrows its heads whenever they get cut off regardless of which head it was. And the ones that have one head that is the brain of the entire body. Take that out and the rest of the body dies. Judging by the fact that this one's middle head draws the most attention then the other two, it must fall into the latter section.

Which means that Predator had given me an opening.

I gripped my daggers tight, and ran straight for the beast. It had drawn first blood, and I am going to finish it. Before it could react, I jumped up mid run and grabbed onto the monster's main head. Taking my right dagger, I shoved it straight into the middle of the head. The beast thrashed back and forth trying to toss me off, but my embedded dagger held firm. I took my left dagger and repeatedly stabbed at the beast, over and over and over again, trying to get to its brain. Its blood splashed over me, as I jammed by dagger deep into the beast hide, finally finding the brain.

But just when I was about to finish it, I felt something wrap around my leg and toss me to the side. My daggers both fell beneath the beast as I crashed into a tree. The blow made my body arch and crash to the ground, my breath taken away. I sat up against the pain and looked at my right leg. The armor was dented with teeth marks and coated with a slimy substance, but thankfully it held, and I would probably only get minor bruising.

A shadow fell over me as I looked up from my position. I was eye to eye with the golden head of the hyrda, it dripping with blood from my assault.

Its eyes were gone, so it couldn't possibly see me. But if it was a snake, it could smell me.

And it was probably pissed.

It roared in my face and brought its head up, preparing to bring its teeth down on its newest meal. Me.

I closed my eyes, prepared for death. But death never came. I never felt myself being chewed apart by three heads at once.

I opened my eyes.

What I saw, was a dead hydra.

All three of the hydra's heads had been cut off. and thrown somewhere within the forest for I didn't see them anywhere. The body had three stumps for where the heads used to be, all of them oozing red blood that pooled on the road.

However, it what was on top of the pile, or more likely who, that surprised me.

Standing there, covered in hydra blood from head to toe was Bomb. I was only able to tell because of his black armor. However, he was hunched over his helmet and chest plate leaking red smoke that rose into the air. Red runes were floating all around him in a double helix pattern. His sword was dripping blood on to the road, it smoking just like the rest of his armor. His sword was held one handed across his right shoulder.

He looked like the very incarnation of the devil himself.

Then as soon as it came, it was gone. Bomb stopped glowing and stood straight again. He looked around at the road, Predator standing there, me sitting against the tree, and the dead hydra at his feet. I heard him mumble, "Wha-" then he fell down, unconscious.