Chapters The Hunter Hunts Its Prey
Chapter 1
The cave was damp. That was an understatement of course. In truth the cave was wet, very wet. The cave was wet because it was raining. The wind blew the rain sideways and stray droplets fell into the cave. It had been storming for a long time. A cave such as this should be vacant, but this cave was filled with a creature and its stench. The creature's stench was horrible. If anything with receptors were to be in this cave they would also say that it was very horrible. It would be described as the smell of a wet wild animal. And it would be accurate for the creature was indeed wet. The creature was asleep and its thick fur was wet.
Thunder crashed.
The creature's eyes opened briefly, but closed when it realized that it was only sound. The creature continued to slumber through the night and when it woke the storm was still blowing the rain sideways. The creature grunted and gave a huff. It started turning then stopped stiff. It heard a sound over the rain it was so used to. It was the sound of prey.
The creature stepped outside in the sideways rain and was battered with the raindrops to the side of it's body. If it was wet before, then it was soaking now. Its wet fur was blowing in the wind. It heard the sound again. It looked around it's surroundings to see the mountain that it's cave was lodged in. The mountain side that it's cave was on was steep. Not the steepest side which was on the other side of the mountain. The creature chose this side because it could traverse all the way up but prey was limited to lower down the mountain.
The creature looked down the mountain and heard the sound that drew it out. It hadn't heard that sound before. It peered towards where it heard the sound and saw a faint outline moving. The creature was shocked that prey could make it this far up the mountain. The prey was climbing closer and closer to the creature's cave. The creature crept back inside and hid in the dark back of it's home.
It waited for a minute. Just when it was about to step out and look for the prey again when the silhouette of the prey appeared before the entrance and stepped inside. The creature could see it now and it had never seen anything like it before. It was a color that it didn't know but it had wings for it could see the prey flapping them dry.
Odd the creature thought for the prey also had four legs and it knew birds didn't have four legs. It stopped contemplating as the prey moved again.
It folded the wings against it's body and shook itself. Droplets of water flew everywhere not making any difference to the wet cave that the prey and creature were in.
"Wow, it sure i raining out there," the prey spoke. The creature's eyes widened slightly at the noises the prey had made. It then prepared itself and began to creep forward, towards the prey.
The creature's claws scraped across the ground, startling the prey. It flinched and spread it's wings whilst backing up further into the cave. The prey stopped as it bumped into a wet but warm thing. It breathed in through it's nose and froze. The prey started turning around.
"Holy sweet Celestia!" The prey screamed. For it saw the creature and started running. The creature momentarily disarmed by the loud sound regained its bearings and charged after it's prey.
The prey had run down the side of the mountain where a small path lead down. It looked over it's head to see the creature silhouetted by lightning. It was large and in similar shape to a bear. It had long fur that was blowing in the wind. It opened it's mouth to let out a thunderous roar that the prey heard over the rain. The prey also saw it's teeth which were sharp long.
The prey startled, spread it's wings and tried to take off. In it's panic it had forgotten the strong winds and was blown into the side of the mountain. The prey slumped to the ground and looked up to see the beast leap towards it. The pony closed it's eyes, unwilling to see it's end.
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The creature was cleaning it's fur and claws inside the cave. It remembered how dirty they were when it landed on top of the pony and caved in it's skull. It had pulled out it's entrails so to get to the heart. The heart was a delicacy. But that was in the past and the future was filled with more hunts of these creatures with delicious hearts. The creature figured it was time to leave the cave and descend the mountain to search for this new prey.
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The doors of a room opened up as Princess Celestia walked in to it with her armor and regalia on. She looked towards the bed longingly but knew that even though the daily court was over she still had work to be done. She turned towards her desk, looking at the pile of documents and mail she had recieved and sighed. She sat herself down and started skimmimg through the documents until she found one that seemed interesting. The title read "Pegasus Pony Lost Almost Immediately After The War." Princess Celestia didn't want to read about how her subjects pointed a finger at the newly allied griffins or the long ago beaten bat ponies. What she found interesting was how close this happened to Canterlot. The Griffin war occured on the western border of Equestria and the eastern border of the Griffon Empire. And there were no bat pony colonies anywhere near where this happened. Princess Celestia only hoped that this was only a temporary problem and
Author's Note
Tell me how it was and leave a comment below. Tell me jow to improve or just compliment me.
