Pain.
Pain was the only thing Twilight could recognize as she rolled on the ground, clutching the clean hole in her hoof. Blood from the wound was now starting to collect under her as she lay there. The creature, seeing it was no longer being chased, bolted off into the forest and disappeared once more. Twilight detected a flapping of wings and turned to see Rainbow Dash closing in on her position. She quickly landed beside her and examined Twilight's wounds.
"Oh man! Twilight! Are you okay?" Rainbow Dash looked frantically over Twilight, trying to think of what to do.
"Get me to a hospital or doctor's office!" Twilight screamed at Rainbow Dash and ground her teeth.
"Don't worry, Twi! Everything's going to be alright!" Rainbow Dash shifted Twilight onto her back and took off for a hospital.
Twilight looked back at the forest, eyes focused on where the creature had disappeared to. Upon returning to health, she was going to come back and tear the forest apart trying to find the creature and study it. She will unlock its secrets if she has to uproot every tree in Equestria just to find it.
"I'll find you, creature, if it's the last thing I do," she mumbled to herself.
Two weeks had gone by since the debacle with the violet pony. As Richard suspected, staying hidden while spying on the ponies had been difficult as guards were stationed everywhere around the town now. Many close calls had been made while he had been spying. Not only that, food was becoming scarcer as animals near his camp had moved away from the river with each animal killed, making it harder to find food each passing day. With these factors, Richard decided to move out of the clearing by the river and move further into the forest.
Richard packed up his gear, strapped everything to Coal, and mounted up.
"Food's getting a bit scarcer, Coal, so we gotta move someplace new. Also, I kinda want to explore this place. Maybe we can find something that can help us get back," Richard loaded a round into his rifle, threw the hammer back to safety lock, holstered it, and whipped the reins.
They moved out from the clearing and decided to head east, taking care to avoid the area with the uprooted tree. Coming to a small stream, they found themselves in a much more vine-infested, but open, landscape than a forest now. Tall pines and deciduous trees were now replaced with willows, bushes, ivy vines, and a couple holly trees. Coal took care to avoid the holly's and began to follow a path that had came up.
"So, Rich," Coal said, "Do you mind filling me on some things? You've kinda kept me in the dark on what you've found since that whole "encounter" with that purple pony.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Sure. Here's what we know," Rich replied.
"The ivory white pony I told you about is named Celestia. She seems to be the nation's main ruler around here, or at least that we know of. The town's on high alert because of our little... "talk" with those dog things. They believe we are a threat to the town and are trying to find us as we speak to either interrogate us or flat out kill us. Guards are getting better at picking up our tracks every time I hunt for food. That's one of the reasons why we are moving to a different spot. The purple pony I shot is sister to the guards commander. I think his name is Shining Armor? I don't really know. Point is, the guy's furious about me shooting his sister. Got a special kind of hatred for me, apparently. he's completely committed to capturing me for that very reason. And frankly, I wouldn't blame him."
Richard took a breath before speaking again.
"So with all that said, here's what I've been thinking. I think we should lay low for awhile and stay out of the ponies' way. We can explore the forest and maybe try and find a way home. Only thing is, we need to find a reasonable place to call home for a bit," Richard adjusted his hat upward and looked at Coal expectantly for a reply.
Coal was silent for a few moments, drinking in the information he heard. He hopped over a log and spied an answer to their dilemma.
"Rich. I think I know a place."
"What do you... Oh..."
Richard turned himself forward and figured out what Coal meant. Sitting in front of them were massive castle ruins that was sitting in a clearing, surrounded by a cliff. Vines, foliage, and rocks littered the castle ruins in a haphazard and chaotic sort. Willow trees grew wildly inside of the ruins and draped their vines over the castle. A small rope bridge connected the castle to the other parts of the forest. The two came to the bridge and stopped in front of it.
"Do you think it's safe to cross?" Coal looked back towards Rich.
"I don't know. It looks pretty intact. Doesn't look like the wood has been deteriorated enough to break under our weight. But to be safe, let's take this slowly," Rich held on tightly to the reins and urged Coal to walk forward.
The bridge whined under the new weight of Coal and Rich. The ropes creaked as they trekked onward. Halfway across and none of the wood cracked under the pressure. They reached the end and stepped off.
"Well, that wasn't so hard!" Richard smiled wholeheartedly with gladness.
"C'mon! Let's go explore this place!" Coal started to gallop towards the ruins.
A close and shrill howl into the air abruptly interrupted their adventure. Richard stopped Coal and turned back to the forest. Stomping out of the forest came 3 diamond dogs, looking incredibly similar to those in the raiding party.
