Hunter/Killer

The mare was shaking in her chair. It was subtle, but if you really paid attention, you could tell; a slow, gentle, back and forth rock. Her fur stood up end, which was disturbing enough, but that wasn't the worst part. Her eyes were wide open, staring in thought, and they seemed...hollow, like she knew there was nothing left. That, thought Shining Armor, was the worst part of all, and it was also a reassurance that this was, indeed, serious.

Shining Armor cleared his throat, attempting to draw the mare out of her trance. It successful, as she just kept staring at the floor as if it held a secret she didn't want to know. Shrugging, Shining looked down to his case files and began to read.

"Now, I don't know much about this, um...Berry Punch, right? Celestia just sent me here, but from what I understand...an, uh, "alien" attacked you and your friends in the forest?" asked Shining Armor. The mare hesitated for a second, and then looked up at him, though her slightly disturbed countenance remained plastered to her face.

"No," she began. "It attacked--it killed my two friends, but it-it didn't attack me," said Berry Punch. At those words, Shining cocked his head in confusion, but continued his investigation none the less.

"It says here that it had what you described as "dreadlocks" and some sort of mask on. You also claimed that it had two weapons, and that this creature used both of them to kill your friends. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more?" The mare was still for a moment, but then cautiously nodded her head, as if the being she had been stalked by was still in the room; Shining reasoned that, in a different way, it was.

"Well, I didn't see the first one, but...but...I saw my f-friend, Lyra. I heard her voice, or so I thought, saying she'd found a-an exit. So me and my other f-friend, Blossom, we, uh, we went to see where she was..." at that point, a tear began to slowly roll down Berry's eye, but Shining could tell she was doing her best to keep it hidden.

"Her h-head, was in pieces on the ground. Her body...it flayed her. Her skin was just gone. she was h-hanging by a rope on the tree above us, swaying back and forth with the little breeze. If I hadn't seen some of her hair, and the eyes scattered at different sides of the grass...I wouldn't know it was her." Berry was about to continue, but Shining put his hoof up in protest.

"Now, you explicably said that this creature had two "weapons" it had used. If you didn't see Lyra die, as you've just explained, then how could you possibly know it used two different weapons?" asked Shining.

"I was getting to that," said Berry, with a tinge of hostility. "The wounds, the...chunks of head, they were cauterized. I don't know how, or why, but they were. And I saw it use the other weapon, too. Me and Blossom, we decided we w-were going to stay together and find the exit. So we were walking--no one talked, because we were terrified--and she just lets out a little yelp, like a puppy who got pricked by something," she began. "So I turn around, and...there are these two sharp blades just bulging from her stomach. I don't know when she died. I don't know...how long it took, but when she fell to the ground, I saw it. Dreadlocks, this odd netting it wore. It was bipedal, and the mask...it was sleek black, and the eye holes just looked so...horrible. It also had these three red dots there, staring right at me." Shining Armor raised an eyebrow at that last statement.

"Wait a minute, Berry, you're saying that it looked right at you? Then why didn't it kill you? It killed your friends, but not you? Why?" asked Shining. Berry, much to Shining's dismay, Berry Punch looked down again.

"That's the guilt I'm living with. Why me? Why kill them? Why kill Lyra, the brilliant lyrist that was just about to make it to an ensemble in Canterlot? Why Blossomforth, the inquisitive mind who could have done so much? But not me. The damn...creature had to leave me alive. It stared at me for what seemed like hours, and I was sure it was going to kill me, and then...it didn't. It turned around and walked away. I don't get it. What did I have that they didn't?" asked Berry, looking up at Shining in a plea. Shining was silent for a moment, but began to slowly exit his chair to a stand.

"That's all for my questioning, Berry. I'm sorry about your friends. You can roam the building now if you'd like, but I'm gonna need you again pretty soon, okay?" Reluctantly, Berry Punch nodded, before getting up to stretch a little. Shining took one last, good look at the stark whiteness of the Canterlot Guard interrogation room before slowly making his way down the many corridors of the station to the outside.

Waiting outside was Flash Sentry, the captain of Celestia's personal guard. He normally never left the castle, as he was usually by the side of the sun princess, but he was occasionally sent to gather information or for the retrieval of a certain object or letter; this situation was one of the former, and so Shining Armor was greeted with an eyebrow raised.

