Chapter 2:
Operation Thunderstruck
The Lion pounced at me from the bush, because I had faintly heard his footsteps before the attack, I had been put on edge, so when the lion jumped, I was able to roll to the right and evade it completely. This beast was quick, when I got back up on my feet, the lion was already mid pounce. Everything was moving in slow motion, I could see straight down the lion's mouth. A last second decision caused me to duck. Somehow, I was able to hit the ground in time, there was barely an inch of space between me, and the underbelly of the lion. It kept going and hit a tree, nearly de-rooting the entire thing from the ground.
And than, I saw it. The tail of the lion was not that of a cat, no, far from it. It was the tail of a scorpion, the barb was dripping with venom, the beast turned around; anger in it's eyes. As it looked at me, I noticed wings, embedded in the side the side of the beast. Scaly red dragon wings.
That is when I realised I was not fighting a normal lion, but a manticore, a creature of legends! I had only heard of these in fairy tails and children's stories. I sat still, dumbfounded by the fact that, this thing was standing in front of me. It wasn't a figment of my imagination, it was a real, living breathing creature.
"This is a dream" I said out load
The manticore kept it's eyes trailed directly on me, it circled slowly, keeping a predatorial stance. He was ready to pounce at the moment I showed any sings of weakness.
Slowly, it moved closer, until it was within arms reach. I was still mesmerised by the creature, my mind could only class this as a dream. But I still had my doubts, everything felt real, I could feel the weight of my armour and the manticore's breath against me.
I decided to reach out to it and see if it was real. The second that I lifted my arm, the beast swiped with it's claws. The paw met it's mark on my left arm and left a huge, but shallow scratch mark.
"SHIT!"
Before feeling the pain course up through my arm, I had started a mad sprint further through the forest. My movement was faltered heavily by the body armour that I had woken up in. I turned back and saw the manticore, tearing through the grass and criss-crossing between the trees with extreme ease, his eyes were focused directly on me. As I was running I noticed that the forest ahead of me ended abruptly into a swampy bog, I had to act, quickly.
I heard it gaining on me, and continued to run. I estimated that it was right behind me, I could even hear it's frantic breathing. I dropped down on my back, and unsheathed the knife from my boot. The manticore passed directly over my head, I grabbed onto it's pelt, and stabbed my knife into it's underbelly, as it was dragging me across the floor. The manticore was frantically trying to shake me off, it's scorpion tail was jabbing the ground around me. I jaggedly tore open it's abdomen with my combat knife, as I was tearing it along, I could see the entrails slide out of it. I removed the knife and relinquished my grasp on the pelt. His entrails proceeded to pour out, onto me. The manticore cried out in pain, and fell to the ground just beside me.
A trail of intestines lead from the me, to the body of the manticore, who now lay on the ground, in pool of it's own blood. I could still hear breathing from the beast. It's eyes were very much alive, and it seemed to be in a terrible amount of pain. I could not let anything suffer through this kind of torment. Walking over to the manticore, I raised the knife above it's head, and brought it down on his temple. The breathing stopped, and the beasts eyes fell, dead.
I couldn't believe it, not only was I just attacked by a mythical beast, I had killed it. A manticore, slayed by the hands of a mortal. It reminds one of Greek mythology, in which Jason had slew a manticore with his bare hands. I slumped down on to my knees, my entire body was covered in blood.
"What do I do now? What if there are more?"
These kinds of thoughts tore through my mind as I tried to think of what I should do next. I was answered by a simple grumble in my stomach.
"Shit, hungry? Already?"
Lucky for me, I had freshly killed meat lying at my feet. Taking my knife, and reaching into the huge gash in the manticore's abdomen, cut a good hunk of meat from the stomach. When it was removed from the stomach, I placed it on a nearby rock.
"Now, for a fire."
During my time in the Marines, I had learned some tricks on wilderness survival. But, not enough to save ones life during a full emergency like this. Luckily Johnson had taken time to teach me nearly everything you need to know about survival tactics. During any free time, he would spend hours showing me procedures.
"You never know when you could find yourself ass deep in the middle of nowhere." he always used to say.
After spending atleast a half our collecting dry branches, I threw them all into a large pile and started a fire with a technique that Johnson taught me. It seems a tad barbaric to smash two rocks together, but it takes technique, and the rocks must be hand picked. It took me 2 hours to get a single spark. Even after that, the spark was not big enough to catch on. I sat for another 30 minutes, and finally got the fire going.
Placing the stone slab on top of the fire, the meat started to cook, and oh man, did it smell good. For some reason, I was famished, I felt like I haven't eaten for days. After placing all of my effort into cooking the manticore meat perfectly, I began eating. It was one of the most enjoyable tastes I have ever experienced. My mouth lit up with flavours as I chewed, something about the taste reminded me vaguely of steak, but it was still like nothing I have ever experienced before. Granted, any food tastes one hundred times better if you are starving.
