Chapter 2

“Ti v poradke?”

Hammer stared blankly at the creature, not sure what to make of his current situation. The creature, at least five feet high, sporting some type of beigish cloth wrapped around it’s body, a dark brown mane draping down what he could only assume was it’s head stood above him as he laid on his back in the snow. He had multiple wounds over his body and has lost some blood. He was too weak to move and run away. All in all, things were not looking good for Hammer.

The figure seemed to have sighed, and then bent down and grabbed Hammer by the hooves. Hammer did his best to try to wiggle his way out of the creature’s claws, but to no avail. The grip on his hooves was too tight for him to get away. Once again fearing what the figure was going to do to him, Hammer closed his eyes in fear.

Instead of hearing the sounds of his skin being torn apart and feeling the pain of claws ripping into his flesh, Hammer could feel his body begin to move. This only began to make him think of new thoughts of, instead of eating him right then and there, the figure was going to drag him back to wherever it was hiding in the woods and eat him there. Again, he began to try his best to move out of its grip, but with no such luck.

Soon after though, the feeling of snow and the gravel underneath said snow scraping against his back changed. He opened his eyes to see that whatever the creature was, for some odd reason, it decided to bring him back to the front porch of his house! With a quick knock of its claw on the wooden door of Hammer’s house, the creature ran off the porch and out of sight by running around to the far side of the house.

Lying on the wooden porch, Hammer watched the figure run away, absolutely confused as to why it would help him. Before he could ask any more questions though, the door to his house swung open to reveal his lovely wife standing there. “Yes?” Sewzy called out, having not seen her husband at first, but quickly looked down and gasped at the bruised and bloody form of Hammer. She nearly screamed seeing him, before she realized that he needed immediate medical attention.

Knowing the horse would be safe in the hands… hooves of its partner, the sniper quickly knocked on the door to the house, and then leapt off the porch, rounding to the side and trying to hide before the horse inside would find her. Having gotten out of the sight of the porch and going to the side of the house, the sniper noticed two doors leading down to what looked like a cellar. She knew she didn’t have enough time to find someplace warm for the night, as the sun had already begin its descent into evening from afternoon.

On the other hand, if she hid in the cellar, there was a likely chance that the horses would find her, and would begin to panic at the sight of her. She also concluded though that thanks to her bringing the teal one back home after saving it from the wolves, that perhaps the teal one would be able to convince its partner to not alert others of their kind, that’s if there were more of them.

Opening up the cellar doors as quietly as possible, she was able to descend into the dark and arid room. As she finally got to the bottom of the steps, she was large enough to stretch out to the cellar doors and close them back up without having to go up much. With the best of her ability, she began to scan the small storage room for any place she could hide. Unfortunately, that seemed to be impossible as the only source of light was the crack of sunlight coming in from the doors. Feeling the edge of the wall and moving as slow as possible to avoid tripping over anything, the sniper was able to find a corner to crouch in. Leaning her rifle against the wall, she was able to find some boxes to cover her in case one of the horses would come down and possibly find her.

Why did she care so much for the little horse?

Because she didn’t seem to have the answers at the moment, she could only shrug, and began to go to sleep. Hoping to wake up in the early morn as to avoid any drama, thoughts of the sniper’s old world ran through her mind as she closed her eyes.

Sewzy had been able to pick Hammer up with her magic and quickly bring him into the bedroom and place him onto the bed, doing her best not to harm him further. “What in Equestria happened to you?!” She exclaimed, clearly panicked over his current status. She quickly got out a kettle to boil some more water while at the same time throwing some wood into the oven to keep it burning, and as the water boiled, she began to attend to Hammer’s other wounds. For several hours she stayed by his side, constantly tending to his needs throughout the night.

