A Hunt to Remember

by REDMAMBA

First published

You are anon, you decided to go out and fill your tag on the last day of hunting season, but what you get isn't the buck of a life time

You decide to go out hunting on the last day of the hunting season. You make it to your hunting area with ease, and there he is... in the trees... the buck of a lifetime. The chase ensues as you track the monster buck, but you slip and hit your head. Next thing you know your cold and lost, you eventually find a safe place and head toward it, what happens next... only makes your story better.

(I know that hunting is a little controversial but if you can get past the first chapter things change. Promise!)

The Hunt

View Online

BEEP BEEP BEEP

BEEP BEEP BEEP

BEEP BEEP BE- CLICK

You reach over and click off the alarm on your clock and sit up, you let out a long nice stretch to loosen your muscles. You relax and give your eyes a good squeeze to try to remove the glaze that has gathered in your slumber. Generally you are used to getting up early, but most days you don’t get up at 5:30 a.m. … on a Sunday.

But today is a special day, it’s the last day of hunting season, and you are gung-ho to fill your deer tag. You toss the sheets to the side and slowly step out of bed. As you stand up you can feel the cold of the early morning air biting at your skin.

As a chill rolls up your spine as you say, “Boy its cold, I’m defiantly going to put my long johns on.”

You walk over to the table you have set up in your room. You laid out you clothing last night so that you could get dressed quickly. You grab your long underwear and slip them on over your bare legs. Once those are in place, you grab your nylon pants and slip them over your long underwear; you pull up your zipper and snap the button tight.

You then grab your belt and slip it through the loops on your pants, after taking a few seconds here and there to place your rifle clip pouch and pistol magazine holder in your hip, you get your belt tightened and in place, you take off the shirt you slept in last night and slip on a polyester long sleeve t-shirt. Then you grab your wool socks and leave your room and head down the hallway.

You walk into your living room and take a seat on the couch. You unravel your socks and slip them on with ease. After you’ve gotten your socks hiked up nice and high you begin to look around for the television remote.

“Okay, who’s the shmuck that stole my remote,” you say sarcastically.

After taking a minute you finally find your prize. You point the device toward the TV and hit the power button. The TV glows as it begins to power on, after cruising through the channels you finally find the channel you are looking for, the weather channel.

You rise to your feet and walk into the kitchen to get breakfast started. You open the fridge and grab two eggs and a bag of cheese. You close the door and walk over to one of your many cupboards; you grab a bowl and a plate and head over to the counter and place all of the contents in your hands on the counter top.

You grab one egg and hit it against the bowl, the weak shell of the egg breaks upon impact; you bring the egg over the bowl and dump the golden and white contents into the bowl. You do the same thing with the second egg and turn to grab the milk from the fridge. After pouring a little bit of milk in the bowl, you grab a fork from your utensil drawer and begin to mix the milk and eggs. As you swirl the liquid mix you hear the weatherwoman start to talk about the local weather.

“Today, there is a 50% chance of snow starting from 12 p.m. and ending at 8 p.m. so I suggest everyone be careful today,” she says with a smile.

Well you don’t trust a weatherman that doesn’t hunt, so you think to yourself, ‘Well if she says 50% I’m going to say 60 for good luck, but I should be back before the storm starts.’

After you get the eggs well mixed, you set the bowl down and walk over to the stove, where you just so happen to have a pan at the ready. You turn the stove onto seven and grab a butter knife from the utensil drawer. You remove the lid to the butter container and use the knife to remove a small amount of butter. Moving back to the heated pan, you give your wrist a jerk and plop the butter onto the pan. You sit and watch as it begins to melt in the hot pan, once the butter has liquefied you take the pan by the handle and move the pan in circles. Once the butter has coated the pan evenly, you place the pan back on the hot burner.

You walk over and grab your egg bowl, once you have it in hand you return to the hot pan and dump the contents of the bowl into the pan. You watch the eggs bubble and listen to them sizzle, the smell of eggs fills your nostrils as you watch your meal come to life. As the eggs begin to solidify, you grab the small bag of cheese and open it, reaching in side you pinch a small amount of cheese in your fingers and begin to layer the inside of the omelet with it. Once you have a nice layer set in place you, close the bag and put it back in the fridge.

Once you return to your meal in progress you grab and spatula and begin to shuffle it slowly under the omelet. Carefully, you slide it underneath and begin to roll the egg, you fold it hot dog style and center it in the pan. Once you see that your omelet is perfect, you turn off the stove and toss the spatula in the sink. You take the pan by the handle and walk over to the plate on the counter top. Gingerly tipping the pan, you slide the omelet onto the plate with ease.

With your meal ready you grab another fork and take the plate and walk into the living room. You place the plate in your lap and feel the heat flow from the bottom of the plate and into your legs. Without taking any more time to wait, you dig into the fluffy and cheesy goodness.

You grab the remote and flick through the channels on the TV while you eat. You see nothing good on, so you eventually just settle for something on the history channel. Something about aliens, you really weren’t paying attention. After a few minutes you finish your meal and walk into the kitchen and dump the plate and fork in the sink, you don’t bother to clean them since you know you’ll be home before noon.

As you walk past the fridge you open it and grab two water bottles you had sitting in there overnight, so their nice an cool. With water in hand you return to your living room and place the bottles on a nearby table and walk into the entryway of your home. You grab your winter boots and return to the living room and sit on the couch, placing your boots next to your feet.

You grab your left boot and slip your foot inside; once you have your foot in place you begin to lace the shin high boots. Once you reach the top you tie them off with a simple shoelace knot. Once you’re finish with your left boot you do the same with the right. You stand up and reach for the backpack you had sitting next to the couch. You lift the small pack onto the couch and reach for the two water bottles sitting on the nearby table. Once you have them, you place them in the mesh holders in the side of your pack. After tightening a few straps here and there you take the bag and toss it over one shoulder. You walk to the small hallway leading to the entry way, before you go; you stop and grab the rifle you had sitting there.

It’s a 70 year old M1 Garand from World War II, you happen to be a little bit of a gun fanatic, and when you saw this piece of Americana for $500 you picked it up in a heartbeat. You practically stole the thing, mainly because it was in wonderful condition. You take you rifle and sling it over the shoulder opposite of your pack and walk into the entry way.

You set your gear down and gear and grab your wool jacket and slip it over your shoulders. Once it’s buttoned up, you grab your pack once more and slip it over both shoulders this time. You grab the door knob and open your front door, before you step outside you grab your rifle with one hand and begin to open the screen door.

“Oops forgot something,” you say to yourself while you reenter your home.

You walk quickly down the hallway to your room, once your in side your room you go straight to your nightstand. You open it and see your favorite handgun in its holster. You grab the Colt 1911 and remove it from its holster; you close the first drawer and open the larger one below it. Reaching in you grab your leg holster and pull it our. You quickly strap it onto your belt and clip the plastic clamps to your leg. After tightening the straps you slip your pistol into it.

“There we go,” you say while walking out of your bedroom.

Once your reach the front door yet again, you quickly grab your skull cap and slip it over the top of your head, at the same time you grab you favorite ball cap and slip it over your beanie. You open the screen door and step outside into the frigid night air. You grab the cold door knob and close the door behind you. You lock quickly lock it and head for the car. Once you've reached your You open the back door of your Jeep and place your rifle and backpack in the back. You close the door and get in the driver’s seat. Immediately when you sit down your body jerks forward violently.

“Why did I get the one with leather seats?” you ask yourself while you gingerly sit back in the frozen seat.

You start the car and back out of the drive way and head for your favorite hunting spot. After a few minutes you turn on the radio and listen to some tunes. You swear you’d lose your mind if you couldn’t listen to music while you dive. After about 20 minutes of driving you reach your hunting spot. Before you get out of the car you look at the clock.

“6:45 perfect, I’ve got about fifteen minutes to get into position,” you say knowing that shooting light is at 7:00 a.m.

You open the driver’s side door and step out into the snow. You slowly close your door so as to not scare anything in the area. As you walk to the back of your Jeep you hear the snow crunch underneath your feet. You open the back door and grab your back pack and pull it towards yourself. You open the top and pull out your hunters orange and slip each arm into the holes of the vest. Once you have your vest buttoned up, you close your pack and slip it onto you back. You grab the hip straps and clip them together, once the two straps become one you tighten them to your waist. After completing that little task, you do the same with the chest strap.

Now that your pack is ready, your grab your rifle and close the back door of your rig quietly. You take two steps away from the car and grab the charging handle on the old rifle and pull it back until it clicks. Reaching behind you, you grab a clip and place it in the magazine well; you hear a small click, telling you that the clip is in place. You grab the charging handle again and give it a light tug back, you fell it click yet again, then, you ease it forward slowly until the action is halfway closed, then you release your finger and let the weapon close on its own, now you’re ready to go.

You shoulder the rifle and begin your hike up an old logging road. Your head is constantly on a swivel and your ears are on overdrive. You’re looking for that sly buck that keeps giving you the slip. For now, the only sound you hear is the crunch of the snow under your feet. You follow the road down a ravine and up the opposite ridge.

You peak out on the ridge and take a moment to look around. Taking the rifle off of your shoulder, you look through the scope, giving the area a quick glassing, but... you see nothing. So you decide to continue to follow the old logging road. You make it about a third of the way down the ridge when you hear and twig snap.

You freeze and begin to look around; following the sound down the left side of the ridge, you try to spot the creature that made the sound. That’s when you see him… that big six by six buck, and you know this one well, he gave you the slip the year before and since then, he’s been doing it every time since. You call this big boy Ghost, on the account that he just tends to disappear as fast as he shows up.

But you’ve got him this time, there’s no wind and he hasn’t seen you yet. You slowly take your rifle off your shoulder and begin to raise it slowly; you take a knee to get a steadier shot. You look through the scope and line up the shot, its perfect he’s broadside and all... you’ve got him dead to rights. You slowly ease your finger onto the trigger and begin to squeeze it. But, right before you give that final tug you feel the hair on the back of your neck move.

The monster bucks head jerks toward your direction, you can see his nose moving as he picks up you scent. You get ready to place the shot, but before you fire… he bolts.

‘SHIT!’ you think to yourself.

You quickly follow close behind, you walk up to the tracks in the snow and begin the chase. You follow them knowing full well that he’s going to stop and look back. You rid his ass as hard as you can; he dipped down the ravine and up the next ridge. You know that if you’re lucky, you’ll catch him coming up the other side.

As you hike up the near ridge, you take a quick second to catch your breath. You’re working hard, but the risk is worth the reward. You imagine how nice he’ll look on your wall, and the story that comes with the mount. With that last bit of strength you trudge your way to the top of the ridge. You begin looking across and into a nearby ravine you watch for movement on the other side.

“Come on where are you, you son of a bitch?” you whisper to yourself as you scan the land in front of you.

And that’s when you see it, a flash of white.

“Gotcha,” you whisper with confidence.

You begin to work your way down the large ravine. You make it about a quarter of the way down, until you step on a log hidden under the snow, you lose your footing on the wet piece of wood and fall backwards, the last thing you see is the blue sky as you hit your head on the ground, losing consciousness immediately.

Lost

View Online

You open your eyes slowly and see the dark grey clouds in the sky. After blinking your eyes a couple of times you find the strength to sit up. You scan your surroundings and notice that the snow has begun to fall. After taking a minute to gather your thoughts, and while trying to ignore your pounding head, you grab your rifle and slowly stand up.

You look around and try to find your bearings, but since you are down in a ravine you can’t see any familiar land marks. So you decide to climb to the top of the ridge and look for something familiar. After taking a few minutes of slow and painful walking, you finally make it to the top.

Once you reach the top you begin to look around, but… nothing seems familiar. You look up the mountains and try to find a familiar peak, but the height and positioning of the peaks are out of alignment. So you decide to look down the mountain and see what looks familiar, but once again… nothing looks the same as when you got here.

Deciding to get a better look you walk to the end of the finger ridge and look at the large open valley. In the distance you notice something... a town, not a big one, but a town nonetheless. You decide that that you’re best option is to head to the town and figure out where you are, so you begin to work your way down the ridge.

You descend the ridge with a little more caution; you already fell once and you don’t want to do it again. Slowly but surely you make it to the bottom and make your descent down the mountain. After about ten minutes of walking you stumble onto an old road. After taking a minute to look up and down it, you continue on your trek downward.

You walk about 100 yards, but your freeze and feel a chill crawl up your spine. In the distance you hear the howl of a wolf. Now, as cool as they creatures are, you’d rather have them stuffed and mounted over your mantel. Once the howling stops your continue toward your destination, but you’re a little more on guard as you walk. You make it 50 more yards and hear yet another howl, but this time it’s a little closer. You look in the direction of the sound and begin to worry.

