The Unexpected Adventures of 3 hunters

Chapter 1

This is unexpected

*___------------The Shards Residence------------___*

“8:00 a.m. is the worst time of the day. EVER!” stated Jax as he made his way to his kitchen.

“Would you quit complaining already Jax? I mean really it’s been the same complaint for the past week!”

Jax Shards was an average ‘16 going on 17’ year old guy.  Well as normal as a monster hunter with a fetish for enchanted weapons can be.  Jax had spiked blond hair that (some how) defied the laws of physics, as well as his signature attire of casual jeans, a green shirt, striped yellow/green chest-belt and his infinite storage container on his hip.  Living with his sister/partner, they have been searching there hometown for the dangerous and bizarre for 4 years now.  Finding more weapons than they could count and making enough dough for there grandchildren’s grandchildren to live like royalty, they retired about a month ago.

“Sorry Kelly, but it is the truth! There is nothing to do at 8 in the morning!”

“Ugh… what am I going to do with you?”

“Um…Feed me?” Jax gave her the goofiest grin he could.

Kelly proceeded to punch a hole in the wall with her face.  She loved her brother but, Dear God he was an idiot!  Kelly Shards, the elder of the siblings being 20 years old, had long brunette hair and preferred to wear casual clothes rather than find a single outfit to wear. The one consistency of hers was a storage container on her arm for her equipment, similar to Jax’s seeing as her profession was hunting monsters and all.

“I swear one day I will kill you in the most brutal way possible.”

“Whap dib yo *gulp* say?”

Confused Kelly turned around to find the fridge half empty and the table covered in food. She also happened to notice the bother behind the mountain.

“*sigh*… you better leave some of that for me, I’m going to go vent.”

“Ooh… I feel sorry for whoever and whatever you find.”

“I’ll be back in 25 minutes”

“Kay, see you later”

*___------------Gabel Fields------------___*

Kelly was walking through the fields that surrounded the town.  She had finished “venting” on the local wildlife consisting of slimes, birds, and wolves.  Why they existed as they did she would never know nor did she care.  Seeing as she said she should be back in about 10 minutes she called it a day.  She started to walk home when something she never saw before caught her eye, or more precisely her foot.

“Ah!”

*thud*

“Ow that hurt, huh?”

As Kelly looked to find what stubby perpetrator snagged her toe, she only found a small golden disk with six different symbols on it.  Curiosity got the better of her and she decided to keep the disk, thinking of rubbing it in Jax’s face when she got home.

“Heh heh heh, who’s the treasure hunter now Jaxy? That’s right, ME! Ha ha, ow owowowowowowow foot ow”

After smacking herself for her own stupidity, Kelly proceeded to hobble home and show off her new, shiny whatever it was.

*___------------The Shards Residence------------___*

Jax had just finished eating when Kelly got back.  Being the caring brother he is, Jax made sure to leave some food as promised.  Although his attention was dragged to the door that now hung on only one hinge.

“Kelly, did you really break the door again? You know I have to fix that.”

“That is the least of your worries at the moment! BEHOLD! I have found treasure without YOUR help! HA!”

Jax deadpanned “You found a gold plate?”

“That is not what it is! It’s a … um… I’m not sure what it is.”

“Here let me see it for a moment.”

Jax was busy examining the disc when knocking came from the front door.  When Kelly opened it she was met by a familiar face.

“Oh! Hi Zach. Wha-what are you doing here?”

Zach was the last person Kelly wanted to see at that moment.  Sure the dirty blond 19 year old boy would probably know what the gold plate thing was considering how tech-savvy he was, but he had a tendency to be a jerky showoff.  He currently had his green over-coat and grey gamer shirt, along with pale cargo pants.

“I just stopped by to see how you guys were doing considering you haven’t spoken or sent a letter to me for 3 weeks.”

“Heh, sorry about that, we’ve been kinda busy.”

“Doing what, goofing off?”

“Uh…”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Zach, quit pestering her and get in here!”

