Tale of a hunter

by Jonny Bench

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Sad, Adventure
Length: 3064

This is the story of Jonny Bench, a pony with a very troubled past, and a very prestigious career. One day, fate decides to give him a gift, but whether or not is is a blessing or a curse is for him to decide

This is the life story of Jonny Bench, the best bounty hunter in equestria. He has led a very difficult life, but after every challenge he has had, he has been able to complete it. Until one day fate decides to give him a gift, but whether or not it is a blessing or a curse is for him to find out.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2016-05-26 02:31:31 UTC

The beginning

This is the tale of a young mercenary, and his rise to fame. From the time of his accident to his happily ever after, he was is now, and ever shall be remembered for his adventures. To accurately portray him though, like all good stories, we must start at the beginning.

____________________________________________________________________________

    The day our merc was born was rather ominous. The skies were blanketed with clouds, blocking out all of the light from the sun. The wind was howling like a wolf and ponies everywhere were staying within the confines of their homes. Other than the sound of the wind, the streets of the town were dead silent. Suddenly the silence was pierced by the shriek of a mare in pain

“Aughhhh! The baby, it's coming!”

She yells while sitting down in too much pain to move, her husband standing right beside her. He is in a state of panic trying to figure out what to do. After a few seconds he takes what he believes to be the best course of action.

“Honey, stay here. I’ll be right back with a doctor. Remember to breathe!”

He calls out as he runs off in the direction of the hospital. The mare continues to breathe heavily as she goes into labor.

“Holy, crap this hurts a lot more than everyone says it should. Ughhhh!”

She grunts out. After a few minutes of agonizing pain she spots her husband down the street, with a few nurses running alongside him. When they get there, they prepare to load the pregnant mare onto a stretcher until the head nurse notices how far into labor she is.

“She’s dilating! Alright everypony, change of plans. We have to deliver the baby here. We probably won’t get back to the hospital in time for her to have her baby. We need to get her into a house and now, or the foal might freeze to death after it’s been born”

The head nurse shouts at the three nurses under her instruction as they run around trying to find a house that will allow a pregnant mare give birth. After only a few minutes of going door to door though, they are welcomed into the home of a light grey Pegasus mare who has a blonde mane and rather curious eyes.

“I’m glad I could help you ma'am. I very well couldn’t leave a mare like you out on the streets in your time of need.”

Says the pegasi to the mare who is about to give birth

“Thank you so much, I don’t know what I would do if you hadn’t decide to help us!”

“Think nothing of it, I love helping other ponies when they need it. I you need anything, just shout.”

The pegasi replies as she leads the nurses carrying the pregnant mare into the guest room. The door shuts behind them and the mares husband is left waiting in the living room wondering about whether he and his wife will have a colt or a filly. They decided to leave that undetermined until they had the foal when they we to the doctor to check up on the condition of their unborn child. While he is thinking about a name for the foal and hoping everything is going alright until he hears the sound of crying coming from the guest bedroom. He rushes over to the door when a nurse walks out and gives him the go ahead to walk in. When he does he sees his wife sitting up in the bed holding two bundles of cloth. She looks up at him and says

“We had twins! I can’t believe how lucky we are! This is the best day ever. What should we name them?”

The new father looks at his new son and daughter and thinks for a minute before he says

“How about Jonny, and Scootaloo

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                                 Four years later:

Jonny is with his sister, parents and parents friend out on a hike near diamond dog territory, the adults are talking while the two foals are running around, playing. A voice is heard off in the distance shouting

“A rock? My destiny is a rock!”

Then, all of a sudden, a flash of rainbow light is seen in the distance, releasing a rainbow shockwave outwards from where it began. As the shockwave passes by the two foals, the voice from before speaks up again.

“Wow, these are the most exquisite gems I’ve ever seen!”

Just before they go to return to their family. When they get to their family though, a rumbling is heard and Jonny looks up the mountain before shouting:

“Rockslide!”

And shoving his sister out of the way of an oncoming Boulder before it hits him and knocks him over the edge of the path. However when Jonny shoved his sister out of the way, her head hit a rock, and she was knocked unconscious. Unfortunately the parents of the two foals were crushed by the rocks.Thankfully the Pegasus mare who had been with the family was able to get out of the way of the rocks in time, and managed to drag the young filly away from the large boulders that continued to fall. As soon as she was clear of the danger area, she put the filly onto her back and flew towards her home town as fast as she possibly could. When she got there, she checked the filly in to the hospital and relays the story to everypony there. Soon, the town walks out to go recover the bodies of the dead family, but they only find the two parents. Derpy, who is helping them search is very confused.

“Did you find him?”

“No ma’am, we have only found the parents but we are trying our best to….”

“Hey! I found something!”

