The sun slowly rose up from the mountainside of Ashen Nest, a small village located near the capital of the griffin kingdom. This little town was known as a trading point between ponies, griffin, minotaurs, diamond dogs and the occasional young dragon could buy and sell wares on even grounds. Even though this community was in griffin territory, it also had a strong variety of species that lived together due to the considerable importance of the economical relations between nations. Of course, the multiculturalism wasn't as completely peaceful as one might think, thankfully the local guards were always monitoring the crowd that rose as soon as the day began and dwindled gradually on the course of the afternoon.

In order to introduce an air of trust to the different people that went to and fro in the marketplace, the local wardens hailed from almost every country in the world. Most of the guards were hired only if they covered a certain amount of years of service in their respective countries with a clean record and a recommendation from the highest autority in their respective land. There were a few exceptions, only applied if the candidate came from Ashen Nest and showed enough capabilities to make themselves useful under pressure. This conditions were established not only because of criminal activities, the main reason was the constant attacks of creatures wandering from the wild outskirts of the town.

Most of the ponies who traveled frecuently to this trading point were aware that mother nature wasn't as kind as it is back in Equestria. Even some of them preferred living in the Everfree forest for a week rather than to cross the grove leading to Ashen Nest on a good day. The animals here would make a manticore cringe in fear and the timberwolves wish to be made out of stone; the plants could be as well reclassified as animals with their seemingly erratic behavior, constantly luring other living beings to their, admitedly beautiful, deathtraps; and lastly the weather was so harsh during some times of the year that made the journeys last a lot longer than expected. As dangerous as it is, the forest is the most viable way to Ashen Nest.

Ashen Nest was founded 500 years ago, at the end of a war between an alliance between minotaurs, griffins, some loose packs of diamond dogs and a handful of young drakes, not older than a century or so, against a wave of runaway demons from Tartarus. At the end of the ordeal, this place was used to establish a more permanent partnership simbolizing the strength of the victors. Years passed by and this landmark slowly became a strong trade point in which everyone could get any marketable thing on the face of Equis.

About 200 years after its foundation, Princess Celestia sent the first equestrian group of merchants to establish some international presence in the market. Unfortunately, most of the ponies who went into the forest didn't come back, the trip was too dangerous. It was then declared if anyone who needed to go to Ashen Nest, they had to be accompanied by one of the guards to ensure the safety of both the cargo and the travelers.

Nowadays, ever since the return and defeat of Nightmare Moon, the monsters started acting differently. No longer they waited for someone to get in their territory as they did before. Now they went into town during daytime, not caring about their selfpreservation, and the residents would constantly complain about horrible visions of monsters unkown to the world, far too horrifying for any sane mind to develop over a simple nightmare.

This morning a particular guard was doing his normal patrol around some of the smaller stores and stands placed near the skirts of town. He chose this part of the town to make his routes because it was usually bustling with activity early on the mornings and became quieter as noon approached, giving him time to himself during the rest of the day. It wasn't that he didn't like to work, to the contrary, he loved finally giving his skills an use other than to disembowel invading beasts residing in the psyches of innocents everynight. Right now, it was around 8:30 in the morning, meaning the crowd of busy merchants and buyers was nearing its critical mass, and therefore, he had to keep a close eye on the constantly shifting mass of customers, vendors, other guards and the potential thief.

His name was unkown to most of his peers, as they usually avoided him due to his, admittedly, strange appearance. The minotaurs and dogs called him "the lanky one", the griffins dubbed him "the monkey", the ponies thought of him as "the monster" and the young drakes didn't bother to address him as something worth their time, admitedly they did the same thing to most species. The truth is that he was a human, his own name forgotten by the time he came to this place, grown accustomed to the name of Hunter during his first night of his new life. He was looking around for something to happen, something to keep him busy while he stood a few feet from the colorful creatures. He looked up at the sky and said to himself.

"Mmmm... just a few hours more." He started pacing some feet to the left taking a quick glance at the forest, he looked back and returned to his spot. "Booooring..." He whispered to himself noticing that no one seemed to tell his short absence, a good thing because they could report him if they saw that he wasn't responsible of his duties. "Did I check my pantry before heading out to work?, I think I might have to pick up some milk later..." He continued, still vigilant of the loud chatter and the clinking of coins, or bits as they called them.

His internal monologue was interrupted by a loud plea of help, those that one may hear in one of those, laughable, horror moving pictures he became rather fond of when he arrived. Snapping into attention he searched for the source of the scream, it was a store that sold various interesting trinkets was currently being attacked by some thugs. He didn't need to hear whatever they were saying, his job was to stop any disturbances first, then let the guys back at the headquarters interrogate the culprits later.

