On the Hunt

How does this always happen? I look away from the darned imp for a second and then she's nowhere to be found. So instead of spending this beautiful sunset reading a book with Lyra, I'm racing through the streets looking for a human girl that's far faster than I gave her credit for.

It also doesn't help that Lyra is super mad at me that I lost her. And there's no point in trying to explain to Lyra that I didn't lose her, but that the imp likes to vanish on me whenever she feels that my life has gotten complacent. I swear that human was brought here to punish me for something that I did a long time ago.

Her trail is much harder to follow than when she snuck out a few weeks ago. Either she's gotten stealthier or she's doing something different. I doubt it's the first one. There aren't that many ponies out at this time in the day, so I'm stuck with asking the few I come across if they've seen the human. Of course none of them have.

"Applejack, I'm looking for the human girl. Have you seen her?" I ask Applejack when I spy the pony across the street. Applejack gives me a funny look before she places her hoof underneath her chin and thinks over my question. I trot in place while she does that, preparing at any moment to ditch her and race off to the next pony.

"Actually, ah may have seen her. And what ah meant by may is, ah'm not sure," Applejack finally says, but her answer is more confusing than helpful. "While ah was delivering mah apples, ah saw a flash of light go off in the Everfree Forest. When ah glanced over, ah thought ah saw the human in them. But it was too far away to-"

I don't stick around to hear the rest of Applejack's story. I take off as fast as I can go towards the Everfree Forest, already preparing myself for the worst when I find the girl. The Everfree Forest might not be the most dangerous place in Equestria, but that doesn't mean it's a cakewalk either. Plenty of beasts within can ruin your day if you're not careful.

Even though it's sunset, the sky immediately turns black the moment I set hoof in the forest. Everfree is a weird place, even by pony standards. It's completely natural, able to function without aid from ponies in any way. That makes it one of the more unpredictable places in all of Equestria. I've been in here before, but I try to avoid it if I can. But right now I can't.

My ears constantly adjust as I race through the forest, keeping them open in case I hear any sounds of the imp. My eyes, however, are being used for my protection. I might have years of monster training, but all the training in the world doesn't mean anything if the monster attacks you before you know its there.

There are also a lot of weird sounds going on in the forest. Birds that croak. Trees that whisper. And the faint laughter of Zecora. But I also hear the sounds of roaring, roaring that's familiar but a little different. I swivel my ears towards the sound of the roaring to hear another sound. The faint sound of a human screaming.

"Of course," I mutter. I take off towards the crying while mentally going over all the known creatures in the Everfree Forest and which one I'll come across when I find the girl. For a moment I fear that it might be a hydra or something along those lines. I can't afford to be scared though, so without a second thought I burst through the trees to where the cries are coming from.

The little imp is stuck in a tree. I can see her in the branches. But the creature that has her treed actually makes me breathe a sigh of relief. It's a manticore, a beast with a lion's head, bat-like wings and a scorpion's tail. Dangerous? Yes. The most dangerous monster I've ever faced? Hardly.

"Okay there, big guy. I'm not here to hurt you," I say softly to the manticore. It's been a while since I've had to fight one of these, so I know I'm a bit rusty. I still remember that if you are calm and respectful to a manticore, then sometimes they'll just leave you alone. The creature turns to face me and I see its eyes narrow at the mere sight of me. That's not a good sign.

The manticore turns away from the tree and slowly begins to stalk towards me, keeping its tail up while it focuses its full attention on me. Good news, it's no longer focused on the girl. Bad news, looks like I'm going to have to fight it after all. I quickly glance up at the imp and make a motion with my head for her to get away. However, the human is far too terrified to blink, much less escape while I have the creature distracted.

"Guess we're doing this the hard way." By the way the manticore roared at me, I figured that it agreed as well. The creature charges straight for me with murderous intent in its eyes. But I'm not looking at its eyes or even its claws. My sole focus is on the tail, the most dangerous part. The manticore is on me in a second, reeling back while lifting its claws over its head as it prepares to strike. I know better.

In a blur of motion the tail whips around from behind the manticore and stabs right at my chest. A trick that the manticores love to use: Look like they're going in for the claws and then bring out the tail. I've seen it dozens of times. Which makes it easy for me to grab the manticore's tail before it can strike me and plunge the stinger into the leg of the beast instead. The manticore howls in fury as it rips the stinger out of its leg, giving me time to plan my next move.

The poison in the tail won't kill it. Most manticores are immune to their own poison. Doesn't mean that it won't hurt like crazy. Manticores are also quick learners, meaning that it most likely won't go for the tail attack a second time, so I don't have to worry about that for the time being. So it's time to watch the claws.

I punch the manticore right in the nose to get its attention before racing over to the tree the human was in, bracing myself up against the bark while smirking at the manticore. Manticores are smart, but they're also prideful. And they hate being insulted. Guess what I just did?

The manticore bellows at me with all of its fury before it charges like a bull seeing red. I hold my ground, knowing that moving out of the way too soon might be fatal. The trick to this is timing. And I've got that down easy. Right as the manticore lunges at me with both claws I slip to the ground and push off of the tree, rolling right under the beast. I watch as it realizes what just happened before it goes headfirst into the solid trunk of the tree. I hear the sound of skull cracking before the beast collapses to the ground.

"That went better than expected," I say to myself before I position myself underneath the branch the human was on. A moment later she falls out of the tree and lands right on my back. I assumed that she would fall from the impact of the manticore hitting the trunk. Might even say that I planned for it to happen that way.