You quicken your pace and do your best not to panic. You make it 50 more yards and hear the howl of the beast. ‘I don’t like this,’ you think to yourself. The howling begins to get closer with each and every step you take. Now the hair on the back of your neck begins to rise, you hold your rifle tight against you shoulder. You flick the safety off with your pointer finger and begin to feather the trigger.

‘If these guys get any closer I’m dropping them where they stand,’ you begin to scan your surroundings, you begin looking for any sign of movement. At the same time, you decide to take a minute to calm your nerves, and move forward, gun at the ready. After about 25 yards the bushes to the right of the trail move, without hesitation you raise your weapon and get ready to fire. But instead of a massive dog leaping out with dripping fangs… you see… a tiny cotton tail.

You let out a sigh of relief as you lower your weapon, you glance at the small rabbit and say, “You scared the shit out of me you little son of a bitch.”

You watch as the little creature looks at you for a second before scurrying into the nearby bushes. With that heart attack out of the way, you continue forward. As you walk, you notice that the snow has gone away, which is a good thing, because at least now you don’t have to worry about freezing to death in the cold. But your still on edge about the nearby wolf pack, you haven’t heard them in a little while so you assume that they ran off… you thought wrong.

The bushes in front of you rustle as a massive wolf leaps right in front of you. Your body seizes up at the sight, the creature was massive, it stood at about four feet at the shoulder and it appeared to be about five feet long, but it was made out of… wood?

Quickly, two more jump out behind the massive creature. Startled you scream, “GET OUT OF HERE!” but it didn’t work. You raise your rifle to your shooting position and put a round over their heads.

BANG!

But it did nothing; the wolves began to advance as you begin to retreat out of fear. Your eyes go wide, you begin to shake at the site, but you know that today is not your day, you’re gonna walk away from this and have one hell of a hunting story when this is all said and done.

Next thing you know the first wolf lunges for you. You hold up you rifle and watch as the massive beast chomps down it, taking you to the ground. You begin to struggle with massive creature; the only thing keeping it back is your rifle. With every ounce of strength you have you push at the rifle.

As you fight to stay alive the massive beast released the weapon and goes for another bite, but once again, you push the rifle into its massive jaws. You grind your teeth and curse under your breath, ‘I can’t keep this up’ you think to yourself. The massive beast continues its assault, but luck is on your side, when the creature moved it head to the side just a hair, you use the leverage of the rifle and give it a good shove. The wolf releases its grip just long enough to get a shot off.

BANG!

You fire the rifle right next to its right ear, but all hope you had on scaring the beast off of you fades and it comes back for another attack, but this time instead of sinking its fangs into the wood of your rifle… its grabs your left forearm.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” you scream in agony as you feel a sharp fangs sink into your forearm.

You let go of the rifle and grab your left wrist with your right hand. Now the only thing between you and death... is your left arm. You continue to struggle with the beast for seem like an eternity. But you are surprised when you see a small rock hit the animal on the right temple. You look to your left and see a silhouette of a person standing there, the shadow rears up like a major league pitcher and throws another rock. The small rock hits the wolf in the left temple yet again, this time it releases its death grip and growls at your savior.

“RUN!” screamed the shadow with a heavy southern accent.

You give the wolf a shove and kick it in the head; you then grab your rifle and scream, “WITH PLEASURE!”

Without looking back you run down the old dirt road. You can hear hissing and growling coming up behind you. Taking a quick peak over you right shoulder, you see that those three wolves hot on your heels. Without hesitation, you quickly widen you step; you run 25 yards and stop on a dime. Spinning 180 degrees you raise your rifle and line up the iron sites.

BANG BANG!

You crack off two quick shots at the far right wolf. You hear the loud THWACCK! As the two bullets tear into the animal; it falls to pieces shortly afterward. Without hesitation you spin another 180 degrees and begin running yet again. This time you run 50 yards and do the same thing.

BANG BANG!

The wolf on the far left falls to pieces, now you only have one more to deal with, in a dead sprint you continue down the road, but this time you can see through the trees and into the valley. As you get closer you can pick out buildings, you pace increases as your get closer to safety.

The closer you get the bigger the buildings become, and the next thing you know, you come crashing out of the tree line, but you’re not out of danger yet. You spin around one last time and try to line up a shot; the front site of the gun is all over the place. You’re exhausted and bleeding, but you do your best to make these shots count.

BANG... BANG, TING!

Your now out of ammo, you watch as the beast gets closer, there’s no time to reload. You reach down to your right thigh and unclip the strap holding your sidearm in place. The world begins to slow, as you grab the pistol by the grip and begin to raise it up, you quickly place the rear site on you belt and push down forcefully, causing the weapon to chamber a round. Once you’re done, you bring the weapon up, arm fully extended. You acquire the front site in the rear one and line up the shot.

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

You let of four shots and watch as the wolf comes to a roaring stop just a mere two feet from you. You sigh in relief as you lower your arm, you flick the safety on your pistol and place it back in its holster. Now that you have a minute you examine your still bleeding arm. You can see the various puncture holes in you sleeve and watch as the blood drops off the tips of your fingers.

“Shit,” you mumble as your look at your mangled arm. You place your blood stained rifle on the ground and take your pack off. Holding your arm close to your body, you use your right arm and open the top compartment of your bag, you reach in and grab the scarf you carry for when your neck gets cold. You gingerly begin to wrap the wound with the soft cloth, you know that if you don’t get the bleeding under control, you could possibly die, and death is really bad for your health.

Once you have the scarf in place, you can see the blood beginning to soak through the cloth. “That’s not gonna do,” you say as you watch the rag become soaked in your own blood. Without a second thought you undo your belt and begin to slip it through the belt loops. You take your magazine and clip holders and drop them in your backpack. You loop the lose end of the belt through the buckle, and gingerly slip your injured arm through the newly formed hole.

Once you have the belt in place just below your elbow, as you begin to tighten it, you grind your teeth and scrunch your face as a sharp stabbing pain shoots its way up your arm and drills itself into your skull.

“GAHH… FUCK THAT HURTS,” you bark to yourself.

Once the belt is nice and tight, you loop the lost end into the loop you made and you do your best to keep it tight. You stand up, leaving you gear on the ground and watch your wound carefully. You’re so caught up with your arm, that you don’t even notice someone walk up to you. You feel a hand being placed on your shoulder and a voice says, “Are you alright sugercube?”

You begin to raise your head and say, “No I could really use a- AHHHHH!”

You couldn’t finish your sentence because of the young “woman” that is staring you right in the face. She has the build of a human but with the features of a pony, she’s covered in orange fur, has large emerald eyes, a small muzzle, and her ears are located on the top of her head instead of the side.

As you take a step back, you lose your footing and fall to the ground. Out of force of habit you place your arms behind you. But unfortunately you land on your injured arm, you let out a blood curdling scream, as the pain once again drives its way up your left arm.

“AHHHHH SON OF A BITCH!”

You grab your arm as you lie in the ground, withering in unholy pain. You scrunch your face and grind your teeth once again as your eyes fill with tears. She just stands there in shock as you lie there and bleed on the cold hard ground. You sit up violently and look at your still bleeding arm.

You hear a female voice say, “Applejack, are you okay?”

You can see five more of the same creatures and a different looking one run up to the orange one. One is lavender in color and has dark purple hair with a lighter purple streak going through the middle, she had violet eyes and a pair of wings coming out of her back and a horn protruding from her head. Behind her is a girl with a snow white fur, dark purple hair, light blue eyes, and she too, has a horn coming out of the top of her head.

Behind her was a short girl with yellow fur, long pink hair, and light blue eyes, she happened to have a pair of wings also. Next to her was a very pink girl with pink hair and light blue eyes, but she seemed to be lacking wings or a horn. And flying above them all was a light blue girl; she had what looked like a rainbow for hair, and light pink eyes. And finally you see a purple and green thing with spikes on his back; he was as shocked as you were when he approached. It would appear that they are all bundled up for the cold weather, but you were too scared to even think about what they're wearing.

The orange girl spoke up and said, “Ah’m fine Twi, but our friend here needs help,” she pointed towards you.

They all look at you in confusion. You just sit there wide eyed and scared.

The white girl asks, “Oh my, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’ve seen more than a ghost,” you say out of shock.

“Oh my, your hurt,” said the little yellow girl.

You sit there in disbelief, you swear that you’re seeing things; you think that the lack of blood has begun to mess with your head. You sit there in utter silence, that’s when the yellow girl begins to walk toward you. Out of fear you push yourself back little, she stops and watches you with wide and terrified eyes.

“This has to be some sort of sick joke,” you say in disbelief.

They group watches you in disbelief as you shake and talk to yourself. While you sit there you hear one of them speak up, “Look we need to get you to a hospital.” You look up to them and lock eyes with the little purple girl.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” she said while walking up to you.

You take a second to gather your thoughts as you look into her soft eyes. Your eyes dart to everyone else, then back to the girl in front of you; you slowly shake your head and whisper, “Okay.”

You slowly rise to your feet, while still holding your injured arm. The little purple girl looks at her yellow friend and says, “Fluttershy grab his stuff.”

“Okay,” said the yellow girl as she ran over and grabbed your pack and rifle.

The purple girl looks back at you and asks, “Can you walk?”

You give a nod in response.

“Okay follow me,” she said.

She begins walking in a rushed pace as you follow close behind. You stumble through the town and see that it is full of these odd, animalistic beings; they range in various different colors, shapes and sizes. But you don’t question it for now; you just want to get the pain in your arm to stop. You drag your sorry carcass through the streets, putting everything you have into your shaking legs. As you get farther into town you can see a large, multistoried building up ahead. Your almost there just hold out a little longer.

“There’s the hospital,” said the little purple girl.

You can make, you know it, you begin to fasten our pace, but as you do, you step on a patch of ice and lose your footing. Once again you feel yourself falling; you land with a good thud. But as luck would have it, you land on your injured arm yet again.

“AHHHHHHHHH FUCK!”

You scream out it agony, it feels like someone is trying to rip your arm clean off. You begin to cry once again while you clench your bleeding arm. You begin to shake violently at the pain; you realize that you are starting to go into shock. The purple girl kneels at you side and with worry in her voice she said, “Can you walk?”

“NOOOOOO!” you scream with fear in your voice.

“Applejack, help him up,” said the little purple girl with haste.

“Got it,” replied the orange girl.

You feel two pairs of hands grab you, one by your leg, the other by you right arm. Your quickly rise into the air and are soon dropped on the young girls shoulders. You’re a little shocked by her strength, but you ignore it while she begins to walk forward. With you in a fireman’s carry you stare at the ground and hope for the best.

After a couple of minutes you hear a door open, the ground goes from dirt to tile. As you're carried inside, the little purple girl screamed, “HELP we need a doctor!”

A young girl pokes her head out from a hall way, she disappears for a second and comes back with a stretcher. The orange girl holding you lifts you off of her shoulders and places you down on the bed gently. The new face to the scene, who you presume to be a nurse, wheels you into a medical bay and begins to start looking for something. Your head turns toward the door as you watch the six girls and one boy run into the room. You turn back to the nurse and watch as she begins to get small vials of liquid ready, she sets them on a nearby table and looks at you. You wonder why she isn’t doing anything.

“What?” you ask out of confusion.

“I haven’t seen your kind before,” she says with a little shock.

You sit there and just watch her.

“I don’t know your weight, height, or what your metabolism is like,” she said with worry.

At this point you think you’re going to die, so in a fit of anger you reach out and grab the nurse by the collar and pull her close to your face. You star into her fear filed eyes and say,

“ I’m (insert height) and weigh (insert weight), at this point I don’t care if you hold me down and sew my arm shut with a rusty needle and some fishing wire, just please stop the DAMN bleeding!”

You give her a light shove as you release her collar and begin to cry again. The nurse quickly grabs a needle and a vial and begins to fill a syringe. She lifts you sleeve up and cleans a small area with an alcohol swab, once the area is disinfected she slips the needle into one of the many veins in your arm. You lay there and feel the cold liquid pour into your veins. Slowly but surely the pain in your arm begins to nullify as the drug begins to take effect.

As you lay there you, give the scared nurse a glance and say, “Thank you.”

She shakes her head slightly and runs out of the room. You close your eyes and wait in silence. After a couple of minutes the nurse runs back in with a guy in tow. He has light brown fur and a horm protruding from his head, he was wearing a long white coat and had a stethoscope around his neck. You assume that he’s a doctor by the way he’s dressed. He runs up to the bed and looks at the bloody scarf that’s rapped around your arm.

