Sgt. James Blackburn
75th Ranger Regiment - U.S. Army (MIA)
Manehattan General Hospital
August 7th, 2018; 11:34 P.M.

Alright, I thought, Let's see what you got.

I was bent down over the dead griffon, rummaging through his few belongings. Rainbow Dash was across the room, sitting atop the island counter and staring at the wall perpendicular to the windows. After our talk, she had asked for another minute to compose herself. While she was doing that, I decided to check out the body of her first kill. I looked for weapons, ammo, and intel. In that order.

Weapons-wise, he didn't have all that much. There was his knife, which -- upon closer inspection -- I saw was a very ornate steel dagger. It had an ivory handle, and the pommel was molded in the shape of a bird’s head -- an eagle, or perhaps a falcon. There were ornate engravings in the metal around the handguard, as well. Looped into the griffon’s belt was a sheath that matched the decorations on the handle, with more depictions of birds of prey. Apart from that, he also had a pistol on his thigh, in a black drop-leg holster. Removing it from its holster revealed that it was an H&K USP45, a German-made tactical pistol. This one had a suppressor attached to the barrel, and special “night sights” that glowed green to help with target acquisition in low-light environments.

The only issue I found with the weapon was its ammo count: only two bullets. One in the chamber, and one in the magazine. Sighing loudly, I searched the griffon's body for spare magazines, but came up empty. In fact, he didn't even have any pouches for more ammo. He fought with just his knife and the twelve-round magazine in the weapon already. He was either very stupid, or very skilled with a knife; or a bit of both.

Before continuing my search, I relieved him of his belt and donned it myself. As I was fastening it, however, I noticed the small pistol that was tucked into the back of my pants. Dash’s Makarov. I had completely forgotten I had it. I brought it out so I could continue gearing up, letting it rest on the floor for the time being. Once the belt was secured around my waist, I returned the two weapons to their places on it. Then, I resumed searching the griffon.

Apart from the weapons and belt, he was actually pretty bare-bones equipment-wise. He was wearing a black tactical vest, but all of the ammo pouches were empty. There was a radio in a pouch on the belt, which I had taken out and replaced with my own. Other than that, there was nothing. At least, nothing at first glance. Just when I was about to give up, I noticed a very slight bulge in the left thigh pocket of his pants. I ripped the pocket open and pulled out its contents: a small notepad and a pen.

I flipped the pad open and began reading the notes inside. The first few pages looked like surveillance notes. Patrol schedules, entrances and exits, a list of the occupied floors of the hospital. The entries dated back several days; they had been scouting the building for almost a week.

The next few pages were hand-drawn (claw-drawn?) maps of the first two floors, with a red line trailing a specific route. It led from a side-door on the first floor up to the laboratories. The line stopped in one of the rooms near the edge of the map, and a red “X” marked the destination. Just looking at it, I knew it was the glass room that I had found the Truth Powder file in. I also deduced that it would be easy to reverse the map’s planned course, and I could lead our group out the side door on the floor below. We had our way out.

The final page with wording on it was the most unusual. It consisted of two lines. The first read FA - 329.81000, and the second read N - 338.21700. It took me a moment, but I eventually recognized them as military radio frequencies. The one labeled “FA” I knew -- after a bit of thinking back -- was the frequency most commonly used by the French ground forces stationed in Equestria. The other one I didn’t recognize. Either way, it was a good bit of intel.

I tucked the notepad into my right jacket sleeve -- along with the pen -- and stood up. I took a moment to pick up Dash’s pistol, as well as recover my MP7, which had gotten knocked across the room during the earlier scuffle. Then, I returned to my cerulean companion. She was still staring at the wall, her blue hands clasped together and arms resting on her lap. She looked like she was deep in thought. She had lost her thousand-yard stare, but she still looked hurt. Depressed. Broken, even. Wordlessly, I walked over and sat on the countertop with her. I mentally searched for a way to approach the subject of leaving; our group was probably almost caught up with us by now, and we still needed to clear a path downstairs. Just before I opened my mouth, though, Dash spoke up first.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked.

“You just did, but yeah,” I said, trying to lighten the dim mood with a bit of bad humor, and failing miserably. Her expression didn’t change.

“W-what was your first like?” she asked after a pause, “Your first… k-kill, I mean. How did you react?”

I was about to reply, but had to pause. There were a couple of answers for that question.

“Depends,” I finally said, “First kill, or first human kill?”

“You’ve killed other things?” she finally looked away from the wall, to me. Her expression shifted to a look of curiosity, with a bit of grimness still present.

“My dad used to take me hunting when I was younger,” I answered, “I hunted every local animal from squirrels to coyotes... even bagged a deer or two when I was in high school.”

“You hunted deer?” she said, sounding appalled. It took me a second to remember that deer were sentient on Equus.

“They’re… different back home,” I clarified, “Stupider. Just animals. Can’t tell you how many I’ve had jump in front of my truck over the years.”

She nodded, and kept quiet for a moment. Finally, she asked again, “So, what was your first one like?”

I gathered the details in my mind, saying them out loud, “I was about… oh, eight? Dad had taken me out a few times before that, but we didn’t get anything on those trips. This one, though… Dad was sure we’d get something. He could always tell about those kinds of things. Like he had a sixth sense, or something. So he loaded up his old shotgun, handed me my little kid-sized rifle, and out we went.

