Canterlot Castle Throne Room

The meeting with the nobles and Ambassador was finally underway. Once the tedious formalities were taken care of it did not take long for the topic of discussion to be brought up.

“So I have been told that old stallion has finally retired from his duty as the hunter, is this true Princess?” The ambassador to the Minotaurs had no problem getting right to it.

“What you have heard is correct, Ambassador Broadhorn.” Broadhorn definitely a picture of what one would expect to see of a Minotaur his age. Big, buff, and horns to match. “After many long years of service, Sir Aegis has seen it fit to pass on his role to a successor. We greatly appreciate his vast contributions as well as his aid when times were-“

“Yes, yes, he was a credit to all and blah blah blah, I’m more interested in this new blood taking his place. Is it another human?” There was no deterring what he came here for.

Celestia sighed and gave him what he wanted. “Yes, HE is, always has it been a human, and human shall it remain. I know your customs but please refer to him as you would anypony else here. He is not a creature or an object”

Broadhorn countered “Until I can measure its strength I’m afraid, Princess, that is all I will see it as.

Luna frowned, Celestia continued, “Be that as it may, he also represents his own race as well, technically giving him the same status as you. I cannot stop you from what you believe or think, but atleast in front of him you come to remember this.”

Broadhorn snorted and folded his arms casually looking away. “Very well, but just for here.” He then pointed at Celestia “However, I will make it a necessity to gauge his strength, those without power should just step down and stand aside.”

Luna then smirked and gave a huff “I believe, Sir Dan will exceed your expectations, Ambassador.”

“So his name is Dan is it? The gryphon in this group spoke as she tapped her the bottom of her beak in thought “A peculiar name to be sure” While Broadhorn stood out as strong, if one word had to describe her, she seemed to come across as “militant” She stood up straight, had a stern gaze that looked like she’d melt a pony into a puddle if she glared at them too hard. She had her country's military outfit as well that just screamed: “I’m an important person!” As well. “I was told that back then, Sir Aegis had an odd name as well that he went by.”

“You are correct, Ambassador Gale Beak a long time ago he did but for the sake of growing more accustomed to living here. He felt it was necessary for the role.” Celestia nodded “Now then, if that is all there is, then I would like to proceed with today’s meeting as I’m sure you all are very busy.”

The room seemed silent but everyone agreed that it was in everyone’s best interest to get straight to it. As expected there was an ambassador from each Kingdom and a handful of Nobles from Canterlot that seemed to be in on this national secret.

“Very well, then I would like to begin with explaining to you all about Dan’s current situation on coming here.”

This seems to grab the attention of one of the nobles. “My my, are we finally going to learn of the trick behind that special door of his.” This particular pony seemed like he had is own particular agenda.

“I’m afraid even we don’t know how such a spell works, it forever remains secret only the Royal hunter would know of.”

The noble shrugged “Can’t blame a Stallion for trying.” He then stepped back and the meeting continued, however that look in his eye never left. Luna was curious of this individual, she had never met him before.

“As I was saying, When Dan entered this world, I’m afraid it wasn’t voluntary and much needed to be discussed. Surprisingly, He handled his new circumstance far better then we anticipated and that aided in getting him relatively up to speed.” Celestia said. “I bring this up just to state that when the time comes that you do meet him, Don’t be worried about overwhelming him with information, he seems to take it all in stride… for the most part.”

Luna continued as well. “Now we know you all came here to either learn more about him or to speak of matters regarding him. So please step forward and speak your mind.”

And so it began, one by one Nobles and Ambassadors would say their peace or make a suggestion, or even pitch an idea as they always would. The discussions would get heated one topic while completely ignoring another. As the focus would casually move around from one thing to another.

Luna started to yawn, This queuing her sister to pat her on the shoulder and tell her to go to bed. She refused however, this was one of the few times She and Celestia could speak for and Aid Dan, and she would see would see it through to the end for her new friend, and listening to some of these ponies, it seemed like the right choice to remain. A lot of pompous attitudes, expectations that sounded more selfish than necessary, and a good number of them were already judging him as a liability than anything else.