He looks up at the nurse and says, “We need to get him to surgery stat!” The nurse gives a small nod and grabs the bottom of the stretcher and begins to point it towards the door. Once your bed is situated she moves to the top and begins to wheel you down the hall way.

You slip through a few sets of double doors and into a room that says “Surgery”. She pushes you up next to another bed and leaves the room. After about ten seconds three guys walk in wearing rubber gloves, eye shields, face masks, and green scrubs. Two walk up to you, one on each side; they look at each other and begin counting.

“One,” said the one to your left.

“Two,” said the one to your right.

“Three,” they say in unison.

You are lifted from you stretcher and are placed on the bed. The third doctor walks over to you and says, “Are you allergic to any medication?”

You shake your head no in response.

“Okay,” he said.

He reached over and grabbed a mask and said, “I want you to count to ten okay?”

“Okay,” you whisper.

He placed the mask over your mouth, you begin to start counting...you made it to woo.

Safety?

View Online

You slowly open your eyes to see a white tile ceiling. After blinking a few times, you raise your head from the pillow. You take a minute to look around your realize that you’re in a hospital bed, and you have your own room, you turn your head to see that you’re gear stacked up in a chair with your rifle propped up next to the chair.

“Awe, it was all a dream,” you say while lifting your right arm to your forehead. You hear the sound of metal hitting metal, and your right hand appears to be restrained. Looking down at it you can see that you’re handcuffed to the bed.

You let out a worry some sigh as you realize that it wasn’t a dream, what happened was real. You let your neck go limp as your head falls back onto the fluffy pillow. Staring at the ceiling once again you begin to cry softly. After a few minutes of crying you hear the door knob to your room begin to shake.

Turning your head, you watch the door open and watch as that same nurse from earlier walks in. She looks up from her clip board and locks her eyes with yours. You sit there and stare at each other for a few seconds before you decide to say something.

“Uh… hi.”

“Hi,” she says, “It’s good to see that you’re awake.”

“Uh… yeah,” you say with sorrow.

She walks up to the bed and reviews her clip board; you can’t help but feel sorry for what you did to her.

“Look about earlier…” you trail off.

She lowers the clip board and looks you in the eyes.

“I’m… I’m sorry for what I did… I was scared and I thought I was going to die.”

She looks at you for a few more seconds and says, “It’s okay, you’re safe now and that’s all that matters.”

You sit there in silence once again as she looks at her clip board.

“Well my names-” you lean over and begin to extend your good hand for a handshake, but the hand cuffs prevent you from doing so.

You look at the handcuffs, then back to the young nurse.

“Hehe, I guess I can’t give you a proper introduction,” you lean back into place and just say, “My names Anon, what’s yours?”

“Redheart,” responds the young girl, “Nurse Redheart.”

“Redheart… what a fitting name,” you say with a smile.

“Yes it is,” she says with a smile.

You quickly give her a once over, she’s covered in white fur, has light pink hair, light blue eyes, and… a tail? And she appears to have hooves instead of feet. Now that you’ve had a second to fully look at one, you realize… she’s kinda cute.

“I’ll be right back,” she tells you.

She walks out of the room and leaves you alone, after a few minutes she returns with the same male doctor you saw earlier. He has brown fur, teal colored eyes, dark brown hair, and same color tail, a horn coming out of his head and he’s wearing a pair of glasses.

“My name is Doctor X-Ray, how are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m doing good doc, but I could do without the handcuffs to be honest,” you say shaking your restrained arm.

“I’m sorry about that, it was just a precaution, Nurse Redheart here didn’t feel very safe when you grabbed her like that.”

“I know,” you say with a depressed tone as you lower your head.

“So son… what is your name?” asked the Doctor.

“My name is Anonymous, but everyone just calls me Anon,” you say while looking at the doctor.

“Well Anon, what we did was sew up your arm there, you had eight puncture holes and you lost a fairly good amount of blood, but other than a few minor scratches and bruises here and there on your body, I’d say you’re pretty healthy.”

“Thank you,” you say with a smile.

“But unfortunately…”

Your smile fades, you don’t like where this is headed.

“Our hospital protocol doesn’t take assault very lightly, so I have to hand you over to the Royal Guard,” says the doctor, feeling sad for you.

You look at the Nurse Redheart and say, “I’m sorry.”

She gives you a light smile and says, “Thank you.”

Your feel your heart settle at the remark, you never intended to hurt her, but you didn’t want to die either.

“Anyway, I’m going to go and sign you out, the guards are already here to take you to the jailhouse, but I want you to stay off that arm for the next few weeks while it heals, okay?”

“Okay,” you whisper, you can feel yourself wanting to cry again.

Both Doctor X-ray and Nurse Redheart, leave the room. You lay there in silence while you await your fate. The last thing you ever expected on this hunt was to be arrested for assault. Then again, you never expected to run into a town full of... oh what was that scientific word… anthropomorphs? All you wanted was that buck, nothing more.

A couple of minutes pass, that’s when two rather large guards walk in your room. One of them has light grey fur, dark brown eyes and hair, and a pair of wings coming out of his back. The other is dark blue, with white hair, and light blue eyes and a pair of wings, both are clad from head to toe in gold armor, and they each have a shield in their left hand, a spear in the right, and a sword on their belts. You gulp at the site as the two gentlemen enter the room.

“Alright son, don’t do anything stupid and you’ll be just fine,” says the lighter colored guard.

“Okay,” you mumble.

The dark blue guard sets his spear down in a corner and reaches behind him and grabs a set of handcuff keys. He unlocks your hand; releasing it from the restraint, you give your wrist a light rub, before you sit up on the bed, you final have a second top look at your injured arm, you can see that its wrapped in white bandages.

You look at the grey guard and say, “Can I please have my boots?”

He takes a second to find your boots, once he finds them he sets them down by your feet. You grab the left boot and slip it on, once it’s laced up nice and tight you do the same with the right. Now that your boots are set, you stand up and walk over to your backpack and clothing that’s sitting in the nearby chair; you glance at your rifle as a thought travels through your head.

'If I could get a clip in, I can get away.’

But you soon dismiss the thought, where would you go, what would you do? You have no idea where you are, or how you got here, what good would running do?

You look at the light grey guard and say, “I’m going to grab a shirt from my pack, okay?”

“Okay,” he replied.

You unclip your bag and reach in side, once you find your shirt you slip it over your head with ease. You clip you pack back up and grab the bloody wool jacket in the chair, you would think that the hospital would throw the filthy thing away, but then again it’s your only heavy jacket.

You gingerly slip on the battle scared jacket, once you have it on and buttoned you grab your hunters orange vest and slip it on over your wool jacket, now that it’s buttoned you grab your belt and funnel it through the belt loops on your pants. Last but not least you grab your favorite ball cap and slip it on the top of your head, finally you grab your skull cap and slip it over your ball cap.

You look at the same light guard, point toward you pack and say, “Can I grab my sunglasses?”

“Yes,” replies the guard.

You unzip the top pocket of your pack and grab your sunglasses, and place them on the top of the brim of your hat; you close the pocket ant turn toward the guards.

“Okay I’m ready,” you say.

“Okay turn around please,” says the lighter guard.

You do as you’re told and turn around.

“Place your hand behind your back.”

You place your hands behind your back.

You hear footstep approach you, next thing you feel are a pair of fur covered hands grab your wrists, the guard shuffles your hands and grabs them with one. He reaches over to the dark blue guard, the blue guard hands over the cuffs he took off earlier. The Light grey guard places the cuffs on your wrists and releases your arms.

You stand there and watch as the dark blue guard grabs you backpack, he slips it over his shoulders, grabs your rifle and slips it over his right shoulder; he finally grabs your pistol and looks at the lighter guard and nods.

The light grey guard nods in return and grabs you by your right arm. You walk with your head hung low, you don’t look at anyone or anything, you just stare at the tile floor. You and the guards make a quick stop by the front desk, they do a little paper work, but you don’t pay any mind to them, you just want to get this over with. The guards finish up and begin to escort you to the front door, before you walk out the front door you speak up.

“Could you please put my sunglasses on?”

“Sure,” says the light guard.

He grabs you sunglasses from the top of your hat and slips them over your eyes.

“Good?” asks the guard.

“Good,” you say.

“Alright, let’s go.”

The dark blue guard opens the door and the light grey guard escorts you out. You feel the cold winter air bight at your exposed hands; you kinda wish that you hadn’t forgotten your gloves at home. You just try to ignore the pain and hope that you get to the jail soon.

Every once and a while you look around, you see more of these anthropomorphic creatures walking the town, except this time, they look more scared than shocked. It’s probably because you’re being escorted through town by two guards. Thankfully your hidden eyes take away some of the pain… only some.

You just keep your head low and your mouth shut. After a few minutes of walking you finally reach the jail. The town didn’t appear that big so you made it there with relative ease. The guard carrying your gear hands it to another one who's sitting behind a desk. He took it and set it down not far away. Your two original guards escort you to a nearby cell; the light grey guard escorts you in the door and uncuffs you. You step inside while rubbing your wrists yet again. You turn around and see the grey guard close the door with a definitive click.

The grey guard looks at you and says, “I’m sorry son, but it’s the law.”

“I understand,” you say with sadness.

The guards leave while you just stand there. After a few seconds you fall to your knees and begin to cry. You grab your head and shake it violently while you curse at everything.

“WHY, WHY, WHY!?!”

You can’t believe this, everything you know is gone, you were nearly killed by wolves, almost blead to death, and now… here you are… in prison.

“I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!”

The guard at the desk just sits there and watches you, he wants to say something, but he just lets you have your moment. Eventually you go and crawl into a corner and cry your eyes out.

After an hour of endless crying to find the nerve to calm down, you slowly slip off your vest, then your wool jacket. You fold them gently and place them on the floor next to you; you pull off your skull cap and place it on the pile.

You look around and see a bed; you can easily tell that you’re not going to fit on it. So you remove the mattress and drag it to the nearby wall. You sit down and lean against the wall and stare at the ceiling. What starts out as seconds, turn into minutes… then hours. Next thing you know you’ve fallen asleep.

Greetings

View Online

As you sleep, the next morning has already come, but with all the activities of the day before, you’re just exhausted. An older teenage girl and an older woman walk into the jail, they talk to the guard at the front and walk up to your cell. You had gotten up once in the middle of the night to adjust yourself. You have your hands crossed over your stomach and you ball cap draped over your face while you head hangs low. You didn’t even notice they two women walk up.

“Uh… hello?” asks the younger woman.

You are so lost in your dreams you don’t hear her.

“Hello?” she says a little louder.

You open your eyes slowly and blink them a couple of times, you raise your head to its normal position, but instead of seeing who said hello… you see the inside of your ball cap. You slowly adjust your head by tilting it back, you see that little purple girl from the other day, but next to her stood slightly taller female. She’s covered in white fur, has long flowing hair… like seriously… it’s flowing. Her horn and wings appear to be pretty large, and she has these light pink eyes, they appear to be full of wisdom, she’s also wearing a long white dress and has a tiara on top of her head. You quickly grab the bill of your cap and place it on top of your head.

“Uh… can I help you?” you ask.

You sit there in awkward silence for a second.

“My name is Princess Celestia,” says the white woman, “And this is Princess Twilight Sparkle,” she points to the younger purple girl.

Your eyes go wide and your jaw goes slack.

“Uh…” you trail off.

“We just want to ask you a few questions,” says Twilight.

“O-okay…” you say hesitantly.

“So what is your name?” says Twilight.

“Anonymous, but everyone just calls me Anon,” you say.

“So Anon, how did you get here?”

You look down at the floor and start talking.

“Uh… I don’t know, all I remember is that I was out hunting,” you pause for a moment and rub your face with your left hand, “I was tracking a monster buck, but I slipped and fell and hit my head… next thing I know, I wake up and I’m lost.”

You look at the two women; they just look at you and wait for you to continue.

“I decided to try and find my bearings, but when I didn’t see anything familiar, I looked down the valley, I found a nearby town and began walking toward it… after sometime I heard wolves howl in the distance. I tried to ignore it but they kept getting closer.”

Twilight and Celestia look at you wide eyed with anticipation.

“I was walking along when a rabbit jumped out in front of me… scared the shit out of me.”

Twilight and Celsetia give off a light chuckle at your remark.

You give them an angry glance and continue.

“Anyway, next thing I know a wolf made out of wood jumped out in front of me…and two more jumped out behind the first one. The first one attacked me; I fought it off as best as I could, but… it got lucky and grabbed onto my arm,” you raise your arm and point at it, “As I struggled with it I noticed a rock hit it in the head… I looked over to see a shadow, whoever it was, threw another rock, which caused the animal to release my arm. I shoved it off of me and ran like hell… thankfully I was able to kill all three them.”

