I Guardian

I didn't sleep well that night. On top of having visions of large men looming out of the night with steel spiked armor wielding battle axes dripping with blood, I also found an unmentioned roll for a Guardian. A body pillow. Shortly after Twilight declared bed time-she's quite the bossy one-I headed to the main common room, as there was a corpse in the bed that hadn't been removed yet out of respect. Twilight told me that we'd be making a trip into town in the morning to arrange the funeral.

After settling down, making myself as comfortable as I could with throw pillows and a few extra blankets, Twilight curled up right next to me, laid her head on my chest, and promptly went to sleep, as if she was a machine that could turn on and off at the flick of a switch. Huh. No goodnight? No pillow talk, like, 'so hunny, how was your day?' I'm hurt.

It wasn't before long when Fluttershy came in, settling herself on one side of Twilight, who just flickered an ear in response to her nuzzles to her side, before using my leg as a cuddle poll. Next was Pinkie Pie. From the little sniffles she was giving, today was harder to hold in for her than the rest. She went to my other side, laying her head on my chest, just inches away from Twilight's nose, and just gave soft whimpers.

“Pinkie,” Twilight spoke softly. “I know you miss him. So do I, but you have to be strong.”

The pink pony whimpered. “I'm trying to, but it's just so hard.”

It's awkward to hear a private conversation right in front of you that you're not apart of. Even thought I knew nothing of my dad, and hated him for just leaving me and my mom like that, to come to this strange world of talking ponies, if I was being honest with myself, I felt in my heart a loss that will never be filled. A loss and a wish that I could have just had one day with him, and not just a few minutes.

Gently I patted Pinkie's head. “I know I talk shit about him.” Both ponies tensed up, unaware that I was still awake. “But it's not just because he'd left. It's because all my life I wanted to know my dad. I wanted a real father in my life. Someone to teach me about cars, to go fishing, how to throw a football...You know the saying, you don't know what you have until it's gone? Well, over the years I learned another one. You want what you don't have. I always told myself I never wanted a dad because of him leaving. But as I looked at others, and saw them happy with their own dads, they're own protectors, mentors for that crappy road between boyhood and manhood, I always wanted what I couldn't have. I never knew what it was to have a dad, until I saw him on the bed this afternoon.”

There was a profound silence as I let my own words sink into my ears. “As much as I hated him,” I finished. “I wanted to know him. I wanted my dad.”

From the door way there was another few sniffles. “Well Ah'll be.” Applejack sobbed. “That's the gosh'darnest sweetest thing Ah've ever done heard a human say.”

I'm glad it was dark, so none of them could see me roll my eyes and blush. “If you're here for the snuggle fest. I still have my left leg open, and there's still room around Twilight and Pinkie Pie.”

Rainbow Dash found her way to Pinkie, wrapping a wing around her still shaking body. Rarity, who I noticed was till not on speaking terms with me, most likely from me yelling at Twilight in the first place, opted to curl up next to Twilight. Applejack just sprawled out over my remaining free leg and started snoring loudly. For fucks sake! As if talking wasn't enough, they snored! What's next?

It took me about a half hour to fall to sleep, and even there, sleep wasn't that great. I don't know how long I was asleep for, or what exactly woke me. I just sorta came to, blinking groggily at the dark that still filled the room. It took me a moment to catch it. It wasn't just one thing, but a combination of senses that brought it to my attention. The smell of sweet, the taste of ions in the air, the soft high pitched humming of some sort of generator staccato-ed with sharp clicks, the vibrations of the wood floor boards beneath me, and the two red orbs that hung in the dark like dying embers of a fire. Something was in the room, and it was searching for something. The tightening around my legs told me that the ponies were awake, and feared this strange beast, and frankly, so did I.

After a moment, the stranger stopped, standing still two steps into the room. My heart was in my throat as it's red orbs, which I assumed were eyes, seem to scan about the floor until it found where I was laying, covered by ponies. Shit! What was I going to do?! Something clicked on the thing and a shnnk rang out in the room.

“Girls off!” I don't know why I yelled it. I don't know why, as soon as they scattered, hopefully to different rooms, I bolted up and tackled it. I don't know why what I hit felt more like a large, metal pole rather than a being. By the feel of it, I just bruised my entire right side of my body.

With little effort, the thing threw me back a few feet, driving the wind out of me as I hit the floor hard, but I've had worse in martial arts training. Rolling to my feet, I took up my usual stance, front arm ready to protect my face and body while my lower arm was in reserve for a punch or emergency defense. As it walked forward, I kicked out with my front leg, landing a solid low kick to where the side of it's knee should be.

