C.A.M.A: Day Six
December 12th, 2012
God, I now truly realize why that one student gave Night Hunter that Tartarus sign. It's boring around here. Like I said before, me and Night Hunter have our talks, but he's a busy stallion most of the time because he's the manager of the C.A.M.A Everfree branch. He says that he discusses certain topics with Luna while he's out and about. My guess is the types of dreams that Luna will pump into my mind once I past this first test.
With Night Hunter gone most of time, it gets really lonely around here and I can't talk to the guards outside because they are required to keep their eyes peeled for anything suspicious nearby. To pass the hours, I study my flashcards, draw and read some of the books from Twilight's library. I'm currently reading the History of Equestria, so that'll probably last me through a month or two.
However, later that night after an MRE supper, Night Hunter found some time to play a game of pool with me.
"You think you can beat me?" Night Hunter asked me.
"I'll give er' a shot." I replied.
"We'll see about that. One game only and then we gotta head for bed or we'll both be bears in the morning." Night Hunter said.
"Yes, mother." I replied.
Night Hunter chuckled at the sassy quip.
Night Hunter used his magic to levitate the triangle rack and settled it on the green surface while I went for the pool cues. I went for the slot at the end of the table to take some pools balls out, but my hand was to big to fit all the way in.
"Hand too big?" Night Hunter asked.
"Yeah, I could use some assistance here." I said.
"No need to worry." Night Hunter said as he walked over towards me.
"Here." I said, tossing him a pool cue.
"Thanks." he replied.
Night Hunter leaned his horn into the slot and levitated every single ball out while still levitating his cue.
"Huh. It's interesting how you can do that with multiple objects." I remarked.
"Levitation?" Night Hunter asked.
"Yeah. How does that even work? Do you just concentrate real hard with your mind or something?" I asked.
"It's real simple, actually. It's probably similar to how you move those little thingies on your hands." Night Hunter said.
"Is that so?" I asked, placing the multi-colored balls into the triangle.
"You see, Unicorns have all of these nerve endings in the horn that connect to the brain. The horn is what makes magic and levitation possible because it's rich of magical energy. When the neurotransmitter signals connect with the energy, it triggers the levitation." Night Hunter said.
"That's pretty interesting." I said.
"Other races such as Earth ponies and Pegasi are also magical." Night Hunter said.
"How's that? I've never seen any pegasus or earth pony use levitation." I said.
"Unicorns and Alicorns are the only race capable of having that ability. Earth ponies are known to be more stronger than most ponies because their muscles absorb magic and pegasi are fast fliers because most of the magic is stored in the wing muscles." Night Hunter said.
That would explain why Applejack is so strong and Rainbow Dash having the ability to fly as fast as a jet.
Night Hunter then moved the triangle in a circular motion as the balls rolled along with it. He aligned the balls in the middle and placed the white ball on the opposite side of the table. With that, he removed the triangle, leaving the pool balls in a perfect triangular shape.
"You want solids or stripes?" Night Hunter asked.
"Stripes." I replied.
"Kay' then. We'll flip a bit to see who goes first. I'm heads and you're tails." Night Hunter said, showing me both sides of the coin.
"I know how it works." I said.
"Just making sure," Night Hunter said, tossing the coin up and landing on the table with heads up. "Ha-ha! Looks like I go first." he said.
"Eh." I said, flinging my hand in his direction.
Night Hunter levitated his cue behind the milky white ball and pulled it back before thrusting the cue. The ball rolled forward and impacted the purple ball with a klank, breaking up the balls and causing them to scatter around the table.
"Nice break." I complimented.
I inspected the striped balls for a possible shot into a hole. After finding a blue striped ball that lined up with the upper-right hole, I lined the cue up and smoothly pushed the cue into the white ball, pocketing the purple ball perfectly.
"Nice." I said.
I looked at the striped balls again and went for the striped orange. With my overconfidence getting the best of me, I pulled the cue back and pushed. The white ball rolled quickly past the ball, missing it.
"Ooh, tough luck." Night Hunter said.
"Had to let you have a turn." I replied.
"Ha!" Night Hunter exclaimed.