The Hunter Hunts Its Prey
Chapter 2
The town of Mountain's Root was - in fact - at the bottom of a mountain. The mountain's specific name was Craggy Summit and was located quite close to the well known Canterlot City. Despite this close proximity to the capitol of Equestria Mountain's Root was a small town and was not well known at all. Being so close to a mountain is often seen as a protective positiom but the people of Mountain's Base knew that Craggy Summit was not very protective at all. Frequent rockslides and the occasional heavy storm proved living close to this mountain a very hard life.
One such resident was Gloomy Skies, a young pegasus whose father was in the Griffon Wars. He had decided that the reason living close to the mountain was dangerous was because of angered spirits that lived on top of Craggy Summit. With this interesting yet misinformed revelation he made to scale the mountain to plead with the spirits. His father warned against him going for the mountain was a deadly place: where a storm could start from the calmest of skies and a rockslide could start from the smallest of pebbles. Gloomy ignored this sage advice and packed rations for the trip and started to fly towards the top.
Unfortunately the mountain was indeed a dangerous place and as he reached two thirds of the way to the top a storm brewed behind the mountain. He flew on and was caught in the storm. As he braved through the piercing rain and the charging wins he grew tired until he could not keep himself steady anylonger. He landed on the mountain face and made for shelter that he found in the form of a over hang of rock that could shield him from the rain.
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Gloomy woke to the sound of thunder crashing. He jumped up and ran out from under the overhang. Unfortunately for him, doing so exposed him to the elements. The wind buffeted him so hard he fell over and gave a whinny of displeasure. He got back up slowly and looked around to see that he had lost sight of the overhang. He turned and decided that if he went higher up he might find shelter. He was struggling up the mountain when he lost his footing on his back hooves. The ground slid from under him and loosened the rocks above him. As the rocks started to slide and tumble down the hill, Gloomy spread his wings and pushed off so as to put distance between himself and the starting rock slide. He managed to avoid the rock slide but with his wings wide open he was vulnerable to the might of the wind and was pulled to the side by it. He crashed into the ground, mud clinging to his fur and rocks digging in to his skin. He looked at the sky and started weeping for he believed that he was to fail at this moment and not be able to stop the danger. He screamed at the top of his lungs random nonsense about how much he hated the spirits. During his tirade he noticed a cave, barely visible in the harsh weather but visible still. He stopped screaming and started making a mad struggle towards the cave. He got on his hooves outside the cave and looked in. It seemed vacant for all hut himself and the damp stones. He trotted in a little spring to his step and stopped in the middle. Gloomy unfolded his wings and dried them until continuing on to shake his whole body, sending droplets everywhere. He heard a sudden noise that startled him. He looked at the entrance of the cave and began backing up towards the back wall. He smelled something foul in the air and whipped around. What he saw was a beast that he knew not of. He screamed the top of his lungs and ran out.
When Gloomy turned around he saw the beast outside it's cave and charging towards him. He spread his wings and took off, yet again forgetting the power of the storm. He was taken up by the winds and flung into the side of the mountain. Weakened, Gloomy looked up. He saw a flash of lightning which silhouetted the beast. He saw that there was no hope of escape: his wings were most likely broken, he was exhausted, and he had been thrown violently to the ground, unable to get up. He closed his eyes, heard a snarl, and felt no more.