Just because he’s new, they belittle his value? I expected something like this now with Aegis gone, but this is getting frustrating to listen to. As she said this she and her sister had to listen to one of them ask for Dan’s aid as a bodyguard whenever he’s off duty. She had to put her hood down on that one. “If there are any more “requests” to have our new Royal hunter to take on some mundane task that you can have any other pony handle, I would like to ask you all kindly not bother bringing them up. He’s not a hired hand to rent out.” Hearing her tone and seeing the look in her eye caused that particular noble to end his conversation and back away to shrink his presence as much as possible.

Broadhorn huffed and folded his arms. “I’d agree with ya, but how can we be sure if the human can even handle his job at all. In the end, at least he’ll have job options if he ever decides to quit.”

Luna glared at the Minotaur, but then smirked: “I can say from my experience that he is more than capable of the task.” This got Celestia curious, How would she even know? Luna stood proudly “Why I bet even right now he’s already proving you wrong.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Everfree Forest

“F@%K THIS JOB!” Dan yelled as he rolled out of the way of yet another hydra head trying to bite him in half. When he got to his feet he turned back and unloaded so many bullets into the second oncoming head that it’s face was ripped into pieces of flesh and black sludge that littered the area around it and on Dan’s cloak “Ah, that’s gross, I can smell it, hurp!” he backed off while dry heaving as he watched the now headless long neck spitting out more of that black sludge, but not in death throes, It was an entirely different problem that made that third head he dispatched just as annoying. The black goo was, very shoddily, trying to remake the lost head. Already he could see a grotesque lower jaw with jagged looking teeth that he was pretty sure was part of the creature's bones once. “As if this thing wasn’t ugly before.” Dan picked up a large fallen log and threw it at the hydra to stagger it, so he could fire a few more rounds at the head to buy him more time before it's of any use against him. That ran through his magazine and he had to take a moment to reload. “So if it isn’t obvious, gramps, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” He started running around the beast. “Any ideas?”

Aegis was swift to reply. “What I was trying to tell you, is that we need to find the point of entry to slay it.” He watched the beast try to snap at Dan with its other heads before ending up charging him like an angry bull. Dan jumped to a tree branch and then jumped again over the treetops so the monster would lose sight of him momentarily in the leaves. This only made the creature attack the tree it last saw him on thinking he was still on it, knocking it over but not without damaging itself in the process and spreading black sludge all around.

When Dan landed back in the clearing he had already switched to his hunting rifle and fired a shot at its leg again causing yet another black fleshy explosion, but this time the shot finished the job of the first in separating the door from the leg itself and toppling the creature as he can only assume it was going to make a new leg to get back up again. “Cool, cool, you mind explaining what you mean by that so I’m not left in the dark? I don’t have infinite ammo here.” He pulls back the firing pin to load another bullet.

“The point of entry! Its where this creature was infected by the plague. Once it takes over the hosts brain and heart, that spot has full control of the creature’s body.”

“Okay, so like ‘The Last of Us’ with those damn clickers! That’s a problem, couldn’t kill clickers in the game!” He then took a moment to think about that. “Well, not with a gun anyway.”

“I am not even going to try to understand what you meant by that, but this beast can be killed, it will just be difficult is all!” Aegis assured as he continued observing the beast as it stumbled to get back upright as it’s blown off leg was trying to create a new makeshift one. “This takeover must be relatively new, otherwise it would be noticeable by now!”

Dan took careful aim at the one head he didn’t shoot at yet. This shot was more precise and managed to blow off the upper half of its head, leaving only the bottom jaw and a wriggling serpent tongue behind before black sludge shot out. “So what am I looking for then? A giant pimple or something?! A fungus maybe?!”

“Close… It's more like a… glowing agitated looking pus or boil. It grows bigger with time and eventually breaks through the skin to continue its growth over the body-“

“Ok, good, that's all I need to know, waaay too much info! Turning green over here.” He shook his head of the vile images and stared at the grotesque scene that laid before him. “Ugh… So I ran all around the dude and haven’t seen anything that even remotely resembles what you're saying!”

“I know, I’m having trouble as well, it must still be under the skin, try blowing more holes into it, we might have to dig it out.”

“As if we didn’t have enough black goop on the grass…” Dan put the rifle away and pulled out the MP5 once more, on full auto he started firing bullets all over the creature ripping the flesh apart and along with the black sludge that lies underneath the skin. “How is this thing even moving? I’m pretty sure that's liquified muscle underneath the scales.”