“I remember it was cold that day. Tail end of gun season, late November. We walked around the forest for hours. Dried leaves were everywhere, so we had to move real slow, or we’d scare away the animals. Eventually, we stopped at this small creek to take a break. We sat down on a fallen tree near the creek bed. My dad started getting snacks out of his backpack; he always brought something with him when he hunted, since he planned to be out all day.

“So, while we were getting ready to eat, this little whitetail rabbit hops out of a bush just across the creek -- I guess he had the same idea, wanting to go to the creek to rest. So the little guy hops out, starts looking and sniffing around to make sure he wasn’t in danger, and then goes over to the water to get a drink. Now, my dad sees this, and a huge smile spreads across his face. He always liked it when he was proved right, and the rabbit did just that.

“Anyway, Dad moves real slow, picking up the shotgun carefully so he doesn’t scare the little guy away. He gets down on one knee, shoulders the gun, and takes his time lining up the shot. Just before he pulls the trigger, though, he stops and looks back at me -- like he just then remembered I was there. He lowers his gun, puts it back on the ground… and then he picks up my gun, my little rifle. He gives it to me, and says very quietly, ‘Son, you take the shot.’ At first, I was real excited, thinking to myself ‘Wow, he’s gonna let me shoot it.’ But then, I line up the shot, and I start thinking about it hard. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to kill it, I mean, it wasn’t doing anything to me, just sitting there in the leaves drinking from a creek. So, I hesitated. I just stood there, holding up my tiny little rifle, keeping the sights right on his face -- right between the eyes.

“My dad sees this and starts egging me on, saying, ‘Come on, you can do it. Shoot it.’ But I’m really thinking about it now, and I realize, I don’t want to kill it. So, I start shaking my head no, but I keep my rifle up for some reason. My dad... he never liked being told no, so he gets a bit irritated. And then he just shouts, ‘SHOOT IT!’ at the top of his lungs. It echoes all through the forest, scares the shit out of the rabbit, and he jerks his little head up. This -- combined with my dad’s yelling -- startles me, and my hands clench. The gun goes off, and the rabbit just drops. No scream, no final hop, nothing. He just flops to the ground.

“Dad starts laughing, and praising me, saying ‘Good job, sport!’ He walks across the creek and picks it up, carries it over to our log, and holds it out to me. It had a little hole in its head, leaking blood. Right between the eyes. My dad, still smiling, tells me to take it. To hold it. I didn’t want to make him mad, so I put my rifle down and took the rabbit from him. It was… just the weirdest feeling ever. It was warm, but real stiff. Lifeless. Not how a rabbit should feel.”

I stopped talking for a second to breathe out a loud sigh, and then said, “You know, a part of me was excited and happy that I made my dad proud; but… I still had nightmares for a month after that. He didn’t take me out again for a long time. I think I was… twelve when I finally asked to go again. By then, I think I was old enough to handle it, so my next kill -- a… turkey, I think -- didn’t really hit me as hard.”

Rainbow Dash was quiet the entire time, listening to my tale with rapt attention. Even after I was done, she stayed silent, taking in my story. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she said, “So, how do you go from that… to…” she trailed off, but I knew what she was alluding to.

“It depends on the person. Some people never do. Some just go crazy. Me, I equalize it with hunting,” at her confused look, I elaborated, “When you hunt, you’re killing to survive. If that animal doesn’t die, then you die. The military is the same way; if you don’t kill the enemy, that enemy will kill you. So, that’s what you do. You kill in order to live.”

Dash was once again quiet for a minute, eventually saying, “So what about these guys?” she gestured towards the corpse behind us, “How is any of what they’re doing survival?”

Without hesitation, I said, “They are not soldiers, Dash,” I could feel the anger slowly rising inside me as I thought back to everything I’d witnessed so far that night. There was only one way I could describe our foes, “They’re monsters. Rabid animals that need to be put down before they can hurt anyone else.”

When she looked at me, I could see the fear in her eyes. Whether she was afraid of what my words meant, or just me, I had no idea. Eventually, the fear died down, replaced with a look of resignation. She sighed and asked, “So, what does that make us, then?”

Before responding, I held out her Makarov to her. She reached out, hesitating only a second, before wrapping a hand around the handle. As I let go of the weapon, I answered, “Tonight, we’re monster hunters.”

Author's Note

Quick note: the knife mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, I found an image that closely resembles what I originally had in mind. So, for future reference, this is what it looks like:

Image by FantasyStock and ConjalPowernet

So, after a brief hiatus, the next chapter is finally here! Sorry for the wait, but I had a bit of writer's block for awhile. But after talking to a friend about it, I was finally able to break through enough to get this out there. I know it's slow-paced compared to the last few chapters, but I felt that RD and James both would need a bit of a breather -- plus, I wanted to do a bit of character/relationship development.

For those wondering how nothing else important is going on during this little talk, it is because they have been magically transported to Soliloquy Land, where the rest of the universe around them doesn't exist for the length of time needed for the conversation. Is it a cop out? Maybe, but after what happened in the last chapter, I think Dashie needs it.

Next chapter is coming. Again, no clue when, but it will come. I'm not throwing in the towel just yet. I'll also try to stop posting blogs bitching about how I get stuck in my writing, but if it does happen, just... bear with me, please. Usually I just need a word of encouragement to keep me going.

As always, I appreciate any constructive criticism you can give me. I can't get better if I don't know my flaws, so please feel free to tell me. Just keep it respectful.