Travels of a Hunter

Chapters

An enlightening arrival
Equestria, trees and other stuff
Foreboding Nights part 1:Trot
Foreboding Nights part 2: The second day.
Foreboding Nights part 3: The Darkest Night
Start of a Journey
Man's best friend?
Ain't no fight like a Barfight!

An enlightening arrival

/something/ <--
means translation from Hungarian.

I was floating in a dark place when i groggily opened my eyes.

"Ugh, where the hell am I?" I asked myself as i tried to remember who am I and how i got here and where here is.

"Okay okay first off what do I remember? I am Jack Daniel and I am 21 years old. I come from Hungary , a small country in the middle of Europe with great past but now a not- so great present. My family and me went to the USA to live because they got a good job there and life was good until a fateful night both of them died in a car accident. Pfff, yeah, an accident. Cars aren’t supposed to blow up like that so my best guess is that someone didn’t like my parents much. But I can’t do anything about that now. After that I lived alone in a small flat in New York, even though I had the large sum of money that my parents left me and the house that we had lived in. It just didn't feel...right for me to live there.

I became a loner ever since but not to the point that I became anti-social or a total asshole but I gained a large amounts of smart-ass attitude so I could easily stand my place in an argument and I liked to troll if the chance was given. I was fairly tall, over six feet but next to some of the people I know I was a midget. Thankfully I had all of my clothes. Black sneaker shoes and black baggy pants with tears in it. I had a black T-shirt on and over it a black hoodie of my own design (man I wear a lot of black don't I?). I could pull up the zipper all the way covering my whole face but I could see because it had eyeholes covered with a glass like material making it look like it was a gas-mask. But I made it look like one further when I asked an...acquaintance to make the hoodie. He sewed a life like breathing chambers on it where it would normally be. It wouldn't filter anything but at least you could get air from it and it made you look badass, that's a definite plus. But now it was pulled up hiding my spiky brown hair and multicolored eyes. Now that I had my check-up and found nothing out of place I started thinking of what happened to me.

"I remember going home from Dan's place. It was quite cold so I hurried but still went by foot. But then those fucking idiots started shooting each other like they were lunatics, which they probably were. Stupid gangs and their territory problems. I remember hiding behind a car when suddenly one of the fuckers got a small hand-grenade. A GRENADE. Who was the fucking idiot to sell them a grenade? Oh right, a dealer. But what was worse, the idiot had the worst aim EVER. Instead of managing to throw it at the other gang the little bastard HAD to throw it my way. The ball of death landed under the car where I was hiding next to and then a bright flash of red and white, then nothing. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

"Én…meghaltam." /I…died./ was the single sentence I said but what I did not expect was that something or someone replied to me.

"Yes, yes you did. And honestly it took you long enough to realize it. I was beginning to get bored waiting for you." I whipped my head around looking for the source of the voice. Something was eerily familiar about it, like I have heard it before but I don't know where. I tried to look again but couldn't find him (I presumed it was a him because the voice was masculine sounding).

"Show yourself if you dare!" I spoke to the unknown thing and heard a mock gasp of shock.

"OH where are my manners." he declared and with a small cracking sound a creature I had never seen or heard before appeared before me. He looked like he was made from more than one being. He had the head of a goat maybe…hard to decide really, with two different types of horns. A deer antler on the right and a goat horn on the left. With different sized pupils and an absurdly large tooth poking out of his mouth, along with a snake-like tongue. He had big bushy white eyebrows along with a similarly white goat beard. His body was even more mismatched. He had the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat, wow talk about a freak of nature. Also he had a set of wings, mismatching ones of course. One was a bat like the other one was some kinda giant bird wing with blue feathers. He had the mane of a horse and a long serpentine tail with a…. white puff on the end of the tail? I just looked at him with a deadpan expression, not that he could see it (but I had a feeling that he could) and shook my head.

"This is one fucked-up afterlife. Not enough that I die, here I am with a thing that could be the wet dream of Frankenstein." the creature didn't even seem to be bothered by my regard of him as he calmly drinks a bottle of...chocolate milk. WTF!

"And who may you be and where are we?" I asked still thinking of where the hell he got his drink.

"My name is Discord, my uncultured friend and we are.....well honestly I have no idea where we are. But let’s just say that we are somewhere between my world and yours. Of course you are still dead so this could be very well the Limbo as you would call it. And I have a proposion for you." he turned serious, well of course as serious as a mismatched thing with a cartoonish look could.

"Yeah? And what would that be?" I asked him suspiciously as I didn't trust him yet.

"Oh it’s fairly simple. I can give you another chance in life." I got caught off guard.

"You could do that?" I asked in disbelief and he just flashed an ominous grin towards me.

"Of course I could. It’s easy for someone as powerful as me. Heck I would even give powers you...how do you call them? 'Kick-ass', maybe? But it won’t be in your old world. You died there and even I can’t pull that off. No, you would live in a whole new world." he stated all too cheerfully and I narrowed my eyes behind my hood.

"Let's say I accept, what’s the catch?" he just grinned even more (how was that possible?).

"Oh but you see there is no catch. The only thing I want is just watch." I raised an eyebrow. "Now, don't give me that face. You see I can't do much as I am currently just a garden decoration, thanks to six meddling ponies” he mumbled under his breath but I didn’t understand the last part “and as such I can't do what I like to do best."

"And that is?" I asked somehow not having a good feeling about this.

"Causing chaos. As I am the embodiment of chaos and as such I live off of it. And before you try to send me away let me tell you. I do not want you to cause chaos, either way it would follow you since I saw the life you had. In fact I knew everything about what happened in both your and in my world."

"Wow, talk about a stalker." I mumbled under my breath but he just ignored it.

"So what do you say? Deal?" he stretched his lion hand towards me and I looked at him suspiciously.

"Do I need to kill or anything?" I asked him and he recoiled in shock.

"Celestia forbids no! I didn't ask you to be a killer I just want you to live. And if you live then I get my fun watching the events unfold. So?"

I still didn't trust him but hey, it could be better than being here for the end of time. I shook his paw and agreed. Immediately he became giddy and shook my hand so hard that it early came off.

"But you have to swear that I do not have to do anything that would endanger anything OK?" Discord looked at me seriously and then responded.

“I swear upon my word that you will not be in immediate danger” he raised a talon like giving an oath, but what I didn’t see was his other hand behind his back his fingers were crossed. “Now, are you ready?” he asked me and I nodded but then a thought popped into my head.

"Wait, you said something about powers. What are those?" I asked him and he just grinned while shaking a finger at me.

"Ah, ah, ah now where would the fun in it if I told you now? I will just let you figure them out." I shot a withering glance at him but he ignored it.

"Now I will send you off. But I have to tell you to not be afraid of the inhabitants of the world okay?" I was confused about this ad didn’t notice him making a fist with his lion arm with black shadows coming off of it. I was too occupied by my thoughts as he suddenly appeared next to me startling me as he readied his arm.

"Whoa, whoa wait just a minute. What are you doing?" he just grinned and took a swing at me.

"This is good-bye. May we meet again. Oh and if you ever meet someone like me then say hi to him for me okay? And this is for calling me a wet-dream. Bye bye! And ANOTHER thing, watch out for him." and with that he gave me a haymaker knocking me out and sending me through a pink portal that was leading to my new destination. Discord looked proud of himself for his punch then as a thought entered him he snapped his fingers and a black back-pack appeared in front of him. He grabbed it and threw it into the closing portal.

And with a small malicious smirk he finished his send-off. "Have fun with your new life. I know you will."

Equestria: near the Dominion/Gem Fido border

I arrived with a large crash but strangely nothing broke in my body. But I didn’t think about that I I was losing consciousness fast but when I looked up I saw that from the portal a black something fell out and hit me right in the face covering my already blackening vision. the last thing I heard was someone speaking near me with a female sounding voice.

“Now, what manner of creature are you?” she asked me but for obvious reasons i didn’t answer as I was already in the land of dreams.

Pain.

Utter and undeniable pain. That was what went through my head when I woke up. My head hurt so much that it was a wonder that I was conscious at this moment. I opened my eyes to see everything in a blur.

“Ugh, what a dream. I must have drank something reeaallyy strong to make me have a hangover like this. My head feels like it had been hit with a studded baseball bat, a lot.” but my tirade was cut short as I heard something coming towards me. The strange thing was that it didn’t sound like footsteps but more like, hoof steps? The hell? I tried to focus on the source of the noise but I couldn’t do it as I still only saw various blotches of colors but whatever that thing that was coming towards me was, it had a lot of black and white on it. It stopped close to me and started to speak in a soft melodious voice.

“You must be careful stranger, as your body is still hurt. Here drink this concoction, for it will make you sight and mind clear.”

I was hesitating a bit as who knows what could be in that but seeing as I had no other choice because my head was slowly killing me I slowly sat up carefully accepted the bowl that was handed to me (tho how I could get it was a mystery to me) and drank it. The effects were near immediate. Slowly but surely the headache went away and my vision cleared and I saw that I was in some sort of hut. “Strange, I don’t remember that there would be any hut in New York. Where the hell am I?” but nothing could prepare me for the incoming heart attack when I saw what gave me the bowl.

A Zebra. An honest to god Zebra was sitting in front of me looking at me with patience and curiosity. But I suddenly felt that something was different. What It was I could not put my finger on it, oh well, it can’t be that important can it? I had more important stuff now than thinking about it. Mainly openly staring at the Zebra In front of me who was still waiting patiently.

“Did you give me the bowl?” I asked and got a nod in response. I felt a sudden breeze on my fur but paid it no attention.

“Did you talk to me before?” another nod. By this time my mind delivered me the information that I was only in my boxers but something even more important. I had fur, FUR! What the fuck was fur doing on me?

I looked at my hand and noticed that It was very, VERY different from that of a human’s. First off it was covered in short, black fur with a secondary color of….neon-green? With awesome tribal lines, might I add. But that wasn’t the only strange thing about it. It was slimmer than it was when I was a human, but didn’t feel weaker. And now that I see it I have only four fingers instead of five. I looked down my body and saw that the same thing was everywhere. Black fur, green markings oh and by the sings I have a snout. Jolly good! Just what the hell did I become?

With growing horror I looked under the blanket and saw that I had a tail. An honest to god tail- It was long and kinda bushy, but not overly so. It looked like it would belong to a dog…but it was long like a cat’s. Now this is just getting plain weird. But the icing on the cake was when I felt my ears twitch. Slowly, ever so slowly I reached up and touched it. It was definitely non-human as it felt like a dogs, or even something from a wolf. This was the point where I couldn’t take things anymore.

WARNING, WARNING internal process of information ended in failure. System is overheating. Would you like to restart?

Y/N

Well lets try this:

Eeny

Meeny

Miny

Moe

“Yes it is then.”

Thank you for choosing the restart option. Have a nice day.

And thus finishing my internal melt-down of my brain due to the impossibilities of things I just experienced I fainted and fell back to the bed. The Zebra meanwhile just groaned and rolled her eyes.

“Sheesh, did he really have to do that now? He acts like he had never seen a zebrican in his whole life. Sigh, I will have to wait for him to awaken again now.” and with that she laid down next to the bed and waited for me to wake up.

Hours later

I awoke again with another groan rousing the sleeping zebra from her slumber as she slowly rose up into a sitting position waiting for me to properly wake up.

When I opened my eyes I still didn’t see the bland white ceiling of my flat, no what I saw was the ceiling of an all-too familiar hut.

“Please let that be a dream, please let that be a dream…” I chanted the mantra in my head but when I looked side-ways I saw the still sitting Zebra there “Fuck.” I sat up and looked at her. Neither of us spoke up and honestly I was starting to get a bit annoyed with the silence. With nothing better to do I observed her closely and I had the feeling that she did the same. The first thing I notices were her unnaturally large electric blue eyes. And not the bland ones like on color samples but those ones that are made with computer graphics. Although how the hell was that even possible I had no idea but it looked awesome and the best thing is that I could almost see them glowing, neat huh? But moving on, her mane was styled like a Mohawk, adding an ever growing African feeling to her. Her fur was beautiful white with black stripes across it, strangely the stripes looked like there were in a slight of a zigzag pattern and the black didn’t seem fully black, like there was a bit of….deep blue sheen in it. On her flank was a cool looking tattoo of a tribal styled lightning bolt with the same black and blue-ish coloration. Her tail had a solid zigzag pattern of stripes unlike the slight ones on her coat. But what I didn’t expect her to wear jewelry. In her right ear there was a small golden earring. Strange but that didn’t change the fact that this was an awesome zebra in front of me. Having enough of the silence I spoke up.

“So… you can talk.” I asked awkwardly and she just rolled her eyes at me, I mean really, what kind of animal rolls his or her eyes? This place is getting stranger and stranger with every waking moment. Not only I am something I wasn’t but now this Zebra is rolling her eyes at me.

“I think that we have already gone through that path and I swear that if you faint again I will hit you.” oh, so she wants to threaten me now? I like that, she got guts.

“Ohhh, you really scared me now. I’m shaking, can’t you see?” I taunted her but I didn’t see the evil glint in her eyes and when I closed my eyes at the end of my taunting session she stealthily pulled out a big stick from…somewhere that only this land gods know and hit me with a mighty swing.

TWACK

“The hell!” I cried out nursing my head where the impact zone happened to be. I looked up and saw the smirking offender in front of me with a stick in her hooves. “What was that for?” I asked indignantly and she just smirked more.

“Don’t mock me and I don’t hit you. Now, just what in Equestria are you? I can honestly say that I have never seen or heard anything like you.” she asked and I answered

“What I am, my equine friend is….i have honestly no idea of what I am.” I stated and she just quirked an eyebrow at me.

“You don’t know what you are? How can that be?” she asked me and I just shrugged my shoulders.

“Dunno, may have something in common of how I arrived. By the way do you have a mirror or something? I would like to know how I look like.” she nodded and got me a mirror from somewhere. She gave it to me and I looked into it.

Yep, that’s definitely a muzzle there. Not too big but not too small. My eyes remained the multicolor that they were but my hair…well it became black like my fur but with the green stripes in it. If I have to say it looked awesome, not to mention it was longer than when I was human. Not much but the difference can be seen. I tried to stand up, with the keyword being tried. As soon as I stood up I lost my balance and fell forward falling flat on my face.

“Ouch.” I mumbled while massaging my newfound muzzle while the mare giggles at me. I looked down to find why I fell and saw that my leg had changed too, something that should have been obvious. My legs were like and animal’s, like a cat’s or a dog’s so basically I am tip-toeing all the way. Great. But otherwise my legs were a lot longer than I remembered so that means that I probably gotten taller.

Basically I became an anthromorphic human who was built for speed if my deduction was right. I will have to test that later but first, I tried to stand up again and this time I managed to do it, albeit shakily. Decided that I wouldn’t try my luck with falling down again I sat back down to the bed and remembered that I had a host whom was still watching me without a word.

“Sorry. And now that I have that out of the way, may I ask what you are and where we are?”

“Well, I am a Zebrican and you are in my hut.” she answered with a cheeky smile.

“Oh, ho we got a real badass over here!” I answered in a deadpan voice making her smile more. “But really now, where am I?” I asked seriously. She got up and moved towards a small table that was not far from her. She produced a medium sized paper from it and brought it to me. It was a detailed map of what I guessed was this place. But there was a teeny little problem with it.

“Umm, not to bother you but there are some problems miss… now that I think about it we didn’t really get introduced to each other didn’t we? Well to start off, my name is Jack Daniel. You can call me either Jack or Daniel I don’t mind. Now, may I ask your name fair lady?” I introduced myself and watched as a faint blush appeared on her cheeks. “Cute… wait, where did that come from?”

“You can call me Lightning if you want.” she introduced herself and I nodded.

“Thanks, and now that that’s out of the way, can you give me back my clothes please?” I asked her nicely, I mean I had my underpants on but come on! I want my diminished dignity restored a bit (if that is even possible) She just laughed and nodded walking away to another part of the hut. Meanwhile I used my time to look around the hut. It was a fairly simple one with not many stuff to look at.

The only thing really mentionable was a wooden mask of a snarling face painted with red and black colors. In the middle of the hut was a small empty cauldron with the aforementioned table next to it. Other than that, nothing else worth mentioning. “She must live alone here, and probably don’t have many friends either.” I thought to myself as I watched her coming back with my stuff. She placed them down and I immediately put on my shirt and pants.Strangely, my clothes had been modified to fit my new form. That guy really managed to do everything, huh? But when I looked at the rest of the things she brought here I noticed something else there.