You begin to breathe heavily as the images funnel back into your mind.

“And then… I wrapped my arm in my scarf trying to get the bleeding to stop, it wasn’t the best, but it held, that’s when I felt a hand tap me on the shoulder… and what I saw, startled me. I slipped and fell… which hurt like hell, and that’s when you and your friends came running up, then you took me to the hospital,” you look at Twilight when you finished, “And now I’m here for assault.”

Twilight stands there, her ears are folded back and she’s covering her open mouth with her hand. She gives a glance at Celestia, who’s just standing there expressionless.

You begin to cry, “Look… I never meant to hurt anyone, I… I just want to go home.”

As you sit there, you bring your legs up to your chest and grab your face.

You hear Twilight say something, “Princess?”

You look up for a moment and scream, “Whatever you’re going to do with me just please end it, I… I don’t want to live anymore!”

You know that the life you had is over, you’re in some strange land with a bunch of anthropomorphs, you don’t know how you got here, or how you’ll get home. By now, you know that search and rescue back home is most likely beginning to look for you, and the one friend you told about where you were going is probably worried sick about you. And you know full well that that storm has covered your tracks, everyone’s gonna think your dead. Well you’re already a dead man… might as well make it reality.

You didn’t even notice Twilight run off and grab the cell key. She comes back and unlocks the cell; she runs inside and grabs you in a warm hug. You gasp at the feeling of her warm body embracing you. She pulls back and holds you by your shoulders.

“I would never let anyone hurt you, you’ve been through so much,” she pulls you back in for another hug, which you… gladly return, you lean into her shoulder and continue to cry.

A minute or two passes as you hold your new friend. You don’t know what it is but… you just feel safe in her arms. You gain your composure and pull away from the hug and look Twilight in the eyes.

“Thank you,” you say while giving off a light smile.

“You’re welcome,” she says while giving you a rather large smile.

You and her rise to your feet, you let off a few sniffles and wipe the tears away. You give Celestia a glance, but look away quickly when you two lock eyes.

“So uh… what now?” you ask.

“Let’s get you home,” says Twilight.

You furrow you brow in confusion and say, “What do you mean? I mean… I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t have anywhere to stay.”

“You can stay with me at the castle,” Twilight says while looking back at you.

“Are you sure, I mean I’m still considered a convict,” you tell her.

“It’s okay; I know you didn’t mean to hurt Nurse Redheart.”

“…okay,” you say hesitantly.

You bend over and grab your clothing; you follow Twilight out of the cell and walk past Princess Celestia. You don’t feel very safe around her, she hasn’t done a whole lot, and it makes you very nervous… or at least more nervous than you already are.

You walk out to the front where you see your gear. You bend over and grab your back pack, but Twilight decides that you need help.

“Here let me get that for you,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” she says.

“Uh huh,” you reply

You turn your back for a moment while you adjust the straps. You get the waist strap buckle and tighten, next you move to the chest strap. Once it’s clicked tight you start to adjust the chest straps, you were so distracted that you didn’t even notice Twilight pick up your rifle and start looking at it.

“What is this?” she asks.

Upon hearing Twilight ask you something, you turn around to see what she’s talking about, when you do; you notice that you’re staring down the barrel of your own rifle.

Your eyes go wide at the site as you scream, “WATCH WHERE YOU POINT THAT THING!” you throw your arms up next to your head as your duck out of the way.

Twilight jerks the weapon to her chest as she screams, “SORRY!” in a very apologetic tone.

You stand up straight and stick your left arm out, “It’s okay… just… give me the rifle.”

She slowly hands you the weapon, you close your fingers around its wood stock and pull it close to your body. With your right hand pointer finger, you grab the charging handle and pull it back halfway revealing the hidden magazine, you notice that it’s empty and release your finger.

You take in a heavy breath and let it out slowly, “I’m sorry, but… there are four major rules that we follow when it comes to guns,” you look at Twilight and give out a light chuckle, “And you just violated all of them.”

“Sorry!” she says once again.

You give her a light smile and say, “It’s alright, it pretty obvious that you’ve never handle a gun before.”

“Y-yes,” she says with embarrassment.

“Look, I do that to everyone, it’s just… it’s a pretty intimidating site when I’m looking down the barrel of my own gun.”

“What is a gun?” asks Princess Celestia.

“Well this is,” you say while holding up your M1.

Celestia and Twilight look at the weapon while you start explaining what it is.

“A gun is a very powerful weapon, it fires a bullet made out of lead from a self-contained cartridge,” you shoulder your rifle and pull out a clip from your rifle case and hold it up, “This is called a bullet,” you point toward one of the 30-06 rounds, “This goes into the gun, when the trigger is pulled it releases the firing pin, which hits the primer on the end of the casing, causing the black powder inside to ignite, which causes the gasses inside to expand, causing the bullet to be pushed out of the barrel.”

Twilight reaches out and grabs the bandolier in your hand, she holds it up to her face and looks at the eight rounds… it’s kind of a funny site. Celestia looks more angry then interested.

Twilight looks at you with interest, “Could I see how this works?”

“Not in here, if we can find somewhere a little more secluded we can,” you tell her.

“Oh… okay,” she says with a smile.

A moment of silence passes.

“Uh… so now what?” you ask her.

“I guess we’ll head back to the castle,” she says.

“Okay,” you say, “Oh before I forget,” you reach down and grab your handgun off of the chair and place it on your leg, strapping it on tightly, now you’re ready to go.

Twilight begins to leave the room while you follow, but unfortunately Celestia is right behind you. You approach the front door, but before you step outside you slip on your sunglasses. You don’t feel comfortable letting everyone in this town looking at your eyes. Twilight holds the door open as you… and Celestia step outside.

You went from feeling happy, to scared once you step outside. Twilight steps past you as you follow her once again. Your head hangs low as you stare at the ground. As you get farther away from the jail and farther into town you can see the towns folk looking at you. Many would stare, others would start to whisper things.

“What is that thing?”

“I heard that it attacked Nurse Redheart.”

“What is it doing with the Princesses?”

“Should we be worried?”

“I heard that it killed three timber wolves while it was bleeding to death.”

You scrunch your shoulders and try to make yourself as small as possible, but you know full well that you’re not invisible. You can feel the moistness form once again in your tired eyes. A few tears sneak their way out and onto your cold cheeks.

‘Why did this have to happen?’ you ponder to yourself.

You do your best to ignore everyone, but you still feel the looks that everyone is giving you. Twilight happens to take notice of your posture and speaks up.

“Hey it’s okay.”

“I’d question that a little,” you whisper.

You keep your mouth shut as you walk. Who knows what people might do if you start talking. But the next thing you know… your standing in front of a large, tree shaped castle made out of solid crystal. You look at it in awe as your jaw goes limp and your eyes widen. It’s a pretty impressive site.

Twilight lets off a light giggle before she says, “Here let’s get you inside and warm you up.”

You look at her and mumble, “Okay.”

The horn on the top of her head glows purple; you notice that the door handle on one of the massive doors glows too, it opens to reveal the inside of the massive structure. Twilight steps inside, you follow, and… so does Celestia, she hasn’t said a word since her greeting, and it just make you more and more nervous.

But you ignore it once you realize how warm it is inside. You’d think that something made out of solid crystal would be freezing, and how would you even begin to try and duct a place like this?

Anyway you take your rifle off your shoulder and place it in a near be corner, next you take your pack off and hold it in your hands. Twilight gives you a glance while she’s taking her jacket off.

“Here I’ll take that for you,” she says.

She reaches over and grabs the bag by the handle, she stands there and watches you while you place your sunglasses on your hat and take off your hunting vest, and place it on the nearby coat rack, once its hung and set you unbutton your wool jacket, but you stand there and look around in confusion for a second, until you speak up.

“Uh… where should I put this?” you say while holding up the bloody garment.

You don’t want to get your blood all over the princesses clothing.

“Oh here,” Twilight steps over and takes the jacket, “I’ll get it to my friend Rarity and have it cleaned and fixed for you,” she says while placing it in a nearby chair.

“Thank you,” you mumble.

“You’re welcome,” she says in a cheery voice, “Here follow me.”

You do as you’re told and follow Twilight into a nearby room. It looks like a den… or is it a living room? You don’t know a whole lot about castles to understand their layout. You notice that the room has a couch, a few chairs and a couple of tables. You stand there for a second until Twilight says,

“Just grab a seat anywhere.”

You quickly look around and head straight for the couch. You sit down and watch Twilight as she sits next to you. Celestia grabs a chair and sits in front of you two.

You sit there in awkward silence until Twilight speaks up.

“What’s the matter?”

“Uh… it’s just… that…” you trail off.

“What?” asks Twilight.

You look at Celestia and say, “Uh… no disrespect your majesty but… you’re making me a little nervous.”

“Oh, how so?” she asks.

“Well I feel like you keep giving me the stink eye… I mean, you haven’t said a word since you introduced yourself.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen your kind before, I’m just thinking about the safety of Twilight and my subjects.”

“I mean you no harm your majesty, I’m just a lost soul caught in an unfortunate situation,” you tell her.

You sit there yet again in silence, Celestia continuing to make your nerves stand on edge.

Twilight speaks up trying to break the tension, “How about something to drink?”

“Sure,” you whisper hesitantly.

“We can talk over tea,” says princess Celestia.

“SPIKE!” screams Twilight.

You can hear what sounds like toenails hitting the hard floor, as you listen to the noise the first thought that runs through your head is, ‘Did she just call her dog?’

But what walks through the door isn’t a dog; it looks a lot like a dragon. That’s when you recognize him from earlier.

“Yes Twililiiiii-” he trails off.

You sit there and look at the creature as he stares back at you.

“Uh… hi,” you say hesitantly while raising a hand to give off a mock wave.

“Uh… hi,” he says in response, he walks over to Twilight and whispers in her ear.

“Twilight what is he doing here!?”

“Well I just couldn’t leave him to rot in a jail cell!”

“Twilight, are you sure this is the safest thing to do?”

“He just scared and alone, and since I’m the Princess of Friendship, I might as well be his friend in his time of need.”

‘The Princess of Friendship? Is there even such a tittle?’ you ponder.

But it doesn’t last long.

“Spike could you please make us some tea?” she asks.

“Of course I’ll get right on it,” he answers.

He leaves the room as you sit there in silence once again.

You give Twilight a glance and look into those large purple eyes.

“Thank you, Twilight.”

“For what?” she asks while furrowing her brow.

“Everything,” a smile crawls across your face.

She lets off a warm smile that makes your nerves settle. You suddenly hear toenails… no their claws… hitting the floor once more. Spike walks in the room carrying a tray with three tea cups and a tea pot on it. He walks in and places the tray on a nearby table.

“Thank you Spike,” says Twilight with a smile.

“Your welcome,” he answers.

He leaves the room but gave you a questioning glare before walking out. You swallow the lump in your throat before turning back to Twilight.

She’s… levitating the tea pot? How is that possible? Then you think back to the door.

‘How did I not notice her do that?’

She fills all three cups and levitates one to Celestia, herself, then you. You sit there and look at the cup for a second.

Twilight furrows her brow and looks at you, “What’s wrong?” she asks.

“How are you doing that?” you say while pointing at the cup.

“It’s just a simple levitation spell,” she tells you.

“You mean… like magic?” you say while giving her a confused look.

“Well… yeah, don’t you have magic where you’re from?”

“All our magic is just smoke and mirrors,” you tell her.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

You grab the cup and hold it, “You have a coin I can use?”

“Sure.”

Her horn glows again, you sit there and watch as a small purse appears in front of her.

“That’s so cool,” you whisper to yourself.

She grabs it with her hands and opens it, she reaches in side and pulls out a small coin and hands it to you. You put your cup down and grab the coin and hold it in your hand. You hold the coin up between your thumb and index finger.

“Okay,” you say before you put it in the palm of your right hand. “So… a simple coin right?”

Twilight nods her head.

You begin to play with the coin, “Well that’s where you’re wrong,” you say with a smile.

You place the coin back in your right palm, then you place your left hand over the coin and rub your palms together.

“Now, if I concentrate hard enough this should work,” you say.

You rub your palms together and feel the small coin pressing against your skin.

“Alright,” you say felling a little more confident.

You press your hands together and begin to move the coin to the ends of your fingers. You start to cup you fingers and make sure that you have the coin securely in your left hand. Once it’s in place you pull your hands apart and close them into fists.

“Okay now if this worked the coin should have disappeared,” you say knowing full well that the coin has simply swapped hands.