When he entered the store he found that some items were lying on the wooden floorboards, broken beyond repair, some of the shelves were undamaged as some others weren't. Probably the thugs tried intimidating the owner by breaking some merchandise. His eyes fell on the individuals near the counter and he decided it was best to intervene as soon as possible.

The owner of the store hidden behind the counter was a mare with a tan coat and a cyan mane, she had a golden earring and a bracelet on her left foreleg, the other bracelet was in the claw of one of the griffins that were robbing her. The little gang was conformed out of a large minotaur, clearly the leader, with dark brown fur and an iron ring hanging from his nose, and two griffins; a male of black feathers and brown coat, and the other one, a female, with the stolen item had white feathers and an orange coat. Once they took notice of Hunter's presence, the minotaur chuckled and said.

"Ah... the lanky one comes to have some fun, doesn't he?" He turned to face the human, crossing his arms. His cronies widenend their stances, getting ready to figh or flight any minute now.

"Stop what you're doing cow-face and surrender before you get yourself and your friends hurt." Hunter warned, following his protocole. If they surrendered no one had to get hurt, but if they responded with violence then he had to do whatever was necesary to defuse the situation. 'Whatever the case, I get todo something.' he thought.

"What did you called him, you monkey face?!" The male griffon screeched, offended by the guard's quip. The other griffon was unamused, showing her indifference to his fellow's inmature comeback with a raised eyebrow. The leader of the group wasn't bothered at all, he just stood there with a confident smile.

"C'mon now little guy, how are you supposed to beat the three of us?." During a brief pause, he eyed the guard for any indicator of a hidden weapon, and he continued "Unarmed, I might add".

It was true, he left his weapon, a magic-powered stun stick, back at the headquarters. He didn't like to use any weapons of any kind if he wasn't to kill anything. His unnatural strength and dexterity made up for his lack of equipment at the moment of just having to knock-out an opponent. Instead, he always carried a bag he had ever since he awoke in this peculiar world, it was infused with, from what information he gathered, a primitive pocket dimension spell. It baffled him how many times he used his bag without thinking on its internal workings. Inside it he stored the few things he managed to get during his stay in Yharnam; Ludwig's holy blade, a saw cleaver, a church pick, Kos (or some may say Kosm) parasite and some pieces of armor/clothing he found exploring that maze-like city.

"Second and last warning, give the mare her things back or else." He said in an authorative tone, he waited a few seconds and started tapping his foot. "I'm waiting, what is your decision?" He didn't get any word back as he instinctively rolled to the left, dodging a knife thrown by one of the quadrupeds. "Ok, no more mr. Nice guy" Like a second nature, he sidestepped making another blade to fail to connect, a third and a fourth one followed suit before he realized he was right in front of the minotaur, without more space to move, he didn't had a lot of directions he could have go. Unfortunately, some of the items in the store were hit by the proyectiles, inevitably including more paperwork for him as 'property damage' was going to be replaced by 'heavy property damage' in his report.

The minotaur was quick to seize the human by his neck and lifted him up so that they were eye to eye, making clear the size difference between the two bipeds. "Now listen here, shrimp. You'll better get out of here before we use you to paint the floor red." The two of them were glaring daggers at each other, the human didn't struggle as he felt the grip on his neck tightening. Hunter's hand shot up and punched the bovine's face with enough force to make him reel back a few steps, making the human to land on the floor, undamaged. "Lucky shot, freak!" Said the minotaur with a sneer as he glared at his opponent with murderous intent.

"I can tell this is going to be quick, you should have surrendered when I told you." He adjusted his footing as he waited for the three of them to make the first move. The male griffon lounged at Hunter only for his target to sidestep once again and hit him in the nape, knocking him out cold.

"Ugh... that featherbrain never learns" said the griffoness shaking her head, she glanced up to his leader giving him a nod as the two of them rushed to get pay-back for their fallen comrade. She swooped low to try to inmobilize his legs as the minotaur went with his arms outsretched to grab his upper body in a deadly hug.

Hunter skipped backwards to get out of reach of the crooks. When they finished their failed charge, he dashed forward and gave three quick jabs at the nearest enemy, namely the minotaur who was still regaining his footing... hoofing? from his failed grab, who dazedly stumbled backwards as he fell to the ground. Only the griffoness was left standing, intimidated by the being who managed to beat her fellows effortlessly, she was thinking to decide to flee, to give up or try to win the fight. Without any way to get away unscratched, she chose the smartest option.

"Fuck it, I give up." She said, walking up to her fallen comrades and sat down on her haunches, closed her eyes and held out her claws, waiting for the guard to arrest her. The last thing she felt before falling into unconsciousness was his fingers pressing agaisnt the side of her neck.