"These guys again?" Richard said.
"There he is!" He heard a dog shout and point its paw towards him.
Upon seeing him, the dogs sprinted for the bridge and began to cross. Rich clumsily went to draw his rifle, but fumbled with the strap holding it in place. By the time he got it out, the dogs had already crossed the bridge and were heading straight for him and Coal. Richard quickly shouldered his rifle and took aim. The dogs stopped their assault immediately, realizing they were staring at the business end of the machine that had killed their brethren.
"You! I'm going to enjoy ripping the life out of your bones, creature," the biggest dog pointed his paw at Richard.
"I assure you, that if you turn around and leave the way you came, I won't leave you like I did your leader," Richard tapped his rifle to assure them of his accusations.
The biggest dog was unfazed by Richard's threats and stepped forward. "I am Bone! You have killed my brothers in badlands! Bone and fellow brothers will make you pay for that, skinny runt."
"Ha! I'd like to see you try, you abominable mutt! Run along now before one of you gets hurt," Coal pawed the ground, preparing to charge.
"Ah, the runt's big pony friend. You will make an excellent slave for the pack. You will pull our raid carts and supply wagons for us. Pain shall be your only friend when we're through with you," a malicious smile crept across Bone's face as he clutched his spear in his hand, "Now, let's begin."
Bone leapt forward towards Richard and knocked him out of the saddle, tumbling across the grassy floor. Upon recovering from the fall, Bone quickly grabbed Richard rifle, which had been knocked out of his hands and clattered away. He shouldered the rifle like Rich did and tried to pull the trigger. But he found that his paw could not fit through the trigger guard. Richard took advantage of this and quickly charged Bone. Bone fumbled with the rifle for a couple more seconds, but was met with a sharp tackle to the ground by Rich, sending the rifle clattering towards a lone willow tree. Bone quickly kicked Rich off of him, swiped his right paw across Rich's face and left paw into his knee, and got up, reaching for his spear which had landed near his right paw. Rich, spitting up blood from the punch, right crossed Bone, sending the spear spiraling through the air and off the cliff. He followed up again with a right cross, followed by a left-cross. He pushed Bone down, pinned him, and gave a prompt hard and forceful punch to his face.
Bone was knocked out by this, so Richard turned to the other 2 dogs who had come with him. They had taken up a circular position around Coal, cutting him off from Rich and surrounding him. Rich could see that they had done some damage to Coal, as there were some minor stab wounds from their spears, multiple bite marks on his leg, and a couple bruises to his side. One of the dogs went for another stab, but Coal quickly grabbed him in his teeth and threw him across the meadow. However, the other dog followed up with a swift stab of his spear into Coal's side. Coal cried out in pain and fell to the floor, blood leaking out of each of his wounds and pooling up in the grass. Rich let out an enraged, bellowing war cry, reached for his rifle by the tree, took aim, and fired his rifle at the dog. The other dog, seeing his comrade fall and the disadvantage he had, tried to run back across the wooden bridge to safety in the forest. Rich quickly flipped the chamber open, rechambered another round, and fired again. The bullet hit and the dog reached for his back before falling off the bridge and into the abyss.
Quickly strapping his rifle to his back, Rich rushed over to his heaving friend, worried and scared for his life.
"Coal! Coal! Speak to me!" Rich yelled out.
He assessed the damage that the dogs had done to his friend. His chest had three massive claw cuts across it, starting from the bottom and reaching all the way up to edge of his neck. Blood was slowly trailing down his chest into the ground. Numerous other scratches and bites were on his legs as well, all bleeding slowly. And of course, there was the massive stab wound he had in his side. Rich was quite surprised that Coal was still alive with all the wounds he had suffered. Richard quickly ran over to Coal's back and scrambled through his gear looking for gauze or cloth to stop the bleeding. Settling on one of his shirts, he raced back over to the wound site and pressed his shirt onto the wound, trying to stop the bleeding from the stab wound.
Instinctively, Richard yelled out into the air for help. "Somebody help me!"
"I'll help."
Richard turned to the forest again, frightened and pulling his rifle out from Coal, half-expecting it to be another talking creature that wanted to rip his balls off and feed them to its children. But what he saw surprised him, and frankly, confused him somewhat.
There, standing in the flesh, was the purple pony he shot two weeks before.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle. And I have a lot of questions for you."
Earlier that day...
Twilight walked out of the hospital, Nurse Redheart by her side.
"I don't want you doing any extreme physical activity, Twilight. We don't know everything about what that thunderstick did to you, so I don't want you taking any chances. Ok?" the nurse stopped short in the middle of the pathway.
