“I hope you realize that this will not become a regular occurrence, correct?” Luna shouted back to me, tilting her head to glance at me on her back just ahead of her wings as we silently glided on the winds of Equestria.

“Of course. Only whenever you want me to go somewhere to kill something.” I replied with a grin, having to rely on keeping myself upright on Luna’s back with my feet as my hands were rather full with a significantly large weapon.

Below, we’d already passed over Canterlot and I’d been required to press myself against Luna as best I could in order to prevent ponies below from noticing me. Heading south, Luna had been giving me a bit of a tour of her country which included giving me names of the towns and locations; the only town of significance that we’d passed through so far was Ponyville, home of the baby pervert.

“Not even. I don’t imagine we’ll be needing your specific skills very often if this upcoming event is any indication.” Luna huffed and lowered her head back down to make herself more aerodynamic. I’d have been doing the same if it wasn’t for the need to maintain my balance with the large calibre rifle in my possession. “By the way, I wish to go over a request concerning the dead Manticores.”

“Request being?” I replied, leaning as far forward as I dared in order to be heard.

“You must deal with the body. I don’t care how you do it but it cannot be left to rot where it falls.” Luna shouted back as her wings remained wide open upon entering an updraft.

“Well, I'm not much of a hunter so I wouldn’t be able to adequately skin and use the body parts: meat, furs, tails as you describe them. I can still do so and try to get creative but, it’ll be messy and stink up the place.” I explained as I mentally tried to remember the brief lessons in skinning animals that I'd received from my late grandfather some years back before my deployments.

“I wouldn’t be able to tell you if any of those parts have any uses to begin with. Maybe if the meat was properly cooked, you and Weiss might enjoy it.” Luna turned her head upwards and began to ascend back into the skies again. I’d have been terrified being up this high without any form of restraint had I not spent months learning how to drop out of a plane. Of course, I had a parachute then.

“As you’ve described them, Manticores are basically giant cats with scorpion tails and bat wings, right? Lion meat is too gamey, doesn’t go down very well.” I shouted back, sitting up to relax on our way up before we’d start the glide back down.

“How do you even know that?” Luna demanded in confusion, looking back at me with sparkling eyes.

“I spent a short time in Africa to take down a warlord dictator. The locals decided to feed me and my spotter in thanks and offered me grilled lion with some local herbs and whatnot.” I explained, making Luna shake her head and turn back skyward. “My question, completely off topic as it may be, is how do you seem to know where all these updrafts are at and which way they’re going?”

“It’s quite simple, I've placed a spell in my eyes that let’s me see important details for flying: such as wind speeds, wind directions, how fast we’re flying and what direction we’re going!” Luna looked back at me again, letting me get a better look at her eyes.

“Well that explains the sparkling eyes then. Can you put that spell in my eyes as well? It sounds useful for shooting.” I requested with a hopeful grin. Luna merely shrugged an eyebrow before turning back.