Aegis shook his head. “Neither of us has the time for me to even start getting into that bit of knowledge. For now, just chalk it up to magic again until I have a better time to explain.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “That better not be a running gag with you,” he reloaded and was ready to fire when he and Aegis noticed a change. Almost immediately the hydras regrowing suddenly sped up dramatically, a new rather deformed black leg replaced the old one and it returned to its feet within seconds, then it started sprouting 3 more long necks with grotesque jaws at the end of them. The roars now turned into a gurgling creepy chatter that left a chill down Dan’s spine. “Uuuh, I think it’s pissed off now.” The creature then roared a gurgled, sickening yet bone-chilling roar from each head in unison. “Yup, yup, definitely pissed off, sooo pissed off, now.” He then bolted as the creature charged for him, a lot faster this time for a creature its size.

“What happened to that courageous attitude you had when speaking with the Serpent?!” Aegis flew after the two.

“It got a head start when this thing grew extra heads and started hauling ass!” Dan yelled back with conviction as he confidently started sprinting like he was in the Olympics. He sensed death on his right, he juked left to narrowly dodge jagged teeth chomping down on where he just was. “NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!” Screw JUST the Olympics, he was gonna outdo Usain Bolt. As he sprinted for the more dense part of the forest, the angry mutant beast was not far behind.

Aegis groaned before flying after them. “He was doing so well…” Aegis seemed to pick up, however. It wasn’t the hydra that took his “motivation”, it was vanishing from the beginning, the moment the sea serpent left. With no innocent person nearby to worry about, why bother even thinking as aggressively in such a dangerous situation when escaping is a much better solution.

And run he did…

With the monster hot on his heels, Dan was sprinting madly into the woods. As he would dodge and weave through the dense forest whereas the abomination just crashed its body into whatever stood between it and Dan. This was not without its consequences, however, as part of what was left of its skin would peel off in some way or another from each impact bits of bark or wood getting embedded into it. The creature couldn’t care less as all it cared about was the death of whatever is living right in front of it. Time and time again whenever it felt like it was within reach of him, it would lash out without a second thought only for Dan’s strange detection of an oncoming death to forewarn him just in time to dodge.

Despite how it looked to Aegis, Dan blindly running away, to Dan, he was getting over his initial shock and fear of the creatures rapid regeneration and speed. His mind was trying to work out a solution to end this game of cat and mouse. Ok, so if I had to guess… Shooting it a bunch of times pissed it off so much it’s just going into a rage mode to enact revenge. A good thought, however, was shot down after being reminded that these creatures are mindless dead husks now. He vaulted over a boulder, then just as his feet barely touched the ground he made a baseball slide under a fallen tree, sliding under it completely, rolling to his feet and side jumping into some bushes. The creature crashed against the boulder stumbling over more than likely killing off a few of its heads that were sticking out in front of it under its own weight. However, not caring, as usual, it would tumble and struggle to get on its feet and crash through fallen tree busting it in half and tearing up more of rotting flesh that once covered that bile that grew within it. Another head is taken out in the process as well. What did it matter to such a beast that simply had to grow replacement heads?

With what heads that could see hear and or smell remained, it tried to pick up where Dan had gone. However, Dan’s cloak activated on its own, magically camouflaging itself with the foliage nearby. Already, the cloak was passively hiding his scent so the beasts sniffing was only a wasted effort. This gave Dan time to think. “If these things can’t think or feel, then there’d be no reason to think it's holding a grudge towards me right now.” He watched the beast walk dangerously close to where he was, hand on his gun in case he was found out. Thankfully that moment passed as it walked on, leaving him to his thoughts as he observed it. This was when Aegis came back to his mind.

If it can’t BE angry, then what triggered it to make it LOOK like it was? Dan thought.

Aegis took a moment to think back on his knowledge of his past work. Then something came to mind. A defense mechanism perhaps?

Dan nearly jumped out of his skin hearing Aegis in his head, you need to give a guy some warning when you enter his mind like that. He then shook his head and focused. So what do you mean defense mechanism?

Aegis pondered for a moment to reaffirm the idea to himself before repeating. In my more recent hunts and expeditions of these creatures, I noticed that they mutated once again to adapt how well I had slain them. Thirty years ago, to kill one of these creatures I simply had to remove the brain and the heart from the body or damage them to the point of being utterly useless. It seemed that was how this tainted infection would control them in such a way.