"You got anything?" asked Sentry. Shining merely shook his head, though, to Flash's confusion, he levitated a pen and some parchment from his coat pocket and began to write.

"Nothing we haven't heard before, Flash, but we knew that's what we were gonna get. Celestia wasn't exactly keen on details; she told us to figure out who was behind this, not what happened. I can't do that, because I'm not the smartest pony in the world." Shining finished writing on the parchment before rolling it up and placing it back into the pocket where it originated.

"But I know the mare who is."

* * * * *

Trees never changed. Wasn't that fascinating? No matter what planet you go on, the culture will be different. The intelligence, the athleticism, the hierarchy, that will always be different. But trees? Plants, for that matter, they were all the same. The universe created a blueprint for life, and it began with the trees; the soft, gently swaying leaves, whatever color and shape they a happened to be, and the varying sizes of branches shooting from the soil no matter where one happened to be.

The Predator sat atop one of the branches, about a mile from the ground. These trees were exactly like the ones on his home planet, but, more excitingly, exactly like the ones on Earth. The Predator looked to his left to see his prey,  slowly dangling back and forth on a simple black thread, their muscles and anatomical beauty revealed to the forest with every red detail.

It was fun. The green one pulled her weapon quick, and the Predator distinctly remember watching with curiosity as she looked back and forth through the forest as the building paranoia quickly tore her psyche to shreds; the Predator finished what it had started on the physical aspect of her body with an energy weapon of his own.

The white one with the wings? She was smart. The smartest in the group, in fact, because she tried to stay with that dull friend of hers. Those wings had so much potential, the Predator knew, and it was a shame he only barely saw them in action. Unfortunately, her ears were not quite as good as her flight, and she didn't even hear the Predator coming when he creeped from behind with the forest as his shroud and pierced his twin blades straight through her heart.

The Predator chuckled at that thought. It was in the Yautja code of honor to never kill an enemy while cloaked, but that little rule had long since fallen out of practice. Unfortunate for the white one, though it wasn't something the Predator thought to dwell on.

And then the dull one. The Predator always got those, though it couldn't help but stare at the innocent horse before turning to walk away. He had no interest in those types, and he got a bonus out of it, too; she would go and tell the others. She'd tell them what she had seen in the forest that day, and they would send the absolute best they had to try and kill it. Their weapons would be the most technologically superior they owned, even beyond the strange looking energy weapon the green one had. They would be in a large group, ten to twenty, and they would enter the forest fully expecting to eliminate the threat they had heard of.

The Predator would be ready.

What was it the humans said? "A few more tricks up the sleeve?". The Predator had many, and this morning, he had added to the arsenal. While cloaked, the Predator had gone to the nearest town and observed the cultural norms and habits, whilst also allowing the translator in its helmet to synthesize their language with his own; it took approximately eight hours, but now the Predator could hear every plan, every cry for help, and every whisper that these ponies ever uttered. Whilst among them, it found that they were very similar to humans, and it was at that point that the Predator couldn't wait to taste their blood once more.

But he had to come back to the forest. There were Yautja who enjoyed to pick off their prey in their urban cities, when they least expect it; the Predator was not one of them.

And so, he continued to sit, cross legged a mile from the ground. It took a look at its prey again, and looked down to its hands, which held the spines and skulls of those hanging beside him. It felt their weight in his hands, and inspected the eggshell color the skulls possessed very closely. Although, in reality, it didn't really need to.

There would be plenty more to look at.

* * * * *

Twilight Sparkle was a huge fan of mysteries. she would stay up all night in her youth reading about the adventures of Sherclop Pones, the world's greatest detective with observational skills incomprehensible. to the mind of a regular pony. She would try to solve the mystery herself, following with the case, and when Sherclop finally explained hw he caught the culprit, she would always get a little angry when she was way far off.

Twilight Sparkle was not a huge fan of this mystery. This mystery hit close to home, real close to home, and she had been hoping her brother would be able to figure it all out. She had heard about it, of course; everypony did, especially because Berry Punch stumbled into the market square with blood covering her coat, muttering something nopony could understand. She had been at her castle researching something for Celestia when she got the news, and it was at that moment she knew she would somehow get tangled up in it.

Twilight began to descend from the skies and make her way down to the Canterlot Guard Station. The building wasn't flashy at all, just a stark white structure with some gold outlining here and there, and "GUARD" written in old equestrian written in big letters on the top. It appeared her brother was already waiting for her outside, and when she finally touched the ground, he gave a heavy sigh of relief.

