Chapter 4:
Hunted

“Y-You k-killed him?!” Twilight stammered, her breathing accelerating as I could see panic set in.

“Snap out of it! They’re here for you two and I don’t see them having very good intentions if they get you!” Pulling both Twilight and Rainbow up from their seats. “Move. Now!”

Both the ponies spurred into action and ran the opposite way to where the griffin had come from, me hot on their heels getting a glance of other griffins rushing through the train towards their cart. Pushing out of our cart I quickly checked the sky to see if we wouldn’t get ambushed from above before pushing Dash and Twilight off of the train and pointing at the treeline.

“We lose them in there!” I called out, continuing to scan our surroundings, seeing some of the griffins spot us and rushing our way. One of them notched an arrow on his bow and took aim.

Hell no you don’t!

Crack!
Crack!

The griffin cried out and dropped out of the sky, one of his wings pulled against his body and the other flopping about as he bounced off the train onto the ground.

Not wasting any time I ran after Twilight and Dash, only using three legs significantly slowing me down as I needed to hold on to my rifle as well.

shit, there must be a better alternative to holding this thing... What if I...

In a bright moment I stashed away my rifle under a wing, freeing up my legs to run into the trees with the two ponies. Twilight was obviously not used to running as her breath was already ragged, which slowed Rainbow down who clearly could go much faster. Arrows crashed into the trees around us as the screeching of the griffins came from the train, I was sure they’d be hot on our tails very soon.

We need some more cover…

Pulling a smoke grenade from my vest I tossed it into the trees where it immediately started billowing out its white cloud, obscuring us from view. Aiming my rifle again I flicked the fire selector to automatic and pulled the trigger.

Ratatatata

Another cry came from the other side of the smoke as I hoped that it would make them hesitate in following us.

“W-Who were they?” Dash asked as we ran deeper and deeper into the woods through the foliage.

“Don’t ask me, I haven’t got a clue… That way!” I pointed to a rock formation that’d give a little cover, immediately throwing my backpack onto the ground, digging through it, and pulling out my two reserve camo shirts. “Put those on.”

“What?” Twilight managed to gasp as she was woefully out of breath while Rainbow immediately grabbed the shirt and pulled it on.

“You two are way too colourful to be able to hide effectively in the woods,” I explained, pushing the shirt into her forelegs while digging through my backpack further and pulling a second smoke grenade out of it.

“Wait, but how does this cover for my hair?” Dash asked as she awkwardly wore the shirt due to her wings being in the way and not wanting to cover them.

“We give them a temporary colour later,” I stated, stashing stuff back into my backpack again.

“So what do we do now? Can’t we just, I don’t know, fight them?” Dash continued, Twilight meanwhile was doing breathing exercises to lower the rate at which she was breathing and prevent herself from falling to panic completely.

“If I fight them it’ll be a massacre and it’ll take only one lucky arrow to take me out, two things I’d like to avoid. We keep moving, these guys don’t sound stupid and will most likely try to track us if we lose them as well,” I said, shouts from the direction of the train coming closer to our position as I slammed a new magazine into my rifle. “Let’s go, we’ve been stationary for too long already.”

We sprinted out of our cover, the thick foliage of the forest obscuring us for a while before a cry came from behind as we were spotted. Like I had hoped, the trees were too close to each other for the griffins to take flight and the roof of the forest was dense enough that hiding below it would be easy, greatly aiding our escape.

“Where are we even going?!” Twilight called out as I could see a couple of griffins started to close the distance with us.

“Someplace south... I hope! Right now that’s like step ten, we’re still on step two Twilight!” I growled, coming to a halt for a moment and checking the area behind me for griffins, raising my rifle and firing at a small group of unfortunate griffins who’d gotten ahead of the others.

“I don’t know who you are but we have no issue with you! If you give us the ponies we’ll let you live!” One of the griffins in the back shouted through the forest as I turned and continued to run on. "They're ponies anyway, what are they worth to you?!"