The Hunter Hunts Its Prey
When they found Gloomy's body, there wasn't much left. It was mostly crushed bones and a caved in skull. But what set him out from any other corpse was that his flank was still intact. On that flank was his distinctive cutiemark: a sun with a cloud in front of it. The search party that found him was disgusted and they immediately covered the body and took it down the mountain to be buried. Gloomy was mourned by his parents and the mayor of the town sent a letter. The letter was to be read by Celestia to tell her that the young stallion had been found, dead and eaten.
Celestia was in her Day Court when she received the letter. At first when she read it, skimming to find the important parts, she accepted the death of young Gloomy and thought nothing more. But when she read it again she saw something the mayor may have looked over: Gloomy Skies was not only dead, but eaten! There was no recorded predators on Craggy Summit, and any predator that could kill and eat a pony was a danger to the town of Mountain Base. She had to warn them immediately!
She knew that there was no time to write a letter, that could take an hour to write and longer to send until she came up with a new message spell. She opened the large double doors to her balcony. Celestia looked over Equestria and found Craggy Summit. She knew Mountain Base was on the other side. Extending her wings she took off into the sky only to realize that it was time to lower the sun and raise the moon. She cursed knowing that if she neglected her duties then she would be no better than her sister. Flying back over to the blacony she grabbed hold of the sun and forcefully tugged it below the horizon then, letting it go she grabbed the moon and threw it up into the sky.
Celestia once again took off towards Craggy Summit as fast as she could hoping that she would arrive in time to warn them of the danger. Only when she was well on her way did she realize her folly in making it night. The beast no doubt hunted at night and would take the opportunity of the darkness in order to hunt more of it's new prey. She pushed her wings to their limits to reach the other side of Craggy Summit in time.
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As night fell over the small town of Mountain Base the ponies retired to their homes to be safe with their families. They did not realize however that this was not a night that would be safe. The beast prowled around outside the borders of the town waiting for the prey that it saw to lower their defenses. The beast had come down the mountain after gorging itself on the remaining meat of the first of the new prey. It had waited to hunt until this very moment. Now prowling inside the town, the beast smelled a scent quite familiar to the one he had before. It must be the blood relatives of it's first of the new prey. Closing in on the structure that the prey was in, the beast heard a sound that was unidentified but filled with emotion. The beast did not know what the sound was but it was Gloomy's mother, crying. The beast moved to the wall of the structure and looked for an opening. There were none and the beast looked upwards for anything that could be an entrance. What it saw was a pillar at the top of the house. It's interest piqued the beast climbed up the house, making as little sound as possible and grabbed hold of the pillar. It climbed up on top of it and noticed that it had a hole going down into the rest of the house, it had it's opening. The beast slid down inside the hole and climbed out of a wall into a dark room.
Inside this room there was objects scattered around randomly as far as the beast could see with its night vision. It had little difficulty traversing the room, what with its innate climbing ability it was able to scale the walls and reach the other side of the room with ease. The beast tracked the scent of the ones so similar to the first prey to a different room that was close to this one. It noticed something blocking its way, it was a wall but it wasn't connected all the way to the rest of the wall. How strange the beast thought, another obstacle to overcome. The beast inspected the wall more carefully, in fact too carefully and bumped into the wall. The beast drew back expecting to have made a deep sound that would wake the prey, but they slumbered peacefully and the wall had moved. It grew excited at having yet again beaten the prey's attempts to impede it's progress. The beast slowly sneaked into the room, watching where the prey lay and discovered that there was another with the one who had made the sound. Interesting.
The second one woke suddenly and was moving to get up. The beast panicked, it was not ready to pounce yet! It looked quickly for a place to hide finding no corners large enough for it. The beast then looked up at the ceiling and found its refuge. Latched onto the ceiling the beast was sure that the second prey would not notice it. The prey had moved to a second room and from the sound of it, was urinating. The beast had such an acute sense of smell that it could smell the prey's scent being transported from itself to the area where it was, on fact, urinating. The second prey came back and laid in the bed grabbing hold of the one who had made the noise. Soon the prey was slumbering once again. The beast loosed the grip of it's hind legs, slowly lowering them too the ground. After it had quietly achieved that it released the ceiling from its claws and lowered itself all the way. After having done so the beast closed in on the prey, before rearing up and pouncing on them. The prey briefly woke up and screamed before their screams were silenced by the beast's claws.