After finishing the meal, I sorted through the pockets and bags on my body armour. As I reached into the left ammo pouch, hung next to my hip, I pulled out a journal, with a pen inside.
"What!? I guess I could find some use for this."
I reached back in, and could feel 9mm clips for the pistol, each clip held 15 rounds. The pistol that I had found on me was a Smith and Wesson MP, very common amongst civilians; even I had used it a few times. It was small but it packed quite a punch. I unslung the gun on my shoulder. I was nearly overcome with joy to see that it was a M4 Carbine. I had served with this weapon for nearly 4 years, and it had never failed me. The gun used 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition, that ran off of 30 round boxed magazines, of which, after reaching into my magazine pouch, I had plenty.
I walked over to the manticore, and stabbed my knife into the base of the neck, I cut for about an hour, and had finally removed the head from the body. I wanted to show it off as a trophy, incase anyone ever questioned my sanity after I told them I had killed a mythical beast. Now that I look back on this, it may have been better to take a wing, or the tail, because with only the head, it looked like a normal lion. I placed the head, over my shoulder, and walked off in search of shelter.
Nothing of real interest happened during the hour long walk, the only thing notable was that the terrain had changed from, swampy and murky, to just pure forest, as far as the eye can see. The trees in this forest were dark, and it threw me off. The only sound was from the crunching of my boots, and the sun was nearly down. Not a single gust of wind, no birds chirping, only eerie silence.
My mind raced with thoughts:
"How far until I find civilization? I've seen a manticore, what other creatures are lurking in these woods? Will I ever see my son again?"
The Moon began to raise up into the sky, I had to find shelter and get some rest. Who knows what kind of monsters could be wandering around this forest during the night.
I noticed a rock face that appeared to be less than 4 miles away; this was my only chance for shelter. I began to walk faster, and faster, until my walk turned into a jog, and then into a run. All around me lay eternal woodlands, and this cliff-face was my only chance of survival, a glimmer of hope during dark times. I felt terrified, cries were echoing out from every corner of the woods; it's as if the forest had suddenly sprung to life. I was no longer surrounded by a deathly silence, I was now encased in fear. These cries varied from birdlike chirps, to full out roars, most of which were far louder, and intimidating, than that of the manticore which I had killed.
In under ten minutes I had reached the cliff-face. I was gasping for breath, the kevlar body armour has become a nuisance, and was impeding on my movement, I had to find lighter armour. I walked along the rock-face, lucky for me, there was a small cave entrance about twenty feet off of the ground; I began to climb. The cliff was not too steep, and I was easily able to reach the entrance, it was about 5 feet tall, and 4 feet wide. I had to duck in, seeing as I measured out at 6.3.
After crawling through the entrance, I emerged into an opening, almost like a room. It appeared to be 7x10 feet, and the ceiling was nearly 9 feet tall; this was the perfect place for me to rest during the night. Placing my gear on the floor, I made a makeshift cot using the kevlar body armour. The cave floor was cold, but I had slept on worse.
I closed my eyes, and drifted off into sleep.
instead of saying venom barb was dripping with venom say venom barb was dripping with poison or something like that. dont use the same word twice.
and as for the rest of the chapter, very good :) theres a couple spelling mistakes and a few passages that you should consider revising. (we can go over it at school).
kudos!
Author's Note:
Chapter 2 is done everypony! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. I was very excited to work on the manticore scene, and wanted to make it original, and different from the others; seeing is there one in 90% of human in Equestria fics. I thought it turned out pretty well, I had a bit of help from my friend in this scene, (Kudos to you Tyler). I apologize that it was not as long as the other, I wanted to get it out by today, I am trying to update it every week. Expect minor changes, as people send me suggestions and grammatical corrections.
As always, I would highly appreciate any criticism, corrections or suggestions, that my readers have to offer. Just a heads up, next chapter the grimdark will really start, a pony will die, have fun trying to guess who! I will begin working on the third chapter as soon as possible. Thank you again for reading my work, it is because of you guys that I continue the story.
I find this be be one of the better written Human In Equestria Stories written. Keep up the good work
I have to say, you don't know the US military's gear and terminology too well. We don't have clips ("clip bag"), only magazines and magazine pouches. Any soldier/sailor/airman/Marine has that drilled into them. Just like a gun is the item between a man's legs, we only have rifles. This isn't meant to be a scolding, just me passing on information to someone who lacks it.
There are several grammar mistakes, a few missed punctuation marks, one missed unit of measure, but other than that, it's clean. Good work. I can't really rate it at this moment, but you've got my interest (even though you have a Blue Falcon as a MC). I'll be keeping an eye on this.
