The Monster Within

by Uberdeathninja

Ch. 6- Well, this is awkward

It was midnight, in the heart of the Everfree. Meanwhile, Twilight and her friends had by now awoken, and soon found themselves within the beast's cave, and like soon to be its lunch. So, deciding to escape before such a thing happened, the six made several attempts to escape, and finally managed to sneak past the animals guarding the cave mouth after hours and hours of near-failure, mostly due to the odd tail that kept getting stepped on by the six ponies. But so, that finally done, the six then headed toward the way they came, hoping to retrace their steps, but were soon hopelessly lost in the darkness of the night, as they had never been to this part of the forest before, and it was pitch-black due to the trees growing so thick. In fact, after actually looking around, the six mares noticed the trees here were the tallest and oldest they had ever seen.

"Rainbow, can you fly up there and see where we are?" Asked Twilight, getting an idea in her head, assuming that they knew where they were, first.

"Sure thing!" Replied Rainbow Dash with a salute, and she then spread her wings, and flew above the trees, fast as lightning. When she came back down, however, she looked like she'd seen a ghost. "We're... we're in the dead center of the forest!" Exclaimed Rainbow Dash, dread in her voice, and everyone soon began to panic, all but Pinkie Pie, anyway.

"How do we get out?!" cried AppleJack.

"Indeed! We'll surely die out here without guidance!" Said Rarity gloomily. Suddenly, though, Pinkie Pie began to bounce off in a random direction, her usual smile plastered onto her face.

"Where are you going, Pinkie?" Asked Twilight, still unnerved at the situation the six were in, and not in the mood for Pinkie's antics.

"To Fluttershy's cabin, of course!" Replied Pinkie Pie, confusing the others.

"Pinkie, How do you know where that even is?" Asked Rainbow Dash.

"Just trust me on this one, guys. I think I might know what I'm doing." Replied Pinkie Pie happily, and seeing no other option, and given the fact that Pinkie's track record of getting out of trouble was pretty good, The six followed her, hoping that this wasn't just going to get them killed.

---

The Human had speared seven rabbits, four foxes, nine birds, and a goat near the cottage that late night. All in all, it was a very good hunt, and he couldn't wait to return to his lair so he could begin his feast with his pack-mates, the only ones around here that shared his appetite. However, despite himself, his mind kept drifting to the blue alicorn he met last night for some reason. Unlike most ponies he'd seen before, she was quite kind and respectful. However, he kept telling himself she was still a pony, and not to be trusted, as a rule. With that, he began his long trek back to his lair, but he realized it was getting late, so he set up a fire nearby the cottage, despite it's recent track record of attracting bad luck, and feasted there, resolving to bring the rest of his hunt to his pack-mates tomorrow. And so, upon finishing an entire chicken by himself, the human eased himself against a tree, and began to close his eyes for the night. However, he became uncomfortable as he began to feel a familiar presence get closer and closer to his position. So, unable to sleep, the human sat by the fire and gnawed on a rabbit he cooked up while he waited for his familiar guest to arrive...

Luna flew over to the forest, hoping to find the human before the Mane Six did. However, as she flew towards the forest, she noticed a column of smoke coming from nearby Fluttershy's house. Scared that a wildfire might have started near her house, she quietly flew down to its source, only to find the last thing she expected to so easily: The human. She kept her distance out of habit, but watched carefully as he sat near a campfire. And so, sensing that it wasn't going to attack her, she took a step toward it, stepping out of the brush concealing her. The human quickly looked at her, looking as if it was going to strike at any moment. Then, after it saw who she was, it relaxed a little bit, sitting back down, but still eyeing her warily, as if it didn't know whether to trust Luna or not. So, sensing this unease, Luna decided to try and talk to the human, to hopefully better their understandably unsteady relationship:

"Hello, human." She said slowly, as not to startle the human. "May I sit here?"
The human stared at her for what seemed like an eternity, a hard glare on its face. Finally, its expression softened, and it nodded slightly. Luna then sat down by the fire as well, on the opposite side of the human. The human then relaxed a little more, and returned to it's meal: A roasted rabbit. This did not surprise Luna, seeing as humans were naturally omnivorous, but she still found herself unnerved that it would eat meat so casually before her. However, she quickly shook the feeling off, then took the next step in her plan: She tried speaking to it.

"My name is Luna. Do you remember me?" She asked, enticing an odd look from the human, one that said: "Of course I do. What do you think I am, stupid?" After giving her the look, it then nodded slowly, still not taking it's eyes off of her. Luna, still not satisfied, then made the next move:

"Do you have a name?" She asked the human. The human merely gave her an annoyed look, then shook it's head no. An awkward silence fell for a while, then Luna tried again:

"Can you speak?" She asked. A pause followed, and the human blinked at first, registering the question, and finally nodded.
"I guess you just don't want to?" Asked Luna, and the human nodded quickly, casting another annoyed glance at Luna. Clearly, it still did not trust her.

"Do you hate me?" Asked Luna. This time, the human looked surprised and confused as it scratched its head ponderously, looking at the ground while it thought. After a while, the human shook its head 'no', relieving the princess to no end. Finally, Luna felt like she was making progress with this creature; step one to making him civilized neared completion.