“We’ll see!” she called back as we exited the updraft and began our glide down.

~~~

“Well, that is certainly a desert.” I whispered as we glided down towards a very defined border between sand and stone.

Before us was an expanse not unlike the African landscapes with only a couple unidentifiable trees dotting the horizon.

“It certainly is. The town we’re looking to save is Appleloosa, about four hours trot north from here.” Luna replied in an equal whisper. “They’ve been getting terrorized by a herd of Manticores taking refuge in the desert and so haven’t been able to properly defend themselves.”

“Do you know where they are? The Pride I mean.” I requested, gripping onto the gun’s handle as tight as I could while I leaned down onto Luna’s neck to speak into her ear.

“Yes, they are an hours gallop ahead of us.” Luna replied as her horn began to glow. I could instantly begin to feel an electrical energy spark into my eye before I began to see small numbers appear with arrows and other helpful information.

Raising my weapon and peering through the scope, the readout in my eye automatically compensated for the magnification, telling me the windage and elevation settings as well as the current magnification and range.

“Handy, thank you.” I announced as I searched the landscape for the pride.

Below and ahead of us was a nearly perfectly camouflaged herd of lion things in yellow milling about, tearing into some dead animal that they’d hunted.

They were also much too close for my liking.

“Luna, turn back around and head away from them; they’re too close for my tastes.” I requested. Luna nodded and turned us around, continuing our slow descent as I twisted my torso to keep the herd in my scope, watching the range increase to a more comfortable distance. “This is good. Anywhere down here please.”

“Are you certain? This is still over three hours gallop away!” Luna remarked in shock.

“That’s apparently equal to about a kilometer and a half for human distances. I’ve made longer shots.” I shrugged, lowering my weapon again as we came in for a gentle landing.

“I do hope you know what you’re doing.” Luna mumbled as I hopped off her back and began my setup.

“Oh, I do.” I replied as I got down on my stomach, the bipod holding the barrel up and aiming in the general direction of the herd. “Now, is there some way to identify the alpha easily?”

“Not usually. They don’t really change appearances.” Luna replied as I placed the rifle against my shoulder and looked down the sight at the herd.

“I meant, do they ever get some kind of marking or something like that?” I mumbled back, not entirely talking to anyone in particular. My mind was currently invested in sighting in my target as I searched for the target that would most likely lead to the most chaos in the Manticore’s ranks.

There he was.

The alpha sat in the middle of the largest of the pride surrounded by what I figured were females. He almost seemed to have a grin on his face as the females all tried to gain his favour as the other males watched and ate.

“Never mind, I've found the alpha.” I announced, sighting in on the Manticore’s chest. Even at a kilometer and a half, even if it’d hide could act as an armour, a .50 calibre round was sure to kill the target no matter what.

“Was it hard to find?” Luna inquired, crawling next to me on her stomach and keeping her head down.

“Nope, just look for the self-important lion in the middle of the pack surrounded by his harem.” I explained as I adjusted the magnification on the scope.

Zeroing in on the chest of the Alpha, I took a chance and aimed a bit higher; just in the jaw. With Luna’s spell lightly highlighting the winds as they changed, I was almost guaranteed a perfect shot, as long as the winds held up and I could guess the rotation of this planet.

“So what’re you doing?” Luna asked cheerfully, getting as close to me as she dared while her body heat raised my body temperature higher than the edge of the desert already was. I looked away from the scope at Luna as she laid nervously next to me, looking straight ahead as though her eyes could spot my target.

“I’m about to take the shot. I recommend covering your ears.” I replied as I turned back to my rifle.

Luna responded by dropping her head and doing as I suggested, flattening her ears against her head before resting her hooves over top.

I turned my focus to working on slowing down my breathing, steadying my aim for the shot.

“Shot.” I announced calmly before squeezing the trigger. The gun reacted by igniting the powder in the shell to create the miniature explosion necessary to propel the bullet forwards through the barrel.

Luna yelped as the fire exploded from the compensator while I watched the bullet cross the kilometer and a half in a couple seconds.

The Manticore Alpha was dead before he hit the ground.

“What in the world!” Luna exclaimed, standing up and side stepped away from me in shock.

I grinned as I zoomed out a click to watch the remaining Manticores look up from their meals and the females curiously approach their dead lover. Zooming back in again, I aimed at a mass of Manticores at random and prepared to squeeze the trigger.

“Shot!” I exclaimed, making the Princess fall to the ground, covering her ears as tightly as she possibly could.

I squeezed the trigger again and watched as a splotch of red appeared on the yellow fur of another Manticore at random as the gun reacted to the firing pin performing admirably. Two more targets went down as my shot had apparently pierced the first target and struck another one.

By now the Manticores were starting to react favourably: fearfully as they began letting our roars and scurrying about, looking for their attacker.

“Shot!” I exclaimed again before pulling the trigger on another target, ensuring that all my targets were male.

It’s not only good practice, but in some places the law to only shoot male animals. My grandfather reminded me in my mind.

“Shot!” I exclaimed again and pulled the trigger, my feet digging into the dirt behind me to act as a brace from the shock and recoil.

This shot I didn’t even watch for as I dropped the magazine and cleared the rifle of it’s reloaded round, pocketing the remaining bullets as rolled over onto my back to sit up next to my gun. Luna did the same with fear written across her face next to the word “nervousness”.

“Gun clear!” I announced as the bolt remained pulled back to accept another round as I checked that the safety was on.

“That-” Luna began shakily as she looked me over with my gun. “That was… remarkable!” Luna’s fear morphed into a grin with wings flared wide. “The power that was in that rifle! The noise!”

“Yeah, it sticks with you for the rest of your life.” I replied sombrely, all my previous shots in war echoing through my head at once.

“The other Manticores must be scared out of their minds of that sound by now!” Luna chuckled as she sat up and tapped her hooves on the ground beneath her eagerly.

“Not likely. The speed of the bullet exceeds the speed of sound -providing that physics here works relatively the same as my world- so after 600 meters or so the sound of the gunshot just dissipates. The Manticores wouldn’t have heard a thing.” I explained as I stood and picked up my rifle.

“Come on, we should go deal with the bodies.” I ordered as I shouldered the rifle again, checking to see if the animals beyond the scope had run off to let me dispose of the bodies.

“Really? So you could’ve just fired at them till you ran out of bullets and they’d never know where the shots came from? That’s amazing!” Luna remarked , the sparkles in her eyes shimmering just as much as before.

“Do you still have that spell in your eyes right now?” I wondered aloud in curiosity as I continued to walk towards the bodies.

“No, it automatically dispels once I've landed, why?” Luna replied with a mischievous grin.

“No particular reason.” I muttered as I clutched my rifle to my chest, the bullets in my back pocket clinking together with each step.

Luna hurried and stepped ahead of me, cutting me off before pulling me onto her back with a wing before she spread her wings wide and took off again.

“What happened to your anxiety over me riding on your back?” I asked, adjusting myself to sit properly on her back.

“Never mind that. You would have taken forever to walk all the way there at the pace you were going.” Luna replied, shaking her head lightly as we soared.

“You know there’s nothing wrong with walking right?” I asked as I aimed back towards the ex-pride grounds to ensure nothing had returned.

“I hope you don’t plan on firing that with the barrel so close to my head.” Luna remarked as she looked directly at the compensator just next to her head.

“Absolutely not. You’d suffer head trauma from the explosion.” I replied as I swept the area for targets. “I’m just making sure that nothing’s come back.”

“I don’t think anything will be coming back to that area for a while.” Luna sighed in relief as her wings beat the air behind me. “What do you plan to do with the bodies?”

“Can you help me chop down some wood for a couple of pyres? We’ll burn the bodies so that the other Manticores don’t decide to return anytime soon.” I requested as we began our descent back to terra firma.

Ahead of us the four bodies of the Manticores remained where they fell, blood pooling under their bodies. A fifth, female and most certainly alive, remained near to the alpha male’s body almost protectively.

“Oh great, I'm going to have to shoot the alpha female.” I mumbled as as we set down and I was able to load a round into the rifle before chambering it. “Unless you can get it to leave so we can work, I'm going to kill her.”

“Let me see what I can do.” Luna calmly told me as I set myself up on a nearby boulder, resting the bipod on the stone surface.

Luna calmly approached the female Manticore in all regality. The female seemed to detect or recognize the royalty approaching her and let go of the body before lowering into a bow. Zooming way out as far as the scope would go, I took a line of fire at the female’s neck and watched through the scope as tears fell to the ground beneath the Manticore.

“Rest easy, noble Manticore. This is unfortunately the payment that must be made for ravaging a pony settlement. We will treat their bodies will all care and respect that befits the Alpha.” Luna calmly announced with dry eyes. The female Manticore however, continued to shed her tears as she slowly nodded and backtracked into the forest.

“And you couldn’t do that before I shot everything?” I demanded as I stood up with my rifle again, leaving the round in but keeping the safety on.

“No, the Alpha male would have challenged us and we would have ended up in the same position; if not with damages to our body.” Luna remarked morosely as she returned to my position.

Without another word, Luna began to magically chop down nearby trees for use in the Manticore pyres as I set to respectfully prepping the dead for burning.