The surrounding houses were suddenly filled with light as neighbors woke up and rushed to the house where the screams emanated. They waited outside for a bit until finally opening the door.
"Hello?" one of them called. The only reply they got was silence.
"Hey, what's that on top?" another said, causing all of them too look up and see the beast in full form. It roared and jumped down towards them, catching them all by surprise. The beast landed on top of one pony, crushing it's skull from the beast's weight. The other ponies backed off before their senses came upon them and told them to run. The beast would not have any of that. It started chasing them down one by one, killing them and moving on to the next target. It did not kill for food now, it killed for the thrill of it. Soon there were only a couple left running together. The beast leaped towards them and landed on top of one. The one it had landed on still managed to be alive so the beast took the extra time to insure it's death by ripping off it's head. Then it's priority changed to killing the last one.
The final pony had made it farther than all the rest, but finally he couldn't run anymore. collapsing on the ground he waited for death.
"What has happened my little pony?" a comforting voice said just above him. He looked up and saw that it was Princess Celestia!
"Oh Princess thank goodness you are here, a horrible monster is in town it has ki-" the pony was cut off as a streak of black removed him from the princess' view. Celestia reared back from the sudden interruption and looked to where the pony had disappeared to.
The beast saw this new pony and noticed two things about her: she was big, larger than all the other ones, she also had both wings and a horn. This prey would be a more rewarding meal than the two in the house would have been so it became determined to kill this new one. It prepared to pounce and end it quickly. The beast leaped into the air yet again, going for the killing blow on the large prey.
The Hunter Hunts Its Prey
The Hunt Ends Here for Now
Celestia could tell the beast was en route to her. She reached with her magic and forced it away from her. Then she proceeded to cast and illumination spell to see here foe better. The beast had fur that was dark like the night and was covered in the blood of her ponies. It's claws were large and also covered in blood. It had legs that looked strong and a tail that could be used for balance. She could not identify the taxology of the creature but she could tell it was born to kill. Narrowing her eyes she readied a spell in order to end this beast's hunt. She was about to cast the spell when the beast did something that surprised her, it crept back in the bushes to retreat. She could not let the beast escapes and have the chance to kill more of her ponies.
She pursued the creature into the brush and tried not to lose sight of it. She slowed realizing the beast had escaped until she heard the crackling of leaves and the breaking of branches. With increased vigor Celestia tore the trees from the ground and thew them towards the coastline at least a thousand miles away. The beast jumped down from the trees and ran towards it's mountain, seeking safety from the once prey. Celestia would not let it escape though and grabbed it by it's hind legs, pulling it close to her. She glared at it as it whimpered in pain from the treatment it was receiving.
Celestia cared not for the creature's pain and dragged it across the ground towards it's mountain. She looked upon the face of the mountain and summoned her magic. Using it she created a portal to the prison of the underworld, Tartarus. She created gates to prevent the monsters inside from escaping. Then briefly opening them she cast the beast inside the pit. She slammed the gates shut and proceeded to collapse on the ground and weep.
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The beast's eyes opened and surveyed it's new landscape. It looked for some form of shelter in the barren wasteland that it was trapped on. It eyes found a mountain that looked quite familiar. It felt a sensation in it's lower abdomen. It needed to hunt for it hungered greatly. In fact, it had never been so hungry in it's entire life, not even the famine. The creature expected to be weak from the hunger but was surprised t find that it felt stronger than ever. The beast was compelled to grin, something that it had not done before. Then the beast laughed, a deep resonating sound that carried through the wasteland.
Author's Note
Yes this is the last chapter. I know that story seems short, and that is because it is. It would have taken a lot more skill than I have to make this story one of the epics that are on this website, but for a first story I am happy I made it past one chapter.