The Storm

John instinctively flapped his wings and, to his surprise, he found himself hovering about three meters off the ground. John counted seven wood wolves below him, and they looked pretty hungry. “I don’t want to become leather-wrapped wood wolf jerky strips,” though John. “Oh! How could I be such be such a dolt, I have my pistol with me!” John, with great difficulty, managed to reach his holster and extract his Enfield No.2 Revolver. He didn’t know exactly how he managed to get his hoof inside the trigger guard, but it somehow magically worked out.

BANG! BANG BANG BANG!

Four .38 caliber bullets flew from the Enfield and towards a wood wolf, which was soon replaced by a wolf-sized pile of wood chips. The rest of the wolves weren’t too happy in seeing their buddy turned into landscaping material, so they lunged at John.

BANG!

Another wood wolf was shot as it jumped up to reach John, but all that came down was another wolf-sized pile of wood chips.

“Two down, five to go,” thought John. He opened his pistol, and dumped five shiny yellow brass cartridges onto the ground. He then (somehow) reloaded his pistol with some again magically placed spares in his flank pocket. “Let’s dance!”  he said. Another wood wolf leaped at John, but in about three seconds it also became landscape material.

One of the smarter wood wolves had circled behind John, and was preparing to pounce. It snarled and leaped into the air, successfully grabbing one of John’s hind legs.

“AHHHHHRG!” John yelled in pain. He was slammed to the ground, but he seemed relatively unharmed. His legs and wings didn’t feel broken, but the one leg that had been bitten into was bleeding profusely and was full of splinters.

The smell of blood stirred the wolves into a blood-lust, they wanted to have meat. They paced, unsure about what to do with their wounded prey. If it went anywhere, they could track it and finish the kill later.

John decided to capitalize on the moment of hesitation on the wood wolves’ part and shot at the remaining wood wolves. Two instantly were converted to fresh wood chips, but the other two were lucky and the bullets missed them. They snarled in retaliation and pounced on John before he could reload.  “NO!” thought John as his empty pistol was sent flying across the road.

The wolves attempted to bite at his wings, but John did what ponies do best: bucking. One wolf was sent flying into a nearby tree and smashed into splinters upon impact. The other tumbled into the road, one with a broken jaw and the other bleeding tree sap in multiple places.  He lunged for his pistol and managed to get three bullets into it before a wood wolf pounced on him. “Don’t think so,” said John, pulling the trigger.

BANG BANG!

The wood wolf’s eyes grew cartoon big and it whimpered as two bullets went through its chest and it became a pile of sap covered wood chips.

“Ack, stupid sap,” thought john, carefully stepping around the sap so as not to get his hooves sticky. He then turned to the last wolf, which let out a painful whimper as it turned and ran. But before it could go anywhere, one more BANG echoed through the forest, and the wolf whimpered in sheer agony as it burst into mulch.

John mumbled contentedly, reloaded his pistol, holstered it, and picked up the casings, which he put in one of his vest pockets. He looked at his wounded leg, which was now a purple-ish color. John quickly galloped down the road and came out of the forest, and into Ponyville. The first reaction was strange looks, which were directed towards his leg.

“What happened to him?” mumbled a white pegasus with a pink and green striped mane. On her flank was a large five-petaled pink flower and small blue five-petaled flower.

John ignored the ponies’ strange looks and comments continued walking, and more and more ponies began to take notice of him. He wandered around the town for a while, taking in his surroundings and noting stores and restaurants.

Suddenly, he saw the one orange pony, wearing her cowboy hat and talking to some other ponies, including the rainbow-haired pegasus he had seen earlier, along with some other ponies he hadn’t seen before.  One was a white unicorn with a purple styled mane and tail, and on its flank were three whitish-blue diamonds. Another one of the ponies was pink with a pink mane and tail that was really curly, and the mark on its flank was three balloons, one yellow and two blue. The pony standing next to her was a small horned lavender unicorn with a tri-tone purple mane, and it had a large pinkish-red star and two smaller white stars on its flank. Next to the lavender unicorn was a butter-yellow pegasus with a long pink mane and tail with long curls. On its flank were three pink butterflies with blue thoraxes.

As John came within earshot, the orange one was saying with its prominent accent, “So there I was, standing ‘round, talkin’ to Big Mac, when all of a sudden, I hear this weird buzzin’ noise above meh, so I look up and I see a big bird flyin’ waaaaaaaay up high, and it flew pretty fast. Me and Big Mac watched it turn, and fly down into nearby field, legs outstretched, and then Winona took off like a pony out of Tartarus and run towards the big bird that had landed. I tried to call ‘em back, but he wouldn’t listen so I ran after ‘em and I saw the bird up close…” the orange pony was suddenly interrupted by the pink pony.

“Ooooooh! What did it look like?!” said the pink pony, bouncing on its hooves.

“Well, it was all green ‘n gray, an there were letters and numbers on it, Like ‘JB’ an ‘PO521’. It also had four blades where its beak should ‘a been, and its mouth was open slightly. On its wings were big metal racks, and on those racks were huge arrows. There were four racks on each wing,” said the orange one. “There was also what looked like a target on it. Why in Equestria a bird has a target on it I don’t know. But… I don’t think it was a bird," said the orange pony.

The rest of the ponies held their breaths, awaiting an answer.

“I think… it was a machine,” said the orange pony said slowly.

The ponies (excluding the blue one, the lavender one, and the orange) let out a collective gasp of surprise and shock.

John, who could no longer remain silent, said, “I think your orange friend there is right.” Again, he mentally face palmed. He knew it wasn’t wise to hint at his presence, but, for some reason, he just couldn’t help himself. Again, he blamed the potion.

The ponies whipped around and saw John, standing there, his fetlock stained with blood. The yellow one saw John’s bloody leg and let out a small gasp, and zipped over. “Are you alright?” it asked in a light, feminine voice.

“I’ve been through worse,” said John.  “But those wood wolves sure do bite like h***. I'm surprised I even managed to defeat all seven of them.”

“T…timberwolves, you mean?” asked the yellow pegasus in a voice barely audible.

“Such language!” scolded the white unicorn. However, her face suddenly switched to one of curiosity. “But, did you really fend off seven of them?”

“My apologies,” said John. “I’m… just… new around here. Forgive me. And yes, I did miss. I really did fight of seven Timberwolves. How else do you think I got the bite?”

The white unicorn looked at John, eyes filled with amazement, as did the others.

However, the lavender unicorn snapped out of its amazement, stepped forward, cleared its throat, and said, “Hello, sir. I’m Twilight Sparkle. And you are?”

John thought for a moment, before a slight smile crept up his face. “You can call me Blue Typhoon.”