“FUCK!” I tried to recover, but the pain of flesh and bone hitting steel with great force was overpowering, throwing me off balance to tumble to the floor. “Mother fucking bitch!” As it took a step  closer, undeterred by my failed attempt of offense, or my endless stream of cussing, I forced myself up while punching it at it's face.

A strong gauntlet type hand closed around my fist, as something inside laughed. “Guardians. When will your kind learn?”

Holding back more vile language, I gritted my teeth. “It's my first day.” I tried kneeing it in the crotch, only hurting my fucked up leg more.

“Well then, let me enlighten you.” The metal man chuckled. There was a shnnk as something detracted, and it's free hand smashed into my ribs. If I hadn't had anything broken by now, which I doubt, I had had a few broken bones now. “The Hunters are the new order. And we take what we want.”

Again, I was thrown to the floor, only this time, I couldn't get up. The Hunter, as he called himself, stepped towards the ponies that were huddled around Twilight, who was standing defiantly, head down and horn glowing a strange greenish glow. I might have my own opinions on these ponies, but they didn't deserve what ever this Hunter thing would do if he took them. Struggling to get up, I looked at Twilight, meeting her eye.

“You stupid ponies.” The Hunter laughed. “I bet that's all the magic you can conger because of the frequency of my mini generator. Shall I turn it up and watch you bleed out your life through your horn to keep that nightlight going?”

I saw it! On his back, there was a red glow. It's power core for the generator. Twilight shot the green ball of energy, missing the bulky guy completely, aiming straight at me. The blast hit my hand, filling me with adrenaline, causing my fist to hold the power. I didn't question how, I had to take advantage of what precious time she'd given me. As the Hunter laughed, stepping towards them, mocking a collapsed Twilight, I jumped to my feet and slammed my green fist into his power core, causing an explosion that threw me to the ground yet again. The last thought I had was, wow! That actually worked! Then, blackness.

You know that cliché saying, 'the first thing I could recall was pain'? Well, as a matter of fact, that wasn't the first thing I recalled. The first thing I recalled was, me wondering, 'how am I alive?' Then I felt pain and immediately asked myself 'why didn't I just die?!'

Opening my eyes, a burning sensation filled my body. The house, which I had yet to grow attached to, was in ruins. Okay, that was a touch dramatic. The room of the house we were in was in ruins. Rarity and Twilight stood over me, horns glowing a light green, almost white color, bathing me in a soft glow. Applejack was holding my legs down while Pinkie and Rainbow did the same with my arms. Fluttershy, who I noticed was the only one not holding me in any way, was dabbing my brow with a damp cloth.

“Son of a bitch.” I groaned. “What the hell happened?”

For a moment, all were silent.

“Well,” Pinkie breathed in a great breath, launching into what would be the most overblown description of anything I'd ever heard in one breathe. “You woke up to find that a Hunter had broken into the house and was trying to kill you so he could have the rights to the herd, because that what Hunters do, because they're meanie meanies with no respect for what's not theirs, and even then they don't have respect for it, and then you were like, 'girls, scatter, I got this!' and we ran to the corner, because you got this, you're a Guardian who guards us, hence the term guardian-get it?- and you kicked it, him, whatever, in the leg, but broke your foot, not a good way to start off, and then went to punch it in the face, and it gabbed it laughing like, 'I got you now!' and you were like, 'Nope!' and it punched you, breaking two ribs, and you dropped and while it's back was turned, Twilight shot a magic blast that you jumped up and caught like 'Who's laughing now, Mr. Laughy Laugh Laugh?' and hit is generator pack and it exploded, and I was like 'Whoa' and the girls were like 'Whoa' and you were like 'whoa'.” She paused. “That's about it.”

I don't know what stunned me more. That she said all that with one breath, and was still not out of breath-or dead- or the fact that I was still surprised after what I've gone through in the last twenty-four hours.

“I feel like someone owes me an explanation of things?” I turned my head to look at Twilight, arching my eyebrows. “And maybe an apology?”

“An' why in Equestria would Twi need to apologize?” Applejack asked. A spasm of pain ripped through me, causing me to jolt and twitch. The girls had to work to hold me down as my body seized up. After a moment, my body unclenched itself, the pain I was in before lessening.

“That would be the first rib.” Rarity's delicate voice spoke, as if directing the two unicorn's magic.

