//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Maccao boxing // Story: What it means to be a Hunter // by Holiday Agnaktor //------------------------------// Pure Heart, now wearing a nice set of armour and a greatsword on his back, trotted excitedly alongside Blue out of the living quarters and headed towards the queue for the hunter tryouts. Heart went to join the back of the rather long queue, but Blue stopped him with a quick poke. "Nah, I don't feel like waiting for two hours before I can see you in action," Blue said whilst pointing at a door at the end of the hall, "follow me." Heart followed Blue without saying a word. He did feel bad about jumping the queue, but Blue did say that he was an elite hunter, so he probably had a lot of influence? Maybe there was a system to let certain ponies jump the queue to keep things interesting for the viewers in the arena? There had to be a better reason than that Blue didn't feel like waiting. When they arrived at the registration desk at the end of the queue, (which was also made out of marble, like most things here,) Heart finally saw who was standing behind it. It was a brown unicorn mare with a long flowing black mane, surrounded by books and writing tools. She wore green robes and had a small hat in the same colour. She was currently looking through a small pair of glasses at a big book in front of her, jotting down information with a pen levitated in a dark green aura, probably information about the slightly impatient stallion right in front of her. Blue approached her. "Hey there, Guildmarm, can we cut the queue real quick? This guy here-" Blue gave Heart a small punch to the shoulder, "-shows promise. Should be interesting to watch." The mare apparently called 'Guildmarm' looked up from her paperwork, and looked calculatingly at Heart for a few seconds. "Sure, I'll register him, and then he's good to go." The ponies in the queue just sighed, and a light blue pegasus even facehoofed. Apparently Blue wasn't the first one to make a request like this. They went through the registration process fairly quickly. They would usually have to register which weapon they used, borrow one from the armoury, etc, but all that had already been taken care of by Blue. You didn't have to borrow a weapon and a suit of armour if you already owned them. The Guildmarm pointed towards the door to her left. "So, Doodle, you can go through that door now and beat up a monster. Hopefully. Blue will show you where everything is. I'd show you myself, but I might as well let Blue do it. I've still got work to do," she said, before going back to registering the ponies in the queue. "Ehh, my name isn't-" Heart began, before being interrupted by Blue. "Hush, she only calls ponies Doodle when they're hunters, so this means that she puts a lot of faith in you." Heart smiled thankfully at the Guildmarm and started walking towards the door. It was probably just one of those military inside things. He and Blue walked through the doorway, into a circular room which was completely open at one side, showing a gorgeous view of Equestria. The floor was still made out of marble, but the floor on the edge of the room, which just poked over the edge of the mountainside, was made out of weathered wood. Just before the wood part were more pillars in a circular pattern, following the edge of the room. The room itself was fairly empty. It only contained a familiar red box, pushed against a pillar to his left, and a few ponies in armour standing next to another doorway to Heart's right. Just outside the edge of the room, there was an airship floating not far off, no doubt to bring hunters to their missions far away. Blue poked Heart softly, who was just staring dumbfounded at the view in front of them. "Yes, yes, it's very pretty, but that's not where we're going," Blue said with a chuckle, "we're going to the arena!" The entrance to the arena was apparently the doorway to his right. They walked through it, Blue giving a friendly nod to the hunters guarding the door, and they started walking through the stone hallway that followed. It went on for quite a while, illuminated by thin gaps in the wall that let in dim rays of sunlight. After a minute or three of walking the hallway started to slope upwards and eventually ended in a short staircase with a wooden trapdoor at the top. Blue opened it with his magic, and the two stepped into a brightly lit chamber. It was quite large, larger than most ponies' living rooms. It had the shape of a half-circle, with two doors on the flat side and a gigantic curved wooden bed with thick red blankets pushed against the circular wall. The bed looked big enough to fit at least four ponies with enough room for each of them to be comfy. Next to the bed was a staircase which led upwards, probably to the rest of the arena. And between the two doors, there was a blue box. It looked identical to the two red boxes Heart had seen before but instead of red, painted a bright blue. Blue clapped in his hooves. "So. The box over there has some items, pick those up, sleep in the magical healing-bed to heal up some wounds if you need to, go through the doors to enter the arena, smack the monster until it doesn't get up again. The monster is a Great Maccao, a great big bird without wings but with claws and a massive springy tail. Any questions?" Heart shook his head. "No