One of the townsfolk yells, drawing the crowd of ponies around a large rock. A large rock with a large pool of blood around it.

“At least we found him, let's move the rock. Heave!”

A pony shouts as the entire town works together to roll the boulder over. What they find astonishes them though. Under the rock, is a pair of bloodied, tan wings. Then one pony notices a sharp piece of dark black rock, lying in the pool of blood and realization hits.

“Oh, sweet Celestia, he survived the fall! He must’ve cut his wings off with this!” He says as he holds up the shard of diamond, “we have to find him before something even worse happens to him!”

The town searches for signs of the colt all day and night, but find no further signs of the missing foal. Everypony decides to head home, and Derpy heads down to the hospital to see how Scootaloo is doing. On the way though, she realizes the situation she is in now.

“Wait a minute, I’m Scootaloo’s godmother! I’m responsible for her now!  Oh no, I’m coming Scootaloo!”

She shouts as she flies off with a sudden burst of speed towards the hospital. When she gets there and finds Scootaloo’s room, she realizes that she also has to tell the poor filly about her family, and why she wouldn’t see them ever again. With that thought fresh in her mind, she walks into the hospital room, and finds the filly awake. Scootaloo asks:

“Where am I? Where’s mom and dad? Is Jonny okay?”

Derpy sighs as she lowers her head and says to the young filly

“Scootaloo, your parents and brother are... gone. There wasn’t anything that could be done for them. I’m sorry, but you aren’t alone. You’ve still got me, and together, we can get through this. Okay Scootaloo?”

The young filly looks at her new caretaker in awe as she realizes what she meant. Suddenly Scootaloo breaks down into tears and Derpy rushes up to her and embraces her in a nice long hug. Eventually Scootaloo stops crying and falls asleep due to the excitement of the last two days. Just before she falls asleep however, she makes a wish that is heard only by her

“Jonny, if you’re out there, somewhere, I know we’ll meet again one day

The return

Eleven years later.

“Happy birthday Scootaloo!”

Everypony shouts as she walks in the doors of sugarcube corner, grinning happily.

“Thanks everypony, today’s gonna be the best day ever!”

She shouts to all of her neighbors and friends in the room. In truth it would be the best day ever. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon no longer bully her, she has her cutie mark, and rainbow dash promised to take her flying later. The only thing missing was her family, but she knew nothing could change the fact that they’re gone. Shaking the bad memories of the accident out of her head, she goes back to partying.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a young colt wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and a leather jacket slowly trots into the the village, dragging an unconscious stallion behind him. As he walks towards the police station, he earns looks of confusion and awe from all of the ponies that he walks past, who are whispering to each other in a chaotic state.

“How old is he?”

“Who is that pony he has with him?”

“Who is he, and where did he come from?”

He smirks realizing that the ponies of the town hadn’t heard of him before. He continues towards the prison, while the stallion he is dragging behind him wakes up and starts shouting

“You think you’re so clever and great don’t you? Ha! You are nothing! The members of my gang will kill you in your sleep for this!”

All of the ponies on the street stop and just stare at the stallion after he says this, while the colt just laughs at him and says

“Your thugs, kill me? Ha! I’ve met breezies more intimidating than them! They have as much of a chance of hurting me as there is a dragon giving up its entire hoard because it felt like it!”

As he continues to drag the stallion towards the police station, after having effectively shut his passenger up. When he gets there he hands over a poster of the stallion as well as the stallion and says to the officers

“Tell Celestia to wire the bits to the same account as usual and that he target is in captivity here in… Ponyville? Heh, haven’t been here in awhile. Might as well see what's new around here.”

He says partly to himself as he walks out of the station, leaving the stallion he held prisoner behind. The guard who the paperwork was handed to looks at it and shouts in surprise

“This is Al Clopone! He’s the most famous criminal in all of Equestria!”

As his associate locks up the world renowned kingpin of crime.

____________________________________________________________________________

After walking back outside, he starts to remember parts of his past: a loud boom, a shockwave of rainbow, and pushing his sister out of the way of an oncoming Boulder during a rockslide, while tentatively rubbing the stubs of his wings. Brushing his memories aside, he realizes that he is quite hungry and decides to go to one of his favorite places from when he was younger, Sugar Cube Corner.

“I wonder how Mr. And Mrs. Cake are doing, after all it’s been so long we might not recognize each other. Well, why not say hi to old friends. I hope they still make marshmallow surprise pies though, those were the best!”

He says to himself as the bakery he is looking for becomes visible. Once he notices it, he picks up his pace, moving at a swift trot towards his prize. He hears many voices emitting from the small establishment and when he walks in, he realizes he has stumbled into a birthday party for a filly who just turned 16. As he sneaks around to try and reach the counter, he remembers that it’s his birthday and that he is turning 16 as well. When he reaches the counter he says

“Somepony else is having a birthday today and is turn 16, what are the odds of that. Oh hello Mr. Cake, how are you doing today?”