Zach looked inside and saw the gold plate. He proceeded to stun everyone with his next statement.

“What IS that?”

Kelly’s jaw dropped and Jax followed suit.  They stared at each other in disbelief, turning to Zach at the last moment before he grabbed the plate.

“Do you mean that this is something that even YOU don’t know about?”

“Yes actually, this is a very interesting piece of technology you seem to have found.”  Zach turned to plate over in his hands, examining every single surface, coming across a peculiar button on the side. “Hm?”

Kelly came in from the doorway to have a closer look herself. “What? Did you find something?”

“Yeah, there’s a little button on the side here, that and these markings look like the light up or something.”

*burp* “Hey, I just had an idea.”  Kelly and Zach turned to look at Jax who had just finished his meal.  “Let’s go turn it on in the field out back, so if something bad dose happen, our house isn’t destroyed.”

Zach and Kelly both just gawked at the sudden burst of knowledge from Jax. Zach was the first to recover after shaking his head and turning to Kelly.

“Huh, today is just full of surprises, isn’t it Kelly?

“Yep, first you don’t know what a piece of tech is; then Jax has a good idea.” Looking back towards the plate, Zach and Kelly jumped when it wasn’t there any more.

“Uh guys … are we going or what?” Jax was already at the door ready to go with the golden disk under his arm.  Without saying another word the trio setout to the fields to see what the golden plate could do.

*___------------Gabel’s Crossing------------___*

Halfway to the fields, the trio simply chatted about the past 3 weeks and how they were holding up.  Jax and Kelly told stories of there ‘adventurous’ exploits while Zach explained the finer points of living with less money and adventure.

“You two really do have it made” Zach said sadly.

“How so? We get attacked every other day. I’d kill for a life like yours!” Jax retorted earning a smack across the back of his head.

“Would you both just be quiet? Cause we’re far enough from town to test this thing already.” Kelly took a quick look around “in fact, this is where I found the thing.”

“Well then, let’s get started!” chirped Zach as he set the device on the ground and pressed the button on its side.  The device quickly rose about a foot into the air while emitting a soft humming sound.  “This is so COOL! Man am I glad I decided to visit today!”

“Whatever, that humming is getting annoyin- Ahhh! Why dose my head hurt so much!” exclaimed Kelly as she grasped the sides of her head as the hum got considerably louder.  Jax was also covering his ears, his face contorted in pain.

Zach started to feel the effects to when he noticed the plate had started to glow. “Guys look!” The others turned to face the disk and noticed the six symbols had started to glow one by one and in the hum, faint whispers could be herd with each symbol.

Honesty… The apples on the upper left started glowing red…

Kindness… The pink butterflies on the lower right started to glow as well…

Generosity… The blue diamonds on the upper right…

The voice grew clearer with every light, as the humming also got more intense.

Laughter… The yellow and blue party balloons on the lower left…

Loyalty… The rainbow lightning bolt on the top…

The humming had, at this point, intensified to an excruciating degree causing all but Zach to fall to the ground in pain.  Barely standing, he could see the final symbol in the center had yet to light, and the wind had begun to swirl into the disk as it slowly turned vertical to the ground. As the six-pointed star in the middle lit up in a magnificent hot pink, he could hear the voice as if the person saying it was right next to him.

Magic…

The disk exploded and a bright swirling vortex was left in its wake.  The force of the blast didn’t send him flying but rather it started to pull him and the others in!  Zach grabbed onto the ground so he wouldn’t get sucked in but Jax and Kelly both flew into him, making him lose his grip.  All three of them screamed as they fell through the gaping hole in reality. Zach felt like he was being stretched and twisted as they flew forward.  A second hole appeared in their path and engulfed them.

As they felt to the ground, Zach, Jax and Kelly lost hold on their ability to stay awake and fell into the blackness that had begun to engulf there vision, drifting into unconsciousness.