sir." "Alright then, good luck and happy hunting." With that final greeting Blue waved Heart goodbye before climbing the stairs upwards and out of sight. Now it was just Heart in here. He opened the blue box curiously and saw that it contained some phials with green liquid in them. The phials were marked with a red cross, so they were probably health potions. He had heard of these before. Liquid charged with healing magic beforehand, so that ponies in battle could quickly heal up if necessary by drinking it. There were also a few sandwiches in the box which, upon closer inspection, were found to be full of dried hay. Military rations were indeed as simple as they said. Heart levitated the items out of the box and fitted them in a pouch on his back. It had been magically enhanced so that it could fit more items. He kept one hay-sandwich out and ate it, just to see what it tasted like. It tasted very bland (what did he expect, really,) and filled him up nicely. He had been getting peckish, and this sandwich hit just the spot. They said that you shouldn't eat before exercising, but 'they' can just go and slay monsters on an empty stomach. With nothing else to give him excuses to delay himself, he approached the door to his right, looking through it. There was a short hallway, with on the other side a huge sand-filled arena, brightly lit by the sun. Heart could just see the crowd on top of the wall surrounding the arena from where he was standing. The crowd was currently just sitting there relaxed, chatting amongst themselves it seemed. He couldn't see too well from this distance. At this point, Heart was just wasting time. He gave himself a mental kick to his flank and stepped into the hallway. When he walked through the final door to the arena, the hooting sound of a horn rang through the arena, pointing everypony's attention towards Heart. The crowd started cheering and clapping, a few whistles piercing the air as well. It gave Heart some confidence, knowing that the crowd at least slightly believed in him. He looked around the arena, to try to spot the monster that he was supposed to slay. He soon spotted it hopping around near the edge of the arena. It truly deserved to be called a 'monster'. The Great Maccao walked on two legs, like a bird, and had two smaller arms with razor-sharp claws dangling in the air in front of it. Its huge body was covered in brown scales and green feathers, making it easy to spot in the yellow-brown arena. It was no doubt camouflage meant for forests. It was huge, easily as tall as four ponies stacked on top of each other, and that was without it standing up on its massive tail. Its tail was as long as the rest of its body and it apparently used it as a foot of some sorts. It balanced itself on it, raising its body upright, allowing it to see the environment from a bit higher up. It must have learned that the sound of the horn meant that another hunter had entered the arena because it had been looking around for him since. It didn't take long for the monster to spot Heart, and with a loud shriek, it began running towards him. "Welp, here we go..." muttered Heart to himself before running towards the middle of the arena. He didn't like the idea of being pinned to the wall. The Great Maccao was surprisingly fast for its size, closing the distance between them faster than Heart would've liked. Once it was relatively close, it jumped back onto its tail and roared very loudly. Heart used this moment to unsheath his greatsword and get an experimental swipe in on the monster. The blade connected with the monsters face, giving it a nasty gash across its face that it wouldn't forget soon. The monster recoiled from the impact, looking thoroughly pissed at Heart. The ponies before him had at least let him finish with his roar. The monster quickly lunged, his beak only just missing Heart's body. Heart had rolled out of the way and was preparing to slash again. Unfortunately for him, the monster had other plans. It lunged again, its widely opened beak this time slamming straight into Heart, making the audience gasp, knocking him a few meters away. It had tried to gouge out a chunk of pony, but Heart's leather and steel armour protected him well from the monster's teeth. It didn't make the impact hurt any less, though. Heart got up shakily, making the crowd cheer for him again. The Great Maccao, meanwhile, was hopping around on its tail, its signature move, turning to face Heart head on. It used its tail as a spring to launch itself towards him, but this time, Heart was ready. He timed the swing of his greatsword just right so that he blocked the monster's claws with the flat of the blade as he swung it. He then let his sword continue on its circular path around himself to hit the monster straight in its face again, eliciting a cry from the green beast as streams of blood began to flow from its head and neck. Heart quickly followed that hit up with another one, keeping the blade's momentum going. He didn't waste too much effort trying to perfectly aim his hits. As long as they hit, he was fine with it. He managed to get four to five good extra hits in before the monster finally broke through the barrage of blows. It tried to smack him away with its front leg, but Heart diverted his blade just in time to block that hit while he did a fast backstep. Heart hadn't noticed because of his