Author's Note

So, after many years of reading people's stories, I've decided to make my own. The romance of this story won't really be a big part, it's mainly going to be a small side-story, but that might change as I write this fic. I will try to publish new chapters once a week, but no promises. You'll notice that, for the most part, I won't give much character descriptions. That's because I always hate it when I form my own image for a character and the description in the fic is vastly different. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my first fic!

Hunters: Soon to be Hunted

The Last of the Soul Crusaders

Hunters: Soon to be Hunted

The knife plunged into my heart and with it a sense of failure. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t kill her, I couldn’t save my people. She’s won, she exterminated us just like she wanted. I’m done, all that’s left is to fall down and die. The stone floor is almost as cold as the feeling in my chest. As my vision darkens, I hear one thing: her laughter.

There’s a saying, “History is written by the victors.” I used to think that wasn’t true. These past few years have taught me that I was wrong. Has it been a few years? Buck, for all I know it could have been decades, certainly felt like it. But, if I’m going to tell you a story, I might as well start at the beginning of this mess.

This all started with Starswirl the Bearded. He was the first Soul Crusader, the deadliest warriors in all Equestria. That’s right, all the garbage you’ve heard about good ol’ Starswirl are lies. He was one of us. Anyway, Starswirl lived in peace in his valley, until a certain princess came with her wretched empire. She sent an envoy to remove him and he killed all ten of them without breaking a sweat. Celestia cut him a deal: train an order of warriors for her and he’d get to keep his land. He accepted and trained fifty warriors to her standards. However, Celestia couldn't let him live, he was too dangerous and she wanted his land. She forced his recruits to kill him. With these Crusaders, she expanded her empire across the land. Once the Crusaders had outlived their usefulness, she ordered them to be executed. Like Starswirl, they were a threat to her reign. All but forty-nine of them were captured and killed. The last one was my father. He trained me to be a Crusader from the moment I could open my eyes. He….. never mind, doesn’t matter, all that matters is that he isn’t here and I am.

I’ve managed to live in relative peace, occasionally having to relocate because some wise pony wants a cut of the price on my head. Can’t believe Celestia is still hunting me down. I’ve killed every assassin and bounty hunter that’s ever came after me. Where’s the action you’re wondering? Well, it begins two months ago, when the most annoying pony in the world trotted up to me in a bar just outside Ponyville.

“This seat taken?” She asked, her voice was scratchy.

“Yeah, but I suppose that won’t stop you.” I lied, I don’t let other ponies sit next to me, but this one seemed different, I had no clue why. I’d take me about a year to figure that one out. She sat down, and immediately asked another question.

“You have an interesting way of making friends, don’t you?”

“What little friends I have.”

“You don’t have many friends?”

“I’m not exactly a social pony.” Funny, this was about the longest conversation I’d ever had with anyone but my father. But here I was, chatting it up with a stranger and saying I’m not social.

“How many friends do you have?” She asked. She was encroaching on more and more of my personal life, but I paid it no nevermind.

“Not many really. You’re about the first pony I’ve met here.”

“Oh, so you’re new here?”

“You could say that.”

“Well then allow me to introduce myself! My name is Rainbow Dash! What’s yours?”

“Mar- Striker, my name’s Striker” I almost forgot I’m not supposed to use my real name, I’m wanted after all. If she knew who I was, she’d probably scream for the guards.

“Well Striker it is nice to meet you! Can I get you a drink?

“By all means…”

She ordered us drinks and we got to talking. An hour or so later and I almost felt comfortable. I never feel comfortable in public, I’m always on my toes, watching for anything suspicious. As much as I hate to admit it, this mare was making me feel safer by the minute.

“So, do you wanna go back to my pla -” An explosion interrupted her and rocked the entire building, part of the roof was gone and roof tiles fell on top of us. I immediately knew what was going on, but I tried to play innocent and oblivious.

“What the hay was that?”

“I don’t know, it could've have been one of the Princesses experiments!”

“What? What Princess?”

“Princess Twilight, of course! You’ve never heard of her?”

I had made a mistake. I came to a town somehow without knowing that one of the Princesses of Equestria resides there. Surely she’d be after me. I couldn’t let Rainbow get caught up in my affairs.