"I'm glad you're here," he said curtly. Twilight gave a quick smile before walking beside him, and they both began to make their way through the guard building to the back room.

"Where's Spike?" asked Shining as they began to make their way through the many corridors of the facility.

"He was helping the crusaders with something, and you said immediately, so I couldn't bring him. Too bad, because he's actually really good at this kind of stuff," replied Twilight. That was the end of all conversation, and it wasn't until they got into the room to see Berry that her brother finally spoke again.

"Alright, Berry, this is Twilight. I'm sure you know her, but she's gonna be helping us with this case, so if you would just recount the whole story for her, we might be able to pick up some more clues," said Shining. Berry nodded and gave a smile to Twilight, the first Shining had seen out of her, before she recounted her entire story again.

Twilight listened intently. She didn't say anything the whole time, and it appeared as if she was looking out the window absentmindedly, but Shining Armor knew better; she was listening to the whole thing, and she would have a plethora of questions when she finished her account. Sure enough, once Berry completed the anecdote, Twilight immediately went to work.

"You said that Lyra was calling out to you, because she found an exit. How quickly did you get there?" asked Twilight.

"We heard the first one and we started moving," explained Berry Punch. "It took us about fifteen minutes to get there, but...we heard the voice the whole time. The last time we heard it was when we were at least twenty feet close." Twilight raised her eyebrows at that statement, but continued her questioning none the less.

"Now, you said that Lyra's head wound was cauterized. Do you think it was using magic?" asked Twilight. Immediately, Berry shook her head.

"There was a thing on its shoulder. Whenever he moved his head to look at me, it moved, too; I think that was the weapon he used to...to...to kill Lyra. I k-know this must sound crazy, but--" Twilight held a hoof up to stop her, indicating that she believed her. She leaned back in her chair and looked towards the ceiling, and Shining Armor knew that Twilight was desperately attempting to connect the dots in her head.

"But that isn't the biggest mystery. Why didn't it kill you? Why are you sitting here?" asked Twilight aloud. She closed her eyes and took a very long, drawn out breath.

She was drawn by Lyra's cry for help, but when they found her...she was skinned. But that isn't possible! How could she be crying for help even after death, because she couldn't have been skinned in the seconds they got there! And Blossomforth, she was stabbed in the back while they were together. It snuck up behind them, completely undetected? Nothing connects! I'm hunting for something, but I just can't--

Twilight's eyes shot open.

Hunting for something.

Hunting.

Hunt!

"You were being hunted!" began Twilight, sitting back up in her chair. Shining and Berry pulled back with surprise from the sudden outburst. "Lyra wasn't calling you that whole time. She must have said it once, because whatever killed your friends mimicked her voice. It...lured you there. It was waiting for you. It was hunting you all the moment you walked into the forest," finished Twilight. Berry stayed silent for a moment.

"But that doesn't make any sense. It didn't eat any of them? It just...d-displayed them," said Berry. Twilight nodded.

"That's the big problem. It wasn't hunting for survival; it was doing it for sport. Which means, undoubtedly, that it will try to kill more. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it was waiting for more ponies to walk into the Everfree as we speak," said Twilight. Shining Armor put a hoof up, signaling for a time out.

"This is a good theory, but that doesn't explain why the thing didn't kill her," said Shining. Twilight stopped for a moment and leaned back into her chair. She resumed her thinking posture, but Shining was surprised to see that she didn't keep it for very long.

"Lyra had a spell fired up, you said," she began. "And Blossom used her wings a few times to get a better look at the area. This hunter must have perceived them to have weapons, and went after them. But you, Berry--" Twilight turned to face the subject in question. "There's nothing special about you, at least from the outsider's perspective. You have no horn, and you have no wings, which means you have no way to defend yourself. That, to the hunter...isn't any sport. It wanted a thrill, but it saw none in you. So it let you go."

There was a dead silence in the room for what seemed like an hour. All three of the ponies were processing the information they just heard, and after what seemed like a lifetime, Shining Armor broke the silence.

"You can leave, Berry. Thank you for your time. What happened to your friends is horrible, and we're going to stop this creature from killing anymore." Shining turned to his sister.

"And we're gonna figure out how."