~~~

Soon enough we had two pyres set up, one for the Alpha with a hole in it’s face and the second one as a group pyre for the other dead.

“Right, let’s get this over with.” I muttered, holding the torch in my left as the day began to turn to night around us. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to say any last words for the departed?”

“No, but I think we have company.” Luna whispered, leaning into me from my right as she watched the remaining Pride slowly approach from the trees.

I nearly dropped the torch to retrieve my rifle right then and there, prepared to defend my life to the bitter end however Luna held me short as she placed a hoof on my rifle and held me short.

“They don’t mean any harm, they wish to take part in the funeral.” Luna whispered as the Manticores all sat down around the fire, watching Luna and I patiently.

“Do they realize that I'm the one who killed them?” I whispered back as quietly as I could as I warily surveyed the massing Pride around us.

“I think they know. They can’t explain the deaths and they know that I'm not capable of such fatalities so they think it was you and your magic stick.” Luna explained in equal tone of voice as she watched the other half of the Pride. “Best light the pyres now before they start getting restless.”

“Yeah,” I breathed and stepped forward to the piles of wood, plunging the torch into the depths of the Alpha’s pile before dropping the torch into the second pile altogether.

Stepping back in line with Luna and hanging onto my rifle by it’s barrel to keep it upright, everything gathered nearby watched in awe as the fires burst skyward and the flames licked at burned away at the corpses.

~~~

“That was so weird.” I sighed as we entered into my dungeon again. I set my cleared rifle down on a nearby rack, out of reach of any baby dragons and dropped the ammunition I had left on my desk in my room before dropping down onto my bed.

“In what way?” Luna asked as she sat down next to my bed for a while.

“In the way that I built a funeral pyre for an animal. Next time you have me ‘remove’ an animal, I'm leaving it for the birds.” I explained into my pillow, resorting to turning my head to address the Princess to reiterate what I'd just said.

“I’ll be sure to remember that for ‘next time.’” Luna rolled her eyes at me. “So what’s left for today?”

“If I had the equipment for it, I'd clean my rifle and put it in a protective case. Seeing as I have neither, It will have to sit and wait on the shelf I left it on.” I replied, leaving my eyes closed though I remained facing the alicorn princess.

“For now though, I sleep. Long day and I don’t expect to get much rest.” I added as an afterthought, breathing in deeply of the scents of the dungeon I was in. Earthy.

“Very well. I shall leave you to your slumber. Good night.” Luna wished me well as she turned and left the room. The sound of the dungeon door swinging shut and latching let me finally breath easy and allowed myself to drift away.

Author's Note

So here's another chapter for you all who've actually taken the time out of your lives to read and favourite this, I appreciate the support.

Now, I have absolutely no real military, hunting, or horse riding experience and I was too lazy to do the research so if anyone who does want's to provide factual corrections, I'd be more than happy to chat about it and make the appropriate edits.

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