“We’ve got to get out of here before this roof comes down on our heads!” I planned to slip away once we got out of the building, but as always, my plans fail miserably. As we climbed and ducked through the wreckage of the building, I became aware of the fact that we weren’t alone. The bartender had already sprinted out of the building along with the other patrons, we should've been the only ones left in the bar. Yet I felt as though we were being watched, by who or what was a question to which I did not have an answer. I kept alert as we exited the building. At that moment, I knew I couldn’t just leave Rainbow behind. The pony watching could have been an assassin, I didn’t want them to mistake Rainbow for a collaborator. Suddenly, I heard the slight sound of a blade being unsheathed and a spell being charged.

“DOWN” I yelled as I tackled Rainbow, as we hit the ground, a fireball smashed into the area where we had been standing not moments before. All I could hear were Rainbow’s shrieks and the inferno raging a few feet next to me. I looked behind me to see who my assailant was. I was greeted with the sight of a purple mare wearing a full suit of golden armor. Her horn, which seemed larger than most, was once again charged with violent energy. As she released another fireball , I countered it with a block spell. With unnatural speed, I shot a spell back at the assassin, a vortex to pull her to the ground. Immediately, her surroundings, including the roof she was standing on, were being sucked into the vortex. As the seconds passed, she had less and less of the roof to stand on. She lept to avoid the incoming wave, but she could not evade it. She was sucked into the vortex and smashed into the ground with bone-breaking force. After she hit the ground, I used a concentrated gravity spell to pin her in place. I slowly walked towards her. As I neared her prone body, she snarled at me with the ferocity of a bear. I knelt down.

“Did Celestia send you? Are you an assassin? Who are you?” I interrogated her. After thirty seconds of silence, anger grew in my belly. I flipped her body so she was lying on her back. I placed my front hoof on one of her broken ribs and applied a small amount of pressure.

“Give me answers!” I yelled, I wasn’t angry, I was furious, not only did she attack me, she attacked Rainbow, an innocent pony. I pushed harder on her broken ribs. She groaned and gritted her teeth in a vain attempt to ward off the pain. After another thirty seconds had passed of this same routine, asking questions and causing her pain, I finally snapped, I kicked her across the jaw, magic augmenting my strength. It was a miracle her jaw didn’t fly off.

“GIVE ME ANSWERS OR I WILL KILL YOU.” I yelled.

“.....ugh, what happened” I heard a familiar raspy voice a few dozen feet next to me, “Twilight?” Did she know this assassin? Wasn’t Twilight the name of the resident Princess? Celestia sent a Princess to kill me? Should I be insulted or flattered? The questions swirled around my head with dizzying speed.

“Who is she?” I said to Rainbow.

“That looks like Twilight, but why would she try to kill you?” She asked.

“I don’t know, she hasn’t told me anything, despite my best efforts.”

“What did you do?”

“Uhhhhh… encouraged her?”

“WHAT? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? THAT’S A ROYAL PRINCESS OF EQUESTRIA!! YOU COULD’VE BEEN KILLED!!!”

“That's all in the past now, for now we have to-”

“Noah whoa whoa, we? What’s this we?”

You were with me when Twilight attacked me! They’re likely going to hunt for you too!”

Twilight coughed and sputtered. She looked up at me with rage in her eyes.

“And they’re going to kill you!”

Rainbow stepped between me and Twilight.

“No!” She pointed at me, “ You’re not killing anyone”, then she pointed at Twilight, “and you’re not killing anyone!” Twilight slowly looked towards her.

“You dare defend him? My best friend? Defending an enemy of Equestria? You will die with him! GUARDS! GUARDS! THE PRINCESS IS IN DANGER. THEY’RE GOING TO KILL ME!” I kicked her in the face, knocking her out, to prevent her yelling. Rainbow started freaking out.

“What are we going to do? The Equestrian Royal Guard is after us! Princess Celestia wants us dead!” She was obviously not used to this kind of conflict. My mind races with plans to escape, I picked the one that always worked for me.

“We need a place to hide where no-one will find us!” I looked around the landscape, “How about that forest?” Rainbow stopped her ranting long enough to look over to what I was talking about.

“That’s the Everfree Forest! That’s the most dangerous place in Equestria! We can’t go in there!” She said.

“Good, that means no-one else can either,” I heard hooves beating on the ground over the other side of the hill, “come on, we don’t have much time!” I grabbed her hoof and took off towards the forest. She wrenched her hoof from my grip.

“No! I can’t go in there! It’s too dangerous!” She yelled.

“I can protect you, trust me! Anything in there is nothing compared to what I’ve faced!” I reassured her.

“Who are you?”