“Huh? What’s that?” I asked as I pulled the mysterious item into my lap. It was a black one shoulder back-pack with a neon-green Biohazard symbol on it. It had only two pockets but oh well. “Neat but this isn’t mine, where did you find it?” I asked Lightning and she just shrugged, more impossibility I’m sure of that.

“I found it with you, actually it was on your face so I brought it with me.” she explained to me and I had a nagging thought that this Discord fella gave it to me. I decided to open it and look if there is something inside it. I opened the bigger pocket and looked inside it. There was nothing else other than a paper note in it.

Látom megkaptad a táskát. Nos lenne néhány tudnivaló róla amit el kellene mondanom…de nem fogom! Szóval ennyi. Csak azt mondom el, hogy ebből a részből bármit elő tudsz venni a másikban pedig bármit tudsz tárolni A többit meg találd ki te. Sok sikert kis sakkfigurám. Remélem sok izgalmat hoz neked az új életed. Ja, a tároló részben hagytam neked pár dolgot aminek örülni fogsz.

U.I.: Ez az üzenet öt másodpercen belül megsemmisíti önmagát.

/For the English readers to understand the message was this:
I see you received the back-pack. Well I should explain some things about it…but I won’t! So, ha. But I will tell you this, from this pocket you can pull out anything you want and in the other you can store anything. The rest is up to you to figure out. Good luck my little chess piece. I hope your new life will bring will be interesting enough. Oh, and in the containing part I left some things for you which you will like, I’m sure of that.

P.S.: this message will self destruct in five seconds./

My eyes widened at the P.S. and I dropped the paper like it was plague itself and true enough it went out in a brilliant orange fire. Lightning yelped in fright not expecting this and I just looked at the smoldering pile of ashes on the floor.
“What in Celestia’s name was that?” she cried out to me while staring at the small, now innocent pile.

“A gift.” was my simple reply and she raised an eyebrow at me in confusion.

“A gift? What kinda gift goes up in flames?” she asked incredulously and I just grinned.

“An awesome one. And it wasn’t the paper what was the gift but this back-pack.” I held it in front of her. She just looked at it quizzically not understanding what can be so good about that piece of fabric. Although the symbol on it interested her other that there was nothing peculiar about it.

“Sooooo, what can it do?” she asked me and I put on a thoughtful face.

“Well if what the note said was true then…” I trailed off as I focused on one thing that I wanted to pull out of it. An apple. A simple apple would be the test. I opened the bag and much to my amazement pulled an apple out of it. Lightning however were not so amazed by this feat.

“Wow, an apple. This is some great gift I can tell.” Ah, sarcasm, my greatest enemy and friend in one. How I missed you.

“Har de har very funny, O’ Queen of sarcasm. This was only a test. Now I need something to drink.” And with that I simply pulled out a bottle of Hungarian Brandy (Pálinka). It was in apricot flavor. Well, normally I am not one to drink too much but I think that the situation present enables me to drink a bit. Lightning watched me curiously as what I am doing but deadpanned when I took a large swing of it. I took large gulps of it (something that shouldn’t be done as that stuff can be strong if it’s made like that, fun fact: that stuff can have alcohol content of 86% ) and when I finished I shook my head to get the burning feeling of my throat and tongue away.

“Whoa, this is the real stuff all right.” I said to myself while my temporary audience still looked me like I was an idiot.

“What?” I asked her impatiently and she just shook her head.

“Nothing, just watching you, by the way what is that stuff?” she asked and I held the bottle to her.

“This is called Pálinka from where I am. But be careful. This stuff packs a punch if you drink too much. But you know what? Fuck it, just try it.” And with that I gave the bottle to her and she started downing the alcohol. After some big gulps she immediately pulled it away and started breathing hard. I laughed at her when she tried to shake the burning feeling away, just like I did. “Yuck, this is disgusting. I feel like my throat is burning. How can you drink it?” she questioned me with tearful eyes and I just laughed harder. Saying nothing I pulled out two small glasses and showed them to her.

“Well, usually we drink this stuff from these glasses and not in big gulps like you and I did.” I explained and if looks could kill I would have died that instant.

“Oh? And care to tell, why didn’t you tell me about this tiny detail?” she asked me in a dangerous tone, normally the one that makes you reconsider whatever you wanted to say, but clearly this wasn’t the case for me.

“I just wanted to see your face. And boy, I am glad that I did. It was hilarious!” but as soon as I finished I realized the mistake I did. With murder in her eyes she leaped at me and gave me a full body tackle. Let me tell you one thing. A tackle, like the one I just got from her not only knocked me backwards but it left me breathless. But there were some strange things that I had noticed about the tackle and the afterwards. The first thing was that I felt a brief discharge of electricity when she hit me. Nothing much, just a minor shock. The closest thing I can relate that are the sparker parts of the electric lighters. You know, those things with the small cable and the button that shock you when you push it? Yeah, those. And the second thing was after the initial impact. She started to shake me by my shirt.

BY THE SHIRT!!

I mean, how the hell does she do that? She has HOOVES!!! Not fucking fingers, but freaking HOOVES!! But this all went down the drain when the back of my head connected with the wall of the hut….repeatedly

THUMP

"OW!"

THUMP

"OW!"

THUMP

"OW!"

THUMP

"OW!"

“STOP IT!”

“Watch it okay? I still want to be able to think after this.” I whined and she let me go and got off the bed “Okay, maybe I should have warned you more, but look at it from my point of view, it WAS hilarious.” but I quickly stopped anything more as I saw her glare. “All right, all right I’m stopping…. but I’m still thirsty” I said with a cheeky grin and quickly dodged the incoming apple, the same one that I pulled out from the back-pack.

“Sheesh, can’t you take a joke?” I asked her but she refused to answer. I just shrugged and pulled out a can of ice-cold Coke from the bag and opened it. She watched me with curiosity as I drank the chilling drink. I finished with a satisfied sigh and leaned back. I saw her looking and pulled out another one for her.

“Want one? This is non-alcoholic but it has carbon-dioxide so it will feel…bubbly.” she contemplated my offer and after a time she nodded uncertainly. I opened it to her and she accepted it, holding it in her hoof “How the hell does she do that?” I asked myself and watched as she took a small sip from it tasting the drink and then a larger gulp. When she swallowed however she started giggling. To my amusement she dropped to the floor nearly spilling the beverage and giggled more.

“What is it?” but she didn’t reply as she was still giggling.

“It-it tickles.” she answered finally and I arched an eyebrow.

“Tickles? Where?”

“My throat, as it went down it tickled all the wa-BUUUURP!” Now, this is something I wasn’t expecting. But considering that drinking soda comes with a particular side effect it was somehow satisfying to watch her go embarrassed with pink coloration slowly taking over her facial features in the form of a blush.

“Well, well, well, someone can’t hold it in?” I taunted a bit but she was too embarrassed to glare at me. She only managed to produce a smaller belch to make herself even more embarrassed. I gave a hearty laugh and she started to smile too and then it went into a full-blown laughter as she joined in. We laughed for a while and for the first time since I came here I felt truly happy. However the laughter was soon silenced when I made a large belch myself and we did nothing than just look at each other in silence. Then I started to snicker and soon we were again laughing to our hearts content. But something unexpected happened, I had the sudden urge to sneeze, mainly because of the air that went up my nose (you all should know that feeling). I closed my eyes and breathed deeply to make the uncomfortable feeling go away and while it usually worked the itch now was unusually stubborn.

“AH!”

By this point Lightning backed away from me. Not because of a simple sneeze, but because what was happening to me. I didn’t see because of my closed eyes but if I had them open I would see some kind of black smoke rising from my form and one could make out the faint form of a halo over my head, made out of the same black smoke. Poor Lightning had no idea what was happening but she didn’t dare to speak.

“ACHOO!” and while sneezing I had a feeling I did not expect in a hut. The peculiar feeling of rushing wind. When the feeling subsided I was surprised by landing on my ass on the hard floor.

“The hell…” I opened my eyes just to trail off. For I was no longer sitting on the bed but near the door, which was on the other side of the hut. I saw Lightning sitting and staring at me with awe and shock and I could sympathize with her. Then I realized what happened. Beyond all reasonable things to happen, I somehow teleported. But I had more important matters to attend now. Mainly the darkening edges of my vision, signaling, yet another fainting process in the making.

“That. Was. AWESOME!” I managed to yell out before darkness claimed me and I slumped to the floor. My last coherent thought was something like this “Well, maybe this won’t be so bad.” And with that, I went into the land of unconscious. Lightning just face-hoofed and started dragging me to the bed.

“Can’t you do anything else than fainting?”

Well, here it is. My first ever pony fanfic and in the chess universe too! I got the permission from Rust to use his and BlackWing's ever growing universe.

Author's Note

Thanks you for readig this chapter, however, this chapter will undergo a rewrite, as I am not fully satisfied with the result of it, so please check out the rewritten one, when it will be published.

Many thanks!

Equestria, trees and other stuff

I was slowly regaining my consciousness when a thought hit me. “Ok, I seriously need to stop this track record. I mean fainting 3 times already since coming here is just lame.“ I didn’t open my eyes but I tried to assess the things that were happening around me. As far as I could tell from the sounds, the fire was burning and there was a delicious smell that lingered throughout the hut. “Smells like Lightning is cooking something. These new senses of mine are very useful. This Discord guy knows how to do stuff. Anyway, this smell is so good. I just hope that I can eat it, hehe. Hmmm, I should probably do something to repay her, I mean she had already done so much for me. Nursed me back to health, let me sleep in the bed (into which I have been dragged, again) and the biggest thing is that she could bear with me, however short the time I have been here.”

I decided to open my eyes, and wonders of wonders I was right. Lightning was busy making something that I presumed was food at the cauldron so she didn’t notice me as she was with her back to me. I watched her do whatever she was doing and finally after minutes of watching I spoke up.

“You know Lightning, whatever you are doing smells so delicious that I would eat it in a heartbeat.” I watched as she jumped in the air and gave a soft ‘eep’ as I surprised her. She turned to me so fast that I could almost her neck snap but surprisingly it didn’t and her gaze softened as she looked at me. With an almost inaudible sigh she smiled and trotted towards me.

“Good to see that you are up again but please don’t try to make a habit out of fainting okay?” she chided/reprimanded me but then continued lightheartedly “It would be too much of a hassle to drag you back to bed every buckin’ time you do it.” and for a good measurement she punched me in the arm. It didn’t hurt, of course but none the less I overplayed it a bit.

“Watch it or you will put me back into the sick bed.” I said in a hurt voice but she just looked at me with an ‘Are you serious?’ look. But then she just gave up and shook her head.

“I swear, you bring me more problems than anything in the last year.” she said in mock anger and I chuckled.

“Am I too much trouble? If yes then I can get out of your hair, no problem with that.” I said but the brief look of sadness made me thinking. “She doesn’t want me to go doesn’t she? But sooner or later I have to go…..but what if…nah she wouldn’t want to do that..but still..oh well, no point in worrying about that now. I can ask her when the time comes.”

“Sooooo… what are you cooking? Food I hope because I am starving.” and as to help me in my statement, my stomach grumbled in agreement which brought a smile to her lips. I was glad for it as I didn’t want to see her sad.

“Actually it is. I am making a soup” she stopped and looked back to me “By the way, what can you eat?” she asked me and I answered, still half-absorbed by my thoughts.

“Honestly? I have no idea but i guess that i am an Omnivore, meaning i can eat everything from fruits and vegetables to me..a..t” aaaaaaand this was the point when my thought process caught up with my mouth when I realized just what I had said. Lightning, however didn’t freak out like I thought she would and this was strange for me because as far as I know equines are Herbivores. So I decided to ask her “Umm, aren’t you..you know freaked out by the fact that I eat meat?” I asked her tentatively and she sat down with a sigh.

“While I can’t say that it doesn’t bother me you are not the first Omnivore I met.” I raised an eyebrow at that but chalked it up as some kind of animal but she didn’t finish it here “Just promise me that you won’t eat me while I sleep okay?” she put on a mock fear impression for good measure and I shot her a withering glare but she just waved me off. “Relax, relax I know you wouldn’t do that, or at least I hope so.” she finished with a smirk. Now it’s official, this was for yesterday, or I hope it was yesterday. Now that I think about it, what happened exactly? Well, only one way to find out.

“Lightning?” I called out and she ‘hmm’-ed from the boiling soup “What exactly happened and how long was I out?” she stopped whatever she was doing and turned back to me.

“It was actually two days ago. Whatever you did that night really took out a lot from you that much I can tell. As for what happened to you…honestly I have no idea. When you started to sneeze I only saw some black smoke like thing rise off of your body and in the next moment you were at the other side of the hut, appearing in a small cloud of the same smoke. Other than that I don’t really think that anything else happened. Sorry if that’s not enough but that is all I saw.” she explained with a sad expression and I felt bad for making her feel like that. But suddenly spoke up again.

"Although, there was something else now that i think of. When that smoke started to rise something else appeared too."

"What was it?" i asked her and she thought deeper.

"There was this ring above your head. It was made of the same smoke that came from your body but was very faint and immediately disappeared after you teleported. Sorry, other than that i don't really remember anything else."

“No, it’s all right Lightning. That was more help than you think. I think I know what i am now. Every sign points toward that i am a Dreamkeeper." she just tilted her head in confusion.

"A Dreamkeeper? What's that?" she asked me and i gathered everything i knew about them.

"Well to tell you the truth, where I'm from, Dreamkeepers are just the results of fantasy. A married pair thought out the whole thing. The story states that every human, the species i was before i got here, has a Dreamkeeper counterpart in a parallel universe. They don't know about us and we don't know about them, but nearly everything else is shared. But a Dreamkeeper can look like anything ranging from reptiles to fishes to mammal and even a strange crosses between to or three. But each one of them are anthromorphic, meaning that they have human-like qualities. Their daily live don't mirror their human counterpats but their lives are linked. When the human dies, so does the Dreamkeeper but not vice-versa. And this is what the Nightmares, creatures that want nothing but destruction of every sentient life, want. Because once a Dreamkeeper dies the Nightmares can invade the human it was unknowingly protecting. With me so far?" i asked her and she nodded but i could see that this was just as confusing to her as for me.

"And this is why every Dreamkeeper had a unique supernatural gift. They had powers that had unimaginable potential and power. This could range from destructive powers through defensive to creative ones. With these powers the Dreamkeepers could defeat the Nightmares preventing their annihilation. So basically that ring you saw above my head was the sign that i was using my power. The brighter and noticeable the halo is, the stronger i am focusing the power and the stronger the effect will be. Phew, that was a moutful. Thank you Lightning, now i know what i am and that means a lot to me." i smiled to her and was i glad to see that she had forgotten the earlier gloom and she was smiling too. But my stomach choose that moment to let out an enormous rumble, signalling that i was hungry. She let out a small laugh while i scratched the back of my head in embarrassment.

"Hehe, i'm a bit hungry, say Lightning can we eat?" i asked her and she just let out a small laugh, nodded and motioned for me to follow her.True I could have used my bag to get something to eat but nothing beats the taste of home-made food. I stood up and slowly started to make my way towards the table. "Man, i will have to practice this...a lot." I finally arrived at the table and sat down on a chair, why does a zebra, or zebrican need a chair is just another item on the ever growing list of impossibilities and strange things. I sat down on the chair and started eating the food while trying not to think of how she can hold the freakin’ spoon to eat. With nothing better to do I started a conversation.

“So Lightning, I wanted to ask you something before the whole clothes, bags, and I-am-here-one-sec-then-not thing started.”

“And that is?” she asked back.

“Can you teach me how to read and write?” I hung my head and waited for the incoming laughter. And sure enough she was on the floor not seconds after the words had left my mouth with tears of joy flowing down her cheeks.

“Yeah, yeah laugh it up.” I said to her but she just laughed even more. Soon I had an idea which would make her ask for forgiveness. With an evil glint in my eyes I stood up from the chair and walked towards her. She could see me coming but had no idea of what I was going to do. When I stopped next to her and knelt down her eyes widened when I held up my weapons of destruction, namely my hands, and started mercilessly tickling her. Soon, just as I predicted she was squirming under me and pleading for me to stop. I did so as let her catch her breath and sat down next to her.

“And what did we learn today Lightning?” I asked her like a teacher would the student while she just shot me a look that said ‘are you serious?’ and answered me.