Dan was not really fond of hearing ‘how it used to work’ to kill them… sounded messy and horrifying. Wow, that sounds medieval…

Aegis ignored that, continuing. However, one day that all changed when apparently a creature that had been tainted for too long would grow an ugly boil within them that would then assume command of the now walking, melting, corpse. After some trial and error, I figured out that the method for this situation is to pop that pus as soon as I can find it to end a hunt as soon as possible. Sometimes when a creature is so far gone the thing grows so much that it's hard not to notice it. This creature, however… Dan looked on at the beast as it scoured the area. I can tell it's somewhere in between. Far past the method of shooting the brain or heart, not too far that the pus would outgrow its hiding spot and rip through the skin even for more space… I always did find these ones the more difficult ones to deal with.

Yeah, no kidding there, Hoss… So, what, this infection now evolved to defend itself better by growing more heads and picking up the pace? Dan asked

As far as I can see, anyway. Aegis answered. There were other cases I have seen but this one seems to focus on rapid regeneration when agitated… However, it still seems to retain the form of the Hydra it took over for the most part, and that will be its downfall. Here’s what we’ll do…

It had been a few minutes after their conversation while the beast still tore through the forest searching for them, no clue that it’s target was now the one following it in camouflaged silence. Keeping his distance and watching his step carefully Dan tried to creep around it. His rifle out this time. AS the multiple heads searched out in every direction Dan stopped when he was placed well behind a thick tree, taking aim. Can I just say this plan seems really stupid.

“You may since I don’t even know if it will work,” Aegis said

What?

“NOW!” Aegis called out, Dan didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger and another shot rang out. This time the shot took out two heads at once. The beast retaliated by lunging the nearest head toward the tree Dan hid behind as a knee-jerk reaction. However, this time the head chomped through the tree before Dan could even blink.

That’s new…

“Just move!” Aegis responded. Dan more than happy to follow that request as he sprinted out of cover, the beast giving chase. This time Aegis observing how that previous attack worked. He watched the head from earlier retreat back so the beast could give chase, and another head starts to pull back into itself. “Hm?”

Dan could hear the thundering footsteps from behind. He had to give himself credit, he was sure he’d be dead by now, or at the very least, need a new change of pants.

He sensed death in front of him.

His body instinctively responded by making a baseball slide. He watched at where his upper half would’ve been another grotesque head shot past over him narrowly missing him. Well, no time like the present to start talking about that change of pants.

“Grab it!” He heard Aegis yell. Without even thinking Dan grabbed onto the neck as it started to retract back.

THAT’S when the lights in his head started turning on. “Wait—WHAT-AAAAAUGH!” Dan and the head were taken back to the body where he was greeted by the 4 remaining heads. The 5th head he was holding was now trying to shake him off as the other heads were trying to take a bite of him. “Whoa! AH!” he dodged one set of jaws, then lets go of the neck to avoid another. That bite ended up decapitating the head he was once holding onto. However, just before Dan could touch the ground, he felt his cloak get snagged, then get pulled, with him in tow, off to the side. Looking up he could see one of the heads had a firm grip on his cloak. “Uh, hi...” And then he was flung around wildly like a how a dog would treat a chew toy. His screams were futile, as well as his use of profanity when in sheer terror.

Finally, from some unknown act of mercy the jaws on his cloak opened just enough for it to make a gurgling growl of intimidation to him, this only gave his cloak a chance to slip out and hurl it and Dan into a tree, busting through it with his body, tumbling into the next tree, this time stopping abruptly against the trunk thanks to the previous tree slowing him down enough for it. He ended up face planting into the dirt below. “Ooooooooooow…..” Fortunately for him, he was given time to respond to the pain, as his body unwillingly chopped through and dropped its upper half on the Hydra, crushing it under its weight momentarily.

“On your feet, Dan! I think I figured it out!” Aegis said, flying up to him.

“Can we just register the fact that I almost died first?! That plan was stupid!” He stumbled back to his feet.

Aegis ignored his complaints, stupid or not it gave Aegis the reaction he needed, so he continued. “While that thing is busy with the tree you gave it, this will be the perfect time to strike! It seems that whatever was causing it to regenerate and move so quickly is starting to deteriorate. It's causing more damage to itself now than you as it’s head doesn’t seem to be as coordinated, and the heads that were just chopped off have yet to fully grow back!”

