Hunter

Three figures stood in the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot. Celestia and Luna both stood facing the boy imprisoned in the crystal cell. His wounds from his brawl were magically healed to an extent as he was imprisoned.

He looked different stripped of his cloak and gear. He wore a dark purple shirt, black pants, and dark shoes. His raven hair was past his shoulders and fell into his face, giving him an ominous and dangerous look. His visible eye almost glowed against the darkness. What they didn’t realize was that he was still armed with a knife and few bombs strapped to his ankles, but they didn’t need to know that. They were more of a contingency plan. Frankly, he was surprised, disgusted even, that they didn’t check him fully for weapons.

...The awkward silence had to be broken eventually.

“Why do you want to murder Luna?” Celestia asked while calmly breaking the heavy silence.

The human observed the regal sisters with only slight interest. “Even if I told you my reasons, would you really believe me?”

“Maybe not,” Celestia said without missing a beat, “But I do believe everypony should be given the benefit of doubt.”

Trance rolled his eyes, though they’d only see one. “Knowledge is power,” he said equally calm. “As such is fact, answering your questions would give you power over me. Why should I give you that power over me?” Both sisters paused.

“Why do that?” Luna questioned, speaking up to try a different tactic. “Why fight our questioning? You will eventually submit answers, one way or another. Prolonging the inevitable should do naught but waste time.”

The human huffed and rolled his eye again. “Don’t be stupid. From what I’ve gathered, you’re immortals. Time doesn’t exist for you. I can’t prolong things for you anymore than you already are to yourself. Unless you can give me a valid reason why I shouldn’t waste MY time, then you should have no problem about me wasting something like your nonexistent time.”

Celestia and Luna both fell silent while exchanging glances. They could not believe how deep this creature’s intelligence went. He had to have been one of the smartest, if not the smartest mortal the two had ever come across. He seems to have knowledge in areas very few posses, likely in many more areas as well. They wondered how long he pondered areas others would never give a thought to.

They would have to be careful dealing with him. As he said, knowledge certainly was power.

“I’ll tell you what though,” the human began, ”I find the situation I am in very interesting, however unique and unorthodox it may be. Bottom line, I’m curious to see how things will play out. So, I’ll see to answering a few of your questions.”

In other words, he would gauge their reactions to his history. There would be an almost symbiotic gain for both sides. He’d test their psyches while they learned more about himself.

“I shan’t delay then,” Luna stepped closer to the cage. “What did I see in your dream and why did you attack me for it?” He looked at her unimpressed, his eye half lidded. He put a hand over his eye patch.

“What you saw, dear princess, was my reality. My life.” He tapped on a crystal bar. “You did not see just a dream. What you really saw were memories. 100%, perfectly recalled memories of things that happened in my life. Memories that repeat in my head even in my sleep.”

He removed the leather patch and blinked his eye. It was just as blue as his other. The exception with this one is that there were blotches of white that painted the bright blue iris. There also appeared to be hints of green speckled in his eye. If he looked frightening before, he looked like a nightmare now.

“I have a condition known as closed angle glaucoma. I’m certain you don’t know what that is, so I’ll tell you. It is a condition that blinds my eye, as well as causes me pain frequently from pressure buildup. I wear an eyepatch because it’s bad for me to look at bright light. I keep my patch on almost 24/7. Other kids my age called me out and made fun of me for it. I didn’t care at the time -it was so trivial and pointless- but my mother digressed.”

He began putting back on his patch, mentally preparing himself for what he has never told anyone but himself. Both princesses kept silent, both equally wanting to understand what could make anypony into something like what the human was.

“What you saw in my dreams was me and my mother on our way to a doctor who specializes in this kind of condition. She wanted to see if the doctors could do something about my blindness.” He scoffed, his expression turning darker. “An idiot happened to be out drinking alcohol and driving the day of our approved appointment. He caused an accident that killed my mother and mortally wounded me.” He huffed out a breath, a hand drifting to his midsection.

“My bastard father, Jones, blamed me for my mother's death. Naturally, he took his anger out on me. He beat me, cursed at me, and straight up tortured me. I was fourteen at the time, so I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I had no plan and no other family. I couldn’t do anything but bite the bullet and put up with it. It got worst and worst until I decided I’d had enough.” A smug grin stretched across his face, flashing a deadly smile. Both princesses impulsively took a step back from the cage, both equally frightened at the smile on his face.

“I went on a slaughter fest. I killed Jones first. I didn’t even play around. I straight up shot him in the spine with an arrow. While he was on the floor, bleeding out and pleading for his life, I kicked his teeth in and left him there. Even if he was to survive- which he didn’t cause he died in a hospital when they removed the arrow- he would have been crippled for life.”

“I was still angry with the whole fiasco though. I went further than murdering Jones. I decided I wanted nothing left of any of them, nothing left of any of the bullies. I wanted to make my classmates forget all about that weird kid who they bullied. I wanted to make them regret their unjustified bullying and discrimination towards me.” He paused for a while. “You learn a lot when you do things I do. Like how to fight, blend in, and of course, make explosives. I had a little inspiration at the time, but that’s another story for another day.”

“I began my legacy by bombing my school with homemade explosives. It was beautiful, so calculated. I didn’t do it sloppy in the slightest. I made sure I hit the school in all the right areas, making sure the right and wrong people were in all the right places. I killed almost everyone I set out to kill with otherwise a few personal casualties. My work was so well done that no one would believe a single fourteen year old mastermind was behind it. It made other terrorist attacks look like jokes. It was even known as the single most deadly terroristic event to ever happen to any school.”