"Finally someone does the reasonable thing." Said hunter as the limp body of the griffin flopped onto the floor. He reached to her forelegs and retrieved the stolen bracelet, he stood up and looked around to see the mare hidden behind the counter, scared out of her mind as he approached her and held out his hand with her bracelet. He adressed her, "I guess this is yours, miss..."

"Crystal Ball, thank you uhh..." The mare said as she took her belonging and tried to remember the guard's name, or species at least, "What are you exactly?" she inquired.

"A human, that's all you need to know. I'm going to ask you to wait for some reinforcements to come here to give them a testimony about what happened before I got here, in the mean time I'm taking these scum with me." He gestured to the fallen thugs before pickong the two griffins under his left arm and started dragging the minotaur by the scruff of his neck with his right arm.

Slowly but surely he managed to arrive at his destination. He walked past the lobby, on the right of the room was a desk, behind it was a stallion, an unicorn, who was sorting through some papers, he gestured to his cargo and went to the left, where he could take a stairway leading to the dungeons. As he got there the jailers, two griffins and three minotaurs dressed in black uniforms, everyone of them armed with stun sticks, just nodded at him as one of them opened the nearest cell avaliable. He unceremoniously left his cargo there and closed the cell, going back upstairs to talk to the unicorn about the recent events and to request for the required investigations to be done.

"Hello Paper Clip, how have you been today?" Hunter asked.

"Very good, thank you for asking." The stallion replied, "I see you brought some guests, where did it happen?"

"It was Crystal Ball's trinkets and baubles store, near the forest." He responded, "can you send someone to investigate why they tried to steal some cheap trinkets? I don't think that stuff has any value beyond being souvenirs from a gift shop."

"Yeah, I can send a detective to gather some info. You go back to your shift, we know the boss isn't going to be happy to find out that you're not patrolling right now."

"Right, see you later Paper Clip."

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The rest of his shift passed by without much fanfare, no monsters lurked too close to the town, no more thieves and no more than the usual ruckus was left by the time his replacement came by. He just went back home after he made his report of today's activities.

His home was just a simple single-story house, small and secluded, just the way he liked it. He bought it about a year and a half ago, it wasn't expensive because of its location, the reason was its separated ubication from the town. For some reason animals didn't wander too close to it as they did to the rest of the town.

"Navi, I'm home!" he called out as he went through the door, shorlty followed by a mew and the appearance of a white little cat with a blotch of brown on its back. He crouched and stroked her head, then she went to another room, presumably the kitchen, as he headed to his bedroom to prepare for his meeting with the night princess. He discarded his uniform, an iron chainmail, knee and elbow pads, and leg armor. He never liked heavy armors, they always made him feel sluggish. Then he doned the same garb he wore during the first time Princess Luna and he talked.

As he started waiting for the equestrian midnight, he went to the kitchen where his cat was waiting for him to feed her, once he finished he could be free of the fluffy clutches of his little slaver. To help him pass some time, he went to the living room and looked for an invention he has grown very fond of, a radio. In his life he never imagined that music could be transmitted from various places, and he could hear them anytime as long as he had his radio at home. Of course, it was too big to be portable and he hoped for the day someone would create a way to travel everywhere with music at his disposal, but that was too farfetched to be real anytime soon.

He moved to the couch when some soft orchestral music started playing, grabbed a book that was lying on a coffee table next to his seat and opened it looking for a little bookmark he left in the last time he read it. One other thing that fascinated him about this place was the great amount of books he could read, regardless of their genre anything he could find was useful wether he wanted to entertain himself or to learn about the local cultures and their lore. He was truly grateful to wathever deity that he could understand their written language and grammar well enough to get some insight on the creatures that populated Equis.

"I wonder what Daring will do next..." He mused as he flipped the page, noticing a small weight on his lap, he lifted his book to see Navi curled into a ball practically begging for attention. Without anything to say in the matter he started scratching the cat as he went back to reading, the music of the radio and the purring of his pet lulling his mind into a calm stupor.

Naturally, all good things have to come to an end. He felt a tugging sensation at the back of his head, forcing him to put his book aside, usher the cat to get off him and turn off the radio. He turned to the living room and kneeled on the floor thinking deeply, with his eyes closed, of the shape of a man hung by his feet with his hands tied below his head, the mark that was forever etched into the depths of his mind ever since he chose to be the man he is now. The hunter's mark.

Whe he opened his eyes, he found an alicorn looking back at him with an impassive expression in the middle of an endless expanse of stars.

"Hello again, Princess Luna. I guess I owe you some answers."

Author's Note

Hello again, I apologise for the delay of this chapter and how short it is. It's been a few hard weeks for me with the whole broken display and recently dead pet....
But hopefully, if I don't waste time, the next chapter will contain a brief summary of the game and more details about Hunter's arrive to the magical world of Equis.
Any details, grammar issues, suggestions, questions or the like, please feel free to speak your mind.