“Ummm, that you are illiterate?” she grinned at my annoyed look but that soon changed to a horrified expression when I held up my hand in a threatening matter.

“Thought so.” I muttered “No, not that I am illiterate. By the way that’s only because I am not from around here as you can see.” here I gestured to myself, heck even a near blind person could see it. I stick out like a sore thumb. But what I can do nothing about that? “Now seriously, can you teach me how to read and write this language?” I asked again and she nodded while smiling.

“Of course I can. But there is something I want you to do in exchange.” I raised an eyebrow at that, what could she want from me?

“And that is?” here, she turned serious and I knew whatever she wanted was important.

“Tell me how did you got here.” I knew that this moment would come and was prepared for it. And so I told her how I came here, although I obviously left out the violent death part of it. I saw fear seep into her facial expression when I explained the being that sent me here and when I asked her about that she told me about him, and damn what a guy is this Discord. Although the cotton candy cloud sounds fun, tormenting others for fun is not. Now I had a bad feeling about accepting the deal with him. Something told me that something…bad will happen, I mean this guy is something akin to a god right? Then it’s obvious that he knows stuff that others don’t. Heck, maybe he can even look into the future and saw what would have happened to me and choose me accordingly.

These were not good news, but I had no other choice than to wait. After this, however we went back to eat and talked some more. It turns out that she really lives alone here and gets her stuff from the small settlement nearby called Trot. I had to suppress a snicker at the ridiculous name of the small settlement. I mean really, Trot? But oh well, new world new rules. She sells various potions that she makes to the townsfolk and buys her desired objects. She also told me that we are in Equestria and showed me the map (now explaining the names on it) and where we were exactly. Near the border of something called the Gem Fido and the Dominion. She told me about those places.

Unlike Equestria where two princesses rule, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, whom raise the sun and moon (something that was hard for me to believe) in the Dominion there was no ruling government, well now at least. There used to be one but that was long ago and now the Griffins that lived there (wow, some bunch that lives in this world isn’t it) are living in small isolated groups surviving from day-to-day. This was a bit disturbing as a whole civilization was dying not far from here and it seems that the group effort to solve this problem is close to zero.

And then there is the case of the Diamond Dogs or D-Dogs as everyone calls them. They pretty much solve everything by enslaving, ponies, griffins, heck even other D-dogs to do their stuff. And all that shit so they don’t get eaten by dragons that are terrorizing everyone outside Equestria.

And when I asked Lightning how she knew all this she said that Trot was a unique town and she heard all of this info there. Hmmm, I might have to visit this town later so I wrote it on the mental ‘To do list’. But since it was late that night we both went to sleep. I offered that she can sleep on the bed but she declined saying that she can sleep on the floor but I was having none of that. So with mutual embarrassment we both slept in the bed. It was quite the experience as I have never slept with a zebra in the same bed but I didn’t think about that as I fell asleep really fast.

The following week went by really fast as I did nothing more than study, study, study and look at that more studying with the occasional helping hands for the various tasks that Lightning needed. Like cutting the wood, helping her gather herbs and so on. I also managed to get the walking issue solved, with lot's of falling and other humiliating situation. And thanks to Lightning I was starting to understand the Equestrian writing system a bit at least. I could at least make out the most basic sentences but writing them was something that was out of my proverbial grasp. Strange, I could always learn to read new languages faster than write them, I wonder why.

But learning to read and write wasn’t everything she taught me. She explained a great deal about the pony society, about how they were using magic and other mumbo jumbo to make their everyday lives easier, much like how we humans used technology to do the same. But the cake on the top was when she said that here, the ponies control the WEATHER. I mean, how cool is that? She said that every pegasi (I nearly spat out my drink when I heard that) could control the weather by moving the clouds and other stuff. Seems like that this Equestria is a nice utopia here and the rest of the world is in deep shit. I don’t want to delve too deep into it. The princesses must have a good reason for them not helping but it’s not like one person can make some drastic changes right? (somewhere a Griffin and a Diamond Dog sneezed)
.
Also during the week I noticed something that freaked me out that how I didn’t notice it, but I chalked it up to me being tired and an idiot. It seems like that everything is brighter…more colorful here than on Earth. Like I am in a cartoon or something similar….ridiculous right?

And now I was outside the hut with Lightning sitting not too far from me as I tried to do something that I could only do once since coming here. That’s right, I was trying to teleport. Part of the deal was that I would get powers, and I think that teleportation can definitely be counted as power.

“Okay Jack, think how did you do it. When I did it first time I felt something similar to the rushing wind. Maybe if I concentrate on that feeling I can do it right? Well, nothing ventured nothing gained right?” I mustered all my concentration and thought about the exact same feeling, soon the smoke that was described by Lightning started to appear and a faint halo was appearing over me. I was beginning to think I did it when a twig snapped somewhere nearby, probably an animal stepped on it, but that was enough for me to lose all the progress I had and the smoke vanished into thin air. I groaned in frustration and felt the energy leave my body. It was significantly less taxing than the first time I had done it but I felt the drain none the less. With my legs shaking I sit down to the ground and Lightning trotted towards me.

“Are you all right? What happened? It started out good but then you just stopped.” she asked with concern in her voice. I just waved her off and tried to stand up, keyword=tried. I couldn’t get up. The maximum I could do was standing on my knees and let’s face it, that’s not much.

“Okay, maybe I am not as fine as I thought I was but don’t worry. I’m only exhausted, but this thing is hard and takes a lot of energy out of me but I have a feeling that later that will change. I lost my concentration and lost it. But it’s nothing to worry about now.” And true to my word I could stand up now, let’s try again shall we? “Maybe you should go a bit further Lightning, I am about to try it again k?” she nodded but cautioned me to take it easy, heh bless her heart, god knows she has a golden one. Okay let’s try this again.

I concentrated again and luckily this time there was no distraction in the last second and the teleport try-out was a success but there was a teeny bit of a problem. Mainly I didn’t specify where exactly I wanted to go and thus I went in a straight line because I was looking forward…..but unfortunately a tree had other ideas because when I arrived my face was immediately introduced to the hard bark of said tree. Faintly behind me I could hear a certain mare burst out laughing while I tried to alleviate the pain in my muzzle with tears in my eyes

“Friggin’ tree, couldn’t be like two feet away? Noooo it just had to be there.” I shot one more withering glance to the tree but it took it in stride, the soft imprint of my face in the tree bark mocking me like it’s saying ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS’, damn memes and internet. Instead I decided to take out my frustration on the still laughing mare via righteous justice.

“Ohhhhh , Lightning!” I called in a sing-song voice and she immediately knew what was coming because she saw me slowly holding up my hands and wiggling my fingers. She immediately took off, running and I gave a chase in spite of my fatigue and the throbbing pain in my face. Unfortunately she was faster than me…MUCH faster but hey, she is a zebra, of course she can run faster than me. But I didn’t give up and continued to run after her until mother nature showed me the middle finger again by having me trip on a root. I sprawled out on the soft grass and held my face as I YET again landed on that, what’s with me and having my face assaulted

I noticed Lightning coming over with concern on her face and I devised an evil plan. Overplaying the pain I started to groan and she spoke to me.

“Jack, are you all right?” in response I mumbled something incomprehensible so she would come closer. And that she did. Four feet, three feet, two feet “That’s right, come here my little victim.” Now she was beside me and I motioned her to lean closer. When she did I whispered one thing into her ear.

“Gotcha!” with widening eyes she tried to get away but it was too late as I grabbed her and pulled out her legs so she would be on her side and mercilessly assaulted her stomach and side. Soon she was laughing but not out of her own choice. She pleaded for me to let go but I had none of it. I continued without stopping and I could her getting more desperate and just as I was about to let her go she somehow shocked me. And not like the small discharge that happened more than a week ago, but a real one.

Although it was brief, it still hurt my hand and numbed them. When I looked at Lightning however my breath stopped, her eyes were glowing softly and there was a look of terror in them. Fear, but I had no idea about the why. Sure it hurt like hell but nothing serious.

I was about to touch her when she stood up and quickly ran away.
"NO! Stay away from me!"

“Lightning, wait!” I shouted after her but she didn’t stop so I ran after her as well. I chased her through the forest but I eventually lost sight of her. I looked around trying to catch a glimpse of her but to no avail as I couldn’t find her. But then I realized that even if I wanted to find my way back to the hut I didn’t know where to go.

“LIGHTNING!! WHERE ARE YOU?”

I shouted and the listened but there was no response, even with my new and improved hearing i couldn't hear her. This went on for a good hour or so of pointless wanderings and shouting when I heard the telltale sounds of sobbing. I worked my way towards the source as silently as I could and my hunch was proven right when I found her beneath a large tree with tears rolling down her cheek. She didn’t see me because her eyes were closed but she heard me when I stepped in front of her. I kneeled down and tried to wipe away the tears but she flinched when I touched her. Whatever made her have a reaction like this can’t be good. “Poor girl, what could have happened to her if she is like this.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked her softly and she immediately snapped her eyes open.

“What’s wrong? WHAT’S WRONG? I nearly fried you that’s what’s wrong.” now this was just getting plain strange, she thinks she would have killed me with that?

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.” I said to her but she just looked at me like I have killed the Santa.

“How can you say that? This could have been a lot worse. I could have even killed you. I nearly lost control of it…again” she cried confirming my ideas. I sat next to her and pulled her into my embrace. She tried to fight it at first but then she just gave up and started sobbing into my chest. I started to run my fingers through her mane in an attempt to calm her. This seemed to work as after a good half an hour the sobs quieted to small sniffs and she was no longer crying. After that we just sat in silence, I still didn’t let up with my strokes through her mane and we just enjoyed the silence.

After some more time I spoke up “Do you want to talk about it?” she just shook her head.

“No, well at least not now. Maybe later I can tell you but now I can’t. It’s too personal” I just nodded in understanding. There were things I didn’t tell her either so it was fair that she doesn’t tell me everything too. Noticing that the sun was starting its descent I stood up and dusted myself off. Turning back to the now less distraught mare I decided that it was a good time to go back to the hut.

“Well, I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t like to spend my night outside in the forest, who knows what lurks in the darkness. So if I may suggest, my fair lady, can we go back to the hut?” I started to nervously laugh a bit. “I…may have lost my way when I was chasing you. So my dear Lightning, mind being my guide through the forest?” she just giggled and shook her head.

“Sigh, what would I do without you Jack?” she asked me rhetorically and I felt my smart-ass senses tingling there.

“Weeeeeellll…” I started but I shut up when I saw her gaze that told me that this isn’t the time for it and I acknowledged it. Instead I just helped her to her feet and let her lead us back. There was no talking on the way back to the hut and I could tell that what happened before was still hurting her but I didn’t pry, I respected her choices. If she wants to talk about it then she will talk about it. When we arrived back we both were tired and just went to bed straight away.

As the days passed again she started to talk more and more with me, slowly arriving to the point where it seemed that, that particular incident never even happened but I knew better, I knew that she was still sore about that but as I said I won’t bother her with it. But now I had other things to do, mainly going to the nearby settlement of Trot. Originally Lightning wanted to go because she needed to restock on some things that she was running low on but I practically begged her to let me go there. It was nice for her to let me live there but I needed to go out for a bit and after hours of pleading and persuasion she agreed to let me do the restock run this time.

My backpack will be a great help as the holding part is amazing. Turns out the stuff that Discord left me in there were some of the things that I would miss. My Butterfly knives, that were gifts from my father, my sketchbook that held some of my drawings (yes, I draw sometimes, deal with it) and my gas-mask (I like gas-masks so if you have a problem with that, then sucks to be you). But the best thing was that I could pack things into it without limit. And there is no weight increase, so if I wanted I could pack a whole shop into it and be on my merry way and wouldn’t have to worry about breaking my back due to the weight. But back to the story as Lightning was making sure I remembered everything correctly.

“Do you have the list?” she asked and I groaned for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Yes mom. I have it. See?” I said as I waved the piece of paper in front of her nose and she finally let up with all the nagging little questions. Like she didn’t explain everything at least a hundred times already. I swear she was just like my mom when I was a little kid, oh god the horrors of those times. And finally after another half an hour of nagging I was on my merry way. But just as I went through the door a thought entered my mind and I did a quick one-eighty and walked back to the hut. Lightning just looked at me expectantly and was that a bit of smugness in her expression? Nah, surely I’m just imagining things.

“Yes?” she asked in an all too cheerful tone. Damn, I didn’t imagine that.

“Ummm, which way is the town exactly?” I asked defeated and she just smirked knowing that she had won this. She walked out motioning me to follow her and that I did. She led me to a small path in the forest that made me facepalm as how I didn’t notice that. I mean really, his thing was like ten feet away from the hut and I couldn’t even find it. Man I suck.

“Trot is this way. It’s a day if you walk but you can make it in just half a day if you hurry but there is no need for that. Oh and there are some extra bits in the bag so you can buy something for yourself if you want.” she said with a warm smile and I found myself smiling too.

“Thanks Lightning. Be back in around three days okay?” I asked her and she just nodded and started to trot back to the hut. I looked forward to the small path and took the first step on it. “Well here goes, I just hope something interesting will happen to me.” I said to myself as I went deeper into the forest.

Oh how correct I was at that time. But I had no idea that this small journey would change my and Lightning’s life….

FoREvEr.

“Trot-ba ment,
Hol a szörny megjelent.
És mikor éjfélt üt az óra,
A pokol szabadul a lakókra.”

Here is the second chapter. Sorry if it feels a bit rushed but i wanted Jack to be in Trot.

Foreboding Nights part 1:Trot

Well one thing was for sure. Trot was…unique. When Lightning told me about the situation outside of Equestria I expected that diamond dogs and ponies would be at each other’s throat at every given chance. But when I arrived at the town just an hour or two before sunset I had a pleasant surprise. For the small town had not only ponies as its residents, but griffins and D-Dogs as well.

Ponies of different colors (and so bright that it nearly hurt my eyes just to look at them) and griffins walked together like old friends or diamond dogs selling their different wares at shops or generally anything that you would expect in a peaceful little town.

While griffins were just as I expected, half lion and half eagle, the D-Dogs were a bit unexpected. They looked like large bipedal dogs with overgrown, muscular forelegs. Out of the three different kinds of residents in Trot only the D-Dogs wore clothes, and even then they only vests. But whatever, I had much more important things to worry about now. Namely the fifteen or so guard that surrounded me and had their spears or horns pointed at me. Talk about a warm welcome.

“Halt, beast!” shouted a white colored unicorn with short deep-green mane whom seemed to be the leader of these guards. He stepped in front of me and looked at me from top to bottom. Here, I would like to say that before I became a Dreamkeeper he would only reach up to just under my chest but after my transformation I grew so now he was at my stomach level, so he had to look up to see me properly. For minutes he just looked at me and I was getting ticked off by this,

“You know,” I spoke up getting their attention and scaring them by the fact that I could speak (duh) “I don’t really swing that way.” I finished and watched as his face lit up a bright red color in embarrassment. He got humiliated further as some of the guards started to snicker. Should I mention that the guard captain (I guess) was getting really pissed off so I decided to push his buttons a little bit more. “So if you want some action then you are looking at the wrong guy.” this had done it. The other guards were on the floor now all laughing at the unfortunate and throughout humiliated unicorn.

In hindsight, pissing off a unicorn guard was maybe not one of my brightest ideas, right? So when the guy picked me up with his what I presumed was his magic I was quite nervous. He smiled smugly when he saw the obvious distress on my face.

“Scared, beast? You should be. We do not like monsters like you running around in our town causing chaos.” Every ounce of fear disappeared from me when I heard this. He needs a boot to the head fast.

“Really mosshead, really? I caused chaos? With what, may I ask? Because as far as I know I just walked into town and you guys have already pegged me as some sort of monster out of your deepest nightmares.” I could see that he was getting pissed off again by the mosshead remark but I could care less. He treated me like a criminal from the beginning so don’t expect me to be nice with him.

“Silence! Now, what to do with you…” here he trailed off and I felt that this was the time to try something out that I could never do back on earth I spoke up in my best alien voice.

“Take me to your leader.” mosshead just stopped and looked at me “What? Can’t a guy have a simple wish here?” I asked in mock hurt voice.

“No.” was the quick and merciless reply from him. “Now beast…”

“Jack.” I cut in and he did a double take.

“What?”

“My name is Jack Daniel, not beast. Remember it well, mosshead.” he seethed in anger but kept it check, good he has a level head…somewhat.