“You'll get them over my cold, dead, corpse!” I called back, catching back up to Dash and Twilight who got quite a bit ahead.

My legs burned with righteous fury as I accelerated as much as possible to close with the two ponies again before I would lose them in the bushes.

“Jack… I can’t… keep running like this…” Twilight’s voice was ragged as I caught up with them, the cries behind us getting quieter. My guess was that the griffins had halted momentarily after seeing so many of their own get taken out with such ease in the short engagement. I had no illusion about them not following us further, constantly keeping a suspicious eye on the sky, but any lead we could build up over them would be very welcome.

“Slow down a bit but keep moving,” I replied, my voice also ragged as I’d been keeping up with the ponies even with the gear I was dragging along.

“Why would those griffins be after us?” Dash asked, looking up at me. She was doing much better than Twilight was but was visibly out of breath too. “I know they're dicks but what did we ever do to them?”

“It’s not what you did, it’s who you are,” I told her as I pulled a compass from my vest, thanking whatever deity that looked over this world again that it seemed to give a consistent direction.

“What do you mean?” Rainbow asked, still confused.

“Twilight, you said you were here on your princess’s request, right?” I asked, in response to Dash’s question, getting a nod from the unicorn who was still catching her breath. “They weren’t interested in me, they just wanted you two, and since you have never met that group the most logical reason for them to go after you two is because they want to get something from your princess.”

“So they want us because they want to get something from the princess?” Twilight repeated, still sounding confused. I nodded at her.

“Yes. They probably want to achieve a goal that the princess would usually not agree with but by capturing you they have leverage over her. Either she agrees to demands or they harm you.” Both ponies’ eyes went wide as the point was driven home.

“That’s… horrible!” Twilight exclaimed, looking horrified. "Even for Griffins that's low"

Oh for fuck... The moment we're out of this I'm finding out why Griffins are such asses.

“Then why did you help us then?” Dash asked after cutting my train of thought.

“Pardon me?”

“Why did you help us? They weren’t after you so you could have just let them take us and not gotten yourself in danger,” Dash pointed out. “We only know you for like four days after all.”

“Because... well... I don't know, you're the only friendly people I know I guess?” I answered. “And it's not like I would ever forgive myself if I just let two innocents, regardless of their views on species, get captured by obviously violent forces.”

“That’s…” Dash winced back at my words and tried to find something to say, but nothing came to her mind. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t thank me yet, this isn’t over until you’re back home under the protection of your own government,” I told them, storing the compass back into my vest. “Is that direction south?”

Rainbow looked up at the sky and then towards the direction I was pointing. “Yeah.”

“Good, let’s go put as much distance between us and them before finding out how to get you two to them.”

By the time we took a break from travelling the sun was closing in on the horizon. Twilight dropped onto the ground, dog tired from the walking and tension of the possibility of being caught.

“I hope you two don’t mind sharing a sleeping bag,” I asked as I pulled it from my backpack and laid it out on the ground. Rainbow and Twilight looked at each other and shook their heads.

“We’re not, but where are you going to sleep if we have the sleeping bag?” Twilight asked groggily.

“I take first watch, I’ll wake you in three, maybe four, hours so I can take a nap before you can wake me for the morning watch again,” I explained, pulling out some of the leftover food we still had from the prior day and dividing it up.

“Are you sure you’re okay getting that little sleep?” Twilight sounded a bit bewildered at the fact I was willing to forgo so much rest.

“Training was way worse so don’t worry about me,” I chuckled, chomping down on the bit of our remaining food. We really didn’t have the supplies for this venture.

“If you say so…” Twilight responded, not enough energy left to ask further questions. After the meal Rainbow and I did a quick survey of our surroundings so we'd know the best way to run if we had to.

"Hey Jack, you know I don't hold you being a Griffin against you right?" she whispered, getting a huff from me.

"Sure making the effort to make me think otherwise," I grunted back. "What's so bad about griffins anyway?"