As the rays of Celestia’s sun shone themselves the cracked window of their home, Sewzy groaned under her breath, cursing Celestia herself for forcing her to wake up so early each morning. She laid eyes on her husband, sleeping peacefully in bed. Lifting her navy blue hoof up to the teal pony’s face, she gently stroked his mane out of the way, revealing the bruised and battered form of her husband’s face. She leaned in and kissed the tip of his muzzle, whispering to him that she would return soon.

Opening the bottom part of the stove in the next room, she noticed that she had used the last of the firewood the night before heating up the kettle. With a sigh, she put a scarf around her neck and grabbed the lumber axe with her magic as she opened the front and walked out into the cold, brisk morning. While she cut the wood meant for the stove, she stopped momentarily as her ears picked up the sound of their cellar doors being opened.

The sniper stretched her body out as she woke up, loosening the muscles that had tightened overnight, before getting up off the dusty floor. Rubbing her eyes to wake them up, she began to make out the room the best she could, and began her climb over the various boxes that were strewn across the floor. When she finally reached the stairs and climbed them, she, as quietly as possible, opened the cellar doors once more. A smile made itself evident on her face as she noticed that the sun had clearly just begun to rise.

Checking that she hadn’t forgotten her rifle, she finally climbed out of the cellar, unaware of the set of eyes that saw her as she climbed out. She stretched out once more, getting a feel for the cool air, before turning on her heel towards the woods, only to freeze when she locked eyes with the only other pony she’s seen the entire time she had been in this new world.

For what seemed to be the longest time, neither of the two creatures moved an inch. Sniper watching pony, pony watching sniper, both were waiting for the other to make the first move. The sniper, tempted to swing her rifle around and take aim, decided against it as she realized the last thing she needed was this pony dead lest the other one were to recover and find the corpse. That, and she was fascinated by something that the pony was doing.

Indeed, it was the first time for her to see the other pony using magic. When she watched the pony through the window, she had never once seen the magic be used, and had instead assumed that the horn was some type of birth defect. An extremely rare birth defect… But that didn’t matter now, as the axe the pony was clearly using to cut wood was now floating in the air, and could become a potential weapon for the pony if things were to go south.

All of a sudden, the sniper’s fears confirmed, the pony, from what she could have sworn, screamed. Using it’s magic to pick up multiple pieces of wood along with the axe, begun to chuck everything at the sniper. Resisting the urge to shoot the pony, she began to dodge the flying pieces of wood by jumping out of the way, bending her back to avoid the cut wood, and covering her head to duck, continually glancing up to the axe, hoping that the pony wouldn’t use that next. Again, her fears confirmed, the axe begun to fly towards her. Dodging out of the way of the lethal weapon by diving forward, the axe embedded itself into side of the house as the pony continued to scream and ran into the house.

Using this chance to get away, the sniper quickly used her upper body strength to push herself off the ground, kicking the snow and dirt behind her as she scrambled forward and made way for the woods. Pausing for a moment, she quickly ran back to where the axe was embedded into the house, and pulled it out with all of her strength, hoping she had enough time. As she finally loosened it and freed it from its wooden captor, she quickly made way into the dense forest once more.

“Hammer! Get up! Get up!” Sewzy screamed to her unconscious husband as she ran into their room, shaking him as hard as she could in fear that the monster would follow inside.

With an annoyed grunt, Hammer opened his eyes slowly, glancing over to his wife once he could see. He had been ready to curse under his breath for the rude awakening, but that all changed once he had seen the distraught face of his wife. “Sewzy?” He asked as he got up, grabbing his sides as pain coursed through his body. Looking down at his wounds, the thoughts of the night before and how he was saved by a strange creature came rushing back to him. That all didn’t matter now though, as he knew he had a wife to take care of. “Sewzy, what’s wrong?”

“M-Monster! Outside!” She replied through tears, burying her head into the blankets as if it was going to protect her.