“And my name is not mosshead. It’s Iron Law. You should remember it as well ‘Jack’. Now, what do you want from us?” he asked me sternly and I smirked.

“Would you believe if I said that a simple shop run?” now this sent every guard in a loop. All of them just stared at me like I had sprouted a second head. “What? Lightning sent me because she needs her restock in some stuff.” somehow mentioning the mare eased them as Iron Law lowered me a little and the other guards were not as tense as they were before. “Sooooooo…” I drawled it as I gestured to my body to let the unicorn know that I would like to be released. But he just pulled me to eye level and glared at me.

“You may do what you wanted to do ‘Jack’…but be aware that I WILL be watching you. If you do anything that endangers the townsfolk. I WILL find you and you WILL be sorry for that. AM, I, CLEAR?” wow, this guy really needs to get laid.

“Yeah, yeah I got it. Now, can you release me from your hold and let me be on my way?” I asked him and he just let me fall flat on my stomach as he ended his magic. I looked up to see him smirking but I still didn’t finish my speech.

“Hey Lawn & Order!” I called and he grit his teeth at my, admittedly, bad pun.

“Yes?” he asked straining the words through his teeth.

“Is there an inn or something here? I just wanna crash for the night right now so would you kindly give me the directions for the next place where a tired man can sleep? Oh and is there a place where I can get a temporary job? I will need some extra bits.” the guy was looking at me, considering that should he tell me or no. In the end he gave in and pointed down the street.

“There is a small tavern down the street. I’m sure that Ms. Marshmallow” I had to repress my snickers at the name “could use some paying customer. And as for the job? There is a bulletin board on the market square. Now, go. And remember what I said.” and with that, the whole Troupe walked away, leaving me in the dust. I stood up and dusted myself off meanwhile looking around. ponies, griffins and diamond dogs were watching me with curiosity and a bit of fear. I waved at them as I started to walk down the street in the given direction to the inn.

After around ten minutes of walking I found the aforementioned building and went into it. The inside was cozy and had a homey feeling to it. There was a small fireplace with a pony-sized couch in front of it. There was a desk behind which there were several key holders (you know, those things in small motels from which the guy/girl picks a key and stuff). I walked up to the desk and saw a small ring on it but no innkeeper. So with nothing better to do I rang the bell and soon an old but friendly sounding voice spoke from somewhere behind a door.

“I’m coming dearie, I’m coming.” and true to her words, and old white furred but pink maned mare came out and stood behind the counter. “Now, what can I do fo-“ but she stopped when she looked up to me and saw that I was no pony, griffin or even diamond dog. “Now what manner of creature are you?” she asked me quite calmly, like it was a daily occurrence that a never before seen being just waltzes into your inn.

“You can call me Jack.” I evaded the straight answer as I was not comfortable telling her what I was. “And you are Ms. Marshmallow am I right?” I asked her and she nodded.

“Then in that case I would like to rent a room for the night. Can that be arranged?” she nodded again.

“Of course my dear. Single room I presume?” a nod was her answer. “Then that will be ten bits.” I said nothing in response just took off my bag and opened the holding place. I put my hand in it but did not find the bag of bits in it so I had to go deeper in it. I had my whole lower arm in it up to the elbows but still nothing.

“Wow, this stuff is really deep.” I said as I had my arm in the bag nearly up to the armpit when my hand hit something that felt like a small bag. I quickly caught it and pulled it out. “HA! I knew I would find you.” with my victory cry I pulled out the required number of coins and put it down the counter for the old mare to take it. She passed me the keys for my room and told me where it is. I thanked her and went up to my room, which was a nice attic room with a good view on the small town. I looked out to find that the sun was already going down, making way for the moon to come up and make its course. Huh, time flies fast when you are threatened by overzealous guards and to be frank, I was quite tired too after the whole walking and being magicked (is that even a word?) stuff and wanted nothing more than crash in the bed and sleep. I decided to just do that as I walked towards the strangely human-sized bed but first I went to the window to close in the curtains as I didn’t want to wake up to the sun. I glanced outside and saw that the moon was already up.

“Dafuq! How is that possible? It was just coming up before! Wait, didn’t Lightning mention something about a Princess raising the moon? Meh, I’m too tired for this shit now.” but I also noticed that the moon was a full moon. “Come to think about it, isn’t it always full-moon here? Eh, who cares? Tomorrow I’m gonna watch it but now….sleep”

In an unknown place:

A hooded equine figure was watching the night sky with malicious expectations when another hooded one walked next to the first.

“Tomorrow is the night right?” asked the newcomer from the watcher whom nodded.

“Indeed. Tomorrow our dreams plans shall come true and we will be finally done. Tell the others to begin the preparations. For tomorrow, when the conditions are met… Equestria will be finally…. Clean.” the hooded pony said to the second one who immediately went back to wherever he came from while the first just turned back to watching the moon.

I decided to cut this chapter into three parts since it was so long, so here is the first part.

Foreboding Nights part 2: The second day.

The next day around 6:30:

I was sleeping peacefully in bed when the sun was starting to come up, unnaturally fast might I say, and shone upon the small town. Celestia’s warm sun signaled the start of a new day as it reached everywhere, literally. By some ungodly power the rays of sun somehow managed to come in through the tiniest crack in the curtains and landed directly on my eyes waking me from my slumber.

“This is impossible.” I groaned myself as I shielded my eyes. “Can’t a tired man sleep in for once?” I asked rhetorically.

“No.” came the simple answer from nowhere and everywhere at once. It sounded angelic and royal and more importantly, female.

“Wow. That was…unexpected.” I said to myself as I climbed out of the bed ready to start my new day if the freaky voice wanted me to. I did the normal morning routine, you know all the important stuff. After I was ready I went down to the innkeeper to ask for some directions to the nearest restaurant, although I could get anything from the bag I wanted to try the local cuisine.

Ms. Marshmallow was kind enough to point me towards a small family owned restaurant at the other side of the town/village…settlement. I thanked her and went on my way. As I walked through the settlement I saw that some of the guards were always keeping their eyes on me, guess mosshead really kept his words and set some guards at watching duty. Oh well, it’s not like I was planning to go on a rampage. I noticed that the buildings were mostly made out of wood and varied in styles. I also saw a huge building which I guessed was the town hall or something similar because it looked big enough to house at least 200 griffin, so you can guess how big that thing was. After around half an hour of going around aimlessly, mostly because I forgot where the place was, I gave up and asked a pony who was nearby.

For my luck the mare pointed me to the restaurant and after another five minutes o was standing in front of it. It was a medium sized- building with some tables outside and more inside. I decided that just by looking at the building won’t get food in me so I walked in and I was immediately assaulted by the smells of multiple different kinds of food. I walked up to the counter and sat down on a chair and soon a griffin walked out of the back room, wearing an apron.

“Good day, stranger. My name is Strong Wind and I am the owner and main chef of this restaurant. What can I bring for you?” I did a double-take.

“Wait, wait wait! Aren’t you….you know…afraid of me?” I asked him and he just laughed.

“Me? Afraid of you? HA! Fat chance, boy. I may not be a fighter but I am still a griffin.” and to make his point he just shoved me his razor sharp claws. I gulped and smiled awkwardly.

“Okay, I can see that now. Name is Jack by the way, and what do you have?” I asked him and he just put a menu in front of me. I looked at it and saw that most of the food was inedible for me. I mean seriously, hay? Diamonds? Daisies? Man, is there anything I can eat?, so I turned to the only one who can answer that question, Strong Wind.

“Sooooo….” I started out getting his attention “got anything edible to eat? Because let’s face it. I can’t eat most of these things that are on the menu.” I explained the situation to him and he tapped a claw on his beak, thinking of a solution.

“Well, what do you eat?” he asked me, trying to gain some ideas of what to make.

“Well…” I looked around to check if someone was nearby, luckily no one was there “I am an omnivore so anything from veggies to meat would be fine.” he nodded in response signaling that he got it.

“Well Jack, I am sorry to say that other than these, I do not have anything else. But if you want to make a request then feel free to do so and I will try to make it.” he suggested and honestly, it was a very kind offer on his part and I was planning on taking it.

“Say Strong Wind, do you know how to make grilled cheese sandwich?” I asked him and prayed to whatever god there existed in this world to let him know it. But to my luck…

“I’m sorry Jack but I have never heard of this grilled cheese sandwich before.” ….this wasn’t the case and I slumped on the table and almost started to make the misery show when he continued. “But if you want, you can make it in my kitchen.” My ears perked up at this since this way I could actually make my beloved sandwich,

“Really? I mean, wouldn’t it be strange for a chef to let a total stranger in his kitchen so the STRANGER would use it?” I asked him in hopes that he was really letting me do it.

“Bah, nonsense. I can do what I want with this restaurant and there are no customers here. But in an hour or so the townsfolk will come in so if you want to finish eating by then, then I suggest that you do it fast.”

“Thanks, say, do you have any oven?” and now that I have said that I realized just how stupid this question was. Strong Wind looked like I just insulted his pride, which I probably did.

“My dear boy, just what do you think I am? A third-rate charlatan?” aaaaaand now he started to rage. Damn I hope I didn’t bust my chance.

“Sorry Strong Wind, sometimes I speak without actually thinking ahead so you will have to forgive my stupidity. Can I still use your kitchen please?” he seemed to be deep in thought so I decided to use a secret weapon that every canine could use. The dreaded puppy dog eyes. That’s right, those eyes. I could already see his resolve breaking down into nothingness as the magic of the eyes did its job. “Please, please, please, please let me use iiiiit.”…. yeah I’m pretty desperate at the moment if I go even this far. After minutes of persuasion Strong finally gave in and nodded.

“Fine, fine you can use it. Just don’t try to blow it up all right?” he warned me as he led into the kitchen which was pretty damn impressive. It had everything in it that a restaurant kitchen needed. I went to the refrigerator and opened it to find everything I needed for my little breakfast, damn I really have to work for it don’t I? But oh well I think it’s worth it. While I was working on it Strong Wind was watching me closely, either for making sure I do nothing against his kitchen or he was curious about the food.

“Would you care to try it Strong Wind? Unless you don’t like cheese of course.” I asked him and he ‘hmmm’-ed in thought.

“Well, why not? It’s not every day that one gets to try foreign cuisine after all. Especially here, where we don’t get many foreign visitors.” I nodded and set to make him some as well. When I was finished I motioned for him to follow me and we went back to the customer part of the building and sat down to eat it. Oh good god I missed this stuff sooo much, I would have paid everything for this to eat anytime I want. Surprisingly Strong liked the grilled cheese sandwich too, this was obvious seeing how he ate the whole thing in rapid speed after one bite.

“My goodness Jack. I have to say that this is some delicious food. I have never eaten anything even remotely similar to this. What did you say its name is?”

“Grilled Cheese sandwich. And yes, these are really delicious and you can eat it almost anytime.” I said to him as I finished my part of the breakfast. I pulled out the coin bag to pay him for the food when he held up a talon.

“No Jack, there is no need to pay for it. It’s on the house and I have to thank you for showing me this fantastic treat.” wow that’s a very generous offer from him.

“Thank you but are you sure that I shouldn’t pay? I mean I DID you your kitchen and your ingredients.” I tried to pay for him because it just didn’t feel right for me to not pay for it.

“Bah! Don’t bother with that Jack. It wasn’t much and to be honest with you the food was more than worth the price. But say, what will you do now?” he asked me and I thought about it.

“Well, I originally came to Trot because Lightning said she needed some stuff, so I have to go shopping. But I want to get some extra bits so I need a job for the day. And tomorrow I would head back to Lightning after I finished the shopping part. But why do you ask?” I asked him and he smirked.

“Because my dear friend, I think I have a solution to your job problem. You see I have a waitress who helps me out with the customers, but she got sick the other day and I need someone to hand out the dishes. Would you do that for me? I would pay you for the day and it would be a great help for me.” well, this would certainly ease my mind but there is a slight problem.

“Not that I’m not grateful that you thought about me…but wouldn’t the customers be scared of me? I mean I’m pretty sure that I am an unfamiliar sight and people fear the unknown.” he stroked his…chin? Beak? I don’t know, in thought.

“Yes, you certainly raise a valid point but don’t worry. Here in Trot we aren’t that afraid of strangers so I’m sure that there won’t be that much problem.”

“Yea, aren’t afraid of me eh? Then maybe you should say that to Iron Law.” as soon as I mentioned that name his face fell.

“Ugh, what did he do again?” he asked me. Something tells me that Iron Will isn’t well liked around here.

“Oh nothing much, just threatened me as soon as I set foot in the town.” by this point Strong Wind had facepalmed..or is it faceclaw for him? No matter, he did it and that was enough.

“Why am I not surprised? I have to ask for forgiveness Jack. He can be a little…” he trailed off and I decided to help him.

“Stuck-up? Stupid? Racist? Pick your choice.” generous aren’t i?

“I would say overzealous and maybe a bit paranoid but he means good. He just wants to protect everyone in town. So please excuse him for any inconvenience. And what do you say to my offer? Will you be the waiter for the day, Jack?” he held out his talon and after some consideration I shook it with a smile on my face.

“You got yourself a deal there sir. When do I start?”

“Hahaha I like that attitude, but please don’t call me sir. It makes me feel old. And as for your question, as soon as I wake up Evelyn.” now that was interesting.

“Evelyn? Who is she?” I asked him and he turned to me with a serene smile.

“She is my daughter. Actually she needs to go to school soon so she needs to wake up. And I guess she will be hungry so could you make one of those sandwiches for her? I think she would like them as well.” he asked me and I just nodded.

“Certainly. It would be my pleasure to make it. Go wake her up then while I start on it.” Strong Wind nodded and walked away while I went back into the kitchen to make the breakfast for Evelyn. Fifteen minutes later Strong Wind came back with a smaller griffin.

While Strong was around my chest height, the smaller one, obviously his daughter, was around at my waist height. She looked at me warily but with a touch of curiosity and unlike her father, who had a brownish fur on the feline part, Evelyn’s had an orange like shade. With bright turquoise colored eyes that burned with energy and a spark of life that was good to see in every eye. She slowly walked towards me, her father watching her with a proud smile, happy that his daughter is not afraid of the stranger.

“Papa? Who is this?” she asked him with a curious tone and her father walked next to me.

“This here Evelyn is Jack. He will help papa today in the restaurant okay?” he softly explained to her while she stepped in front of me. I crouched down so I would be at her eye level. To her credit she didn’t look all that scared, instead she had the curiosity and innocence that only a child could have.

“Hey there little one,” I started in a friendly tone so as not to frighten her “What’s your name? I’m Jack, Jack Daniel.” I smiled to her and she smiled in return.

“Nice to meet you Mister Jack. I’m Evelyn!” I visibly blanched at the Mister title but luckily Evelyn didn’t noticed it but Strong Wind did and chuckled letting me know that he won’t let it live down. Oh joy.”Your eyes are funny.” she pointed out and her father immediately rebuked her.

“Evelyn!: That’s not very nice of you. Say sorry for Mister Jack here.” damn that griffin. Evelyn meanwhile had her eyes on the floor in shame. Deciding to help the bundle of joy I ruffled her feathers like one would ruffle someone’s hair and said.

“There is nothing wrong Sir,” I paid back for the earlier jab ”she was merely stating a fact. But my eyes are like these because of something that’s called heterochromia. It’s the condition when one’s eyes or hair are of different color.” but seeing as she was still sad I decided to cheer her up. “Come on Evelyn, I would like to give you something.”

Standing up I motioned the small girl to follow me and I led her to a small table and told her to wait there. Walking back into the kitchen I took the food that I prepared for her and proceeded to present it to her.

“Now Evelyn, your father asked me to make this breakfast to you since he liked it. I hope it will be as tasty for you as it was for him.” I watched as like her father, she took a tentative bite out of the sandwich then like some kind race flag went down she started to gobble down the poor sandwich. Minutes later nothing remained of the unfortunate breakfast. I watched with satisfaction as she finished it and let out relieved sigh as she liked it.

“I take it that you liked it Evelyn?” I asked with a chuckle and she nodded so fast and so rapidly that it hurt just to watch it. “I’m glad that you liked it that much.”

“Can I get some more, Mister?” she asked me and I was about to answer when my new employer cut in.

“Now, now Evelyn, shouldn’t you be ready to go somewhere else?” he asked her and for a minute you could almost hear the gears in her head turning when she finally realized just what her father had been implying.