*___------------Ponyville Library------------___*

A violet unicorn was reading a book in the library while drinking some tea when the whole building suddenly shook uncontrollably.  Her dragon assistant, who was sleeping-in after a late night of helping her, awoke with a start upstairs and hurried to find his care-taker.

  “Twilight what’s going on here?!” The dragon screamed as he fell down the stairs only to be caught by Twilight’s magic.  “Uh…I meant to do that.”

“Sure you did Spike” Twilight face-hoofed and left the library, all the while carrying Spike.  When she got outside, the shaking that had apparently rocked the entire town had stopped.

Twilight looked to see if she could find any damage but found none.  She then turned to enter the library but was stopped when she herd her name being called.  She looked up to see a very unhappy rainbow-maned, cyan pegasus hovering above her.

“Twilight! What the hay just happened? One moment I’m enjoying my afternoon nap and the next I’m falling from my cloud!”

“I don’t know Rainbow.  But did you see anything strange when it happened?”

Rainbow thought for a moment before she responded “well, there was a flash of light from the fields outside Ponyville. You think it could have something to do with that shockwave just now?”

“Maybe” Twilight pondered “But let’s get the others first, I think we may need there help for this.”

“On it! I’ll get word to them in ten seconds flat!” boasted Rainbow before she dashed away in a rainbow blur. Twilight began to walk towards the outskirts of Ponyville, hoping that whatever caused something as large as that shockwave wasn’t some new threat on Equestria.

She has had just about enough of those for one lifetime after the whole discord fiasco four years ago.

*___------------Ponyville: West Entrance------------___*

Twilight and Rainbow sat at the town entrance and waited for their friends for about 15 minutes before they started to show.  The first to arrive was an orange mare with a blonde mane, tied back with a hair band.

“Twi’, ya mind tellin’ me what the hay this is all about?” she asked in a southern drawl.

“Let’s wait for everyone else Applejack, I want to only have to explain the details once.”  Twilight remarked

“That’s fine with me Twi’, I’ll just be sittin’ over there then.” AJ replied understandingly as she made her way to a nearby bench.  As she sat down, two more mares showed up.

“Hi Twilight! Is this about that big scary wary shaking that happened this morning? Cause I was wondering what had happened to cause that and mm hmm mm…” the white unicorn next to her had shoved her hoof into the others mouth.

“Pinkie dear please be quiet, that awful shaking made me ruin my latest dress and it will take hours to redo all of that work!” the unicorn complained as she tossed her violet mane.

A timid looking pegasus that had just arived flew down next to the mare “Don’t worry Rarity; I’m sure you can get your dresses done in time.”

Rarity looked at her friend and smiled “thank you Fluttershy, you always know what to say.”  Fluttershy blushed lightly as she hid behind her long pink mane.

Twilight looked towards her friends and decided it was time to explain why she called them here.  “Okay girls, we all know that a rather large explosion of some kind happened earlier today, right?” all of the other mares nodded “well Rainbow said that she saw a flash of light outside Ponyville and we are going to investigate, this shouldn’t take more then half an hour so let’s get this over with.” The others all cheered and they began the trek to the fields.

*___------------Ponyville Fields------------___*

After another botched attempt at their cutie marks, The CMC and decided to call it a day.  That thought changed when an explosion happened not far away.  Scared witless they cowered under a nearby bush, and shook in fear.  After a good while, the yellow filly decided to try and talk “do ya girls know wha’ tha’ was?”

“Applebloom, if I knew what it was, do you think I would be sitting here?” remarked the orange pegasus filly. The two of them started arguing over what the explosion was, what to do, and if anyone else had herd it. The third filly simply watched and thought here we go again

“Come on Scootaloo! Somepony other than us had ta of heard it! It was HUGE!”

“No way! We are way to far from Ponyville for anypony to hear it!”

“Are not!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

“Are too!”

The last crusader’s patience had finally reached its end.