“I’ll explain later, but for now we have to get moving”

“Okay, I trust you.” She placed her hoof back in mine and we sprinted back to the forest. We didn’t get one hundred meters before arrows started raining down around us. I managed to dodge some, but I felt an arrow pierce my shoulder. I was used to the pain of warfare, but I got worried when I heard Rainbow scream. An arrow was lodged in the back of her front hoof. Now I was scared, she wasn’t used to dealing with this kind of pain, maybe a sprained leg or a pulled muscle, but not arrows. Once we reached the edge of the forest I picked her up and darted behind a tree. I felt her hooves wrap around my neck as she screamed for the pain to stop. I did the same and ducked my head as the arrows flew past us. I put a rebound spell over the edge of the forest, the arrows pinged off the you spell and returned the archers. Wave after wave of them fell, their bodies piling on top of one another, blood seeping down the hill overlooking the forest. When all of the archers were dead or running, I lifted my head from Rainbow’s embrace.

“I’m sorry-I-I didn’t mean to-” She was lost in a sea of embarrassment.

“It’s okay. It’s normal to cling to ponies in a situation like that. What do you think I was doing?” I replied.

“You- You were clinging to me too? Do you lik-”

“Like I said, it’s normal.” I interrupted her, not wanting to answer the question she intended to ask. I didn’t even know the answer. She huffed and looked at the arrow still sticking out of her hoof.

“We’ve to get this out if we’re going to go deeper into the forest” She said with a tang of pain in her voice. I quickly removed the arrow in my shoulder, the pain was negligible, but I knew removing her arrow would be harder. She sat down and tried, in vain, to pull the arrow out. I crouched down and looked at it. There was a fair amount of blood, but it looked deeper than I originally thought. I knew if I didn’t remove it quickly, she would bleed out. I started a fire in case I needed to cauterize the wound.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“As I’ll ever be…” She replied.

“I’m not going to lie, this will be very, very painful.” I put my left hoof behind her neck and brought her forehead to mine. I could sense her unease at the odd gesture. I closed my eyes and placed my right hoof on the arrow and gripped it using a surgical spell. The spell grabbed the arrow and steadied it as I slowly pull it out of her hoof. I could hear her quietly whimpering. I increased the flow of magic into the surgical spell, to try and ease the process. When the back of the arrowhead reached the entrance to the wound, I braced. This would be the most painful part of the process. Her wound had already closed around the arrow, making the arrowhead bigger than the entrance wound. I would have to yank it out. I deactivated the surgical spell and tighten my grip on her neck. She sensed what the gesture meant and tightened her muscles as well.

“Damnit” I said. I pulled as hard as I could on the arrow. Rainbow briefly yelled in agony and panted hard, letting the adrenaline alleviate the pain. I released my hold on her neck and backed my neck away from hers.

“That… wasn’t necessary.” She said, still panting.

“It helps to be close to someone when doing that. I needed a feel for your emotional state.” I replied. Now that I look back, I realize I was just making excuses, I had grown fond of her. Why was I? She would probably run away if she knew who I was. Luckily, I didn’t have to tell her. She just asked me.

“So, who are you?” She asked, not seconds later.

“Well, my name’s not Striker.” I told her.

“What is it?”

“Marcus.” She recoiled in shock at hearing my real name, “Ha, you know who I am.”

“Of course, you’re the most d-dangerous pony in Equestria!”

“That’s putting it mildly. But fear not, you are not on my list of people to kill, quite the opposite in fact.”

“What? Why?”

“By now, every guard and royal in Equestria wants you dead, along with me. That gives us common enemies. That means I need you alive. You’re the only ally I’ve got.”

“Why me? I’m not important!”

“You have knowledge of the land and, with those muscles, you could fight too.”

“No, I’m not going to kill anyone!”

“I didn’t say that, I said you could fight.” She blew air through her teeth.

“Fine, I suppose you’re the only friend I’ve got anymore.” It was my turn to recoil now. I must have recoiled alot too, because Rainbow picked up on it.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ve just never had a friend.”

“Well, I’m glad to be the first.” She got up from the opposite side of the campfire and sat down next to me. I found it odd how comfortable she was with me all of a sudden, but it’s not like I had any objections. I looked over the horizon. It was getting close to nighttime.

“It’s getting close to dark. We need to sleep if we're going to evade the authorities.” I said. Unhesitant, she place her head on my shoulder and soon she was asleep. For a minute I was in shock, then realized I was supposed to act like I wasn’t ok with this.

“Rainbow… Rainbow!” I said as I lightly shook her, but she was out cold. Accepting my fate, I too fell in the deep abyss of sleep.