“Oh right! I need to go to school. Gotta hurry then. By papa, by Mister Jack!” and with that she ran back somewhere, presumably her room to get her various school equipments and then darted out of the building. With her gone I turned back to my temporary boss.

“So…what do we do now?” I asked him and he turned back to me.

“Now we wait for the customers.” and with that my day started.

A/n: This is part 2 of three. Enjoy.

Foreboding Nights part 3: The Darkest Night

Later that day

Working at a restaurant for a griffin, while serving sentient ponies along with more griffins and large bipedal dogs was a unique experience that’s for sure. The customers were wary of me at the beginning but after seeing that I had no intentions of hurting anyone they warmed up to me and things went smoothly after that. As I took the dishes out I observed them. It was strange how similar they lived their daily lives to humans. They chat, they make friends and every little other thing that you would find in an average human settlement.

Although their diet was definitely not similar to that of a human’s. I was amazed to see the diamond dogs eat the various gem-filled foods (maybe the gems here have lesser value than on earth) with almost no hesitation and they could actually chew the gems like one chews on some snack. And then there were the ponies whom were eating sandwiches made with flowers, FLOWERS! Sandwiches will be never the same for me.

Even Iron Law came here and ate some stuff, although I could tell that he was here to keep an eye on me. But oh well, let him have his fun and everything. Later into the day Evelyn came back from school with another female griffin whom turned out to be her mother. She was around the same height as Strong Wind and had yellow-ish colored fur along with deep green eyes.

She was introduced as Aria and I found out that she works as the resident florist. She was a kind and gentle being who cared for her family and friends, that much I could tell of how she interacted with everyone. She thanked me for helping her husband, or mate as they call it, for the day and said that I was welcomed here anytime I come around these parts and I thanked her.

But now I was going back to the inn, with thirty or so bits more in my bag, something that I was grateful for Strong Wind. The moon was already starting its journey across the starry sky and I hurried back so I could watch the sky just as I wanted. Arriving back I immediately went into my room and climbed up to the roof via the window and just laid there gazing at the scenery.

Back on Earth I could never see the sky in such detail. Because of the light pollution the stars were always hidden away but here everything was so clear and beautiful that this alone was worth it that I came here. For hours I just watched the night sky, waiting for sleep to claim me but it didn’t. Something inside me told me not to, that I should be aware and stay awake. So with nothing better to do I decided to take a quiet stroll through the town. I climbed back into the room to grab my back-pack and went out.

The town was silent as I walked down the streets without any general direction. There was no other soul outside than me and to be honest it was a bit creepy like this. Like a crappy low-budget horror movie with me as the leading star. But this all changed when i heard muffled voices down the street. Deciding that it was worth checking out I went there as silently as I could and listened in the conversation.

“Did you get her?” asked someone.

“Yes, she is currently unconscious. Her parents didn’t even hear a thing. They are still asleep there.” replied another.

“Good, then let us hurry. The ceremony starts soon and she is crucial for it.” said the first one.

“Agreed.” said the second and then I heard some shuffling noises indicating that whoever they were just went away. But whoever they were, they just kidnapped someone and I wasn’t about the let them get away with it.

With that decided I went into the alleyway that the two kidnappers were in and followed it all the way. Exiting at the other end I quickly looked around trying to find them. To my luck I caught a glimpse of them down the street, without the light of the moon it would be impossible. I followed them as quietly as I could but kept a safe distance. But from what I saw I could safely assume that they were equines but about what kind I had no idea and it wasn’t because of the poor illumination but because they were wearing cloaks that hid their entire body.

It seemed that they were heading out of town, the way where I came from. I stalked them through the town until they arrived at the edge of the forest where I had to take extreme caution, or I make them aware of my position and lose all chances of finding where they were taking the hostage. At first they were using the same small trail that I used a day before but after a half an hour trek they suddenly turned and went into the undergrowth, leaving the path.

This went on for an hour when I accidentally stepped on a twig making it snap. I quickly ducked behind a tree, so as not to be seen when the shady equines stopped to look around.

“You heard that?” asked the one who was carrying the hostage.

“Yea.” was the short reply.

“What do you think it was? Do you think some of those freaks followed us?” asked the first one again. “Freaks? What the hell is he talking about?” I asked myself but still listened in the conversation.

“I don’t think so. Maybe some stray animal but we MUST hurry. The ceremony begins soon and we HAVE to be there.” and with that they picked up the pace and hurried towards their destination. This time I was even more careful to not make the same mistake as before as I was tailing them. For another hour or two this continued, fortunately with no interruptions when the two cloaked equine arrived at the entrance of an underground cave of sorts.

I saw them walk in but didn’t follow them immediately because in the cave they would surely notice me if something like before happens there. After making sure that they weren’t in sight I went in and saw that this cave had very smooth walls and wasn’t naturally made, no whatever made this wanted this exactly this way.

Continuing down I noticed that there were some smaller branches of the cave but these were not important as I saw that these were rooms. After some more walking I noticed that the floor went downward, meaning that I was going deeper underground and it was getting gradually brighter and soon I noticed why. Along the wall were fluorescent plant life, fungi and moss, that gave enough light that I could see better so I would not fall because of a stray ledge or something that I didn’t see in the dark.

After minutes of walk the fluorescent light of the plant life was slowly replaced by the light of torches or bonfires that were at the end of the tunnel. I slowed down and peeked out of the tunnel and saw that there was a large chamber with the ceiling missing in a place so the light could shine in. Directly under the hole was an altar that would reach to my waist if I walked there. Around the walls were numerous torches which explained the light that seeped into the tunnel. But what was more important was that the cave was filled with cloaked equines, all of which were looking at the altar.

Then another one walked to the altar from the other side, but his facial features were not obscured by the cloak so I could determine that he was a unicorn pony. He had dark brown fur with white mane and black eyes. He motioned for someone and stepped next to the altar.

“My brothers and sisters. Tonight is the night when our dreams come true. Tonight our long and careful plans will set into motion. Tonight is the night when the Cleansing will start.” uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of that. It looks like they are a cult or something. But wait, if they are then the kidnapped girl is. My horrific thought became true when I saw, presumable the same, two pony carry in someone that was eerily familiar and placed her onto the altar. I looked closely at her while they roped her to the stone table and I realized why she was so familiar.

“Evelyn…” I whispered and indeed, it was the daughter of Strong Wind and Aria. The poor girl was just coming to her senses when she realized that she was tied to a stone table by ponies she didn’t knew, of course this situation would be equally bad or even worse if it were by ponies she knew. She frantically tried to get away but the ropes that held her were tight and thus there was no way for her to escape. And she couldn’t speak as her beak way tied too. The ponies finished tying her and went into the mass of other ponies that were standing before the altar. The lead pony was starting to speak again while I was trying to think of a way to save her…FAST.

“With this sacrifice, the Silent One will arrive and cleanse this world of these…freaks.” there they go again with the freak comment but something else made me stop. “The Silent One…it couldn’t be…there is no way that it would be here. Or is there? No I surely just over think things…damnit Jack, FOCUS. You need to save Evelyn. That’s all that matters now.” I told myself and continued to listen to the preacher and nutjob in one as he was going on about how every other species expect ponies were trash and should be just…dealt with.

I was thinking about trying to teleport there and run off with her when something yet again broke my train of thought. The moon arrived at a position so it would be directly over the hole, thus making a circle of moonlight around the altar. Somehow I knew that this would signal the start of the ceremony, I mean what else? Raging firestorms or cataclysmic earthquakes? But my blood ran cold when I saw the lead cultist pull out an ornate sacrificial knife, an Athame if I am correct, from his cloak and held the item in his magical grasp.

“Now, brothers and sisters, the time has come to make our dreams come TRUE!” and with the final word he flung the knife towards Evelyn. Time slowed down to a crawl as I watched the knife going down and saw the expression of pure terror Evelyn’s eyes. Poor girl was about to die and no one would do anything about it. Well that’s not entirely true because I was sure as hell not about to let her die.

All of this mental debate happened in less than a second and something happened inside me. When I saw the blade my emotions were drained and I was left with nothing else than the sheer determination and purpose of saving Evelyn. I concentrated on where I wanted to go and the signs of me using my power were shown. And in the next second I was no longer in the entrance of the cave but in front of the cultist, crouching over a shocked Evelyn. I quickly plunged the knife out of the air, the magical grasp left it the second I appeared in front of him, probably because I surprised him and he lost concentration. The shocked gasps of the other cultists didn’t bother me as I swiftly slit the throat of the lead nutjob. The bastard slowly choked on his own blood and the lack of air but I hardly cared for that, he got what he deserved. I quickly cut the ropes holding down Evelyn who was speechless at my sudden appearance and probably her way to be saved from death. When I cut the last rope she latched onto me, not minding that I was bloody due to my previous action but she didn’t care, she was happy that she was saved.

However I was not this optimistic. True the other cultists didn’t do a thing but that was because of the shock. The moment they regain their bearings will be the moment Evelyn and I will be in deep shit. But there was something that none of us noticed. It was the body of the cultist that I killed, more importantly his blood. The blood that flowed out of the body flowed into a small channel that was around and beneath the altar and it slowly filled up the symbol that the channel was carved into. When it was filled up completely the blood gave off a barely noticeable pulse, you could only see it if you were looking at it directly and even then you would have to look closely.

I started to carry the crying griffin as fast as I could through the cultists whom were slowly pulling themselves together. I was at the start of the tunnel when something strange happened. The lights in the cave started to go out, starting from the other side of the cave where the first torches were snuffled out. And this went on until the whole cave was completely dark, save for the small circle of light in the center of the room. A cold chill ran down my spine and I held Evelyn closer to me. Something was coming and I was sure that I wouldn’t like it. As fast as I could I started to make my way out of the tunnel when the screams and shouts started to sound.

At first I thought that the cultists were shouting in anger that I killed their leader but something told me that it wasn’t that. A deep primal fear told me to not look back, to run and never look back. Because if I looked back I would see something that would forever cause me nightmares. But against my better judgment and instincts I looked back and I stopped in place. For in the small circle of light there was something that I thought only existed in our minds. The minds of people whom were afraid of the dark, knowing that the dark was watching them. Something I read about but didn’t believe that it was real. Sure it didn’t look exactly like the one on Earth but this was no joke.

The being that stood in the light was Slenderman. Or I guess that it was Slendermane here but that didn’t make it less dangerous. It was tall, incredibly so. It was around my height and it was pure white wearing a business suit with a red tie. But the most disturbing thing about it, that it had no face. Or it had a face just no mouth, eyes and nostrils. From its back, black tentacle like appendages were extending striking randomly into the darkness and then a shout or scream would sound into the unforgiving darkness. Now I knew what the shouting was about and i wasn’t too happy that I realized. But as I set my sights on it something happened. I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t breathe and more importantly I couldn’t move. I read that Slendermane could have this effect on its victims but reading about it and experiencing it was two different things.

It looked at me, with its head cocked to one side and it took a step towards me, the other cultists were already dead and it wanted another victim. Probably Evelyn and me but I wasn’t about to let that happen. I somehow regained the bare minimal of my motoric functions and with that I didn’t let Evelyn turn around, I was not about to let her see that…thing.

“Don’t look Evelyn. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.” I warned her and immediately started concentrating on a specific destination, hoping against all odds that I could pull this stunt off. I started to feel the familiar feeling of rushing wind and saw that Slendermane disappeared, at that time I had no idea where it went but I didn’t care. Finishing the teleportation I arrived near Lightning’s hut. I took us here because she was the closest possible destination I could take Evelyn and Lightning could probably give her some medication of the shock that is sure to come.

I frantically knocked on the door to the hut and heard that Lightning was slowly making her way to it, grumbling as I probably just woke her up from sleep.

“Yeah, yeah what is so important…” but she trailed off as she saw the condition I was in. Bloody with a bloody knife in one hand and with the other hugging a young griffin to me. “JACK!! WHAT HAPPENED?” she shouted to me as she made way for us to enter the small hut. I immediately hurried towards the bed and put Evelyn down on it. Checking over her I saw that she passed out, either from the shock of all the things that happened or the strain of teleportation. After all this was the first time I carried someone with me during the travel so I had no idea how it would affect others. I just hope that nothing serious happened to her.

I turned to Lightning who was standing at my side, wide awake now and was looking over the unconscious griffin girl.

“Lightning,” I said to her so she would listen. “please, check over her. You have better medical knowledge regarding the inhabitants of this world so you can tell if there is something wrong with her okay?” I asked her and she nodded and I stepped back letting her do as I asked. I sat down and was thinking about these last hours of my life.

“Jack, what happened?” she asked me while she was tending to Evelyn. I sighed and started to recount everything that happened to me ever since I left the hut two days ago. By the end of my tale Lightning finished checking over Evelyn and was now sitting next to me.

“How is she?” I asked her and she mulled over the answer.

“Well, as far as I can tell nothing is wrong with her. She just fainted from all of the recent happenings. So she will be okay.” she informed me and I let out a relieved sigh, knowing that I didn’t cause any damage to her. But then a sudden thought entered my brain. If Slendermane disappeared and it didn’t follow me then…

I immediately bolted up and quickly grabbed the knife and back-pack while I hurried to the door.

“JACK! Where do you think you are going?” Lightning asked me as she ran after me and I stopped her at the door.

“Don’t come, you need to take care of Evelyn.” I said to her.

“But where are YOU going?”

“I need to go to Trot, something tells me that something bad happened there. I need to go Lightning.”

“But if it’s bad then why are you going?” she asked but I didn’t listen to that, instead I turned to her and said my, hopefully not last, message.

“Lightning, I need to warn the people of Trot about this, and I need to tell Evelyn’s parents that their daughter is safe.” I walked back to her and gently hugged her. “If I don’t come back in four day then do something for me.” she looked at me with tearful eyes as she probably had an idea of what am I going to say.

“If I don’t come back then take Evelyn and run. Get to the next big city as soon as possible and tell the local authority that Trot is no longer here and something horrible was unleashed on Equestria.” she started to shake her head in denial, telling me that I would surely come back but I knew that there was a possibility that I wouldn’t come back here alive.

“Lightning please listen to me. Promise ok? Promise that if I don’t come back in four day, You. Will. Run. All right?” she just mumbled something. I shook her so she would look at me and not mumble into my clothes. “PROMISE ME!!” I shouted at her and she finally gave in.

“ALL RIGHT I PROMISE! Just please…come back okay?” she said softly at the end and I could do nothing else than hug her again and then I stood up leaving her on the floor.

“Okay.” I said and with that I ran into the forest towards the small town. I tried to teleport there but it seems that I was too tired for that so I had to rely on another method of transportation, running.

I have never run this long or fast in my life and I could say that I was starting to get really exhausted but I didn’t give up knowing that time is the essence here and I had very little of it now.

“Faster, I need to go faster.” I said the mantra in my thoughts as I hurried to the town and in my deep concentration I didn’t notice the very faint green light above my head and the small green flash on my legs. But what I did notice that my speed had increased by leaps and bounds and I was running faster than I thought it was possible for me to do.

Hours later while the moon was about to go down I could see the outlines of the small town. It was silent just the way I left it but something was not right. I couldn’t explain it but something felt incredibly wrong with the scene. I walked into the town and went to the restaurant where I worked that day, in hopes of telling Strong Wind about his daughter. I found it and knocked on the door and waited…and waited…and waited but no one came so I immediately started to panic. I opened the door which was unlocked and went into the building.

Looking around I saw a hallway to the right and went there where there was a staircase leading to the upper floor. Walking up on it I arrived to the house of the family and saw that it was dark here and I didn’t hear any noise which was a bad sign. Looking into each room I found the one which obviously belonged to Evelyn. There were games and books across the floor and there was a small griffin doll on the bed. Deciding to look a bit more I slowly made my way to the other door across the hallway. It was closed and I knocked on it, nothing was heard. No voices of sleeping griffins no incoherent mumbles of the recently awoken, nothing.

I opened the door preparing for the worst but the room was empty. There was no one in there. On the walls I could see some family pictures and other stuff but otherwise the room was devoid of life. “Maybe they just went out.” I thought myself but quickly discarded that thought as I remembered those cultists saying that the parents were sleeping. I quickly went out of the house and tried another, this time it was a pony’s house. I could tell because the door was smaller than the other one. I went in when nobody answered the door but the same result was what I got, an empty house with no trace of how they disappeared.