concentration, but the crowd was going absolutely wild. They hadn't seen a rookie fight like this in quite some time. With a greatsword, the fatty of all weapons, no less. Almost made it look easy. This time, instead of the monster attacking Heart, Heart attacked the monster. He circled around, looking for an opening. The monster attacked viciously, not having enjoyed Heart's last attack, and lunged forwards again, more aggressively this time. Heart had anticipated as much and gave the monster a good whack on its head with the flat of his blade, which seemed to stun it for a second. He followed it up with a sideways slash aimed at its legs, causing it to fall over on its side. Heart hadn't expected it to actually fall over from that, but as they say, "we take those". He slashed away in his circular fashion while the monster tried desperately to get up. After a few hits, he was interrupted from his slashing by the fact that he had gotten hit by a large tail in his side, flinging him to the side. The monster hadn't been able to get up while Heart was swinging at it, so it had used its tail to bat him away first. The Great Maccao got up and charged towards where Heart had been flung. This time it wasn't going to hold back. It didn't pause at all between attacks. Claw slash, tail swipe, jumping attack from above, claw slash while circling around, it tried everything it knew to try to get through Heart's defences. Heart couldn't do much other than blocking the hits as best as he could. His sword was simply too slow to get a counter attack in without being hit himself as well. He would have to get his sword moving again, and that took time, time that he didn't have at the moment. Heart blocked one final tail swipe before sprinting away at full speed. He couldn't do anything against the monster if it just kept on attacking, he would just tire out from blocking the hits with his levitation, without doing any damage to the monster. He managed to create some distance between him and the monster, which made him feel slightly more secure, and now he had a few precious seconds to come up with a plan to finish the monster off. It looked really hurt, bleeding from multiple large cuts in its body. It also limped slightly from where Heart had it its back leg. Not enough to slow it down significantly, but it was noticeable. Heart faced the monster and started circling his sword around him, making it go faster and faster. The monster approached him but didn't get in range of his circling sword. It tilted its head, trying to see some way through this defence. After a few seconds, it roared and hopped on its tail. It launched itself high into the air, traversing a path through the air that would make him land right on top of Heart. But instead of just standing there, waiting to be hit, Heart diverted the path of his sword to change it from circling around himself into an overhead slash. He timed it just right, catching the monster in mid-air, and slamming it into the ground in front of him with an almighty thud. The Great Maccao didn't get up again. After a few seconds of stunned silence, the crowd went absolutely nuts. This rookie had just killed a Great Maccao in style. Catching it in mid-air with a greatsword? Unheard of. The sound from the horn rose above the cheering, signifying that he'd completed the arena quest. Heart slowly started smiling. He did it. He did it. Pretty well too, if he did say so himself. He swung his sword around himself once, to get the majority of the blood off it, and then sheathed it, which elicited a few whistles from the crowd. The slash-to-get-the-blood-off had always been a fan favourite. He bowed a few times for the crowd, who cheered him on enthusiastically, and then he proudly made his way back towards the hallway where he first entered the arena. Stepping into the circular preparation room, he was welcomed by Blue's excited clapping. "Man, I knew there was something good about you," said Blue, probably with a grin, (he still wore his mask,) "you took that monster down, like, ba-POW! Straight in its face! Are you sure you're only a rookie? Because you sure didn't fight like one." "Well, I'm not exactly a rookie. I'm part of the Heart family, you see," Heart said, whilst standing up just a bit straighter, "Ever heard of Brave Heart?" Blue took a step back in surprise. "Isn't he one of those few ponies in the Royal Guard that answers directly to Shining Armour? Don't tell me-" "Yup," Heart said with a wide grin, "that's my big brother. And the only reason that we currently have a peaceful relationship with Yakyakistan is because my great-granddad Strong Heart led an army to give them a crushing defeat that they wouldn't forget for a long time. The Heart household is almost completely focused on combat and combat related things, in proud service of Equestria. Armed and unarmed training was daily business growing up, so I'm not exactly a rookie, no." Blue looked rather taken aback by this new information. "...Woah, never knew that you were from a big family, huh. Well, we only just met, so I guess that makes sense. Anyway, you're pretty much a hunter now! Congrats! We still have to do the formalities, blah blah blah, so that's where we're headed now. Follow me, please." And with that Blue led Pure Heart, who was still grinning, back through the tunnel to the Great Hall in Canterlot Castle.