Dan dusted himself off and grabbed his rifle. “Sounds like its losing adrenaline if you ask me, but so what? It's still alive unless we find that boil you talked about.”

“And I believe I have!” Aegis exclaimed, “but in order for it to work,” he stared back at the monster, almost free from the weight of the log, “we’ll need to give it something else to worry about.”

Dan looked at the beast and quickly thought of an idea. “If it’s having trouble regenerating its heads now, let's destroy the other ones to blind it.”

“That works, and with your strength, you can rush its side and topple it to leave it vulnerable briefly.” Aegis stroked his chin.

Dan took another look at the Hydra… considering its size it shouldn’t be that hard to at least stumble it if he can lift logs and boulders. Though he had to wonder why the old man suggested it. Yet that could wait as the creature finally freed itself and was getting to its feet. He pulled out his rifle once more. It was powerful enough to shave off pieces of the head, no reason to stop, especially since he had no other means of cutting them off. His knife was too small to even try that and he didn’t want to be near them anyway considering what happened just a minute ago. So he fired away as the monster was still trying to get its bearings. That was the easy part.

Once he felt like he shot off enough of the remaining heads he fired at the ones that were regenerating just to quell his paranoia of being bit in half for neglecting them. Jeez, I never wasted so many bullets on a target before. He lowered the gun. If this is what I’m up against, I might have to invest more on stockpiling ammunition or something. He gave a nod. This sure as hell wasn’t as quick as shooting a buck, nor as inexpensive.

“Ok, that should do it! Now hop to it!” Aegis thrusted his hoof toward it as his he was commanding a charge.

Dan just rolled with it for now. “Aye aye, Cap’n!” He put his rifle way and ran around to the side of the creature as it’s body thrashed about trying to kill what it couldn’t see. It’s like when a person is startled in the dark, thrashing around to defeat an enemy they can’t see. Dan then took a linebacker’s position. “Blue forty-two! Set, HIKE!” He then charged as fast as he could and rammed his shoulder into the creature's side. This did the trick in knocking the heavy beast off its feet and onto the ground. “DONE!” Dan cheered with a fist pump.

“Good now let’s get that boil!” Aegis flew past him around the back of the creature. “Over here!”

“Right!” Dan followed and stopped right in front of the ghost. This time pulling out his knife and looking at the creature to see… nothing even remotely resembling a boil. “OK! Where is it!”

“Your gonna have to pull it out to even get a chance to stab it.”

“Ok, and where’s that?” He turned back to Aegis

“It's in its ass.”

“Right, then I’ll just…” Dan pauses

“Hm?” Aegis looked at Dan curiously “What are you stalling for, we must-“

“I’m sorry, where did you say it was?”

“Oh my- You cannot be serious right now. You’ve had more than your fair share of watching its entrails spew and sleek out of its body from your own attacks and NOW is the time you want to feel grossed out?!

“Well then, can’t you do it?! I don’t want to play butt doctor here with a walking corpse! That ass is probably caked with God knows what!” Dan gestured to the writhing beast, knocking it over when it tried to get back up again.

Aegis face-hoofed. “We don’t have time for this, and secondly, I’m dead, I can’t touch anything in the real world remember?!”

“Yeah but-“

Aegis cuts him off, “Dan! Its heads are going to return and we’ll be back to square one if you don’t reach in that rectum and pull out that boil!”

Dan wanted to argue, but the old man was right… Time was short so he couldn't hesitate to think. He looked back at the creature’s backside and grimaced while looking at his hand. At least he was wearing a glove.

“DAN!”

“I’m doing it! I’m doing it!” He rolled back his sleeve, placed a hand on the creature’s body to keep him stable as he held the other, far more shaky hand toward it. After looking at it, he can see something glowing inside. He could only assume that's what tipped Aegis off. But of all places why here. “I DON’T CONSENT TO THIS!” He yelled as he forced himself to reach in. He immediately wanted to hurl. “Oh God, I feel everything he ate before he died…”

“Just keep going, your feeling for something that’s pulsating when you grip it.”

Dan groaned at those words yet continued. It took a bit of digging and grabbing what he would rather not know, but finally, he grabbed at something that felt like it was throbbing when he squished it. In response to this the monster, for once looked like it was writhing in pain.