74233 Just 'barb dripping with venom' would have been a better option, seeing as venom and poison are two different things.
Looking forward to reading more.
82812 Thanks a ton for the suggestions, I will get working on them as soon as I can. As you could probably tell, I am not good with the military lingo and such, and I am very privelleged to have someone like you correcting my story in order to make it viable. English is not my first language, I will try and correct as many of the grammatical errors as I can. Thanks again for reading and providing feedback, I hope you enjoyed the story!
Also, Robert left Johnson, because it was a survival instinct and there was no possible way that he would have been able to save him, he regrets it completely, and it haunts him deeply top this day. He wanted to reach the rooftop of the building in order to cover the helicopter from above, and watch out for Johnson; but he had collapsed from the heatstroke before he was able to reach a vantage point. Just wanna point out, I don't mean for any of this to represent any of the real, or possilble actions taken by the US, or any military; it was simply put there in order to move the plot along.
I appologize sincerly if any of this offened you, and I thank you for taking the time to improve the story, the corrections will be made ASAP.
Cannot wait to read more!
83361 No problem, and I'm not offended. The reason I even brought up the violations is because there are people that exist who wish to demean and insult soldiers at any and all turns, even if they are insulting a fictional character, who represents the US military nonetheless. This is something that happens when you include the military in anything. I'm grateful for not having met any of these kinds of people (and I use the term loosely) on this site, or any of the others that I'm involved in, but I know they are out there. Two last things about the violations from a non-literary stand point (I swear), that "survival instinct" is called fear, and that's no excuse for the extremely poor conduct. If what he was trying to do was get a better position to cover Johnson, first tell Johnson that (in real life that would keep the soldier from feeling abandoned and keep his morale up), and then have Roberts think about it more than "oh no! They're coming!". That was the reason he showed cowardice in the face of the enemy. Second is that Roberts did nothing to even try to aid Johnson. He sat there, looked at Johnson, and then turned and ran. That would be the charge of failure to render aid. Note that soldiers loose the Fifth Amendment to protect oneself against self incrimination the moment they enlist. Any lies or "non-answers" to a military tribunal or a court of law is a crime in itself.
The biggest literary reason I'm bringing this up is that it seems that there has not been any investigation into his actions. A soldier winds up MIA, presumed KIA, and the last to see him grabbed his tags and was then wounded/incapacitated. A military tribunal would very much like to talk to him to find out what happened. It seems weird that they gave him a pass in that regard.
On a lighter note, I fully agree with and support Robert's decision to open fire on the OPFOR that were engaging the unarmed civilians. Unless it was explicitly stated that he couldn't engage armed personnel attacking civilians, and even then I'd personally agree with it, he'd get the backing of every soldier/sailor/airman/Marine I know. If it was explicitly stated...Well that's a BS order, but a lawful order nonetheless. I still agree with his decision, but he'd need to accept the consequences of his decision.
To help with the grammar and spelling, I'd recommend finding someone to be your prereader/beta/editor. They can help catch mistakes and such, especially since English isn't your native language.
One last thing, reason this response took so long was that there was a family emergency, and I was without internet and phone access for a while.
"After spending atleast a half our collecting dry branches" Two small mistakes here at least is two words and out not our.
"than 4 miles" Unless your describing technical specifications, like with the guns, you should use letters instead of numbers.
This is looking very good, you've already given us a distinctive main character with a strong back story. You're grammar is a little weak, but as you've said English isn't your first language, that's completely understandable. I'd recommend submitting this to the Ponychan Writer's Training Grounds: http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/72536.html#72536, I've submitted two fics there and the pre-readers would be a great help, I think. You've got a good story going thus far, keep it up.
You have a few issues with your dialogue, it's more prevalent in chapter one, so have some copy-paste that a reviewer sent me:
You need to learn how to punctuate dialogue. Remember, a variation of “X said” follows the line, you need a comma or other special punctuation mark (not a period) to link it to the phrase. There is no capitalization of the beginning of the phrase in these instances. Standalone bits of dialogue get solid endings, and the next word is capitalized. If you reverse the order, place a comma before you go into the dialogue, and end the spoken line with a period, exclamation point, or question mark. Refer to these examples:
> “Screw clopfics.” He gulped the whiskey down.
> “I hope one day you get this right,” the reviewer moaned.
> “I don't know why so many get it wrong,” he whined, “it's not that hard!”
> “Why do so many make this mistake?” he mused.
> “I can't wait until the next time I don't have to deal with this!” he shouted.
> Vimbert whispered, “Someone else, write a fic where I don't have to use this copypaste.”
This is looking great though, although some of what 91415 is probably a good idea.