On the Hunt

Another sunny day greeted us as Lyra, myself and the little imp walked out of the Carousel Boutique and headed towards the lake. Lyra wanted to take the human swimming and spent half an hour informing me of all sorts of "interesting" facts about how humans swam and how they wore outfits for swimming. Hence our little trip to see Rarity.

"You were so well behaved in there! It's almost like it was a completely different you from when you're around Bon-Bon," Lyra praises the little imp, who smiles up at Lyra, responding more to her tone than her words. "I don't get it Bon, what did you do that made our little human here dislike you so much?"

"Perhaps it was me being cautious and trying to learn more about this human, instead of the rest of you who seem ready to let her into your lives without any caution," I reply swiftly. I can't get too angry at Lyra though; she didn't see what I saw. And she didn't get blasted across the room by a force of energy that I am certain was caused by the little imp.

"Or maybe she just gets that Bon-Bon is grumpy all the time and wants to hang out with ponies that want to have fun!" Lyra adds as she smiles down at the human. The little girl clutches the bag with her swimsuit in close and smiles back up at Lyra. "Speaking of fun, Pinkie wants to throw the human one of her welcome to Ponyville parties. I'm all for it, but as this also concerns you..."

"Sure, as long as she promises not to make it a surprise party," I add as my demand. I don't want to know what the human might do if she's suddenly startled by the hundreds of ponies that Pinkie somehow manages to cram into a single house. At some point, I'm going to have to talk to Lyra about understanding the imp's powers, but I can't do that until she reveals her powers in front of Lyra. Lyra won't believe me otherwise.

"Why not? I love surprise parties and I bet she does too!"

"Yes Lyra, let's surprise the human girl that can't understand us...who is how many billions of miles away from her own world, and is stuck with you and me. I'm sure that will have no negative repercussions." Lyra rolls her eyes at my sarcasm, but the annoyance leaves her face when we pass through a pair of bushes and emerge at the lake. Luckily for us, there's nopony there.

In the first week after we revealed the little imp to the ponies of Ponyville, there was no stopping them from trying to get to know the girl. It was only after we told them that she can't understand our language, and Luna gave an order asking ponies to not bother the human, that they finally decided to stop. But every once in a while I catch a pony, mostly foals, that think they're clever and sneaky enough to get by me. They're not.

"Look at her! Are you sure that we didn't grab an amphibian instead of a human?" Lyra asks me with a laugh, bringing me back to reality. I glance into the water to see that the imp is already in her swimsuit and is paddling along without a care in the world.

"How would I know? You're the expert on humans," I shoot back with a smile. "Maybe you grabbed an aquatic human by mistake."

"Please Bon-Bon, don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as aqua-humans," Lyra smirks with a shake of her head. "Silly Bon-Bon."

"And would that silly Bon-Bon like her paper?"

I glance over my shoulder to see the local news mare, Ditzy, standing behind me with my paper held in her hooves. A flash of gray races past her and I whip my head around in time to see Dinky leap into the lake with a laugh. The human and Dinky then stare at each other for a full second, before the both of them smile at the other and begin to splash water at one another.

"Maybe Lyra's right," I mutter to Ditzy as she sits down next to me. "Maybe I am the only pony that the human can't stand."

"She just needs to get to know you better," Ditzy replies as she waves my paper under my nose. "Are you sure that you don't want it now? I could always wait a day or two to give it to you."

I snatch the paper out of her hooves, knowing her track record. Ditzy is one of the kindest and most loving ponies that you will ever meet, but she has a terrible record of losing mail or breaking things. I figured that my paper was safer in my hooves than hers.

"Sorry to just show up unannounced, but I promised Dinky that I'd take her swimming today," Ditzy says to both me and Lyra, but I start to zone out as I flip open the paper and begin to read.

"Ah, don't worry about it. As you can see, both of the girls seem to be friends with each other already," I hear Lyra say, while also hearing the sounds of both filly and human laughing with high pitched shrieks. I grunt in reply, too absorbed in the paper to give a proper response.

My team lost in the qualifiers. Well there goes any chance of happiness I was going to have this season. I also read how Rarity is going to be honored in Manehatten for her newest line of work. Got to remember to congratulate her the next time we stop by her shop.

My eyes widen as I flip the paper to the next page and a single image stands out to greet me. It's the image of a town, a far off pony town, burned to the ground. My eyes quickly scan the article, fear and concern filling up my heart as I read.

"Ah, I read about that too. What a tragedy," Ditzy says from beside me, apparently having leaned over to see what I was reading. "According to reports not one of the ponies, be them adult or foal, survived. It was like...they were systematically exterminated."

"How horrible," Lyra whispers in reply. "What do you think the princesses are going to do, Bon?"

I barely register what Lyra's said to me. I couldn't answer even if I wanted to. Because one of the lines in the article has gained my full attention. It was describing the bodies of some of the ponies and the marks that were on them. Some of them were burned, others were crushed. But some...some of them had claw marks on them. Claw marks that were described in a way that sounded very similar to what I had seen recently. From a certain creature.

It might not be the yellow and blue being. It might be another creature with claws that I'd never heard of before. But no creature from Equestria had ever wiped out an entire town of ponies and systematically slaughtered all of the ponies that inhabited it. And that yellow and blue, humanoid, had already mauled six guards. Maybe it had only been testing us, seeing whether or not it could kill us. And when it found out it was stronger, it decided to unleash its full wrath.

I gaze up at the sun as my eyes narrow. I have a feeling that pretty soon I'm going to be getting another visit from the princesses. Call it a gut feeling. And my gut is never wrong.

||X||

Following a scent is generally easy for me. Even on Earth, with all of the pollution and other scents that might interfere, it's nearly impossible to lose me once I have the scent. But that's on Earth, where all I have to worry about is all the other scents getting in the way. I've never had to worry about the very forest trying to kill me...well, at least not often.