This continued until I practically visited half the town but there was no one in them. I was starting to panic and having virtually no light did nothing to ease my mind. The moon was already down and dawn was coming but it’s always darkest before dawn so I had no other light than what my eyes could see. I could try only one other place where they could be and with that in thought I made my way towards the Town Hall. Arriving before the majestic building I banged my fist on the large doors but there was no answer.

There was something in me that said I shouldn’t open the door, that I wouldn’t like what I would see there. It was the very same feeling I got in the tunnel that said not to turn back and like there I went against it. I simply needed to know what was there. So with a great push I opened the door only to find that the town hall was empty. No, that wasn’t right, there were definitely shapes in there but I just couldn’t define them, it was too dark to see anything else other than the outlines. But something was not right, there was this strong coppery smell with faints of iron and static electricity. I had a feeling that I knew what was in the room but my mind didn’t want to consider this idea.

But as the sun started to come up and light shone down on the world my fears came true as I saw just what was in the Town hall and what caused the smell. I stared with horror and tears in my eyes at the sight in front of me. But there was something else that grabbed my attention. On the wall in front of me, written in blood was a message. A message that I had the nagging feeling was addressed to me. But I could not dwell on this piece of information as the exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks and with darkening eyesight I started to fell forward into the building. My last coherent thought was this.

“I’m sorry, everyone. I’m sorry.”

Here is the third part of the chapter. I hope that everyone will like it and if not...then please go away.

Start of a Journey

Two weeks later

It took me nearly a week to make every person a grave. It would have been faster if I didn’t have to collect the…bodyparts and try to match them with the original owner. I didn’t want to desecrate their memories and bodies more than they were already. The stench was unbearable but I just couldn’t leave them there like that. So I set out for making the proper amounts of graves, which was a hard task considering that i had other needs and the fact that I had a hard time deciding what part went where. And I wasn’t sure that I managed to pair up everything with everyone so I have to ask for their forgiveness in the afterlife.

Of course I went back to Lightning’s hut to tell them that I was okay. I can surely say that that meeting was less than stellar.

Flashback: The day after I went back to Trot.

I knocked n the door to the hut and I heard some shuffling on the other side. Obviously Lightning was awake but she didn’t open the door yet.

“Who is it?” she asked from behind the door and I told her it was me. Opening the door I saw that she was looking really exhausted and was nearly on the verge of fainting, she must have stayed up all day to protect Evelyn and to see if I came back. When she saw me she threw the door open and ran out, hugging me.

“What happened Jack.” she asked me but when she saw my face and the sorrow on it she started to understand it. “Please tell me that it isn’t…” she trailed off and I did nothing just nod.

“I’m sorry, so sorry. I wasn’t fast enough and now Trot is…” I just couldn’t finish and broke down into sobs as I hugged Lightning closer to me, whom also started to cry. After what seemed like hours of crying Lightning softly started to speak to me.

“It’s not your fault Jack, you couldn’t have known that this would happen. Nopony would have known this. You did what you could so please….don’t blame yourself for something that was out of your reach. Please.” she pleaded to me but I didn’t say anything. And then a thought entered my head.

“How is Evelyn, Lightning?” I asked her and saw that realization hit her like a bolt of lightning (no pun intended) and she looked back into the hut and then gasping. Following the line of her sight I saw that Evelyn was standing in the center of the hut and had a shocked and confused expression on her face. Slowly, oh so slowly she made her way towards us.

“What do you mean that its not Mr. Jack’s fault Lightning?” she asked her with desperation in her voice, she knew what we were talking about but she wasn’t about to accept it. She came closer asking again. “What’s wrong with Trot? Is mommy and papa alright? Did something happen to them?” by this point a fresh wave of tears started to flow from both mine and Lightning’s eyes.

“Come here Evelyn.” I said to her and she complied. “Evelyn, I’m sorry that I have to say this but Trot is…gone.” the confusion on her face twisted the metamorphic knife in my heart as I knew what was coming.

“What do you mean gone?” she asked fearfully and I took in a deep breath preparing myself.

“Evelyn, I-i..I’m so sorry.” I hugged her as close as I could and she didn’t understand why was I behaving in such way but she got a really bad feeling about it.

“Why do you say sorry? I don’t understand, what’s wrong? Mr. Jack, are my parents alright?” there it is, the question I just don’t want to answer.

“No Evelyn, they aren’t alright.” I answered her. By this time her legs started to tremble as the truth dawned on her but like every living being, she too didn’t want to accept the cold, harsh truth. Clinging to the metaphorical last straw she asked me with trembling voice.

“Are they sick?” she asked in hopes that that was the only problem. I looked helplessly at Lightning asking her silently of what to do. But like me, she too had no idea of how to do it. I knew I could do nothing else than tell her the truth.

“Evelyn, your parent….they are in a better place now.” this was it. I saw the horrible realization dawn on her and she immediately started to protest.

“No, NO! They can’t be….They are…They…” she didn’t continue as she knew I was telling her the truth and instead broke down into crying as she buried her head into my chest. I looked over to Lightning to see that she was crying again as well. Evelyn cried for hours until she finally fell asleep due to both physical and emotional exhaustion. I carried the poor girl to the bed and let her sleep, hopefully without any nightmares and bad dreams. The zebra mare walked next to me and looked at me questioningly.

“What will you do now?” she asked me and I turned to her.

“I’m going to go back. They deserve a better resting place. I can’t just leave them there.” she nodded knowing that it was for the best and even if she wanted she couldn’t say anything to change my opinion of it.

“When will you go then?”

“Now, the sooner I start the sooner I finish and the faster they can be at final peace.” she looked surprised that I was going out this soon but knew that I had to do this.

“Can we help?” she asked me and I shook my head.

“No, what happened to them is not something that you should see. And especially not Evelyn, she would break even more than she already is. So please Lightning, take care of her until I come back. I will check back regularly to see if everything is alright, okay?” I asked her and she nodded solemnly. Standing up o walked out the hut and teleported back to the small and now dead town.

Flashback: end.

After that I started to dig the graves just outside the town. True to my words every few days I would go back to the hut to check on them to see if they need anything and if they are alright. Evelyn had became very distant and it was starting to worry me. I knew that she was in a shock and was just coping with this the best she could but I hope that she will snap out of this. And if she doesn’t then me and Lightning will have to do something. And that’s another thing, I talked to her about this and she had agreed to come with me. If she stayed here then she wouldn’t have any way to get further supplies and sooner or later she would have to move either way. And truth to be told…I kinda wanted her to come with me too. She was the first person…pony…zebra here whom I met and she is really kind and fun. And I have the feeling that she wanted to come with me too. So with mutual agreement we decided that she will come with me along with Evelyn.

And I didn’t just bury the populace of Trot, I decided to train myself in case something happens to us on our travels. And I knew that something WILL happen, that thing won’t let me be if what I read about its Earthen counterpart was true. I tried out everything I remembered from my martial arts training from long ago and found out that I could perform them unnaturally easily, probably thanks to the feline-like agility and grace that came from me being a part feline now. Various forms and stances were re-practiced every day for hours until I was somewhat satisfied with them.

But I wasn’t about to use just my body only for defense. For the first time since I came here I tried out my bag for something I had never thought would use it for. Weapons, any weapon I ever dreamt of using, I tried them out at least once (expect for one). And I tested the limits of the bag. And boy I was surprised, it seems that any weapon I pull out will automatically disappear after 24 hours, no matter what. I actually found it out when a special blade I got disappeared when I wanted to use it the next day. And it was thanks to this blade that my accuracy with thrown object increased. Even before I came here I had the annoying (to others) habit that I was throwing everything that I had. It didn’t matter where I was throwing it, up away or down, I just threw stuff. It was even better with this blade as it always came back, heh the fun you can have with vorpal blades.

But weapons were not the only thing I tried, money gems various clothes and fabrics were pulled out and I was delighted that none of them had the time limit that the weapons did. So it would seem that money wasn’t an issue and that was quite the relief.

So now we (Lightning, Evelyn and me) were standing in front of the now finished graveyard, ready to go but we still had to do one thing. A proper farewell.

With enough work I managed to get the names of everyone in Trot. Those names were now engraved in a large stone so it may be forever remembered. Additionally I wrote a final message and warning to those whom would find this place. To warn them of what happened here, and the tragic fate that befall them.

Know this traveler,

Who walks this way.

That in this place,

A hundred and twenty lay in peace.

Killed by those who wanted no change,

Avenged by the one who here had no place.

Another thirty forever lost,

Taken by the one born from the shadows.

We all stood before the graveyard especially one pair of graves, Strong Wind’s and Aria’s. We stood there in silence as Eve was starting to sob with Lightning trying to reassure the young griffin girl. I watched the scene with moist eyes, thinking about all of these lives that were lost in the…massacre, there is no other word for what happened here.

I walked away from them a bit and took off my bag, opening it I started pulling out various non-sugary cakes and started to make a cross out of them of the ground. By the time I finished both of the girls came over and watched with interest of what I was doing.

“What are you doing Jack?” Lightning asked me and I stood up since I was finished.

“There was an old tradition from where I came from. After a person was buried they usually made a cross out of food, preferably non-sugary cakes, and then pour it with some wine or other alcohol on the cross.” and as I was explaining it I pulled out a bottle of wine (Tokaji Aszú) and opened it.

“But why?” asked Eve, finally talking for the first time for two weeks. Despite the situation this put a small smile on my face but before I answered I took a gulp from the wine and offered the bottle to Lightning who eyed it verily but then accepted and drank from it too.

“Because it was believed that this way the soul of the dead will have a sweet afterlife.” after this I took back the bottle from Lightning and poured the rest of its contents on the food drenching them. With that finished I decided to say my final farewells of the ex-residents of this town.

“I don’t know what to say, as I hardly knew everyone here but I can say that wherever you all are now is a better place than here. Strong, Aria if you hear this then know that I will take care of Evelyn. I will see it that she will have a great life and beat any potential suitors that I won’t like.” this got giggles out of the females and I smiled. “And for what its worth, I give my word that I will have revenge on that thing. Goodbye.” and with that I finished saying my last words to them and stepped back.

Thinking about it i knew of a song that would fit in here.

Looking over to my two companions I saw that their tears had dried and like me, they were ready to go. Asking them if they wanted anything else got a negative reply from them I touched them softly and went back to the hut to finish the packing. While I trained my teleport power, which I named Blink (I like the name so piss off) it still took a considerable amount of effort and energy to transport others with me for great distances. I’m gonna have to work on that.

Anyway, packing up was short since everything just went into my bag since it could hold it. Soon we were finished and since it was too late to start going we decided to sleep here for the last time and start early tomorrow. I didn’t want to spend any more time here than it was necessary, something was off about this place and I don’t mean the amount of dead that I buried. No, what I was thinking about was less direct. During the two weeks that I spent there I sometimes had the feeling that I was being watched and that wasn’t a good sign.

Thinking about this i slowly succumbed the clutches of sleep, hoping that the future will be brighter for us from here on.

Well here it is. Albeit short i hope that you guys will like it.

Man's best friend?

”JJJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!”

”WHAT IS IT?”

”STOP THIS!”

”SPOT WHAT?”

”THESE STUNTS!”

”BUT WHY?”

”BECAUSE THEY ARE DANGEROUS, THAT’S WHY!!”

Hold on, I’m pretty sure that you guys are more than a bit confused aren’t you? Well then should I probably explain it to you then? You see, it started like this….

Hours earlier: on the road.

We had been walking for nearly a week now and honestly I was getting a bit bored. So I decided to be a bit of an asshole and play a game with Lightning.

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No….”

“Are we there yet?”

“No!”

“Are we there yet?”

“NO!!!”

“…”

“…Are we there yet?”

“NOOO!!! Jack! Stop this please, it drives me crazy.” She finally snapped and I knew that this was the time to finish it. But I still managed to catch a smile on Eve’s face, she was starting to come out of the deep part but its still a long way to go. I will definitely need to talk with her. But for now…

“Lightning.” I spoke up getting her attention “Where exactly are we going?” I asked her and she just shook her head in frustration.

“To Manehatten.” was the simple reply I got from her and I started to snicker. I mean Manehatten, REALLY? But I just tried to shrug it off, chalking it up for coincidence.

“And why are we going there?” I asked her, intrigued.

“Because we need a ship to carry us to an island.” Now this was an interesting piece of information and I could see that Eve was interested as well.

“And why do we need to go to that island?” I asked her again but I saw that she was a bit reluctant to answer me. Seems like she had something in common with this island.

“There is a certain… zebra there whom we would be advised to meet.” the way she talked about that other zebra… now I was sure that something happened between her and that place, high probability that its with that other zebra. But I won’t nag her about it. It’s her choice whether she tells us or not.

“And why is it important for us to meet that particular person….zebra?” I tentatively asked her, not wanting to upset her. She looked at me sadly and spoke on a sorrowful voice.

“I think you of all….” here she trailed off, searching for a good word to express herself and I decided to help in.

“People?”

“Yes, people. You of all people should have guessed why we are going there. That mare is one of the best shamans of the zebra tribes. If anyone, its her whom knows something that could help us.” Now i knew why she wanted us to go there. Memories of that night started to flood my brain as I remembered how my life started a down spiral in just matter of hours. I quickly shook those thoughts out of my head.

“I see you realize the importance of this, Jack.” by now, Eve also got the situation and looked considerably sadder as she too, remembered that night.

“Yes I do. But one question.”

“Yes?”

“What’s the name of the island?”

“It’s Zebrabwe.” that did it. That simple name did it and despite the seriousness of the I burst out laughing. I started laughing so hard that I couldn’t stand upright and fell face first onto the ground.

“OW! Hahaha “ *huff* “Hahaha-hehehe.” meanwhile my two companions did nothing more than watch me as I made a fool out of myself….erm… I mean a BIGGER fool.

“May I ask you what’s so funny, Jack?” came the dangerously calm voice of the zebra next to me and I realized that I better explain it to her or I will get hurt.

“Well it’s just that, that your island’s name sounds like a place from Earth, just with it’s name Zebrafied. And the Name of the city where we are going sounds like a ponified version of a city on Earth.” I tried to explain but it didn’t seem to make my chances better with her.

“Oh? And pray to tell what would those names be?” she asked me and I knew that this was my last chance.

“Well the city’s name is Manhattan and there is a country named Zimbabwe. So do you see now what I found funny?” I asked her as I finally stood up and dusted myself off. She held her gaze on me for a little while, contemplating if she should forgive me or not while I sweat under her visage. Meanwhile Evelyn just stood there on the sides and smiled as I was being whipped by looks alone from a smaller than me zebra.

“….Fine, you are off the hook this time. But better be careful next time as i won’t be so nice.” and with that she turned away and started walking away from me while I let out a relieved sigh and started following after them since they didn’t wait for me. Running after and catching up to the two girls

“Oh come on, it can’t be only me that can see the joke in it. And if it still bothers you, I can honestly say that the place where I was born doesn’t have that much better name.” I tried to salvage some good grace with her as I walked next to her, with Eve on my other side.

“And what is the name of that place then?” asked Eve and I prepared myself for some embarrassment.

“It’s Hungary…” well now that it was out I just had to wait for the inevitable laughter or lame ‘Are you hungry?’ puns. But to my surprise and relief, only small chuckles came from my travelling companions. Well more from Evelyn than Lightning but I managed to find a small smile on her muzzle, so there is still hope for me. YAY!

“By the way Lightning, how long will it take us to get there?” I asked her and she stopped, thinking about the answer.

“Well, if we go at this pace it will take us another two months to get there.” wait, what?

“Two months? And by that you mean getting to Zebrabwe, right?” I asked her, hoping that it won’t take that long for us to go there. But that hope was quickly crushed when I heard her answer.

“No, two months until we arrive to Manehatten.” Seriously? Darn, this place is freaking big if it takes that long to reach a city then, or just our transportation method sucks.

“Isn’t there a faster way for us to get there?” I asked her but she just shook her head.

“No, there isn’t one, unless you can do something with that magical bag you have.” Now I felt like I should hit myself in the face, hard. How could I not think about it sooner? But then again I never thought of this thing taking so long which in hindsight was a pretty bad idea. But then the question arises, what to use? A skateboard? Nah, not big enough for all of us, maybe those brooms from the Harry Potter books? No, I don’t think Lightning could hold onto those, but then what?

I stood there for nearly five minutes, thinking about what to use when an idea hit me like an incoming train at top speed. “Would that work? I have no idea,but lets try it out.” And with that in mind I concentrated on the thing I wanted to get and smiled when i felt the correct texture of the desired item. Grasping it I started to pull it out and to my surprise I found out that it was already rolled up, enabling me to actually pull it out, although not without a bit of a struggle, since even rolled up it could hardly come out.