You hold up your balled up right hand and put you left hand down at your side, trying to be as nonchalant as you can.

“Alright,” you say while shaking your fist in front of your face.

You do that for a few seconds until you slowly rest your hand out and open your closed hand, revealing nothing.

Twilight looks at you and says, “So you used a disappearing spell.”

“Oh, did I?” you say with a stupid smirk.

You begin to raise your left hand, “But unfortunately this coin has a nasty tendency to…” you bring left hand up to her ear and begin to move the coin between your fingers. “Show up in peoples ears,” you say while revealing the coin and pulling your hand down to Twilights face.

She immediately grabs her right ear and looks up at you with a bewildered look. A smile crawls across your face.

“How did you do that?” she asks out of confusion.

“A good magician never reveals his secrets,” you say sarcastically.

“Oh come on, please?” begged Twilight.

You let off a light chuckle and say “Okay, okay, do you really want to know what I did?”

Twilight nods her head up and down.

“It was just a simple sleight of hand trick,” you say with a smile.

“Huh?” responds Twilight.

“All I did was make the coin swap hands, and while you were distracted with my right hand I placed my left hand out of sight, and while you were thinking about the coin I simply brought up my left hand and acted like I pulled the coin out of your ear.”

“Wow... that was pretty good,” says Twilight giving you a nice compliment.

“Thank you!”

“Eh –hem,” says Celestia.

You turn to look at her, your joy and smile immediately fade.

“Yes?” you mumble.

Campfires

View Online

Day 1 3

You spent most of the night tossing and turning in the bed that Twilight lent you. You couldn’t sleep knowing all things that have happened. Here you are an entire planet away from home, everyone thinks you’re dead, and well it didn’t help what Celestia told you after your little talk.

I believe you, but if you try anything to hurt Princess Twilight or anypony, I will personally throw you into the sun,” she said.

Didn’t help that was literally the Princess of the Sun and raised it each and every day.

Physics… don’t question its simplicity,” you whisper to yourself sarcastically.

You look out the window to see the sun getting ready to peak over the mountains. There was no point in sleeping any further. You decide to get out of bed and try to distract you wandering mind. You get out of bed and decide to explore the castle. As you walk and look at the décor you can see various pictures here and there. As you examine them you can clearly see Twilight with what looks like her friends. You can clearly recognize them from the other day. You couldn’t help but smile. As you walk around you happen to pass an open door. You hear a mumble in side and take a look. Peeking your head in, you can see Twilight in her bed, but she appears to be shivering.

‘Is it really that cold in here?’ you think.

You don’t have the slightest idea where you could find another blanket. But you do happen to notice the fireplace in the room; it’s odd but kind of convenient. Walking into a girl’s room unannounced not only makes you nervous but how would she react if she caught you. For all you know she’d do something violent, you feel a chill crawl up your spine.

But you don’t want her to freeze to death either. So you decide to take a risk, you push the door open a little further and slowly work your way inside. You monitor Twilight for few seconds to see if she does anything, but to your relief she just lies there. You finally make it to the fireplace and see that there are a few burned logs in there, but it wouldn’t last very long. Turning your head to the right of the fireplace you can see a decent size stack of wood there. You grab some of the smaller pieces and set them up in tepee style.

'Some newspaper would make this work better,’ you think, knowing full well that it’ll make the wood light better.

Not seeing any nearby, you begin to look for any kind of paper. You can see a desk located just under the window nearby. You think there might be some paper in there, you quickly get up and walk over to the desk, where there happens to be a nice stalk of blank paper. You grab three sheets and crumple them as you return to the fire place. You place one under the tepee and start looking for something to light it with.

“Hmmm,” you mumble.

After taking a second to look around you find a piece of flint and steal.

“Ah ha!” you whisper victoriously.

You grab the flint with your left hand and the steel in your right. You hold them near the paper and get ready to hit them together. Raising your right hand, you bring it down quickly and just lightly tap the flint, it wasn’t even enough to make a spark. You grumble to yourself knowing that you can do better. You’re a hunter; it’s practically the law to know how to make a fire. You prepare yourself one more time and give the flint a good hit this time. But what happens next catches you off guard.

Instead of the paper lightly smoldering, it and the wood burst into flames.

Holy shit!” you whisper in surprise, “Well that’s convenient,” you say with a smile.

You grab a couple or larger logs and place them in the fire. After a couple of minutes you can feel the heat filling the room. You stand up and look at Twilight; she appears to have stopped shivering and is resting nicely. You can feel a light smile form on your face; it’s a pretty warming sight.

No pun intended.

You quietly make your leave out of her room and walk the halls once again. But after a while you get bored and decide to go for a walk outside. The fresh air wouldn’t hurt and maybe you can go before everyone wakes up. You make it to the front door… eventually. Once your there you grab your boots and take a seat. Once their laced up you stand and put on your dirty coat. You left your ball cap and skull cap in your room but it’s no big deal, you’re just going for a short walk.

“Eh I don’t need them anyway,” you say to yourself not caring about your head.

You open the door and step outside, once you’re out you close the large door and start to walk toward the town. As you walk you look at the quite little town. It’s a nice little place, reminds you of some of the towns back home. You continue to walk and enjoy the scenery, but something catches your eye. You can see a large plume of smoke rising over the town, and there appears to be a rather large glow.

“Well that’s odd.”

You decide to go and check out what’s going on. You walk about a block and round the corner, you can see a small crowd has gathered. You glance over too see what their looking at, and you can see flames, large ones coming from the burning home. A chill runs up your spine, without even thinking you head straight for the burning building.

You come to a sliding stop in the edge of the crowd as you watch the burning house.

‘I hope everyone’s out,’ you think to yourself.

A few seconds pass, then a large man comes running out from the side of the building, he’s covered in ash and soot. He must have come out from the burning home. He runs straight up to the nearest person and grabs them by the collar.

“My wife and daughter are in there!”

Your eyes go wide at the comment, without even thinking you head straight for the front door. You push your way through the crowd while screaming, “MOVE… MOVE!”

You stumble out of the crowd and charge for the front door. You grab the handle but pull your hand away immediately, the door knob is very hot, causing your to burn your hand.

“AHHH!” you scream while shaking your stinging hand.

Time for plan B, you quickly cross your arms over your chest and bring your leg up. You jerk your arms out and force your foot forward, kicking the door in. You stumble inside and begin to cough as the smoke begins to fill your lungs.

Quickly you cover your mouth and nose with your arm and begin to search the house.

“*cough* where are you!?” you scream.

“Up here!” replies a frantic female voice.

You take a second to find the stairs, which happen to be right in front of the front door. You circle around the rail and jump up the stairs. Once you’re at the top you do your best to look around but all you see are flames and black smoke.

“Where are you!?” you scream once again.

“Over here!” replies the female voice once again.

You head down the hallway and try to follow the voice, but the thick smoke and sound of burning wood makes searching very difficult.

“Where!?” you scream.

“In here!”

You follow the voice once again, “Keep talking to me!” you order.

“In here please hurry!” you take a few steps and find a partially opened door.

You forcefully shove it open with your shoulder and step inside. The smoke is lighter in the room but it’s still pretty bad.

“Please help!” screams the female voice.

Through the smoke you catch a glimpse of a young woman lying on the floor, she appears to be caught under some debris. You quickly run over to her and kneel beside her.

“I’ll get you out.” you say frantically.

“Please save my daughter!” screams the woman, while looking at her daughter.

You glance over and see a young girl passed out on the floor.

“I’ll get her next!” you scream while trying to move the debris.

You realize that it’s too heavy to push off the young woman, so you decide to try something different. You stand up and get into a squatting position; you grab the charred wood and do your best to ignore the pain shooting up both of your arms.

You scrunch your face and pull as hard as you can, its takes a second, but the debris begins to rise, once you get it up about six inches you hold it there. “MOVE!” you scream ordering the young women. She quickly gets her legs out of the way and heads for her daughter; you quickly drop the debris and move over to the young girl.

You look at the mother and say, “I got her, GO!”

You cradle the young girl in your arms and quickly stand up, the mother heads for the door while you follow close behind. As tears fill your eyes you struggle to see, but you slowly make it to the stairs. The young woman’s standing at the bottom of the stairs watching you, as best as you can you stumble down the stairs. “GO!” you order the woman once again. You watch as she makes it out the front door and into the street. You’re so close, just a few more feet and you’ll be out safe and sound. But fate says otherwise, the ceiling comes crashing down blocking the exit.

You freeze and try to look for another exit. You turn your head to the right and head for the burning living room. At this point your eyes fell like their on fire themselves but you do your best to ignore the pain. As you look around you catch a stream of light bleeding through the smoke. You realize that it’s a window; it’s your best exit at this point. You take a second to look for something to break it with; you find a lamp on a nearby table. Without hesitation you grab it and throw it with all the strength you can muster at the window. The sound of glass shattering fills the room. Without a second thought you head for the newly opened window. Before you jump out you cradle the girls head and rotate your body, making sure that you take the hit of the ground.

You jump with all the strength you have left and fly through the window. You hit the ground with your back landing with a hard thud. A sharp stabbing pain shoots up your left leg but you ignore it. The house is still on fire, and you need to get away. You begin to crawl away on your back while you cradle the girl and drag your injured leg. As you look back at the crowd two men run up and grab you, they dragging you about 50 feet away from the building. They lay you down in the snow, you gently lower the unconscious girl onto the ground. You immediately begin to do CPR; you put you left hand on her throat and begin to search for the artery in her neck.

“Nononono!” you panic to yourself.

You place your ear next to her mouth and focus on her chest, you can’t hear or feel anything, and it doesn’t appear that she’s breathing. Without a second thought you place your left palm on her diaphragm and you’re balled up right hand on top of your left. You start to push down forcefully and begin to breathe in unison with every compression.

“Come on, come on!” you scream.

Your breathing begins to get heavier and exhaustion starts to set in but you keep pushing forward. You ignore the crowd that’s circled around you. All you want to do is save this girl’s life, she’s too young to die and you intend to make sure death doesn’t get this innocent soul.

Seconds feel like hours as you press down on the young girl’s chest, you begin to shake your head as you mumble to yourself, “Come on! Come oooon!” As you continue your compressions you feel something under your hands give and a light crack can be heard.

“SHIT!” you scream knowing full well that you cracked at least one rib.

A heavy hand falls on your shoulder and forcefully pulls you away from what you’re doing. A large man looks you in the eyes and screams, “You’re hurting her!”

Without thinking, you bark, “SHES ALREADY DEAD!”

You stare daggers in to the man for a second, then go back to doing compressions on the girl. A few seconds pass, than you hear the girl let out a couple of light coughs. Immediately you stop you compressions and lean over her, placing your ear next to her mouth while you look at her chest. As you fell her neck looking for a pulse you watch her chest rise slightly as you find her pulse. A smile crawls across your face; you sit up and let your body fall backwards into the snow.

“I did it… I did it,” you whisper triumphantly with relief.

You close your eyes and let your breathing relax, as the adrenaline begins to wear off, the pain in your arms, hand, and leg sets in. You wince at the pain while you sit up; your eyes immediately rest on your left leg. They go wide and your jaw goes slack. You notice a rather large piece of glass sticking out of your lower leg. You stare at if for a second, until you raise your left hand. It’s shaking like a leaf as you slowly reach out toward the glass and begin to wrap your fingers around it. But you let go while you close your eyes and shake your hand at the glass shard. You wince at the pain once again, but you can hear voices in the crowd.

“Move… move!” screams a male voice.

“Let us through!” barks another male voice.

You watch as two young men run up to you and the young girl, they are wearing white clothing and are carrying bright orange bags. They look a lot like the old EMS guys from back home. A jet black colored man with light grey hair runs up to the unconscious girl. While another white colored man with red hair runs up to you.

“It’s alright son I gotcha,” he says calming your nerves.

You let your body go limp as you fall back into the snow, “Thank you.”

The EMT works on you while you stay still in the snow. He splints your leg and places two gauze wraps on each side of the glass, once he has them set he wraps them tight to your skin with another set of bandages. You wince at the pain as he works on your leg but you suck it up. You avoid looking at your new battle scares as you look up at the now bright sky. It appears that it’s going to be a beautiful day.

______________________________________________________________________________

Sometime later

Here you are… in the hospital… yet again. You look out the window at the beautiful blue sky. Doctor X-ray was a little surprised when he saw you yet again. And in less than 72 hours, but he was more than willing to sew you up yet again. You spent less than an hour in surgery, the wound wasn’t all that bad, it was just a puncture wound that was two inches deep and three inches wide. You only got eight stiches, while your hand was wrapped with gauze soaked in burn ointment. As for the smoke inhalation, that has begun to ware off.