But as my claws cleaved through the stem of a colossal Venus flytrap that had decided I looked good enough to eat, I am reminded that this planet is very different from Earth. A hissing sound in my ears gets me to hurl myself to the side, and I roll back up to my feet in time to see an even larger flytrap lunging towards me, sap dripping from its mouth like saliva.

I bellow with fury as I drive my right claws through the creature's face, getting it to scream as green water starts to spray everywhere. Its screams are drowned out by my roaring as I plunge the other set of my claws into its stem, severing the mouth-like part from the rest of the plant. The head crashes onto the ground while I watch the rest of the body flail around blindly. Another flash of my claws turns the rest of the stalk to pieces.

I snarl before spinning around to fight whatever was going to pick a fight with me next, but to my surprise no other plants seem to want to eat me right now. I sheath the claws on my right hand before glancing down to see that the head of the flytrap was still moving around. A quick slash of my claws finish it off, allowing me to retract them with a sigh.

"Ya know, Beast always said that I might like gardening. Might be a way to calm me down," I mutter to no one as I sniff the air to pick up the trail once more. "But after today, guess I'm not that good at it. Everything I touch seems to die."

I keep my head on a swivel as I navigate the dense underbrush of this forest, using my ears and nose more so than my eyes. I was careless when I first entered the forest, thinking that nothing on this planet would have killing intent like those plants. But once again it seems that I get a reminder that mother nature is a cruel bitch.

On the plus side, the attack by the plants left me on guard. Heightened my senses. Means that nothings going to get by me now. And that includes the faint sounds of crying that I hear coming from the blacker part of the forest. It's a cry for help. I've heard enough of them to be able to tell, depending on pitch and volume. And it's the cry of something that's in a lot of trouble. Something that can't survive much longer.

"I should know better," I mutter as I gaze towards where the crying is coming from. In a forest this dangerous, anything that's crying out for help will be attracting a lot of unwanted attention. In fact, whatever's crying will probably be food by the time I get to it. But I'm an Avenger, dammit. I help things in trouble. Even against my better judgment.

I take off towards where the crying is coming from, extending both claws so that I can slice through the foliage without having to slow down. The forest is hard to navigate and the constant quicksand pits aren't making it any easier. With my metal skeleton, quicksand would be a death trap. And while I've never seen if my healing factor can survive me being buried alive in sand, I'd rather not find out.

With that thought I take to the trees, using my claws to gain a grip before using my legs to kick off onto the next tree. I may not be Hulk when it comes to strength, but I'm no slouch either. A few more leaps and I arrive at a small clearing in the forest, landing in a few bushes to remain hidden. A place where there's no trees or quicksand. And in the center of this clearing is a foal that's crying its eyes out.

This is a trap. I have a metal skeleton, a healing factor and lifetimes worth of experience and I almost didn't make it here. There is no fucking way that a foal is stranded out here all on its lonesome, in the middle of a forest where everything wants to kill you. Trap. I should just leave and be done with it.

But if I leave it as is, some other poor bastard might stumble onto the foal and get the trap sprung on them. And unlike me, they might not have the metal skeleton, the healing factor or the experience. And then there's the whole Avenger thing and not ignoring a cry for help. I shake my head at my own stupidity before I stand up and walk into the clearing.

The foal stops crying the moment that it sees me and I watch as its eyes go wide with terror. Considering how I look, I'm surprised that it didn't just fall over dead. I approach slowly, making sure I don't smell any other creatures that might be lying in wait. I smell plants, I smell insects and I smell death, but I don't smell nor hear anything that's lying in wait.

"Calm down, ya little punk. I'll get you out of here," I say in my most "comforting" voice, trying to calm it down. To my complete surprise, it backs away from me with a cry of terror. Five foot four, covered head to toe in a yellow and blue suit, and claws coming out of my hands...why would it be afraid of me?

I shelve the sarcasm and my claws, allowing me to extend a now clawless hand towards the foal. It glances from my hand to my eyes, which it shouldn't be able to see due to the white plastic that covers them. Then I hear rustling behind me.

"Wrong move!"

SNIKT!

With a roar I spin around and slash with my claws. My claws are already halfway through the armor of whatever attacked me before I have time to register what it is. What's left of the black bug-like creature falls to the ground, causing me to narrow my eyes as I sniff at it. It smells like any other bug, except that there's a faint odor of death that...is coming from all around me.

"Ah hell," I mutter to myself as I turn my eyes towards the trees, watching as dozens of the bug like creatures start to emerge from the shadows and stalk towards me. I snarl in reply as I crouch down low, preparing myself for a nasty battle. The first wave attacks, with three of them hurling their bodies at me. My claws make short work of the first two. The third bites at my leg, but then I flash my claws and it no longer has a head to bite with.

The remaining three attack as a team, coming at me from all sides. Not good enough. I plunge my claws into the closest one's head before sticking out a foot to catch the next one in the face. I rip my claws out of the bug's skull and use them to slash the third attacker into thirds, raining bits of him down before I turn my focus towards the last bug. One stab is enough to put him in the grave.

I glance around at the bugs to see that the rest of them are backing off, all of their blue eyes upon my claws. For a moment I believe that I have won. Then another bug comes forward, one that is larger than the others by at least a foot and has strange markings all along its side.

"Yer a special one, aren't ya?" I ask it while also glancing around to see that none of the other bastards are that tall. "Well, come on then. Show me how special you are!" I bellow as I lunge towards it, but I'm practically on top of the creature before its horn begins to glow. I have a second to realize that it can use magic before a flash of green fills my eyes.

Then everything goes black.