Partly to himself, partly to a yellow stallion standing behind the counter. The stallion or Mr. Cake, replies

“Welcome to sugar cube corner, how can I help you today?”

“I would like a marshmallow surprise pie, do you have any of those for sale?

“I’m sorry, but we stopped making them years ago, but we do have a nice lemon meringue if you would like that instead?”

“A pity, those pies were my favorite, but a lemon meringue will do. So, how are you doing, how’s the missus?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to give out information to a complete stranger so….”

“You don’t remember me? Oh wait, hold on, let me remove my jacket then we’ll see if you recognize me.”

The colt says as he removes his jacket and glasses. Mr. Cake’s eyes widen with surprize as he realizes who he is speaking to. He says

“Sweet Celestia, it's you! You’re back! Scootaloo and Derpy are going to be so happy to see you!”

“Who will we be happy to see?”

Derpy asks as she and Scootaloo walk up to the counter. The colt turns around to face them and smiles as he says

“Scootaloo,long time no see! It’s me your brother, Jonny!”

The best, the worst and the feels

The music suddenly comes to a stop as all the ponies stare at Jonny in either awe or confusion due to them not knowing what happened to him. Thinking fast, he pulls a small box out of his jacket and hands it to Scootaloo saying

“Every year, I would buy a present that I knew you would love, hoping Iwould be able to find you and give it to you. Looks like it’ll finally happen.”

She hesitantly takes the package and finds inside it, a little metal box with what seems to be a remote controller,a headset and a booklet. She is about to say that it’s stupid until she sees the title on the book. It is an instruction book on how to use a servant drone, that will do anything you tell it. She hugs him and says thank you Jonny! This makes up for everything! While having a tender moment, a cyan mare walks up to Jonny with Derpy and says

“It is not all right now! How could he leave you here to think he was dead for eleven years? That isn’t what a big brother does, a real big brother would have tried to make his way back to ponyville or the nearest town to try and find his younger sister!”

This strikes a nerve with Jonny and when he gets a good look at her, he feels like he should know her from somewhere, but he can’t quite place it. He asks the strange mare

“And who are you, to be telling me the proper way to live my life. Especially without knowing the circumstances?”

“I’m Scootaloo’s honorary big sister Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in equestria and the only pony to ever pull off a sonic rainboom, and I genuinely care about Scootaloo’s life.”

Jonny is speechless as he realizes who she is. What she did. He says to her

“I get it, I know why you care about Scootaloo’s wellbeing now. After all, you are the reason we’re in this situation to begin with.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Miss Dash, eleven years ago today, a rock slide claimed three things that were and still are very important to me. The most important thing I lost, was my sister, because I wasn’t able to grow up alongside her and now we are like strangers. The next most important thing I lost was my parents, who aren’t able to be there for us when we need them to be and turned a day of celebration, into a day of mourning. The last thing I lost, well, you can probably figure that out if you know the whole story.”

“Really, and what could be almost as important as your parents kid? Money? toys? A book?”

“No miss dash, but think about it. Here’s a clue: I used to be just like my parents and Scootaloo, but now, I will never be the same.”

“That’s a stupid clue! What could you possibly have lost in the rockslide that Scootaloo and your parents didn’t. I feel like you’re lying to me now!”

“The clue may be stupid, but it obviously isn’t as stupid as you! Then again, I expected as much from a high school dropout!”

Rainbow is furious at this insult to her intelligence and rushes straight at him, missing him by centimeters. Jonny speaks again

“You really want to know what I lost? Here let me show you!”

He shouts as he removes his jacket and drops it to the floor, revealing the two little stubs where his wings should be. Many ponies in the room feel their lunch in their throat and a few faint due to how disturbing the thought of losing one’s wings was. Even rainbow dash became unnerved at the sight of him.

“When I went over the cliff, the rock that hit me landed on my wings. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to use them afterwards anyway and needed to find help quickly so, I grabbed a sharp piece of obsidian and started hacking away at my wings. I felt little to no pain from my wings, since all the nerves had died when the rock crushed them. After that I walk towards what I thought was home until I passed out. I ended up in a traveling showmare’s wagon and once I left them I started the path of survival.”

At this point Rainbow’s jaw has hit the ground, but then she asks

“Wait, how is this my fault?”

“Because miss Dash, your first rainboom caused the rockslide with the shockwave it made. If it wasn’t for that, then I would still have my wings, family and childhood.”

At this Scootaloo realizes what her brother said and starts to cry, sobbing out

“Why did it have to happen? Why?"