As you sit there the door opens, you turn your head and expect it to be a nurse but what you see isn’t a nurse. It’s the man that escaped the house and the woman you saved. Now that you have time to look at them you notice what they really look like. The man is grey in color, has the same color hair and tail and golden eyes. The female standing next to him is a light very light blue; she has light violet hair with a greyish color streak running through it and she has these light greyish purple eyes.

“May we come in?” asks the man.

You look him in the eyes, “Sure, grab a seat anywhere.”

Both him and his wife walk into the room and take a seat next to the bed.

“So how can I help you too?” you ask.

“Well…” begins the man.

You sit there and wait for him to continue.

“I… I want to thank you for saving my wife and daughter,” he finishes.

You can hear the sadness in his voice. You sit there for a moment before responding.

“Well… I just saw a situation and reacted,” you tell him in a hushed tone.

“We…” says the woman, “We want to apologize also.”

“For what?” you ask, furrowing your brow in confusion.

“For judging you, we heard about this strange furless creature with the princesses… and we heard about what you did to those timber wolves and nurse Redheart…” she stops.

“We decided to follow rumors and let our fears take over… instead of learning who you really are,” finished the man.

“Oh,” you say, “well uh… apology accepted… I guess.”

Silence fills the room.

The man extends his arm, “My names Baritone,” he says with a small smile.

You reach out and take his open hand with your left one, “The names Anon.”

“Nice to meet you Anon,” he replies.

You look at his wife.

“My names Diamond Mint, but you can call me Minty,” she says as you shake hands.

“It’s nice to meet you Minty,” you reply happily.

“Once again we want to thank you for saving our little Liza,” says Minty.

“Liza?” you repeat the name as you glance at the ceiling, “that’s the first normal name I’ve heard so far.”

“What do you mean?” asks Baritone.

“Well where I’m from, names aren't as odd as Baritone,” you look at him, “no offence.”

“None take, personally I think Anon is a pretty strange name,” he says while giving a dismissing hand gesture.

“Her full name is Liza Doolots,” says Minty.

There it is,’ you mentally deadpan.

“Well I hope she’s feeling better?” you ask with a hint of worry.

“Oh, actually we just saw her,” says a more lively Minty, “She’s awake and was happy to see us.”

“We that’s good to hear,” you pause, “I hope I didn’t do too much damage when I performed CPR?”

“The doctor said she had one cracked rib, but that’ll heal in time, I mean… you saved her life,” said Baritone.

“It would have been a tragedy if I didn’t do something,” you reply.

“And we can’t thank you enough,” says Minty as she rises up from the chair and takes you in a big hug.

“Ah!” you wince in pain.

She immediately pulls away from you; she covers her mouth with her hands as her ears fall back, “I’m so sorry.”

“Its fine, I’m still a little sore,” you look at her, “it’s been a rough few days.”

“Huh, I bet,” Baritone pauses for a second as he rises from his chair, “anyway we’ll get out of your mane.”

“Take it easy you two,” you tell them happily as they approach the door.

“We will, hey! Maybe we can go out for tea sometime, I think Liza would be really happy to meet her new hero,” says a joyous Minty.

“Well I’ll be at the castle for the time being, just stop on by and we can make arrangements,” you tell her.

“Will do,” says Baritone, “anyway take it easy.”

“You too,” you holler as they leave the room.

Not even 30 seconds pass before Twilight comes running into the room. She’s clearly distraught, “Oh my goodness, Anon are you alright!?”

“Yeeeah!” you say calmly.

She runs up next to the bed, “I came over as soon as I heard are you alright? Wheredoesithurt? Ifeelsobad!” she says in a panic.

“Twilight?” you say calmly.

“Thisisallmyfault! howcouldIletthishappen?”

“Twilight?” you say again.

You notice five more women run into your room along with Spike, but you ignore them while you try to calm down Twilight.

“TWILIGHT!!” you scream getting her attention.

“OH MY WHAT HURTS? DO I NEED TO GET A NURSE!?!”

You roll your eyes and let out a frustrating sigh, “Twilight I’m fine, just a little beaten up, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“But you’re my responsibility,” she says, still feeling distraught.

“Twilight I’m not a child, I can handle myself, I’ve been doing it for a few years now,” you explain.

“But…”

“Twilight,” you deadpan.

You take a second before speaking up again, “I found civilization, fought off three wolves,” you raise up three fingers when you said that, “and even got my arm to stop bleeding, eight stiches and a small burn is nothing compared to what I’ve seen or done the last few days.”

“But I…”

You shoot her a frustrating glance.

“Am I dead?” you ask.

“No,” she answers.

“Then I’m fine,” you pause, “I’ve seen car crashes go smoother than this,” you mumble to yourself sarcastically.

“What’s a car crash?” asks the rainbow haired girl.

You look at her in utter confusion.

‘She doesn’t know what a car is?’ you think.

Then again you haven’t heard or seen anything resembling a motor vehicle since you got here.

“Uh… I’ll explain later, who are you? If I may ask?”

“I’m Rainbow Dash,” she says sounding rather confident in herself.

“Now that,” you point at her,” is an odd name.”

“What!? I’m the best flier in all of Equestria, everypony knows my name,” replies a shocked Rainbow.

You point to yourself as you say, “Do I look like I’m from here?”

“Well… no” replies Dash.

“Anyway,” you look at Twilight, “is it alright if you introduce me to your friends?” you ask kindly.

“Uh… sure,” she looks at her friends, “You’ve already met Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah the cocky sounding one,” you say sarcastically.

Dash lets out an angry huff as she crosses her arms and looks away.

Twilight continues, “The white one is Rarity, next to her is Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy is the one with long pink hair, and the last one is Applejack.”

As you look at her friends, something about Applejack seems familiar. That’s when it hits you; she was the figure in the woods. “You saved my life… didn’t you?” you ask while pointing a finger at the orange woman.

“Yup,” she says, “I heard some loud noise in the Everfree Forest and decided to see what in tarnation was goin on.”

You think about it for a moment, “That was probably my rifle.”

“Your rifle?” she asks.

“I’ll explain later, anyway it’s nice to meet you all,” you say cheerfully.

“It’s nice to meet you,” they all say in unison.

The doctor walks in shortly afterwards.

“Hey doc!” you say happily.

“Hey Anon, how are you feeling?” he asks.

“Well my legs sore and my hand stings but otherwise I’m good,” you say.

“At least you’re comfortable,” he says.

“Yeah, I could be better though,” you say.

“We all could,” he says, “so I have some bad news.”

Twilight practically faints.

“And that would be?”

“You have to stay here until morning,” he says.

“Damn.”

Fresh Air

View Online

Well here you are again… siting in the hospital. Except this time you’re not leaving in handcuffs, so it’s not all bad. Then again… you are sitting in a wheel chair. Twilight wheels you down the hall of the hospital with her friends in tow; you sport a rather unamused look on your face.

You lean to the side a little so you can be heard easier, “I can’t believe that your world and mine have the same policies when it comes to leaving the hospital,” you say.

“You heard the doctor. You have to take it easy,” replies Twilight.

“It’s just a small cut. I could easily walk out of here,” you say in your defense.

“A small cut! Its three inches long and two inches deep!” replies Twilight, "you have eight stiches!"

“Okay so it’s a deep, small cut,” you say knowing full well that this argument is getting nowhere.

The talking between you and Twilight stops as you continue down the hallway. After a couple of seconds you speak up yet again.

Your face perks up, “Hey! Someone wheel me to the stairs I have a stupid idea!” you say with enthusiasm.

“NO! Absolutely not!” replies Twilight.

“Ooooh, suck the fun out of life,” you reply with a smile.

You hear a little bit of giggling behind you. Without looking you assume its Twilights friends.

“If you keep getting hurt like this you’re going to clean out my bit purse,” replies Twilight.

You point a finger to the ceiling, “In my defense I never planned on coming here, and the latest incident saved two lives,” you reply. You put your arm down.

Twilight doesn’t reply, so you decide to be quiet.

After an elevator ride to the first floor and yet another stop at the front desk -thankfully not in cuffs this time- Twilight checks you out. The nurse behind the desk gives you a cane since the injury you sustained isn’t enough to keep you in a wheel chair. You thank her before you leave the hospital with a noticeable limp. But, once again your demeanor changes once you step outside. People continue to give you odd looks here and there, which only forces you to hide behind your collar.

“Now I wish I had died in that fire,” you say to yourself as your eyes dart in every direction.

A hand finds its way to your shoulder, “Hey,” you look at Twilight, “give them time. You’re still new here and most ponies are very weary of strange looking creatures.”

Her hand drops from your shoulder, “Doesn’t help that the last time I walked through town I was in handcuffs,” you say quietly.

“Well you did hurt Nurse Redheart…” Twilight says hesitantly.

“I was bleeding to death! What’d you expect!?” you say harshly.

“Well I-”

“You know what!? Forget it! I don’t want to hear it!” you reply with a loud whisper.

The rest of the walk to the castle was one of anger and awkwardness. It’s only been a few days in this strange land and you have been arrested once, and nearly killed twice, pissed off one princess and probably made another one very sad… yeah life’s great! Didn’t help that Twilight had to speak up about what happened when you would rather forget everything and go home. But it’s best not to let it last long. Once you step inside the castle you limp your way to your room.

Twilight pleaded for you to stay out and apologized multiple times as you walk away, but you just ignore her. After a painful walk up the stairs you walk into your room and slam the door shut. Next you throw your cane across the room where it hits the far wall before falling to the ground.

“GAAAAAAAAAAA! WHY!?” you curse to no one, “why me?” you say as your head goes limp.

You look at the floor for a few seconds before limping over to the bed where you take a seat. With your head hung low you begin to cry. You sit and contemplate more about why you are here. Celestia did say that her and her sister would look for a way to get you home. But how long will that take? A week? A month? A year? By now you know that search and rescue back home has most defiantly found your rig and are probably still searching for you.

Hell you might have even made the paper and the news. But where’s the point in enjoying possible publicity when the title probably says, ‘Local Hunter Missing, Presumed Dead’.

Yeah that’s real enjoyable.

You could always put a bullet in your mouth.

WHAT A TERRIBLE IDEA!!!

Killing your self won’t fix anything! Besides there’s still hope that you can go home. That’ll be fun… walk up to your friend’s house, knock, and when they answer you say, ‘Hey! Look who’s not dead! Sure fooled you didn’t I!?’ That brings a smile to your face. It’s stupid and the media would go insane, but it would be interesting. Then again you might end up in a mental hospital? You shudder at the thought.

But what if you don’t get back?

Sure the lifestyle here is similar to home. The lack of basic technology sucks, but you can make do. You’ve always preferred the simple life anyway. As long as you don’t screw up you could make a life here. Finding a job wouldn’t be to hard… you could probably work for Twilight if anything else. She’s a princess and probably has a stack of paperwork the size of Mount Everest on her desk… right? Although sorting paperwork isn’t the best job you could easily pull it off… right?

Besides if things don’t work out and you can’t get back home… Twilight and her friends are pretty cute. With any luck you could score a girl here! It would be different but you could do it! You decide to keep it in mind for a later date. You guess the best thing to do now would be-

“Anon!?”

You hear Twilight on the other side of your door.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

You didn’t even know how long you had been sulking in your room.

“Uh… yeah,” you stand up and limp you way to the door. Once you reach the door, you open it.

You see Twilight standing there, her ears are folded back against her head and she has sadness in her eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asks again.

“… Yeah, just uh… thinking,” you reply.

“Oh… okay,” she says as she looks away from you.

An awkward silence fills the air.

“It’s getting close to lunch time… and I wanted to see if you wanted something to eat?” she asks, still avoiding eye contact.

“Sure,” you say softly.

“Okay,” she turns away, which makes you feel worse for yelling at her, “I’ll tell the girls,” she starts to walk away.

You let out a depressed sigh as you look at the floor, then her, “Twilight!” you say quickly. She turns and looks at you, “I… I’m sorry for my outburst.”

She looks at you with shaky eyes. A small smile crawls across her face, “Thank you.”

You smile back.

A few seconds pass, “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

You feel happier, “Let me grab my cane and we can go,” you say as you start to turn away.

“Oh here let me get it!” says a happier Twilight.

You look back at her and watch the horn on top of her head glow purple. Turning the other direction you see your cane float over to you with the same purple aura as her horn. Once it’s in front of you, you take the curved piece of wood and orienting correctly in good your hand.