“That’s gotta be it!” Aegis said as he monitored the beast’s reaction. Then his eyes widened when he noticed some of the beds were almost complete. All that was left was the teeth at that were starting to grow in. “Dan, get that knife ready and start pulling, your almost out of time.”

Dan had no issue complying with that command in more ways than one. He mentally prepared himself for what was to be seen as he got a firm grip on the boil and pulled hard. It took a bit of fighting but he finally managed to yank out his arm, the boil…. and everything else in between the boil and exit. That was it, he was gonna blow chunks. “UUUGH!”

“Dan, quickly, sever the tendrils!”

Dan could see one of the heads start to look back at him. “Oh hell no!” He gripped the knife and started cutting them as directed. Beast writhe again. This definitely was hurting it. He felt the sac of bile in his hand pulsate again. This gave him a sense of foreboding. He immediately responded to his senses by ducking. Sure enough, he narrowly dodged that hydra head’s attempt decapitates him with its jaws. No way was he gonna deal with any more of this, he cut the rest of the tendrils in two quick swipes and the boil was finally severed. The creature flailed and its heads screeched before finally going limp as if all the life had been sucked right out of it. Dan could hardly register what he had done, but his gaze turned to the pulsating pus sac in his hand.

“Atta Boy, Dan!” Aegis cheered. Dan could finally listen to the exhaustion in his body, that was a nerve-wracking experience to be sure. “Now you might want to get away from there right now”

It took a moment for him to register that last part “Huh? Why?”