From the outside it must have been strange to see me struggling with a rolled up fabric as Lightning and Evelyn looked at each other with a raised brow, non hf them having an idea of what’s going on. After minutes of struggling I managed to free it from its confines. The girls walked next to me in hopes of finding out just what I got myself. But what they saw was not what they were expecting.

It was a fairly large carpet, big enough for at least three ponies or two full grown griffon. But as giddy as I was about the possibility that this carpet represented, the two girls were equally unimpressed with it. Seeing their faces I scoffed.

“Bah! You don’t realise how much this could help us.” I stated but only got raised eyebrows from the two of them.

“It’s a carpet, I don’t know how it could help us.” asked Evelyn innocently and i just chuckled.

“It’s magic, I ain’t gotta explain shi-...nothing, I ain’t gotta explain nothing.” good thing that I had managed to catch myself there, no need for her to hear something inappropriate. But Lightning decided to remain the skeptical one and spoke up.

“It doesn’t seem anything special to me.” I waved my hand with the pointer finger extended.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, My dear Lightning, you underestimate the power of magic. Allow me to show you...” I turned to the motionless fabric on the ground and raised my hands over it.

“UP!” I said with a commanding voice and surprise, surprise nothing happened. I coughed a little then tried another thing.

“ABRAKADABRA!” Still nothing and Lightning was getting a bit annoyed with my wasting time. I was getting a bit anxious, but considering the ticking time bomb that is called Lightning, behind me it’s not a surprise.

“Erm..Shazam?” Now I was just being pathetic and wasting the time of everyone. As a last desperate attempt in recovering some pride I tried something that no living being would try.

“....Please?” but when nothing happened again the girls had decided that enough was enough and started walking away from me, leaving me standing there in shame. I glared at the carpet, wishing with all of my might that it would spontaneously combust, but alas it mocked me with not doing so. “This is all your fault.” and then started to follow after my companions when a thought entered into my head.

“Well, if you won’t burn by yourself.....why not let me help you?” I asked the lifeless object in front of me while getting a pack of matches. Stepping closer to it, I lit the match and was about to set it on fire when I experienced pain in a place where no man should be ever hit, kicked, maimed or harmed in any way.

I let out a yelp of pain and collapsed on my knees while holding my family jewellery and looked up to see the very carpet that I was about to set on fire stand in front of me, shaking on of its tassels at me, like it was a fist.

“Why you little...” I leaped at it, only for it to dodge and for me to get a face full of earth. Spitting it out I turned around to see that it was making its way towards the girls, whom were none-the wiser of this. But I wasn’t about to let it do anything to them.

Blinking directly over it I managed to grab it by its midsection, surprising it and making it crash to the ground. But what I didn’t expect was for it to turn on my and start to strangle me. I mean that its just a carpet but damn, this carpet can strangle like a boss. In retaliation I started to tighten my grip on its midsection, seemingly ineffective as it doesn’t require any air for it to live. However it didn’t stop here, as our fight quickly degraded into a small fight between the two of us.

But when I was about to suplex it a surprised cry came from next to us.

“DANIEL! What the hay are you doing?” shouted an equally part surprised and angered zebra at me, with a giggling griffon at her side.

“Can’t you see it? I’m fighting.” i replied casually with the carpet nodding its...head, yeah let’s go with that.

“That much I understood, but why?” she asked me but I had no real answer for that so I just shrugged.

“I don’t know, but I wasn’t about to let it get to you. Who knows what it would do to you two.” this only got me a right hook from carpet to which I responded with a withering glare but it just shrugged it off. Then it started to make complex looking motions with its tassels. Lightning, Evelyn and me just looked at each other, none of us having any idea about what its trying to say.

Letting go of it, I stepped next to the girls and quietly whispered to them. “Any one of you have any idea what it is trying to tell us?” both of them shook their heads and I sighed. “as I thought. Having no other idea I turned to the carpet and addressed it.

“Uhmm, Carpet?” this seemed to snap it out of its silent tirade and listened to me. ”What are you going to do now?” I asked it and after some consideration it shrugged, not having any idea. I pressed on. “Would you like to come with us then? We...uh kinda need a ride if it wouldn’t be a problem for you.” I could tell that this piqued its interest since its positure changed into a more eager one but then it caught itself and pointed at me.

“Me?” i pointed at myself, not knowing what it wanted with me. It nodded. “What do you want from me?” I only got another set of movements but it seemed like it wanted me to apologise for something, the crossed arms (corners?) at the end of it helped a lot.

“You want me to apologise?” I asked it and it nodded. “But for wha-” and that’s when I remembered one crucial thing that I wanted to do with it.

“Oh-oooooooooooooooohhhhh. Uhmm, yeah sorry about me trying to set you on fire.” I got incredulous looks from Lightning and Eve so I quickly continued “But I didn’t know that you were alive so I have to ask for forgiveness. Can you find it in your woven heart to do so?” considering the looks i got from the girls next to me, it wasn’t the best choice of words, but I had to go with it now.

Carpet looked like it was in deep thought and after minutes of consideration, it slowly nodded and held out one of its tassels for a handshake, With that finished Carpet sprung up with a sound akin to a rubber band snapping and swept all of us away. When I could finally see what happened I couldn’t believe my eyes. We were flying with carpet under us, just like in Aladdin (what? it’s a good cartoon) and I could see the world getting smaller as we reached higher and higher.

Looking back to my companions i saw that they still had their eyes closed but I wasn’t about to let them miss out this amazing thing. “Hey you two, open your eyes and look around. Tell me what you see.” when they did so, they had the same reaction as I did. Shakily standing up, trying not to lose their balance and fall off they looked around, amazed at the sight of the world from above.

Under and to the right (probably to the west) to us there was a vast expansion of green as far as the eye could see with varying shades of green, probably different kinds of trees. To the left of us I could see something blue, probably the ocean that we needed to travel through. The sparkles caused by the rays of sun could be seen from even here showing just how beautiful can this world be.

Looking behind us I could see the mountainous region of the Gem Fido, slowly disappearing due to the distance and the mist that surrounded the high mountains. “Somewhere, there lies Trot, where it all began.” shaking my head in hopes of chasing away the bad memories, I glanced back at Evelyn and Lightning, both of them still gazing around in wonder I could hear Lightning mutter “Beautiful” softly. “But not as much as you.” I thought to myself, wait, where did that come from? This got me thinking, do I really think about her that way? She was the first person...pony...zebra that I met here and she showed me nothing but kindness.

She helped me get better after I have arrived, she let me stay with her and taught me the Equestrian customs. She helped me when I brought Evelyn on that fateful night and above all she decided to help me with everything and anything I needed. So I could say that yes, I could see her in that light, but then there is one big problem. She is an entirely different species, If I would have been a pony or another zebra then that wouldn’t have been that big of a problem, but I’m not. I’m something much, much different.

And even if I could see past the species thing, would my human mindset allow it? After years of being human, could I really start a relationship with her? And even if I manage to take that problem out of the way, there is still the question that whether SHE likes me. But that’s a bridge that shall be crossed when we arrive to it. Now I had more important business, mainly mischief. Leaning down, I whispered something to carpet, low enough that the others wouldn’t hear it but it would.

After some contemplation it nodded slightly and we set out plan into motion. Grabbing the end of carpet slightly i pulled it up, making carpet go upwards at a 90% angle, thus making me and my companions cry out. Me in joy and the others in fright.

“WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! THIS IS AWESOME!” I shouted to the skies as I made carpet do a large backflip while Eve and Lightning continued to scream. After an Aileron Roll Evelyn stopped screaming in fright and started to laugh with me, enjoying the sensation and the thrill of this kind of flight. “And now, for the Grand Finale...” I whispered what I wanted to do to carpet and it nodded fervently, agreeing to my idea.

Carpet started to rise higher and higher until we were so far from the ground that we couldn’t distinguish one tree from another, at all. Then it stopped for some seconds, letting us look around in awe. Then came the descent, slowly at first but gradually picking up speed, we went faster and faster with each second. Evelyn and me started to laugh while Lightning continued to scream.

”JJJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!”

”WHAT IS IT?”

”STOP THIS!”

”SPOT WHAT?”

”THESE STUNTS!”

”BUT WHY?”

”BECAUSE THEY ARE DANGEROUS, THAT’S WHY!!”

(And now you know what happened, now back to the story.)

The treeline was getting gradually closer and closer and it seemed like we would crash into it carpet pulled up at a sharp angle, making me cheer about the success of the maneuver and Lightning breath heavily due to the adrenaline rush wearing off. Looking her over i saw that she was genuinely scared due to those stunts and I felt bad for making her feel like that. Scooting next to her I put an arm around her and pulled her close.

“Hey, you all right?” I asked her and she just shook her head.

“No, no I’m not. Jack, please don’t something like that, it scares me.” she sounded so frightened that I felt really bad now.

“Why would that scare you?” I asked her and she was a bit hesitant.

“When i was just a foal...I climbed up a tall tree but suddenly I had lost my balance and fell off of it and broke my leg. Ever since that I have been afraid of falling, so please Jack, please, don’t do something like that again.”

“Okay Lightning, I promise I won’t do that with you okay?” she nodded feebly and I just held her tighter to me. I made carpet go higher, this time at a slower rate until we were flying just under a longer cloud formation. Seeing that the sun was going down I did something that I have always wanted to do. Gently going up, we broke through the thin layer of cloud and I heard Eve and Lightning gasp softly at the sight. Because of the setting sun the cloud under us was painted a mix of deep orange and red, a beautiful combination.

Flying like this for minutes I saw that it was about time for us to find a good camping place for the night, so I had carpet go lower so that we could search for an appropriate clearing. Soon enough Evelyn pointed out one that suited our needs and we set up our camp there (meaning: I set up the whole thing.), just in time as the sun had already went down the horizon, making way to the moon. Quickly gathering some branches from the surrounding trees I made a basic campfire so we could see somewhat.

Our dinner had been quite simple, some sandwiches and fruits but it was enough. Lying on my back and looking at the beauty of the night sky I heard the others go into the tent I set up, wishing me and each other Good Night with me doing the same. Turning my attention back to the stars I looked at the constellations, some was similar from those that could be seen from earth, some were completely different but each and every one of them was beautiful beyond comparison.

I could feel the tiredness slowly get to me so I decided to sleep outside, since it was warm enough to do so, and let sleep take over me, hoping that I would have a restful night, for the first time since we started traveling. But alas it was not so easy to get a good night sleep.

In my dreams:

Darkness, that’s what surrounded me again and I was getting quite used to it, since this was what greeted me in my dreams ever since we had set out for our journey, two weeks ago. It was always like this, nothing else, no smell, sound, sight, sense of touch, nothing.

But after a while this changes as the screams come, screams I remember oh so well, since I have heard these same screams in that cave all those nights long ago. The last voices that those cultists gave off as they were brutally murdered by the very own thing that they wanted, and to some degree managed, to summon.

Then came the sight. I could see myself as I killed the lead cultist, watching him drown in his own blood and seeing the life leave his eyes. I don’t say that I wouldn’t do it again, no it was quite the opposite, I would kill him as many times as it would be necessary just to make the world free of that scum. But watching it over and over again every night was starting to concern me. Since I didn’t wanted to worry Lightning or Evelyn, I didn’t tell them about this, this was my own problem and I would deal with it...I just have no idea how.

But suddenly something has changed, the scene in the cave blurred away and unlike when I was waking up it changed into something else. Slowly the image cleared and I could see that I was in some town, during the night as everything was dark but for some reason I could see everything. Another thing was that I felt like I was two being at the same time. Two different person, each with their own emotions and feelings. On one side there were my emotions: anger, anxiety, happiness and calmness. But the other one was just.....empty. No emotion, no feeling, nothing, it honestly scared me. The fact that one thing was able to exist without anything was just a frightening concept in itself.

I tried not to think about it so I tried to look around but found out that for some reason I couldn’t even look away from the focus point of whatever this scene was focused on. I felt whoever or whatever was this move through the dark, never staying in whatever little light was present and never stayed in one place for too long. Always on the prowl, like a predator stalking its prey, and that may haven’t been so far off the mark.

However when it moved next to a window and looked into it for whatever reason I felt my heart stop. Because nothing stared back at me. I mean something was staring back at me but it had no face, it was just a white head with no features at all. That was the point where I realised where I was and what was happening, somehow I was seeing the memory of Slendermane and we were in Trot now, since I recognise some of the buildings. It suddenly turned away from the window, seemingly hearing something that I couldn’t.

Suddenly the world went dark for the briefest of seconds, and I found myself in something that could be described as an office. The room from, what little I could see about it, was fairly large and well furnished with a large desk in front of the window that looked directly out at the town. In front of the desk were two comfortable looking armchairs with a similar looking one behind the desk. However the focus of Slendermane wasn’t on the room but the sole pony sitting behind the desk, with a stack of papers muttering something about “That damned paperwork.”. He was a mid-sized black unicorn with a golden mane and a pair of glasses, currently concentrating on the papers very hard. I started to have a very bad feeling about this.

The small lamp at the desk started to flicker on and off rapidly, getting the attention of the pony sitting there. I saw the room darken in an unnatural way and started to feel something new. Fear, and this was neither from my or Slendermane’s side. It was from the pony himself, whom I presume is the Mayor of the town. It felt strange and yet at the same time it felt good, and that was something that really scared me. I felt Slender take a step out of the shadows, towards the Mayor, finally deciding to show itself.

The Mayor looked like he was seeing a ghost, which was really close to the truth but not close enough. I saw the Mayor freeze up, similar to what I did when I first saw it in the caves so I could have relate to what was happening to him now. I saw him trying to fight the effects of the thing that held him up and for the briefest of seconds I saw his horn flicker up in a red-ish aura, the sign of him trying to use his magic, but it was futile since it went away as soon as it appeared. The terror in his eyes was something that i shall never forget as by this time Slender was so close to him that I could see ‘myself’ in his glasses.

The next thing I know was that Slender had a tentacle wrap itself around the throat of the unfortunate pony, so that he wouldn’t scream and took him away from his office to the Hal room, where I found all the bodies. Arriving there Slender turned to its captive and started to tighten the tentacle around his neck while raising the poor sap. From the widening of his eyes I could tell that whatever was happening couldn’t be worse and my fears came true when I saw even more tentacles descending upon his body rapidly. However when I wanted to close my eyes I just couldn’t do it for some reason and had to watch as the black appendages went closer and closer until...

THUD

*CRACK*

Real world:

I shot up from the nightmare with a scream, sweat and tear freely flowing from me as I tried to catch my breath, with little success. “What was that.... Could it be that these were It’s memories? But if yes...then why show them to me?” However no answer came to my mental question as only the silence greeted me in the night. But whatever that was, one thing was for sure...

...That I wasn’t about to sleep anymore that night.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, school started plus a very mild case of writer's block.

Also, I'm in need for an editor, so if anyone would liek to be my editor then please PM me and we can talk about it.

Ain't no fight like a Barfight!

As it turned out, Carpet was a great addition to our small group. Fortunately for it (and us), Carpet didn’t disappear after 24 hours, meaning that it will be with us for a long, loooong time, but I didn’t care. I was definitely glad that Carpet was with us, since it brought a certain happiness with it. It’s cheerful and carefree attitude made our days brighter, especially Eve’s.

Eve and Carpet became good friends and to my misfortune, pranking partners. There was not a day when they didn’t do anything to make me or Lightning feel annoyed or amused, depending on who got pranked. Up to this day, I still have no idea how they managed to put me on that tree in my sleep without me noticing it or getting that raincloud over Lightning in her tent.

I swear, if Carpet would be a normal living being, it would surely be the twin brother or sister for Eve. Or at least very, very close relative, now that I think about it, its quite the frightening thought.

Unfortunately, even this kind of happiness couldn't stop my nightmares, which were getting more and more disturbing with each passing night. I didn't talk about this with the girls, since I didn't want to worry them about this.

However, I will worry about it later, since we have arrived at our first destination, Manehatten. I have to admit, it really DID look like Manhattan, only like in the early fifties, it was like I have travelled back in time. The city itself was bustling with life that could be seen even from here. While a rarity, I could see that there were skyscrapers dotted around the city, mainly in the central part.

Landing a fair distance outside the city, so we won’t bring attention to us, even accidentally, we walked into the bustling metropolis.

