The Hunter and The Hunted

Episode Two

'Roamers'

The new morning sun beat down on all six heads, but a quick splash of a stolen canteen from the Las Pegasus gift shop and a few pounds of sunflowers and dog food from the market took care of it.  Hawk and Bull were up front a few steps further, so Cerberus and Twilight could talk to themselves.

"So, we just follow them?" she asked.

"Yeah, they guard us, we pay them, all's well."

"Wow, I didn't know it worked that way.  I thought you would have to do some sort of contact or some ritual," Twilight explained.

Cerberus's middle head laughed at Twilight's gullible gestures.

"Where did you hear that?  Not all dark deeds are done in some back water shack with rituals.  You Canterlot ponies-"

Twilight stopped him; "Canterlot? I live in Ponyville now, thank you very much."

"Okay, you Ponyville folk rarely ever see any action, besides your run in with Discord," Cerberus said, trying to tease the lavender unicorn.

Twilight was prone to easy agitation when provoked, which only made her all the more gullible.

"Ever since I came there, we have defeated Nightmare Moon, taken out Discord, saved the town from parasprites, and tons of other things.  I think all of us down in Ponyville have seen their fair share of despair."

Cerberus slowed down for a moment to think, but then caught up with a new playful comeback.

"What ever happened to Ponyville before you came?"

"That's a good question, but I don't see your point.  Explain yourself," she returned as they started climbing over another dune.   This must have been the fiftieth one they passed.

"I'm just saying, maybe your the trouble, Twilight," he trailed off.

She chuckled, "Me?  I am not trouble, Cerberus.  It's trouble that finds me, not the other way around."

"Hopefully, because I don't want to end up dying on my way back home!"

"I don't appreciate you judging me, we have only known each other for such a small time, why don't you tell me more about yourself," she asked, hoping he would agree.

"You already know about me from all those books you read.  You probably even know what day I was born, am I right?"

"On the contrary, I don't.  Why don't you tell me what the books wouldn't dare tell me."

Cerberus took a breath and looked at the ground, "Sure, why not.  What do you want to know?"

"You said that you went to an academy or something to train to be a guardian of Tartarus.  What was your life like before that? Where were you born?" Twilight asked.

Hawk looked back, "Hey, keep it up back there!"

"Sorry, we're coming!" Twilight shouted back.

They were a lengthy distance away from them because Twilight had not been paying attention to them.  They were two dunes ahead of them, and on the horizon, barley visible, was a tree line, and an enormous mountain range started appearing through the clouds.

"I was born here, in the world you live in now," Cerberus said.

"Here?"

"Yes, my mother was a dog, so was my father."

"But you have three heads, is that a deformity of some sort?" Twilight pondered, but then realized what she had just said, and became embarrassed, her lavender cheeks turning a bright red.

"Don't be afraid to ask, Twilight.  No, it is not a deformity, I'm just a normal dog, but I was given these heads when I passed the final test."

"Are they dummies or something?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, are your other two heads alive and have different consciences?  I have only seen your middle head the most active.  Are there two other of you in there?" Twilight was getting really deep in to her questions.

"No, they don't say much, they bark and stuff, but they don't communicate.  My main brain is in the center head, or my head.  I don't have control over these other two fella's." he said.

"Okay, tell me about your life," Twilight returned.

"I was born in the the great woods of Neighpolis, which span for hundreds of miles around the center city.  I lost my parents after I was old enough to walk around myself by a forest fire.  I lived in a den with dozens of other dogs." he said.

"Their is a society of dogs?  Like, domesticated dogs?" Twilight asked, astonished by his story.

"Yeah, we are not as technologically advance as you ponies are, but we get by."

"Please go on, would you like some water?" she held out the canteen from around her long neck.

"Yes, please."

She spilled a stream of cool water into his open mouth and a bit more on the top of his middle head.

"So, anyways," he began, "I made my way out of the woods, on the opposite side  of the woods from Neighpolis, and too the mountains.  I met a dragon there, whom could have eaten me in one bite, but he didn't attack.  I entered his cave and he didn't attack."

"Did you befriend this dragon?  What was it's name?" Twilight asked.

"His name was Hannibal, but that was not his given name, it was just what ponies called him.  He was, more or less, friendly, caring, and supportive.  He replaced my father, but not my mother.  My mother was replaced by his partner dragon, Pandora.  She shared the same motherly feature as mine did."

"I thought that the guardians were supposed to be vicious, evil, and doom brining immortals," Twilight said.

"As did I, but when it was time for me to go and leave my foster dragons, I was ready to take on the world."

"But wh-"

"Twilight, Cerberus, get down here!" a harsh whisper from Bull shot out.  They all slid down the dune they where trotting on, and where stuck in between a ravine of sand.

"What is it?" Cerberus asked, panting.

"I think there is something moving towards us, coming down the trench," Hawk said.

They pulled their guns and other weapons and aimed down the trench and a wind blew through it, and then there was silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Then something appeared from the sand in the trench, a spider.  A spider like the one Twilight and Cerberus encountered in the Las Pegasus sewer.  The two appeared, then five, then a group of seven.

They locked onto their targets and started firing away, hitting two of them, and the yellow sand mixed with the green blood from the venomous arachnid beasts.

"Bull, don't miss that one," Hawk said, flipping a few long bullets into the rifle and sliding the bolt in place.

"I got it!" Bull said over the roar of her rifle.

They wasted no bullets, shot seven rounds, hit seven spiders.

Twilight realized that she put her hoofs over her ears.