The Hunters of Secrets

A griffin yelled as he was hit by a shadowy figure, and when he was knocked out, the shadowy figure zipped by them again and dropped a greenish black rock with a rune on it. Then his spear said, "Oh, what do we have here?" Silver looked at it and recognized the rune. He grabbed it and his spear proclaimed, "Let the bloodbath begin!"

Silver used what strength he had left to grab the rock and uttered, "Oh, Mysterious Shadow, give me strength."

King Steel yelled, "STOP IT! Some griffin, knock him out!"

But it was too little too late, as Sliver slammed the rock into his chest. Black cracks started to form in his body, his wounds were closed, and his broken wing fell off and was replaced with an oil-black wing. His rear hoofs twisted and turned unnaturally, several of his bones cracking. His eyes changed from green to crimson and his chains heated up until they became nothing but a mush of melted metal on the ground. Silver grabbed his spear, and as he did, red veins began to spread across it. Then the spear spoke. "Playtime."

King Steel shouted wildly, "KILL IT! KILL IT!" And the closest griffins began to charge at the Chiroptera, but a dark blue pulse of magic went through them. They dropped their spears and started to back away. One cowered and mumbled in fear, "Are you going to banish me? NO! My King, I will not betray you. Why are you doing this to me?"

Before Steel Beak could answer, Sliver Tip ended the frightened griffin's life straight through the throat. The next one drew out his sword and started swinging at air as he yelled, "I killed you! You're dead, dead, and nothing is going to bring you back!"

The griffin King could only watch as the Chiroptera approached him and said, "You know what you did, and I have come for payback." Sliver Tip slammed the spear to the ground and one spike of earth drove upward, impaling the sword-swinging griffin in the head. A third griffin had a nervous breakdown and turned around to look at the King. Steel saw nothing but terror in his eyes.

Sliver Tip moved closer to the king. "They feel nothing but the pain and horrors that you put them through." The Hunter pointed his hoof at King Steel and continued. "I grant them freedom from the endless pain." He then used his spear to stab the third griffin several times. When he was done, there was nothing but a bloody mess.

Steel Beak yelled, "Kill this monster!" Two more griffins tried to attack, but they were blocked by Sliver Tip’s spear. It wasn't too long before the weapon glowed white. Suddenly, gravity got weird as Sliver pushed the griffins back. They floated uncontrollably. The hunter slammed his spear on the ground again and a dozen boulders popped out from the ground. Using his hoofs, Sliver hurled several boulders at the two griffins. It only took a handful of rocks to turn them into bloody piles of armor. Eventually, Sliver turned off the gravity rune and the three boulders that were left in the air fell straight to the ground.

Steel swung his ax and nearly decapitated Silver, but the Hunter’s blood was black as ink, and when it spilled out of his wound, it stopped in mid air and flowed back into his body, his head reattaching. Silver’s spear took control of his body and made him say in a crazy voice, "Strike one! Oh, this is gonna be fun!"

Sliver and Steel began to trade blows in earnest. The griffin King swung his ax hard and the Hunter either blocked it with his spear, laughing crazily, or he simply let it hit him, the spear yelling insanely, "More pain! I want more pain! And when we're done here, I'll be bathing in your blood!" Steel grabbed some dirt from the ground and swung his ax with his other talons. Sliver easily blocked the attempt, laughing like a mad pony. But then Steel threw the talonful of dirt at the mad Hunter. Silver wiped his face while King Steel went in for another killing blow, this time cutting from the bottom of the chest all the way to the head. Silver spoke, his words hard to make out. "How could this be? I've been beaten. Looks like you win this round." King Steel turned around and, like last time, blood as black as ink spelled out, paused in mid air, and went back into Silver’s body. Silver gave King Steel a look that a serial killer might give his victim. The spear made Silver say, "Or not! Strike two! We're going to have an epic blood fest!"

Silver drew out his sword and, moving faster with a crazy laugh, swung it twice, then lunged with his spear. He repeated the move. King Steel expected this and tried his best to block each swing from the sword and the spear, but Silver’s sword was too quick. The King endured several cuts. He decided it was not worth the risk to charge at Silver because the spear was too long to avoid getting impaled upon. Thinking quickly, Steel grabbed Silver's sword hoof and, using his rear lion paw to kick the sword away, he focused his strength on standing Silver up against a nearby rock. With his ax, he cut Silver’s barrel in two, but the same thing happened again, the black blood spilled out only for a second before reversing and flowing back into his enemy’s reattaching body parts. Sliver’s spear exclaimed with a maniacal laugh, "It’s strike three! Oh, and guess what? You're dead! Like, super dead. I don't think the Ailcorn of death can bring you back!" Silver grabbed Steel’s ax and snapped it in two.

Steel picked up what was left of his ax blade and then charged Silver Tip, managing to hit him. Simultaneously, Silver stabbed King Steel several times, but the King’s last ax swing was so strong it sent Silver Tip slamming into a rock, leaving a spider web crack in it.

As the King fell, a blue wisp emerged from him and started to leave, but a red energy appeared and started to cover around it, pulling it closer to the spear. Steel Beak’s soul yelled, "No! I want to be in my afterlife. Wait, this is- oh no! Noooooo!" His soul was consumed by the spear. Then the power of the spear said through Silver, "Mmm, delicious." A golden ring appeared on top of several other rings on the spear. The glowing red eyes examined the rings. "This is a nice addition to my collection." The power hungry spear handed control back to Silver, and he said with quite a bit of pain in his voice, "Glad you enjoyed it, but unfortunately this is our last battle together." He activated the magical gravity rune, this time increasing the gravity until there was a really big hole in the ground, leaving the griffin King’s corpse flat as a pancake. Before Silver died, his red soul tried to make a run for the afterlife, but several yellow lines wrapped around his soul and drew it closer to the spear. The power of the spear said, "Don't worry, my little hunter, you will be with us forever." And his soul was absorbed into the spear. As Silver dropped the spear of the first hunter and it fell to the ground, a new ring appeared, a red one.