---

The human was annoyed by the blue one, "Luna", she had called herself. However, this one was the only one he had ever met that did not try to attack him, so he could not bear any ill will toward her. In fact, for the first time in, well, ever, he kind of enjoyed her company, despite the constant questions, like "Do you have a name", or "can you talk". However, he was caught by surprise by the last question: "Do you hate me?", to which he had no real answer. After all, how could he hate her? Sure, she was a pony, and ponies tended to be bad news to him. But even so, she had done nothing wrong, and all she wanted was to talk. Hell, after a while, he soon found it hard to even be annoyed at her. Their one-way conversation continued, and he began to gradually enjoy Luna's company more and more.

As Luna talked, the human seemed to become more and more tolerant of her, and she finally was making progress with him. In fact, he became increasingly friendlier as time went on. Soon, the human patted a spot next to himself, offering to let her sit next to him. He even offered her some of his cooked rabbit, which Luna hastily, but politely, declined. By now, he was even chuckling at some jokes she made, though she doubted he understood them or got them. Time went on, and she got ready to ask if he would like to see what civilized life was like, but they both soon heard a crash in the brush, and six familiar ponies leaped out of the bushes, surrounding Luna and the human instantly.

"Stop right there, beast!" Shouted one of them.

---

Twilight and the others trudged through the forest, night quickly turning into day, and soon, they could see that the moon was almost down; the sun was not far behind.

"Pinkie, how much farther is the cottage?" Whined Rainbow Dash, tired of simply moving altogether.

"Not far! just a little further, and we'll catch him!" Replied Pinkie Pie cheerfully. The others looked at her, confused.

"Catch who?" Asked Twilight. Just then, Pinkie hid behind a tree.

"Get down! He's right over there!" Whispered pinkie, causing everyone to hide, though none of them, save Pinkie, knew quite why. As Twilight and the others looked around for whoever "He" was, she saw a fire, and the strange, bipedal creature they chased through the forest that ended up turning them into plants temporarily, and Princess Luna was sitting right next to it! Thinking the worst of the situation without actually looking at the scene, the Mane Six charged the creature who was keeping Luna hostage, surrounding it.

"Stop right there, beast" Demanded Twilight, and she and the others quickly surrounded the beast, quickly taking control of the situation as they could, and hoping he didn't turn them back into plants.

Luna and the human were too shocked to move as the Mane six surrounded them, ready to attack on a moment's notice.

"Twilight, What do you think you're doing?!" Cried Luna.

"We're saving you, princess! now back away from this creature; it's highly dangerous!" said Twilight. The human was too dumbfounded to move, but soon began feeling mixed emotions of rage, betrayal, and a desire to kill everything. Before he could act on them, however, Luna had had enough of this.

"JUST STOP!!!" she shouted in her royal Canterlot voice, causing everyone to stop what they were doing and look at her, as was the desired effect.

"Twilight, this human isn't dangerous! I was just trying to talk to him, before you came screaming from the bushes like you were mad!" Pleaded Luna. Twilight stared in disbelief at Luna, then at the human, who looked rather pissed off at her.

"Um... pardon?" she asked Luna quietly.

"I just told you, Twilight. This human is not dangerous. And besides, I wouldn't make him any angrier if I were you; after all, he's the one that's behind all those disappearances." Replied Luna sternly, and it took Twilight a while to register this, but her mouth dropped open when she finally figured it out.

"L-Luna, d-do you m-mean..?" Began Twilight, facing the rather irate creature Luna had Identified as a "human" with a new look of awe and terror.

"Yep. That creature right there is the "Beast" Celestia sent you six to find." Finished Luna.
The Mane Six looked sheepishly at the grumbling creature, who was now trying his hardest not to kill the six mares.

"Oh..." said Twilight. And with that, their relationship was set in stone.

Comments

[Ragged]

usually i would say to forgive but celestia committed textbook genocide i hope she dies or even better have twilight find out and disowns her the last part with twilight is a must thought. i am still peeved that Luna did not get as mad as she should have towards her sister or arrest or something on the spot when she found out. all in all something needs to happen to celestia to punish her for this most evil act she just cant go unpunished

[Uberdeathninja]

3285477
Great Idea. I'll get right on it.

[Nightmare Daniell61]

3282245 Mah tits are calm. im just ranting :P if i rant that is a good thing. it means i like the story.

~Nightmare (this story gets a 8/10 currently :D you get the 9 with more updates)

E: just finished latest chapter. my rating is still an eight but this was a very nicely done chappy :)

[Uberdeathninja]

3291549
I'll get right to that update soon, just calm down.

[Nightmare Daniell61]

3291963 :D yay!

[jolan5]

"...began feeling mixed emotions of rage, betrayal, and a desire to kill everything."

I call that my monday morning.

[rogerwarlock]

3320222
I got all that plus a craving for Bacon.

[no longer on]

3320222
Or a Tuesday afternoon.

[TheUnknownWarrior]

3320222 That's how I am on Mondays without my morning coffee and biscuits