There was the sound of a sickening POP!

~~~~~~~~~~

Back at Dan’s intended campsite

Sometime after Dan had led the Hydra away, the serpent eventually returned to check to see what fate had become of Dan and the beast. Cautiously he kept himself submerged in the water to keep from being noticed, every once in a while peeking out of the water to check his surroundings on land. When he had finally made it to where he last spoke with Dan he could see that he was nowhere to be found. Yet there was a sign of a struggle to be sure, he remembered the strange noises he heard from a distance when he was fleeing, most of them were loud bangs of some sort. He never heard anything like it. However, he was more concerned for Dan’s safety. From the looks of the fallen trees, he assumed that they headed deeper into the forest, yet, what could he possibly do, other than wait?

So he waited, every now and then hearing more of those bangs and popping sounds off in the distance, then finally utter silence. It seemed the strange sounds of that creature had scared off the wildlife. In time, he would hear them start to return once they felt like it was safe to make their usual cacophony of woodland ambiance.

Finally, after little more time had passed he picked up the sound of footsteps. He braced himself ready to high tail it in case it was that beast. The bushes rustled and he sunk low into the water, then finally out came the strangest two-legged grotesque sludge monster he had never seen as it held some strange green glowing fleshy thing in its... claw, perhaps? Black mist was coming off its body as it approached him, then stopped to look at him. “Oh hey… you’re back…” it spoke with a familiar voice, though it sounded more monotone this time.

“Young, sir?… is that you? What happened?” The serpent asked feeling relief it was just Dan but now left with more questions just by looking at him.

Dan started walking again. “With all due respect, I’d rather not talk about it. I’ve already lost my breakfast 3 times on the way here, and I barely keep my appetite for lunch.” The serpent grimaced at hearing that. “I need to borrow your stream if you don’t mind,” Dan asked, the serpent was more than eager to move farther upstream and give him his space. He positively reeked.

Dan was left to himself for a good half an hour trying to scrub his clothes clean. Though delayed Aegis explained to him that when a tainted creature dies if they could still be slain by damaging the brain or heart, that means the body is for the most part still intact and small amounts of black mist escape the body. However when the tainted boil grows well enough to melt the brain and heart, at this point most of its body is just dissolved flesh and black slime that the boil uses to control the body and sustain itself, leaving the corpse as nothing more than fleshy water balloon filled with black bile and entrails. Strangely enough, the boil can control the slime to replace any lost muscle or bone if need be to continue its primary objective of killing anything that has a pulse. When the boil is removed, however, the slime starts to evaporate rapidly into black mist within the body. Dan didn’t even need Aegis to finish his explanation to get the idea what happens after that. The effect was hard to forget when he finally managed to get his cloak and outfit cleaned off.

Fortunately, the cloak took most of the hit, which meant his boots and lower half of his pants as well as gloves only needed to be washed. Now, there was even more reason to get the fire going as he hung his cloak on a branch as well as his gloves. He would have to wear his pants and boots still as he collected firewood. He wasn’t gonna walk around in just his shirt and boxers in front of people, despite them mostly being naked themselves. When he returned he saw the serpent had as well once the smell finally left. “Oh, I didn’t really catch your name after what happened. I’m Dan Richards.” he placed the wood he collected on the side and started setting up the fire pit. He had set his rifle and MP5 beside his bag for now.

“Hm? Oh! Right, my name is Steven Magnet, Despite that little debacle earlier, it is a pleasure to meet you and thank you for your service. I do believe you said slaying that creature was your job.”

“More or less… Which by the way if you ever come across any other creature that behaved like that Hydra, you’d best stay clear and let me know.”

“Indeed I shall,” Steven answered with a swift nod. He certainly didn’t want to deal with something so creepy AND disgusting as this.

As he started the fire he took a look at his ‘glowing’ trophy set down. So any reason why you want to keep that thing?

Aegis responded casually, This isn’t all about slaying tainted creatures you know. We had to understand this plague to work for a cure to finally rid this world of it. Why do you think your obligated to schedule expeditions when things are quiet for Equestria and its allies?

Dan grabbed one of the thinner sticks and used it to poke at the wood and flames. So We took it to study it? You guys are actually researching these things?

Of course we are, once you have properly wrapped it up and stowed it away, we will return to Ponyville when the expedition finally ends and deliver this to research group over in Canterlot. Aegis replied swiftly, Did you really think we did nothing more than fight these creatures and left it as that?”

… Kinda, yeah…

Aegis was silent for a moment before giving out a sigh within Dan’s mind. You know, I find it offensive that you think that about us.

Dan just shrugged. Sorry, you guys just seemed the type to just beat up the bad guys and move on. I know this expedition is to find the source and all, but actually researching this stuff? And why do I have to bring this boil with us anyway, after all your years hunting, haven’t you already sent one of these off to this “research group” you spoke of?

I did, however, I would send any back when a creature would exhibit traits or abilities that we have yet to record. Dan felt his head move back to the boil again. “This, happened to be one of those times… rapid regeneration, a boost of what we can assume as adrenaline, these are new and we need to know why it does that and prevent it from happening again the next time we fight one of these. Aegis didn’t want to say it but there was something else that bugged him about that fight as well with the creature, but he wasn’t sure if he was just over thinking it or not. Without proof or confirmation, it was best to leave it be for now.

After that inner conversation, they shared Dan noticed the fire seemed to be at a point where he was confident to leave it be for now. “Ah, excuse me. Dan was it?” Dan looked up and toward the river to see Steven with a next full of live fish over his shoulder. “While you were cleaning up and preparing the fire, I took the liberty of catching our meal, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh! Uh, thank you, that saves us a lot of time.” Dan got up and gave an awkward smile. That's a crap ton of fish, then again looking at the guy, that's probably just about right for him. Dan thought before heading over to his bag. “You mind keeping them alive for just a bit longer while I set up the cooking supplies. Better to have them stay a fresh as possible, right?” He suggested.

“Ah, splendid idea, sir. I shall do just that and await eagerly for cooking to begin.” Steven replied with excitement.

This was nice, now that Dan thought about it. It was like he was just out camping with his old man. Except his old man was replaced by a giant flamboyant sea lizard that really likes his mustache. Well, the familiarity was kinda there via the camping gear and fire pit anyway. Cooking the fish would be a great distraction, especially after today’s events, Lord knows he needs it right now.

Still, he WAS kinda bummed that he didn’t need to use his fishing rod now...

Author's Note

Hello everyone, Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, Monster Hunter kinda didn't help with my time management I suppose and already I was busy with other things.

If I had to rate the combat level in this particular chapter. It was still to light for me, I wanted to go even deeper but I had to keep in mind that this was Dan's first time fighting one of these things so by far so I can't make him a badass yet lol. Even though I REALLY wanted to. I'll have to keep this story moving if I want to get to that, I suppose.

I honestly debated if I should have warned those that were eating to finish their meals before reading this story on account of the whole, boil in the butt thing. However, I decided against it as I know you guys would be fine anyway.

Now, this chapter does not end Dan's expedition if you were wondering, this Chapter was more of a "baptism by fire" kind of thing.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to future ones. I honestly can't wait till we get to good stuff.