“So, where do we go first?” I asked Lightning as we entered the city. She stopped for a minute and contemplated on the answer.

“Well, I think going to the harbour is the most important thing we should do now. The sooner we can get to Zebrabwe, the better.” I pondered on her offer and saw that she was right, time is essence and time is something that I don’t know how much we have. Walking into the city we saw that despite the vast number of ponies, you could still see some griffons and diamond-dogs mingling around, doing their business or whatever they were doing.

Now, to find that harbour.....I thought as I looked around, trying to find any signs for the aforementioned part of the city. Then as the stupidity of myself hit me, I face-palmed.

“Sigh, of course that the harbour would be at the coast...sometimes I wonder how I even managed to survive all this time.” I muttered to myself and as it would happen, the sound of feminine giggles hit my ear.

“I wonder about that myself too all the time.” Lightning quipped ‘helpfully’ from the sidelines. “now come, we need to get to the harbour and find ourselves a ride.” she instructed a bit more seriously and started to trot away with Evelyn and me following her.

It turns out that Manehatten isn’t as species-friendly as Trot was. While it wasn’t outright hate towards non-ponies, it could still be felt when more than once I could see some of the ponies throwing a dirty look our way. It was kinda annoying, really as people would think that crayon colored ponies wouldn’t be so xenophobic, but what can one man do change that?

Travelling through the metropolis made me wonder just how far did the ponies come tech-wise. It’s obvious that they have some sort of energy source that powers the machines that I occasionally saw, be it lamps or automatic cars, although those looked like they ran on steam, so it isn’t entirely impossible that all of this is steam-tech.

I have to admit, navigating in this city isn’t as we thought it would be. Thinking that we could just waltz down to the harbour without any complications was a foolish idea, as more than once we had managed to get lost.

“DANIEL! HOW? How the hay can’t you see that we are going in the wrong way?” Asked Lightning from me as I, I mean we, have managed to yet again get lost. *Cough* Yeah, totally not my fault and now Lightning was making a scene of public embarrassment for me in front of everyone here. I could see some of the passer-byes smirking at my misfortune, while others shook their head in pity. Evelyn meanwhile was having a blast watching us, mostly me getting my sorry ass handed by an angry female.

“Erm, Lightning, could you tone it down a bit please? You are attracting attention to us.” I meekly pointed it out to her but she just scoffed at it.

“So? You dug your own grave with your inability to find the correct way.” Uh-oh, this isn’t good. If a large crowd can’t make her more calm, then I am royally screwed. However my saviour came in the least expected way. A pony from the crowd stood out and politely coughed, getting the attention to him. The stallion in question was an earth pony and had a golden colored coat with sky-blue mane. Looking at his cutie-mark I saw that it was what looked like a map, maybe he likes to make maps, or something.

"Excuse me, but I couldn't help but hear that you are in desperate need of proper directions." he said in a polite and friendly tone, probably not the first time he had done this.

“Why yes, we are indeed in need for directions, as someone obviously can’t find it.”Lightning took the initiative and started to calmly have a normal conversation with the yet unnamed pony. Just how was she able to change her temper that fast? Must be a female trait, something that males shall and will never understand.

"Excuse my rudeness, but may I ask who are you?" I asked a bit suspiciously, since the residents here didn’t seem to be all that friendly, so why would he just help us? The pony in question just smiled and did a small bow.

“My name is Pathfinder and don’t worry stranger, I have no intentions to do anything to you other than help you.” Well, that didn’t help easing my worries, but at least I got a name. Glancing at Lightning I saw that she isn’t as skeptical about the newcomer as I am. However, I didn’t have much choice, seeing as I was hopelessly lost with the others, and Pathfinder is the only one so far who even offered to help.

“Alright then Pathfinder, mind taking us to the docks?” I asked him as nice as I could and he nodded. After we had walked away from the now dispersing crowd, as subtly as I could, I separated Pathfinder from the others and when Lightning and Eve rounded a corner I turned to him. Putting on the best threatening face I could make, which I have to admit got an added bonus due to my sharp teeth, I began the threatening routine.

“Now listen here and listen here well. I don’t know why you are helping us, when nobody wanted to but I would like to warn you. If anything happens to Lightning and Evelyn, and it’s your fault, I will personally find you and will make you wish that you wouldn’t have met me. Got it?” I made my point with a last savage grin and then let the frightened guy go.

Walking after to the girls, I noticed that they have been waiting for us.

"Where were you?" asked Eve and I just waved her off.

"Don't worry Eve, Pathfinder and I just had a friendly talk, right?" I aimed the last part to the pony, who for his credit, did his part surprisingly good.

"He is right, little one.Now why don't we get going? The harbour isn't that far away but it's a bit of a walk." The three if us nodded and went along with our impromptu guide.

An hour later, the harbour.

My eye twitched at the fact that our desired destination was so close. Lightning smirked in my direction and I decided to cut her off before she could have started anything.

"Not a word Lightning, Not. A. Word. " Thankfully she decided to not to torment me now with her sarcastic remarks. Instead she turned back to the harbour, which was not what I expected from a city of this volume. I expected a bustling harbour with ships going in and out, but what I got was most of the ships in what seemed like graving-docks. Majestic sailing ships, with their sails pulled up and the crews nowhere to be seen, except for a few minglers here and there.

The ships that were being used didn’t look that lively either, sluggishly going in and out of the port, with a not-so excited crew on board. It seemed like the whole harbour was clouded in a thick veil, that made everyone depressed and have a bad mood, it was so bad that you could almost feel it in the air.

Pathfinder quietly let out a sigh and shook his head. “This used to be a nice and lively place.” he muttered, but loud enough for us to hear it. I looked at Lightning, hoping that she had some sort of insight for this, but she just shook her head, signalling that she in fact, didn’t. I turned to the only one who could give us some answers, Pathfinder.

“Pathfinder, can you tell us why this place looks so...” I trailed off, not wanting to make him sadder than he already was.

“Desolate? Depressed? Sad?” I nodded, as those choices really fit the situation.

“You have to believe me when I say that this place was once a thriving harbour but now, just look at it...” he gestured with one hoof to the desolate sight, but he just sighed and shook his head. “But enough of that, I escorted here you because you are obviously in need for a ship.” I nodded and he gestured for us to follow him.

“Where are we going?” I asked him, as I looked around the run-down city part. Most of the buildings were made of scrap-metal, and even those were rusty and looked like they would collapse on the smallest touch. Without missing a beat, Pathfinder answered.

“To a place where the sailors usually go. Maybe you all can find somepony who can give you a ride wherever you need to go.” the tone of his voice suggested that the place wasn’t exactly the safest one. I don’t know if I should bring Eve there. I glanced at the griffoness in question, to see that she was equal parts anxious and curious, the wonders of childhood. I remember when I first moved to the USA. Ah, good times, good times indeed. I quickly shook myself a bit before I could get lost in the sea of memories and with my luck, that would be a bad thing.

“And pray to tell, what is this place?” I asked him, but the answer was not what I was expecting.

“Its an inn that many of the brave travelers of the sea visit.” Oh great, drunken sailors are just what we need now, but I guess we got nothing else, so I will have to bear with it.

Around 15 minutes later.

Arriving at the small sailor's inn, I wasn’t that surprised to see that it was almost full with various patrons, most of them already drunk, or doing their best to get to that state. Our guide sighed and turned to us.

"Well, here we are, I’m afraid that I have to go back to the city. I need to go back to my job, as I was supposed to be back there by now. I hope that you can find who you are looking for here.” as politely as he could, Pathfinder excused himself from his self-imposed duty. Lightning trotted to him and briefly hugged him, with Evelyn doing the same. I kneeled down and shook his foreleg as a farewell.

“Think nothing about it man, I am glad that you helped us as much as you already did.” he nodded and with a final wave, walked out of our lives, just as fast as he walked in. However thankful we were for him, we had more pressing matters at hand, mainly finding someone good (and sober) enough to get us to Zebrica.

Walking to the barkeep, who was wiping some glasses, that were too dirty to have any hope of ever being clear again, I felt like I have gotten ourselves into some kinda b-rated western movies only instead of being in the wild west, we were at the ocean. The drowsy looking unicorn stallion looked at us for a moment as we approached, then back to the small shot glass he was working on and....did he just spit into the bottle? Eurgh...and to think that someone will drink from that.

“What can I help you with?” he asked in a grave and tired voice, fit for someone who had seen one too many things in his life, and none of those were nice. THe barkeep himself was an aged unicorn, with rust brown colored fur and dark brown mane. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see his cutie mark, as it was covered by his work coat.

“We need to go to Zebrabwe, do you know of any ships, or anyone that could give us a ride?” I asked him, and he stopped his marginal task and looked at me, dead in the eye. His amber colored eyes told me that this stallion had been tired of life for a long time now.

“Son, there are not many ships that go out nowadays, and those which do, don’t bring back much.” That struck me as strange. I saw that the ships weren’t going out, but there must be a reason for it.

“How so? I saw that the ships didn’t go out, but why? Also, how come that the city doesn’t seem to notice the situation here?” the old stallion just shook his head and continued to wipe the glass.

“It wasn’t always like this, you know? Not too long ago, this place was a beautiful and thriving place, filled with joy and love for the sea. However it all changed when...” “The Fire Nation attacked....I’m going to hell for that one, aren’t I?” I mentally kicked myself for thinking about such stupid things in a serious conversation like this. I looked back to the barkeep who was oddly silent, only to see him look around warily, like he was looking for something, or someone. He then looked back to us and continued in a hushed whisper.

“Now listen here and listen good, son. The ponies here...they are afraid. THey don’t dare to speak, they don’t dare to act, they don’t dare to do anything. All because of him.” the amount of venom in his voice surprised me, as I didn’t think that someone who had been so broken and tired just moments before could muster this much hate. “This place went to Tartarus when he arrived. Ships got burnt down, ponies disappeared, and pirates became more frequent.”

“How come the authority didn’t do anything? Aren’t there guards or something in Manehatten?” Lightning asked him and the only response she got was laughter. However, this wasn’t laughter filled with joy and happiness...no, this was the laughter of the bitter ones. Those who had had tried to make things better, yet ultimately fail.

“The guards? Listen here sweetheart, the guards can’t do a thing. Nopony knows who he is, but those who do stay silent about it, or else they don’t get to see the next sunrise, if you know what I mean.” the suggestion was so obvious that even the dumbest idiot could get what he was talking about.

“However, there IS somepony who could aid you in your problems. His name is Swift Storm and he is the best sailor that I have seen in my life.” Now this sounded promising. “Unfortunately for you, he is currently out of the city, doing an errand.” Darn, there went our chance.

“Do you know when he will be back?” I asked him hopefully, hoping against all odds that he will be back soon. The stallion shook his head.

“It’s for the best that you don’t wait for him, he sailed out just yesterday so there is no point in waiting for him since only Celestia knows when will he be back.” I cursed under my breath after hearing this.

“Do you know of anyone else that could help us?” the aged pony once again shook his head.

“I fear that as long as he remains here, there is nopony else, but Swift Storm could help you. However, if you want the advice of an old fool then come closer.” he beckoned me to come closer and when I did, he whispered into my ear. “Go, get away from this place as fast as you can and forget about everything that you learnt here. It’s in your best interest to do so.” I straightened up and was about to take his advice to heart when three of the inn’s patrons stood up, quite noisily, might I add.

“Awwww, going so soon?” asked a sickly green unicorn with black mane, and a see-through dagger for a cutie mark. He was accompanied by two bulky earth ponies, both of them having the same coloration of light blue and white, probably twins, since both of them had the same unintelligent look. All in all, those three looked like the typical goons that you see in the movies

“Why don’t you stay here and enjoy our hospitality? I assure you that me and the boys can take care of every need you might have. After all, freaks like you surely must have a lot of needs, isn’t that right?” and he is racist to boot, greeaat.

“Naaah, no thanks but we have to be on our way. See ya later, or not.” I tried to back away from them, not wanting to get into a fight with them, just in case some of the other drunkards decide to join in on the fun. The apparent boss of the trio chuckled and stepped closer, with his goons following shortly.

“I’m afraid that you leaving is not an option. You see, me and the boys have a little problem, and maybe the ladies here could help us.” the unicorn spoke while leering at Lightning...and Evelyn, that disgusting example of a pony. Before I could say anything, Lightning decided to put things right.

“Well, I’m sorry but neither Evelyn or me are teachers..” here, she sniffed the air and made an exaggerated face, as if she smelled something nasty. “Nor can we help you get clean.” I snickered as the three ponies in front of us bristled in rage.

“You wench! I will enjoy shutting that big mouth of yours after I’m done here.” the unicorn spat, which made my blood boil. Standing between the girls and them, I turned to the small gang of what I suppose are slavers or pirates.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” I told them, trying to intimidate them so that they would leave us be, but sadly that wasn’t the case as the unicorn started to laugh, soon followed by his goons, although they looked like they didn’t really understand why they were even laughing.

“Ooohhhh I would like to see you try to stop us.” he bragged, but then turned serious and pointed at us. “Get him, but make sure that the females aren’t harmed, much.” The muscle twins dumbly nodded and started to charge at us, hoping to be quickly done with this. However, the two idiots forgot one very important thing about this situation, namely that we are in a building, an Inn to be exact and as such, this establishment had plenty of obstacles to avoid/go through.

I noticed that most of the patrons started to flee the building, so that they won’t get caught in the fire, which was better for me, since then I wouldn’t have to worry about any of them deciding to join in. Glancing at a nearby table, I saw that there was a bottle on it. Grabbing it quickly, I prepared for the first one, who didn’t notice the makeshift weapon in my hand.

Just before he could have collided with me I quickly sidestepped him and dealt a swift kick to his neck, hitting his trachea, thus making him stumble and gasp for air, as the kick momentarily cut off his air supply. The pony fell to the ground as he lost control of his equilibrium, making him an easy target. Not waiting for him to try to stand up, I quickly curb-stomped him, paying him a one-way ticket to the land of dreams.

However, I did one of the mistakes that anyone who learnt self-defense of any kind would frown upon. That is, to take your eyes off the opponent, mainly if you have more than one. By the time I have turned back to the other earth pony, he was in front of me, just about to buck me. Having no chance to avoid the kick, I braced myself as much as I could, just in time.

As the kick connected with my stomach I felt myself thrown back by the sheer force of the kick, makes me wonder just how screwed I would have been if I hadn’t noticed him when I did. Hitting the bar, I felt agonizing pain in both my stomach and back as I slowly got up. Lightning came to my aid as she helped me stand again. Muttering a quick thanks I saw that the pony who just kicked me was charging at us again, while his ‘boss’ just stood to the side, looking at us in a calculating way.

“That won’t work twice.” I said as I looked for anything to help me. Noticing a bottle of scrumpy on the bar, I quickly pick it up, since my previous weapon (the one that I didn’t even get to use, figures) had fallen out of my hand when I got blasted. Turning over to Lightning, I tell her to go and take Eve with her, before I look back at my current opponent. It didn’t seem like the sidestep trick would work again, since one: he saw me do it to his brother/friend, and two: the bar is behind me and even he doesn’t look so stupid as blindly charge me till the end.

Having no other choice, I start to go towards my assailant but before we could have collided, I jump over him and land just behind him, making him stop. However I didn’t give him time to turn around as I brought the bottle down on the back of his head as hard as I could. The glass shattered into dozens of pieces and as the glass shards cut opened dozens of wounds of varying sizes, the content of the bottle entered them, making him cry out in pain. But his pain was short lived as he too, followed the other guy into the land of unconsciousness.

Looking around I saw that both of the muscle goons were out cold but something felt strange. Usually, when the brick walls are out of the fights, the scrawny, leaders piss themselves and run away, with their tail between their legs. But this guy didn’t run, no, he was just standing there with a creepy smile on his face.

“Very good freak, very good. However, you are far from getting out of here.....” his horn lit up and I felt the blood freeze in me. Around the unicorn, there was at least six....no, eight daggers made out of magic, floating in the air, and each and every one of them were pointed at me.

“....Alive, that is.”

Author's Note

Here it is, the newest chapter for Travels of a Hunter. I'm sorry that it came out so late but....I don't really have any excuse for my tardiness so that's that. On another note, I will be redoing the first chapter of this story because I wasn't that satisfied with it. Hopefully, I can get it done sooner than I did with this chapter.

Either way, thanks for reading and if anyone found any big spelling problems, please point them out.