"You are in a hell of a lot of trouble," I say to her with a glare so stern that she doesn't need to know what I'm saying to hang her head. She understands just fine.

||X||

The caves took me longer to get out of than I would have liked. Actually, I would have liked to not be in those caves in the first place. But I suppose some good did come out of it, since I freed all of the fighters that those bugs had imprisoned down there. Then I wiped out every single bug I could find. I feel guilty about that, though. Because it wasn't really me doing that. It was the berserker within. And I hate it when that guy makes decisions for me.

I'm not a good person. Talk to anyone that's known me for more than a month, and they can tell you that. I kill people. Mostly bad people, but I still kill them. But I want that choice to be mine. So whenever I'm not the one that makes the call for my body to kill someone or thing, I hate it. Because I've been out of control for nearly all of my life.

"Ash?" I ask myself as I'm suddenly snapped back into reality. I tilt my nose to the sky and take in a few deep whiffs, able to clearly smell soot and ash coming from not too far away. I also pick up faint traces of blood and death on the winds as well, but the dominant smell is ash and soot.

I sprint through the forest (another damned forest) as fast and as silently as I can. Where there's fire, there's trouble. And where there's trouble, there's probably something there that wants to hurt me. But when I reach the edge of the tree line, I find that the fire and soot I smell is an aftermath. Even from how far away I am, I can clearly see the ruins of a burned down town.

Accident or something worse? I can't tell from here. Need to get in close. Another couple of sniffs tell me that there are live ponies here, but only a few of them. Probably a clean up crew. Shouldn't be too hard to get past them. I take a big risk by sprinting across the field towards the town, keeping my senses peeled in case one of the ponies happens to spot me. They don't and I make it to the town without any trouble.

"What the hell happened here?" I ask myself as I start to move from building to building. The place was clearly burned to the ground. I didn't need to see the buildings to know that. But what I do need to know is why was there so much death? There's so much blood in the air that it nearly overwhelms my senses. Did none of the ponies make it out of this place?

No, that can't be right. These little bastards can shoot magic, fly and teleport. There's no way that a simple fire would kill so many. There's more than that that went on here, I'm just not seeing it.

I keep moving along, sticking to the buildings as best I can. Then, I finally see the clue that I've been missing. Near the ponies that are tasked with cleaning up the town, I see the bodies. Or rather, the body bags. And I don't need heightened senses to see just how many there are. There's a bag for every pony in this town.

They were killed. No, killed is most likely wrong. More like they were slaughtered. A few of the bodies haven't gone into the bags yet, so I can still see the burn marks, the broken figures, and the ones that have been ripped apart by...wait a moment. Those claw-

SNIKT!

I swing my arm around just in time to slice through the crossbow bolt that had been aimed at the back of my head. I then turn my eyes towards the sky, where three...bat ponies fly above me, each of them armed with crossbows that came out of a nightmare. I'm a damned idiot. When I only smelled the relief ponies, I thought that they were the only ones here. This village was wiped off the map. Of course they'd have guards.

One of the bat ponies in the black armor yells something to the relief workers, who take off screaming at the top of their lungs. The lead bat pony then starts to talk to me, but I roll my eyes at him before roaring loudly enough to shut him up. I assume that he understands that words are useless, because he then lifts his crossbow and starts to fire at me again.

Dodging crossbows is easier than dodging bullets, but that doesn't mean that it's a cakewalk. The night guard's two buddies start to fire at me as well, making it even harder for me to keep throwing myself out of the way of their bolts. My other claw comes out and I use it to cleave through the bolts that got too close, but I'm aware that these guards are switching up their tactics. Since they can fly, they begin to circle around me and fire at my back whenever I'm not facing them.

These ones are smart. I'll give them that. I'll also give them some scars that they'll never forget. I race over to one of the few buildings that's still standing and propel myself off of the wall, aiming right for one of the guards. To my surprise, he takes aim with his crossbow instead of getting out of the way of my claw. I roar with rage as he shoots me in the shoulder, but I get even with him a moment later when I plunge my claw into his leg.

We both fall to the ground at the same time, but one of us is missing a few pounds and it ain't me. I grit my teeth before tearing the bolt out of my shoulder, tossing it to the ground as my healing factor takes care of the rest. The now one-armed guard cries out in pain as he clutches at his missing limb, but before I can make a move his two buddies fly down in front of him. They take aim at me, and I ready myself to deal with them, before their crying buddy says something to them. They look from him to me and I know what choice they're making.

"Good move," I tell them with a smirk as they lower their crossbows and grab their friend. The three then take to the sky, with the wounded one leaning on his friends for support. The group flies away from me, but not before the leader glares back at me and draws his hoof across his throat. In reply, I lift my hand and extend one finger towards him, before retracting my claws.

With the guards and other ponies gone, I walk over to the pile of corpses and take a closer look at them. My eyes narrow as I spy one of the bodies that has claw marks on it, three claw marks in a pattern that I know very well. I extend my own claws once again and insert them into the wound, finding that they fit perfectly.

What's going on here? That's the only question I ask myself as I race to the forest, not wanting to stick around in case more guards show up. Those claw marks were nearly identical to mine. The wounds even...smelled the same to my claws. Is it simply a case of coincidence, that a creature is running around slaughtering ponies with claws that are like mine? Or did I kill them all when I was in the berserker rage? That is a possibility as well.

I shake my head and get rid of those thoughts. My mission is to get the girl and return to our world. And the sooner I'm out of this world, the safer all of the ponies here will be. So when I leave, everyone wins. But I can't say that I don't feel a little bit nervous, as I scratch at my shoulder. Because I have a feeling that before I'm gone, there's going to be a lot more death.