“Because,” I ignored the healing process. I needed to get to the bottom of this, while still conscious. “You only told me about Guardians. Who the fuck are Hunters, why are they trying to kill me, and why didn't your magic hurt me?”

“I suppose we do owe you that much.” Rainbow Dash admitted.

“There's more?!”

“Lots more.” Fluttershy murmured, dabbing my brow. “But you need your rest. Maybe we can talk about this la-”

“Flutters.” I cut her off flatly. “Listen. I need to know just what is going on. I feel like someone has lied to me about something very important, or at the very least, forgot to explain a few things that should not have been left out.” We all looked to Twilight. “Am I right?”

She wouldn't meet my eyes. “I...I...” She took a deep breath. “I was afraid if I spelled it out, you wouldn't fight. You'd just give up and walk away.”

That surprised me. “What? You thought I'd split and bail on the only living beings that give a shit that I'm here, and alive, and far away from my home? What kind of dipshit do you think I am?” Before any pony could answer, I added. “Don't answer that. Twi, tell me the truth.”

My body arched again, like electricity ran through it, and for a few long seconds, the only sound was my hands and feet thumping against the wood floor. When it finally subsided, Twilight came clean.

“And that would be the second rib. Now on to mending the soft tissue.” Rarity muttered to herself.

“Two hundred years ago there were four ruling alicorns-”

“Four?” I cut in.

“Yes, and shush.”

“Did you just shush me?”

“Shush!” I let her continue. “The ruled Equestria and the Crystal Empire. Then one day they vanished. That same day, strange creatures came out of the woods and other wild places. They were like metal and flesh. Some had wires, and some had strange glassy eyes, but they all had two things in common. They were feral and our magic was weakened around them. You see, magic is a projection of our will, energy and imagination onto the world around us and it require concentration. So to answer the question why didn't my magic kill you, it's because I wasn't aiming to kill, but to give you strength to hit the Hunter from behind." She blushed. "It was a risk, and it paid off."

"Lucky us." I muttered.

"These creatures hummed with some sort of energy, and that humming breaks our concentration.” Her ears folded. “It's like having a constant headache or hearing a high pitched squealing that just makes it hat much harder to think.”

I could relate to that. From time to time, the alarm at work for the back door would go off for no reason, and only the managers know the shut off code. I swear, it was all I could do to keep working, but even then I was half-assing it because I couldn't think straight.

“That's when the humans showed up.” Twilight continued with the little history lesson. “They had strange weapons that shot magic, and it drove the creatures away. Some even had swords made of magic energy that could cut the metal and wires. They defended us, saying that it was their fault the creatures were here in the first place. They said that something called Anamei escaped, and they were trying to hunt her down. At first, there was only Guardians, humans who had the strange magic who could fight the monsters of metal. They were kind. To each town, a few groups of ten hunters were stationed, to fight the monsters while others would go into the wild spots and search for Anemei. Then others came to help us rebuild because the monsters made it impossible to farm like we did before. The wide open fields outside our new town walls were to risky to be in. They showed us new ways, and strange magic they called technology. For a while, it seemed like there was peace, or at least safety.”

She fell silent as I absorbed what she was saying. Almost seemed like something I'd read in a book, or see in the movies, but then again, talking ponies seemed like a Saturday morning cartoon come true.

“What happened next?”

“Those who kept going out to search for Anamie discovered that she likes to go after normal creatures, but she had already caught up all the animals in the wild. They wanted to start using ponies as bait, but the Guardians wouldn't allow it. That's when the fighting started happening.”

“So, what you said about me being challenge?”

“It's true.” She nodded. “But not by another Guardian, but by a Hunter. Sometimes, they consider themselves so much more important than others, that they will challenge someone to a fight, kill them, and then take everything they have.”

I grimaced. Partly in pain, but mostly in the sick and twisted sense of irony. Good guys who are so full of themselves and vanquishing the evil, that that become evil themselves. like a grotesque version of a knight. Classic.

“So what now?” I asked after a few long minutes of silence. “I can't leave this world, because I don't know how to. If my dad was as great a Guardian you say he was, then he must have left behind some hardware for me to use, and it seems like the house needs some renovations.”

Rainbow Dash gave a small snicker to that.

“We need answers.” Twilight stated, adding softer, as if to herself. “I need answers...” She looked at me, and for a moment, her eyes wavered, as if torn between two ideas. She nodded, finally coming to a resolve. “We need to find the princesses again. We need to go to Canterlot.”