Rainbow sighed in response, placing a hoof on my chest to stop me from moving further. "There's some bad blood between the two of our kinds, griffins don't exactly make themselves more popular with their greed. I have some more personal history with one... good and bad, I know they aren't all like that all the time."

I looked Rainbow in the eyes in the fading light, finding them to only show sincerity. "Alright then, it was starting to bother me a bit. I'll make my judgement when I meet enough of them."

"That's fair," Rainbow agreed, walking back to the little camp site again before darkness would envelop it. The two ponies snuggled up in the sleeping bag, both dozing off nearly immediately. Being left to my own devices again I pulled my backpack close and took out the ghillie suit.

Guess this thing will come in handy after all.

Using my knife and some rope to remodel the suit, I sewed and cut the pieces so it would be wearable in my current form. Having some large cut pieces left over I proceeded to tie them together and wrapped them around my rifles. Stashing the gear again I continued to pull out the two pairs of pants that were still in there.

These things might fit on the two of them after cutting in a place for their tails and shorten the legs a bit and that should hide their fur somewhat better.

Eyeballing the modifications to the pants and leaving the legs in place so I could at least properly measure them out to adjust on my second watch.

After having finished working on the clothing I pulled an ammo box from my bag, topping off the rifle and pistol mags I’d fired a couple of rounds from. Having done all that I propped myself up against a tree and simply listened to, and watched the forest for any anomalies. Rainbow's words from earlier in the day echoed through my mind again.

Why did I help them...

Thinking about it only put me more on edge, claws tapping on the side of my rifle nervously. Looking over at the two snoozing ponies sent an uncomfortable shiver up my spine.

They clearly have some shitty views on griffins but they really are the only friendly people I know in this place, aren't they?

Pushing all my concerns to the back of my mind I tried focussing on the surrounding forest. Throughout the rest of my watch I heard or saw nothing suspicious. The moon lit up the sky in the stead of the sun by the time I moved to wake the two lightly snoring ponies by shaking them.

“Huh… wha-”

“Your watch,” I whispered as Twilight’s eyes fluttered open, Dash not far behind her.

“Oh, right.” Twilight yawned as she got out of the sleeping bag. Rainbow looking very groggy as she pulled herself from the sleeping bag as well. Pushing my rifle into Dash’s lap seemed to wake her up though.

“Uhm, why are you giving me this?” She asked, baffled at the fact I’d part with it so readily.

“Because if we’re found and you have to wake me first it might be too late. I don't want to wake up with a sword through my abdomen. Though if you notice something off but don’t think we’ve been found I want you to wake me up so we can quietly get out of dodge. Think you can manage that?”

“Yes, sir!” Dash replied a little loud but the look I could make out on her face told me that she’d already reprimanded herself for that.

“Good, it’s half-loaded so you need to chamber a round before you can fire. Remember how to do that?” Rainbow nodded in response, tapping the charging handle and the nob that would unlock the bolt.

Glad to know she actually listened to me when I explained this stuff.

“Perfect. Now before I go to sleep I want you two to try on these pants.” Passing on the two garments over to the ponies. “I cut in holes for your tails but I need to know if they’re placed well and how much of the legs I can lose.”

“You want us to wear pants?” Twilight asked questioningly.

“Just for more camo. I also want to cut some holes in Dash’s shirt for her wings.”

“That’d be awesome,” Dash nodded as she pulled on the pants, using velcro to adjust it’s hip size so it’d fit around her barrel. “Tail hole is comfortable enough.”

“Good. Yours, Twilight?” The unicorn had also pulled on the pants and was fidgeting with it.

“It’ll do I guess… I’m not used to wearing stuff like this,” Twilight admitted, taking them back off. “You can feel it’s not made for ponies though.”

“We’ll have to make due with what we have.” I yawned as I pulled myself into the sleeping bag but not before giving Twilight my watch. “Give me an hour or three. That’ll be enough for tonight.”

“Alright, we’ll wake you then. Sleep well.”

Author's Note

Remember that comments are like authors' food, we gain energy from them. Constructive criticism is welcome.