“In midst of it all the terror, I stole from a set of law enforcement. You’d be surprised how hectic things get when people think there’s a city wide attack going on. Using the chaos to my advantage, I gained entrance to the law enforcement department using credentials I lifted. I raided their supply and hid to prepare.”

He began chuckling quietly at this point.

“You know, those students that died in the bombing got funerals? The authorities from where I’m from obviously guarded the mourners, but that didn’t stop me. I bombed the families of the kids and escaped. Others wanted burial for their dead children as well, but they feared their lives would be endangered. Some decided to cremate their children. When I heard that, I knew that wouldn’t do, so burned down the entire crematorium, the families included. So far I’ve killed more than a thousand.”

Both Celestia and Luna’s facades had completely faltered. Such actions were completely unheard of. They found it impossible for someone to be heartless enough, much less talented enough, to orchestrate damage to this one boy’s content.

“Now you may ask yourselves, why do I want them dead so much? Why go through all this to kill? Well the answer is simple. I wanted my point to be heard everywhere, and violence is the most productive way to do it. They were stupid. They simply messed with the wrong person for the wrong reasons. I wanted them to pay for their actions. I wanted to wipe away the memories associated with my past. But, more than anything, I wanted to teach a lesson to the bastards who prey on the weak for fun.”

“I had done a very good job,” Trance said casually. “But when I came here,” he pointed a finger accusingly at Luna, “Little Zany over here saw something straight outta my hell first hand. That struck a sour chord with me.”

His head cocked to the side. “And so, that’s all there is to it. I tried to kill Luna for the sole sake that I was angry.” He closed his eye and leaned against the cell. He opened his eye back up. “Oh yeah. I was hungry and didn’t know you...ponies were sentient, so I shot and ate one of you on accident. His name was Hayseed Greenhooves I believe? That one was on me.” He closed his eye again and adjusted himself to a more comfortable position.

Luna chose her next words very carefully.

“You are a monster.”

The human shrugged, paying no heed to the insult, “Call me what you want. I am not a monster though. Monster’s are stupid. I’m an idealist, elitist, and a realist.” He opened his eye halfway and looked at the princess of the sun. “Now then. I assume you two got some things you need to talk over. I myself need some time to think about what I’ve done.” He closed his eye. “Maybe see the errors of my way.”

When he said that last part, he didn’t mean to look at what he had done morally wrong. He merely wanted to think of his actions, what he could have done to avoid capture, as well as think of a way to escape. He also wanted to meditate on that fight with that...Pinkie Pie.

Both Luna and Celestia exchanged dark and pale glances before silently trotting out of the crystal caverns, both with the suspicion that if they stayed and listened to the human more, they would be fed lies.

Several armed guards appeared minutes later, mixes of Pegasus, Unicorns, and Earth ponies. They stood in a repeating zigzag pattern, where one looked at the cage, one looked away. All of them wore hard stoic looks.

Trance examined them closely as they lined up. He picked out two with blue matching eyes and stared at them. He folded his arms as he observed them. The two guards in his sights blinked, but did not fall out of character.

Almost thirty minutes passed before something interesting happened. As if on cue, every guard with the exception of two face planted the floor at the same time. Trance couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight while the two standing guards heaved out sighs and dropped their illusions, revealing them to both be Changelings.

“Dat sleeping potion took a long time to kick in,” the first one said.

“True dat,” the other said agreeing. He looked down at a guard. “Wait a minute…Eww! They sleeping with their eyes open!”

“Creepy!”

Trance stood up in his cell and looked at the duo, “Who are you two?” he asked. Both looked at him.

“We Changeling spies,” the first one said. “We here because our queen is interested in the creature dat has Equestria scared stiff.”

“We here to take you to her,” the second said, using some kind of crystal key on the cage, making the crystal cell disappear. “She at big hive in Badlands.”

Trance folded his arms, “While I’m grateful you got me outta that cage, I’m afraid I’m not going anywhere without my gear.”

“Dat?” Their ear antennas buzzed for a moment. “Should be here now.” True to their words, a third Changeling appeared in a flash of light, two bags of heavy gear on his back. The weight made him fall flat on the floor.

“Buck,” he said, his legs shaking and giving out under him. “How da heck do you carry all dis?” The human grinned and took both bags from the bug, pulling out a black hoodie and slipping it on. He strapped on his belt and rested his bow over his shoulder.

“You get used to it,” he replied. He dug through the bottom of the bag before pulling out a book titled Fahrenheit 451.

“What’s dat?” one of the Changelings questioned.

“Nothing but a facade,” Trance replied. He flipped open the book, revealing a large hole cut through the pages. He pulled out a chained mirror from it. He clipped it onto his pants and slipped the mirror into his pocket and tossed the ruined book where the crystal cage once stood. Smiling, he pulled out a match from his pocket, struck it, then tossed it to the book, setting it ablaze. He looked up at the Changelings, each one puzzled and not understanding the irony of what he had just done.

“Do you three have an escape route planned?”

One nodded his head. “Yup. We three is professionals.”

Trance observed them. “Very well. Lead the way. I’m interested in meeting this queen of yours.”

As he followed the trio through the crystal tunnels, he began to look back on the conversation he had with the two sisters. Trance didn’t even scratch the surface. He only gave them part of the story; his OWN story to be precise.

He didn’t speak a word about Jack.

It didn’t matter though. This world would learn about him one way or another.