“GIRLS!” screamed the white unicorn filly, ultimately silencing the other two. “Stop squabbling already so we can investigate what happened and figure out what it was!”  Applebloom simply stared at her friend, shocked by the sudden outburst while Scootaloo nodded her head.

Meanwhile in Manehatten Iron Will shuttered in one of his seminars. He felt pride and fear that his student had become a teacher, bringing a tear to his eye.<

“Not bad Sweetie Belle, looks like those lessons on assertiveness from Fluttershy are really helping you come out of your ‘silence bubble.’”  Sweetie blushed and scraped her hoof on the ground “oh it’s nothing really, but we should get going.”

“Yeah Sweetie’s right, we need to go investi…invitee…” stammered Scootaloo.

“Investigate?” Sweetie corrected.

“What are you, a dictionary? Let’s get to searching! We might even get our cutie marks!” and with that the three began to run to the location of the disturbance screaming…

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS INVESTIGATERS! YAY!”

*___------------Ponyville Fields------------___*

As the six friends got to the center of the fields they noticed the grass looked like it had been under a current of water flowing from a single point.  Deciding to follow the grass to the source, they found a solid curtain of smoke blocking there views.

“Whoa, what happened here?” remarked Rainbow as she looked ahead in awe, the others sharing her expression.

The scampering of hooves drew the attention of Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow. The three of them turned to find the CMC charging towards them. “Twilight dear? The crusaders are here.  You and the others take care of this while me, Rainbow, and Applejack make sure they don’t cause any trouble.” Rarity said in a rather dejected manner.

“Ok then Fluttershy and Pinkie you’re with me, Spike, you stay with Rarity and help with the crusaders.”

Spike’s eyes grew with pleasure “Yes, Mam!” he saluted and jumped from his perch on Twilight’s back.  He was willing to do anything to help his crush, although lately he hasn’t gotten the same pleasure from the act as before and he couldn’t quite put his claw on why.  He shrugged off the feeling and ran to help in the makeshift blockade.

As the crusaders approached Sweetie noticed they weren’t alone “Rarity, what are you doing here? I thought you were working on that dress for Spitfire.”

Rarity quickly shushed her little sister “not so loud Sweetie! Rainbow is right there! If she knew I had a dress for Spitfire she would ask me when she would be over to pick it up and I can’t do that to a client.”

“What was that all about?” Rainbow asked before her ears were assaulted.

“Oh My Gosh! Rainbow Dash is here! Can you teach me to fly today! Please please please please PLEEEASE?” Scootaloo begged as she bounced around the cyan mare.

“Now is a bit of a bad time for that kiddo.” Rainbow floated down to ruffle the filly’s mane.

“Awww. But you never have time!” Pouted Scootaloo.

"Heh heh heh..." Rainbow chuckled nervously

During the commotion Applebloom simply stared at Spike. She didn’t know when or how but the young dragon had stolen her heart. She sighed dreamily as her sister walked up next to her.

“What’re ya starin’ at ther’ sis?” Applejack asked her sister with a knowing smirk.

“NOTHIN’!” Applebloom replied a little too quickly, a blush growing on her face.  “Just wonderin’ what ya’ll are doin’ here. Did ya have the same idea as us?”

Applejack chuckled at her sister’s embarrassment before replying in a stern tone. “Apparently so, but that ain’t the point, ya’ll three need ta skedaddle on home ya hear?”

“But AJ! We want ta know what happened!” Applebloom protested.  Before Applejack could respond Twilight could be heard screaming.

“Girls get over here quick! We need some help here!”

Their concern made them forget the reason they were standing there and bolted into the smoke.  Upon arrival they all gasped, for on the ground lay three unconscious ponies, a mare, a stallion, and a young foal. Fluttershy was examining the colt when she looked up at the others with concern.  “All three have concussions; we need to get them to Ponyville hospital now.”

Without need of permission Applejack picked up the stallion and Twilight lifted the mare with her magic.  Fluttershy cradled the foal in her arms and everypony made their way to Ponyville as fast as they could.

End Chapter 1