Twilight turns around and begins to walk down the hall with a little more joy in her step. You follow as best as you can. You aren’t in a full limp but the pain is uncomfortable and slows your pace by half a step. But! You suck it up. After a few minutes you walk into a nearby room. Once you both enter, all Twilights friends stand up.

Immediately skittles, in a blue and rainbow streak shoots toward you. Before your brain processes what happened she’s floating in front of you. Her nose is mere inches from your face.

“You got a lot a nerve walking in here!”

You don’t respond you’re still processing her speed.

“Rainbow!” scolds a female country ascent.

Next thing you know little miss rainbow hair is pulled to the ground, where she lands with a thud and a moan. You look at her then to the orange woman that is standing in front of you. You lock eyes with hers.

And… she… is… pissed.

Hard to believe that a small argument would set them off like this. It would appear that the flashy colors are a lie! Acting quickly you say the first thing that comes to mind.

“You would hit a guy with a cane would you?”

She cracks her neck in front of you.

So the next logical thing to do is run… but how fast can you limp away?

“Quick question? If I started running how much of a head start would you give me?”

She cracks her knuckles, “Yah got three seconds.”

You might as well just fall over dead.

“Girls!”

Thank god.

Wait is this another attempt to hurt you…?

The white girl walks up and stands between you and your assailants. What was her name?

Right! Rarity… honestly how do you forget names that are so out there? Probably the same way you forgot your phone. You quickly grab your pocket to confirm your suspicion.

“Is this really the best way to treat somepony who has been through so much in the last few days?” she asks.

Did she just say, somepony?

“He hurt Twilight! So it’s only logical that we hurt him!” replies… damn rainbow hair… it should be easy!

That comment knocks you out of your thought process.

The rainbow haired girl shoots you a death glare. Reflexively you take a half step back.

“If it’s any consolation I did apologize!” you say in your defense.

Which falls on deaf ears.

“A likely story!” replies… might as well go with Skittles at this point.

You look at Twilight, “Twilight! Any time would be great!”

The real question is why hasn’t she said anything?

She looks at you; you can see the gears in her head turning. She steps forward.

“Girls please he’s telling the truth!”

“Really?” replies the orange and blue girl in unison.

You let out a sigh of relief while multiple thoughts run through you head. One, you’re not dead. Two, why didn’t Twilight say anything from the beginning? And three… well you can’t think of anything else but relief.

“He didn’t mean it,” Twilight looks at you.

You shake your head quickly, “Uh… yeah, it was an accident,” you look at the floor, “I’m sorry it just *sigh* it’s been a very rough few days. I damn near died twice, I’m miles away from home, and everyone back home probably thinks I’m dead.”

You can feel tears in your eyes.

You hear a regret filled sigh from someone. You then feel a hand on your left shoulder. You look up and see… why do you have to be so bad with names!? Orange body, yellow hair and cowboy hat looking at you with saddened eyes.

“I’m sorry partner.”

You smile a little, which causes her to smile back. She removes her hand and takes a step to the side. The rainbow haired girl walks up to you. She’s avoiding eye contact for some reason.

“I… I just want to…”

Why is she so nervous?

She looks at you for a moment, “… Say I’m sorry.” She crosses her arms and looks away, “There I said it!” she looks back at you, “but don’t expect it to be a regular thing!”

You don’t say anything and look at Twilight.

“Well that went better than I expected,” she looks at her friends, “are we ready to go?” They all nod in unison. She looks at you, “You ready?”

“Let me grab my hat and we can get going,” you say.

You aren’t too comfortable with going outside but if this is going to be your life you have to go outside eventually. You limp back upstairs and grab you ball cap and put on top of your head. You walk back downstairs and see Twilight and her friends talking. When you enter the room they look at you and stop talking. Immediately you know what’s going on.

They’re talking about you.

Now that is either good or bad. They could be gossiping about your looks… or… they are planning your murder. You laugh at the second idea and hope for the first. You walk up and join the group.

“Let me guess? You’re talking about me aren’t you?” you ask as nonchalantly as you could. Internally you have a mischievous smile.

“Nope!” replies Twilight with a smile.

Denial… the first step.

“Yeah sure,” you reply knowing full well that she’s lying, “so where are we headed?”

“Sugar Cube Corner of course!” replies Pinkie.

The only way you remembered her name is because she’s pink.

“Okay.”

You look over at your stuff on the nearby chair.

“Let me grab one more thing.”

You shuffle through the group and grab you pistol. You place it on you right thigh and strap it to your belt. Then you grab your magazine pouch and slip it onto you belt. Skittles there had to criticize you for undoing you belt in front of a group of… mares? Then again they do look a lot like horses.

But they aren’t horses?

You stop the biological battle in your head. Once the last strap is tightened you turn back to the group.

“We good?” you ask.

“Yep!” replies Twilight.

She opens the door for her friends. Once they’re outside you follow. Twilight closes the door and follows close behind. Her friends slow down and surround you. Most guys would think that this is the dream… but less than 20 minutes ago two of them wanted you dead. Twilights friends begin to ask about what happened to you.

Well… you tell them.

They all wear a face of shock when you tell them about the wolves and then the fire. After what seemed like a long story and a short walk, you enter into a little bakery. Twilight and her friends grab a large table where you take a seat.

A tall skinny, yellow man walks in and greets everyone. And oddly enough he seems over joyed at what you are. He hands out a few glasses of water and a couple of menus. You peruse through the menu and settle with a grilled cheese sandwich with French fries. Once everyone else has made their choice Twilight decides to ask a few questions.

“So Anon?”

You look at her.

“Maybe you could explain what that thing on your leg is?”

“What? My handgun?” you say as you look at the weapon for a second.

“Handgun?” replies the white girl.

You really need to get better with their names… Rarity right?

“Yeah my handgun…”

Now generally pulling a gun out in public can get you arrested. But! Since you were taken to prison but two men in medieval armor and spears, you could probably get away with this. You grab the weapon and pull it from its holster. You carefully – and safely – hold the weapon up and remove the magazine. You place the mag in your pocket and work the slide.

Good thing you carry it in a cowboy load. So the chamber is empty, but it’s always best to check anyway. You hold the weapon out on the table.

“This is my Colt 1911. It works the same as my rifle,” you mostly look at Twilight during the last half.

“What does it do?” asks the orange girl.

You pull the loaded mag from your pocket, “It fires one of these,” you use your thumb to remove one of the bullets. The small cartridge lands on the table with a thud. You put the mag on the table and pick up the bullet, “this is a .45 caliber round.”

You toss it to her. She catches it and looks at the small piece of lead and brass.

“This don’t look like much,” she says while she looks at you.

“No, but that’s not when it’s moving at twenty-five hundred feet per second.” Little miss rainbow hairs eyes go wide, causing you to chuckle. “That little copper piece there moves faster than the speed of sound and hits like a freight train.”

“Why do you need such a dangerous weapon!?” asks the pink haired girl.

You look at her and shrug, “Protection mainly.”

The bullet gets passed around until you get it back. You put it back in the magazine and slip the magazine into the gun, then the gun to the holster.

“Protection from what?” asks Twilight.

“People that wish to do me harm,” you say, “and dangerous animals,” you shrug your shoulders during the last half.

The waiter walks up and interrupts your little discussion. You thank him and chow down. Twilight and her friends ask you questions about what life is like on your planet. You happily oblige and tell them what you know. Where you’re from, what you do in your pass time, technology and the like. They were all surprised when you said that magic doesn’t exist. Well Twilight wasn’t surprised since you already explained it to her. She seemed to enjoy a laugh at her friend’s expense.

“So who runs the weather?” asks the rainbow haired girl.

Odd question.

“The weather does its own thing, you really can’t control it,” you say as you shake your head side to side lightly.

“What!? That’s… that’s impossible!”

“That’s nature… wait,” you raise an eyebrow, “is weather control a normal thing here?”

“Of course!” replies the rainbow haired girl.

“That’s… strange,” you lean back in your chair, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone actually controlling the weather… I mean I’ve heard the conspiracies, but I know they’re all fake.”

The white girl speaks up, “So how do you do anything without magic?”

You look at her before placing your arms on the table, “Gotta coin?"

Lessons

View Online

Lessons

You’re sound asleep in the rather comfortable bed that Twilight lent you. You don't know what type of material the bed and the sheets are made out of. But it doesn't matter, its soft as hell and warm too!

The door to the room crashes open. Before you realize what’s going on you are being shoved in the shoulder all while you hear, “Anon wake up. Anon wake up!” over and over again.

Well… you were comfortable… until Twilight kicked the door in.

You moan and turn over in the bed while you mumble the typical question, “What?”

“Yesterday you said that you would show me how your weapons work!” Twilight chimes happily.

You crack and eye open and catch a glance at the clock sitting on the table next to the bed. It reads “6:00 a.m.” then you glance at the window and catch a peek through the curtains. It’s still dark out.

You close your partially opened eye, “How about two more hours?” you mumble.

“Why can’t we go now?” whines Twilight.

You imagine that typical head tilt, shoulder drop, and puppy dog eyes. It’s a cute thought, but sleep sounds better.

“Two reasons Twilight. One, it’s way too early and I love sleeping. And two, it’s dangerous and hard to see the sights at night,” you explain as best as you can through your exhaustion.

“You sound just like Rainbow Dash,” pouts Twilight.

You assume that to be Skittles.

“Twilight, I know how interested you are, but please, can’t I sleep a little longer?”

“Ugh, fine!” she huffs, “Two hours!”

“Three.”

You have a devious plan that just might work.

“You said two,” replies Twilight.

“Positive I said three.”

“You said two.”

Time to Bugs Bunny the shit out of this.

“Three.”

“Two!”

“Three.”

“Two!”

“Four.”

“Two.”

God you hope this works.

“Two.”

“Four.”

Damn this actually is working!

“I demand two.”

“You are going to get four and you’re going to like it!”

“Alright, four it is then. See you at ten,” you reply.

You are internally laughing so badly it hurts.

“Ten it is!” replies Twilight.

You hear foot, or hoofsteps actually, headed for the door and fade as they round the corner. Once the sound fades a little you hear them stop.

“Wait… what just happened?” you hear Twilight mumble to herself.

Totally worth it.

Four hours later.

You sit up on the bed after a good night’s rest. You stretch your arms over your head and let you back pop in a few places. That’s always a good feeling. You let your arms go limp as they land on the bed with a thud and smack your limps. Your mouth feels a little dry, might as well get a drink of water.

After throwing the sheets to the side and climbing onto the-

“ HOLY CRAP!” you lift your feet off the frozen floor immediately, “that’s cold!”

Who the hell builds a castle out of crystal? And if they do, why don’t they make heated floors?

That’s a genius idea actually!

You push your new invention to the back of your mind for a later date. Right now you have bigger problems… like finding a pair of socks. Let’s see, you have an extra pair in your pack, but that’s on the other side of the room. So that options out. Then again, now that you think about it, what happened to the pair you’ve been wearing for the last few days? Then again, you really don’t want to put those things on your feet.

You let out a defeated sigh before placing your feet on the cold, cold floor. You take in a surprised gasp as a chill runs up your spine at the feeling while you quickly lose the feeling in your feet. Alright time to move, and quickly too! You push off the bed and practically sprint to the other side of the room. Moving quickly you open your pack and frantically search for your spare pair of socks.

“Where are they where are they?” you say to yourself.

“Looking for these?” asks a female voice behind you.

You pull your arm out of your pack and turning to face the voice. You see Twilight standing there with your extra pair of socks while she wears a dirty mischievous grin.

You point a finger at her, “That’s a dick move!”

“This is what you get for that little stunt you pulled earlier!”

“You woke me up at six! It was dark, I was tired! And I can’t believe that that actually worked…” you say in your defense, “Anyway, give me my socks!” you demand while reaching for the small pair of material. Just like any sibling would do, she prevents you from grabbing them by moving them out of your reach. You stop your assault and straighten your back, “Come on Twilight, this isn’t funny I can’t feel my feet anymore!”

You just realize how much of a child you sound like.

“What’s the magic word?”

You give her a bemused look, “You can’t be serious?”

“I am!”

You let out a defeated sigh, “Fine can I ple- YOINK!” thinking quickly, you grabbed your socks from the young princess and ran like hell.

“HEY! GIVE THOSE BACK!” demands Twilight.

“NOPE!” you scream while rounding the corner of the doorway to your room. You run down the hallway as fast as you can and round another corner of an adjacent hallway and stop to hug the wall.

You peer around the corner to see if little miss purple is following you. When you see nothing, you lean back and rest your head on the crystal wall and catch your breath. You hold your sock up at chest height and smile victoriously. You lower your arm and take a step to your right. Your nose connects with another and your eyes shoot open. You tense up immediately and look into those large purple eyes. You can’t help but fear the worst.