The fighting continued for a good long while. Griffins were either charging or trying to dodge traps that they triggered by accident. It wasn't long until several griffins and Hunters fell to the ground, saw the giant gravity hole, and realized what was left of their leaders. With their king gone, the griffins knew there was no point in continuing the fight. They thought they could try to fly up and yell at everypony to stop the fighting, but would their comrades listen? They didn't know, but fortunately the Hunters blew into their horns to call off the battle. That was exactly what happened as every Hunter disengaged from the fighting and landed at the source.

The Griffins followed, planning to continue the fight, but all of that changed when they saw the other griffins on the ground. Landing right next to their comrades, they saw the Griffin King’s dead and flattened body. A Griffin named Blue Zoom spoke. "Look, we don't need to fight anymore, so can we have a truce?" Zoom stretched his talon out in hopes that a Hunter would shake it. Eventually, a Hunter did, and when they finished shaking, the remaining griffins collected their King’s remains and belongings, and brought them back to Griffinstone.

The Hunters burned the fallen Griffins and Chiropteras so that no Unicorn could resurrect them. One can never be too careful.

A dark green Chiroptera named Arbor saw Silver Tip’s spear and picked it up. Suddenly, red veins spread all over her body and her eyes widened as she yelled as loud as she could. "This bloodlust! And the endless carnage!" She started swinging the spear around, her eyes turninf from yellow to crimson. "Blood! Give me blood! I need more blood!" Arbor realized what was about to happen and quickly dropped the spear. Her eyes returned to their normal yellow and the red veins faded away. The dark green Thread said, "It’s evil, like an endless bloodbath." All of the Hunters looked at it before returning their gaze back to Arbor. Using her hoof, she kicked it away. But Arbor was still shaken by the experience.

Present day

With understanding finally sinking in the Pegasus’s brain, he began to rise up on his hooves as the Earth pony approached him, saying , "So, are you just going to stay here and probably get torn to shreds by one of those Wereponies, or are you going to learn from your previous battle and try again?"

The Pegasus stood up tall and said, "It's better to die as a warrior than as a coward."

With those words, the Earth pony placed a hoof on the pegasus’s back. With a faint but noticeable green glow, the ripped out wing grew back. As the pony saw this, he tested it out by flapping it, and it worked like a charm. The Ailrag blasted the vine into burning building sized pieces. As she slammed down on the wall, she said, "Okay, who's first?"

The pegasus used his sword to slash and stab at the monster, and after the tenth hit, Crystal spread her wings, ready to chase after him in the sky. But the Solar earth pony grabbed the mare by the neck, preparing to end her life. Her wings were still free, and she was about to fly up and let him fall to his death. The Pegasus knew she was going to do it, because all pegasuses do this when they’ve got something like a pony on their back. Moving fast, he grabbed her wings to prevent her from flying.

With an increase of frustration, Crystal lit her horn up. Suddenly, a wave of fire burst from her horn, burning both Earth pony and Pegasus. She shook her body and let the burned corpses drop to the floor. She then heard a, "What!?" And looking down, she saw four ponies. Crystal immediately zipped past them with her wing blades stretched out.

One of the guards said, "So, you're telling us that there's some kind of monster destroying this wall?"

Cough cough “Basically, yes.” cough

She zipped by an earth pony and a Unicorn. They jumped back, and in a split second, an Earth pony and a Pegasus collapsed to the ground. The Alirag turned around and fired a devastating beam of fire which pretty much roasted them until they were nothing but a pile of ash. The unicorn managed to bring up a magical shield, but that quickly disappeared. After that, the unicorn tried to crawl away from the Alirag, but all his hopes and dreams vanished when he felt a magical aura wrap around him, dragging him over to what used to be Crystal Breeze. Face to face, the pony opened her mouth, revealing hot, orange, glowing teeth. She bit into him, which caused the pony in question to erupt into flames and burn to a crisp. Her task complete, Crystal Breeze made her way to where the others were.

After all three of them finished killing and roasting every pony in the Barracks, several tendrils, black as ink, came out of them and slowly but surely disappeared into Mystic Coat’s book. When she looked at her book, she saw three eager faces staring back at her, wanting to do more for her. But she knew that she had done enough. So, she used a bit more of her magic to create a portal that violently opened and sucked the air around it. Planets and stars moved at hyper speed inside the portal. As she walked towards it, a pair of glaring green eyes stared at her from the shadows. She stopped and turned around, saying, "I know you're there."

Slowly, Arkantos moved out of the shadows right in front of her. "You do know what you did here is wrong, right?"

Turning back to the portal, Mystic Coat replied, "Really? In a time of battle, you choose now to lecture me about what's wrong and right? Yeah, you might want to look in the mirror."

"Hey, I'm just upholding the Creator’s work, but you are disrupting that very work."

"I'm not disrupting the work. I am improving it by making far more powerful characters than the Creator dares to make! That god doesn't have the stomach to do what I'm doing!" She started walking towards the portal again before looking back and saying, a tear in her eye, "We could've been something, but you had to throw it all away." She then stepped through the portal. Instantly, it closed behind her with a loud crack of thunder.

Arkantos, his head hung low, whispered, ”I know it was my fault. But what you're doing is going against creation. So I will stop you, in this world or the next." Then Arkantos stepped back, disappearing into the shadows