Night Hunter began to position the cue at an angle and squinted his right eye. After figuring out where he wanted to shoot, he thrusted the cue towards the ball, causing the ball to roll and bounce off the tables boundary. The ball ricocheted off the wall and impacted the ball, pocketing it into the hole.
"Damn, that was a shot." I complimented.
"That's a key element to pool; Angles." Night Hunter said.
"Sure looks like it." I said.
Night Hunter began to position his cue for another shot and a random thought came to mind. How did Night Hunter survive out there in the Everfree when he was patrolling?
"So, uh, Night Hunter." I said.
"What?" he asked.
"I'm curious, how did you even survive out there on your own in the Everfree late at night?" I asked.
"Remember what I said before? Timberwolves are pretty cowardly creatures when they're up against something much bigger than them." Night Hunter reminded.
"Well, how tall are you?" I asked.
"Five foot-two." Night Hunter replied.
"I was previously five-ten and that one wolf came after me with no hesitation." I said.
"Really? What did you do?" Night Hunter asked, surprised.
"I ran." I replied, flatly.
"Well, duh!" Night Hunter said, knocking on his head with a hoof. "If you run from it, it'll see you as prey and not a threat. You have to stand your ground and look as intimidating as possible when you encounter one or even a pack." Night Hunter said, pushing his cue into the white ball.
"I can see that now," I nodded. "If you make yourself look intimidating, that drives them off?" I asked.
"Yep, but they always come back. They never seem to get the message to stay the tartarus away." Night Hunter said.
"That explains why they're in the Dovere territories at the moment." I said.
"Exactly. So far they've sticked to Dovere, but I'm not sure how long that'll be before they discover Ponyville. We don't want that to happen." Night Hunter said.
"Good point." I said.
"But I know you'll drive those beasts back once you get out there by yourself." Night Hunter encouraged.
"You bet. Speaking of which, did you have to walk at night?" I asked.
"Of course I did. It's not like I had somepony pull me in carriage." he replied.
"Have you ever heard of an automobile?" I asked.
"No, never." Night Hunter said.
"Automobiles are similar to wagons or carriages, but they have these pedals that you can push down for it to accelerate by itself." I explained.
"How do you know about these?" Night Hunter asked, skeptically.
"Because they're from my world." I said.
"Technology from your world?" Night Hunter asked.
"That's right. I think the portal I came through is dumping stuff from my world into this world, so there might be more out there scattered across Equestria. I was lucky enough to find a Land Rover in the Everfree." I said.
"No kidding. How much can it carry for cargo?" Night Hunter asked.
"I don't know, maybe a thousand pounds or something." I replied.
"That'll work great for you!" Night Hunter exclaimed.
"How?" I asked.
"Back then, I had to pull all of my equipment, which was mostly MRE's, water, and yada-yada-yada in a large wagon. But now that there's more advanced technology and tactics that'll be used while patrolling, you will be able to conveniently store it in your land crawler or whatever." Night Hunter said.
"But it really depends of what else I'll be carrying in the Land Rover." I said.
"It'll mostly be MRE's, water, weapons, mannequins, tools, personal medical supplies and that kind of stuff." Night Hunter listed.
"Sounds light enough." I said.
"The hell would I need mannequins for?" I thought to myself, but brushed it off to the side and continued playing our game.
Our game progressed further and Night Hunter was down to the black eight ball while I had three more striped balls. The white and eight ball seemed to be at an impossible angle for me, but not to Night Hunter, he knows the ropes to this game. Night Hunter angled his cue in different directions before making his final decision. With one swift movement, he pocketed the eight ball like a pro. He had won.
"Dang! Well good game anyways." I said.
"Told ya' you couldn't beat me." Night Hunter said smugly.
"I admit it, you're pretty good at pool." I admitted.
"And I also admit that it was great to catch up and talk for a while. It's a pretty big contrast to my job." Night Hunter said.
"You too. It was getting a little boring around here by myself." I said.
"Sorry bout' that, but I'm the manager of the Everfree branch. You got it easy." Night Hunter said.
"Right. But we should probably head off to bed like you said, mother." I joked once again.
"Yeah, yeah." Night Hunter said.
After switching off the lights, we headed off to bed for the night for the next day to come.
"Night" I said to Night Hunter.
"Night, Caleb." he replied.