“Monster? What are you talking about?” He asked again as he placed his hoof on top of her head, trying to calm her down. Seeing his attempts of calming her down was futile, he threw the blankets that covered him off, and slowly turned to the bedside. Getting all four hooves down, and resisting to scream or cry due to the pain. ‘Left hoof, right hoof, left hoof-’ Thinking the pattern of walking to help him through, he slowly made his way to the front door of their little cottage. Once making it to the door and grabbing the handle in his mouth, turning it to open it, and walk out into the brisk morning air.

Before he could take one step out though, he could something pulling on his tail. Turning to look at what was stopping him, he saw a faint, navy blue glow around his tail, which could only mean one thing in his mind. Looking up at the owner of the magic, he gave his wife a reassuring smile as tears continued to stream down her face. “Y-You can’t! You can’t go out there!”

“But if I don’t go out, then how are we to get rid of the monster?”

“Please, don’t do this!” She begged as she walked up next to him and wrapped her hooves around his neck. Rubbing her muzzle into his coat, she continued to mumble about not wanting him to go outside.

Continuing to give off a reassuring smile, Hammer nudged the door close, and turned to give his wife a kiss on the head. “Alright dear, I won’t go.” He told her as he nudged her in an affectionate way. As the two comforted each other in each other’s embrace, the two did not know of the danger that was to fall on them very soon.

The sniper ran and ran, until she couldn’t run anymore. How far she had ran she had no idea, but all she knew was that it must have been far if she was now huffing and wheezing, something she hadn’t done in a long time.

Looking down at the axe she had held in her hand the entire time she ran, the sniper was thankful she hadn’t nicked herself in the leg with it. Why she took it, she had no idea, but at least she knew she had another weapon until the day her trusted rifle would become nothing more than food for fire. Not to mention the other uses she could get out of it.

Catching sight of a cave that was nearby, the sniper thought to make use of it and perhaps make a base camp, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to go back to the cottage any time soon. Keeping her ears open for any sort of danger, she began to walk carefully through the snow and steadying her breath, making sure not to make any type of extra noise. She could only hope that in her mad dash to get away from the cottage, she hadn’t picked up anything dangerous on the way.

Peering into the cave, she hadn’t been able to see very far into it. Out of luck it seemed, the sniper could only sit in the mouth of the cavern, hoping to find a more suitable place to set up camp. With a sigh, she sat down on the cold, hard ground of the cave and began to check over the items she had once more, afraid of having lost even one bullet in the mad dash she had made. Even if she hadn’t been in this new world for long, it was always good to make sure that she still had all her valuables.

Continuing to go through her things, a sound deeper within the cave made her stop for a moment. She couldn’t exactly place what it sounded like, all she knew was that it had sounded like an animal of some kind, a large one at that. Hesitating to continue looking through her inventory, the sniper kept still, waiting for whatever sound she had heard from before. Slowly she reached out for her rifle, steadily aiming in the direction of the sound.

Closer and closer the sound got, the sniper keeping a steady heartbeat as she looked down the barrel of her weapon, below the scope and through the sights. Soon enough she could make out the distinct sound of the clopping of hooves against the cavern floor, but that wasn’t struck out most for her. What struck out to her, was the fact that she was able to make out humming soon after.

Seconds ticked, each one feeling like an hour for the young woman. The revealing of the ‘monster’ would be soon, and with it, she could hopefully put her heart at ease.

The sound of clopping stopped, and with it, so did the humming. Whatever was inside the cavern stopped right before stepping out into the light, keeping itself inside the darkness of the cave. It was evident that whatever was there saw the sniper, and knew to keep itself hidden.

“Well, you’re certainly not the mailmare, now are you?”

*BANG*

Author's Note

Well, I apologize for this chapter taking so long to release. I also apologize if this chapter wasn't as long or wasn't what you guys expected, but with the whole depression thing this past winter and me having stopped writing... yeah... Also doesn't help that I want to continue this story, but the stuff I really want to write about won't be until quite possibly much later, thus essentially forcing me to write this until I want to actually want to write the story. Anyways, hoped you guys enjoyed the chapter, and I hope to continue writing both this and my other stories for many months (and hopefully years) to come.