“Magic?” you ask.

“Yep!”

“Teleportation spell of some kind?”

“Yep!”

“Should I start running now?” you ask while pointing a thumb over your shoulder.

“Yep!”

“Okay but one thing?”

“Yes?”

You look past Twilight and point behind her, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?”

Immediately she turns around, “WHAT!?”

Now that’s she’s distracted you turn and make your leave around the corner and run like hell back down the hall you just came down. All you hear behind you is:

“YOU ARE SO DEAD!”

Since said purple princess can teleport, that sentence alone puts the fear of god in you. Even though this is just playful antics, (you hope), it still scares the shit out of you. Celestia can raise the sun, so what can Twilight do? You don’t ponder it long when you reach a set of stairs. Before you go down you look behind you.

And what you see is frightening.

Twilight is flying at you at full speed. Her teeth are clenched, her arms are out and ready to strangle you, and her eyes are full of anger, there are actual flames in her eyes! Maybe she was serious about the dead part? Without taking a second though you run down the stairs. Behind you, you hear the sound of a body hitting a hard surface, followed by a moan, but you ignore it and keep descending. Once you reach the bottom you run right down the hall. You’re about halfway to the front door. Then again, what will running outside do? It’s a surefire way to get frostbite.

A purple flash and a pop knock you out of your thoughts as Twilight materializes in front of you. She has her hands on her hips and wears an annoyed look while she taps her fo- hoof on the floor. Your eyes go wide; you have way too much momentum to stop. Once Twilight realizes that you are not stopping, she sticks her arms out and braces for impact while you do the same. You crash into her like a speeding car. Both of you fall to the floor, with you landing on top of her. Even when you hit the ground you don’t stop moving, because you roll forward off of her and end up sitting up right.

You furrow your brow and look around in every direction, “What just happened?”

“Ohhhh, maybe that was a little much?”

Immediately you turn your torso around to see Twilight propping herself up with one hand while the other holds her head. Immediately you scramble over to her on your hands and feet. Once you reach her, you sit on your knees while you hold your hands out like you want to grab her but are too nervous to.

“Twilight, I am so sorry!”

She lunges forward and grabs you in what would be an exaggerated hug, “GOTCHA!”

Your worried expression changes, “You did that on purpose. Didn’t you?” you deadpan.

“I didn’t plan on getting hit like that, but capturing you was part of the plan,” she explains.

“Well I feel a whole lot better,” you say with false joy, “I actually though I hurt you.”

You could only imagine what Celestia would say… or do.

“It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” she says.

“I’d say otherwise,” says a raspy female voice.

You and Twilight both go stiff. Your first thoughts go into explanations. You know what this is, Twilight knows what this is, Skittles is going to exploit this for everything its worth! Okay explanations, aliens? Well you are the alien, so that’s out. You’re drunk? Sure don’t smell like it. Uh, uh, uh, you ran out of gas. You... you had a flat tire. You didn't have enough money for cab fare. Your tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole your car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! Quick thinkthinkthnink! Stop thinking about the word think and think you idiot!

“Uh… I can explain Rainbow,” says Twilight nervously.

“Rainbow Dash! That’s her name, honestly how could I forget!?” well that was poorly timed.

“Uh, yeah, that’s my name,” says little miss rainbow hair.

“Um… Twilight, are we um… interrupting something?” asks a light, but nervous voice.

“Twilight, wouldn’t a bed be ah better place to do this?” asks a southern voice.

“Come now darling, they can do whatever they want. This is her castle after all,” chimes a happy, (stuck up), voice.

“Two things, one, it’s not what you think and two, TWILIGHT COLD YOU PLEASE LET ME GO!” that was less of a question and more of a statement.

Immediately Twilight lets go of you and holds her arms close to her body and blushes while you casually adjust your sleeping shirt. Good thing it was cold and Twilight offered you a shirt and sweatpants, this would have been really bad if you were in your underwear. After your shirt is set you stand up and help Twilight to her feet.

Once Twilight is set you look at Rainbow, she wears a shit faced grin and starts to open her mouth, “This is one of the few times I am willing to hit a girl in the mouth!” you say forcefully before she says something stupid, “it was NOT what you think it is. Got it!?” you order while you get two inches from her face.

Rainbow closes her mouth and gulps nervously, “Got it.”

“Good!” you turn and take a step, “God, I hate it when people do that to me!” you say while you pass Twilight, “Let me get my shit and we can get started… I need to blow off some steam anyway,” you mumbled the last part to yourself.

You really need to stop exploding. It’s been a stressful week, yes, but Twilight pardoned you from prison and set you up in the castle. And her friends have just been interested in you since they met you. They wanted to learn so much yesterday and you were happy oblige.

And they are the only ones that treat you like a regular person… not some monster that comes from the deep dark forest. Honestly, you should really be thanking them, and you know for a fact that they were just joking. You reach you room and grab the handle, but before you turn it and walk in- Wait a minute there were five… where’s the-

The door to your room fly’s open and a pink hand garbs you and drags you inside before being taken into a backbreaking hug while the owner says, “HI!” with joy and enthusiasm.

But you only have one thought, well, besides the pain shooting through your back, “Cant… breath… back… broken… death… imminent!”

She releases you immediately and you fall to the floor, thankfully landing on your feet. You grab your chest like you’re having a heart attack with one hand and place the other on your leg for support, “My whole life flashed before my EYES!” you pause for dramatic effect, “AND IT WAS BORING!” your false seriousness dies while you start to laugh.

Something about this pink colored girl makes you want to laugh. You don’t know what it is and you don’t question it at the moment. But between laughs and gasps you look at the pink girl while the hamster in her head starts running.

She perks up in realization, “Oh! I get it now!” she starts to laugh hysterically.

You both laugh like maniacs for a little while.

“But seriously you should go to apologize to everypony. La-la-la-la-la!” she sings while skipping out of the room and around the corner.

Wait…what just happened?

She pokes her head through the doorway, “I said go apologize silly!” she disappears yet again.

Can she read minds?

“On occasion!”

Your brain hurts too much to even comprehend what the hell just happened but shrug it off quickly. You change your clothing –thanks to Twilight- and make your leave. Once you’ve gathered the girls and your gear you head outside into the cold. Well, thankfully it isn’t as cold when you’re bundled up in all your wool clothing. You have everything you need –you think so at least, all you’re missing is a target.

You look at Twilight, “Twilight, do you have a target? Like an apple?” This gets an angry groan out of the orange farmer, “Okay maybe an orange…” her angry grimace turns into a happy smile, “Or a sheet of paper with a target drawn on it?”

“Oh here you go!” pipes up Pinkie as she pulls a target out of her hair, “And don’t forget the pin!” she hands you a simple thumb tack.

“Thank…you?” you say questionably as you take the tack in your left hand and the… well… that’s a damn good looking target in your right.

The red rings are perfect and it’s just the right size. After a short walk to a nearby tree, the target is hung and everyone is standing in front of you with looks of interest. Although Twilight is holding a writing pad and a… is that a quill? If that’s the case, you could make some good coin on pens!

That’s beside the point. You walk over and grab you rifle and open the action. You hold it out with two hands… thankfully Twilight gave you gloves. You could pass on the purple and the six starts embroidered on it.

“This is my M1 Garand…”

One cliché gun history, operation, and safety speech later.

“So… who’s first?” you ask.

Twilights hand shoots up, “Me!?” she says enthusiastically.

“Alright Twilight,” you answer.

Twilight walks up and you hand her the –unloaded- weapon. She grabs it and does the usual compensation stance with the weapon. Her feet are together and if she was leaning back any further she would fall over. You quickly correct that. Once she’s ready you tell her to squeeze the trigger.

Click.

“Alright. Easy right?” you ask.

“Uh-huh,” she answers with a nod of her head.

“Alright,” you take the weapon from her grasp and pop a clip in, “So, I’m low on ammo. We’re going to have to be mindful and sparing,” you say before hitting the charging handle and chambering a round.

“Oh I can fix that!”

You look up at Twilight. She pulls a full clip from you pouch and levels it over to herself. She takes it in her hand and scrunches her face and bites her tongue in concentration while her horn glows a bright purple. A pop and a flash of purple light another clip full of eight rounds appears out of thin air.

Your jaw hits the floor, “That is so awesome,” you stand up straighter, “Probably a good thing I don’t have magic,” you say to yourself with a finger on your chin while you look to the sky.

“What do you mean?” asks Rarity.

Let’s see… replicate money, cars, guns, food, you can think of a long list of possibilities to use it for.

“Oh nothing!” you look at the purple princess, “Here Twilight, remember the gun is ready to go off.”

“Got it,” she says with a slight nod before taking the gun.

She goes back to the stance you taught her. She takes a deep breath and closes her eye before opening it. You slowly watch her wrap her finger around the trigger. You look back at the rest of the girls and cover your ears with your hands.

“You might want to cover your ears?”

“Why?” asks Skittles.

BANG!

You watch as they all grab their ears and double over in pain. After a couple of seconds they start to stand up and rub their ears with their hands.

“No reason,” you say while lowering your arms to your sides.

Twilight lowers the gun and looks over her shoulder at you, “So how did I do?”

You walk up next to her and take the weapon, “Let’s see,” you say before looking down the scope. Lining up the cross hairs with the target you can see a tiny dark hole on the outer ring, “About four inches high and three inches to the right,” you say before lowering the gun and looking at her, “I have seen worse, but at least you hit the paper,” you compliment. She smiles.

Over the next hour you watch each of the girls shoot. Fluttershy fell on her rear and dropped the gun when she shot. No one was hurt... well, her rear and shoulder hurt. But no one was shot… thankfully. Applejack hit right in the second right which is very impressive. Rarity had a heart attack when the tiniest amount of gun grease got on her jacket and she ran like hell toward her house. That caused you to laugh your ass off. Much to Twilight's dismay.

You’ve crawled face first through animal shit to stalk animals. Gun grease is nothing to complain about. Pinkie –somehow- you still can’t wrap you head around it… she shot ten rounds out of an eight round gun!

WITHOUT RELOADING!

Finally Rainbow Dash is up. You hand her the gun while she takes her confident stance. You stand next to her, with a little toilet paper shoved in your ears while the rest of her friends stand behind you two with their ears covered.

“Hope you’re ready?” you ask.

She looks at you and gives you a confident and rather cocky smile, “I was born ready!”

“Alright,” you question.

You hold up the binoculars you got a little while ago and focus on the target and leave Rainbow to her own devices.

After a couple of seconds she pulls the trigger.

BANG!

You examine the target but fail to see a bullet hole.

“Miss.”

“What!?” snaps Rainbow while lowering the gun.

You lower the binos and look at her, “You missed,” you hold up the binos to your eyes again, “Try again.”

She grumbles and raises the gun a second time.

BANG!

“Miss.”

BANG!

“Miss.”

BANG!

“Miss.”

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! TING!

“Miss, miss, miss, hit,” that last round took the top left hand corner off the target. Not a true hit but a hit nonetheless. You lower the optics, “One out of eight.”

You turn and face her. Only to get your gun shoved into your chest. You let out an off and grab the weapon and look at Rainbow.

She’s pretty frustrated. Her arms are crossed and she's looked down and to the right, “That stupid thing is broken!”

You roll your eyes. You know that it’s all her and her frustration. You grab the binoculars and remove them from around your neck and hold them out to Twilight. Taking the unspoken hint she takes them from your grasp and walks up next to you while Rainbow walks back behind you.

Facing the target you take one of the many bandolier holsters Twilight created. By now its muscle memory, with the next eight rounds removed and loaded you take your stance and line up the cross hairs on the center dot.

“I bet 100 bits he misses,” whispers Rainbow.

“I’ll take that bet,” you say, not taking your attention away from the target.

“Deal!”

You smirk.

You take a deep breath and close your eyes before letting it out slowly while opening your eye. You’re ready.

BANG!

“Bulls eye!”

And that was the start and end of an easy bet. Eight shots, eight in the ring, pretty good for shooting off hand. You lower the gun and turn around while Twilight does the same with the binos. You wear a smug half smirk while you look at the rainbow haired girl.

“You cannot be serious?” she asks in disbelief. Your expression doesn’t change. Rainbow looks between you and Twilight before she runs up and takes the binos from Twilight and holds them up to her massive eyes, “No…”

In a shot of… rainbow? She has gone down to the target and brought it back in less than ten seconds. Why can’t you have speed like that? Once she returns she lands and looks at the target. Eight shots in one ring. She looks up at your wide eyed and slack jaw.

You stick your hand out and gesture her to give you your money.