"Yes, nurse. That won't be a problem," Twilight replied back.
"Alright. You have a nice day, Twilight," Nurse Redheart turned back to the hospital and walked back in.
Twilight trotted out of the hospital, head upright, in good health and spirit. Because today, she could finally start figuring out what this new creature was and what that stick it held in its paws was. So as she started any new adventure, she shimmied on over to her library to research this thing.
"Spike! I'm back!" Twilight yelled up to the upstairs.
"Twilight!" she heard a certain dragon say.
She heard a tiny patter of Spike's claws on the ground, and soon enough, she spied her number one assistant. Spike jumped into her and gave her a hug.
"I'm glad you're back. What can I do for you?" Spike said as he dropped himself to the ground.
"Spike, we are going to do what we do best," Twilight shuffled over to her bookshelves and stared up at them, "Read books."
"What exactly are we looking for?" Spike trotted over to another bookshelf and took his position by it.
"We are going to research information about that creature that hurt me. I want to know about it. Know its strengths, weaknesses, intelligence, if it's sentient, everything. We are on the possible verge of discovering something monumental, Spike," Twilight climbed the ladder to reach for a distant book.
"Ok. What exactly do we already know? Do you know what it looks like?" Spike asked.
"It walks on two legs instead of four, like us. Very flat face, leaves odd shaped tracks in the dirt, carries a projectile weapon of some sort, I'll explain my reasons for that in a sec, and wears clothes all the time, weirdly," she scrunched her face in confusion at her statement.
"Alright, got it," Spike began reaching for a book, "So about the weapon, you think it's projectile?"
"Yes. When I was in the hospital, the doctor said that whatever the stick did, it definitely shot a projectile of some sorts. There really is no explanation for how I received my wounds otherwise. So the task I have for you specifically is this weapon. I want you to search ways that the weapon might work. Of course, if you still find anything about the creature, you let me know. Anyway, let's get to it."
The two spent their time reading in a still silence for the next couple of hours. Nothing was discovered about this creature, much to the surprise of Twilight. Ecology and biology were very strongly studied subjects in the Equestrian world. She was sure she would find something. As for the weapon, Spike found a couple things on fireworks and how that might be how the weapon works. But of course, with lack of information on the weapon's functions, this was only a guess, though educated.
Twilight closed her book and set it back on the shelf.
"Spike?" Twilight walked over to a counter and grabbed some bits, "Why don't you head on over to the market and grab yourself a nice ruby over at the shop?"
"Oh boy!" the purple dragon eagerly snatched the bits out of her magic and ran out the door quickly. Twilight smiled and laughed at her scaly companion. Always the hungry one she thought to herself.
Now, with her companion distracted for awhile, she could get on to her real task. Going into the Everfree, finding the creature, and studying it. She knew her brother would never let her near the forest if she asked for permission to go in. Probably no luck with Mayor Mare as well. So, she would have to resort to secrecy and sneaking. Not exactly her strengths, but this was a discovery waiting to be made. She'd be darned if the only thing stopping her from learning was her brother. She exited her house and passed into the alleyways. Most of the guards would be in the makeshift barracks they had constructed a couple days prior. She came to the end of the town and found the path to the forest.
She, after a few minutes, entered into the forest, spirits high and . Alright, creature. Where are you? Twilight began her search.
She silently crept throughout the forest, hunting for footprints, clues, scents, anything she could find. Occasionally, she would stop and perk her ears up to listen for any peculiar sounds. However, she encountered nothing apart from a couple deer tracks and bird chirps. Frustration soon began to set in after a couple hours of looking to and fro through the forest.
This is harder than trying to repair the Castle of the Two Sisters in a day.
"The Castle of the Two Sisters! Of course!"
Why hadn't she thought of it before? She had completely glossed over the fact that the castle had a whole library chocked full of books filled with ancient knowledge! If the creature didn't show up inside one of those books, then she would eat her own tail! Filled with renewed fervor, Twilight galloped towards the castle, all the while thinking of what it might hold in store for her.
With the sun still high in the sky, she came to the clearing and cliff that held the castle. Smiling to herself, Twilight strutted on over to the old wooden bridge.
SNAP!
Twilight caught a roaring snap of a stick in the forest. She turned and spied a rustling of the bushes. Quickly, she hurried herself to cover to hide from whatever was emerging from the forest. Nestling herself between two bushes, she looked out into the clearing, waiting and preparing herself in case she needed to run.
The rustling grew louder and she felt a steady beating on the ground. Could it be a manticore? Hydra? COCKATRICE?
But it wasn't. Out stepped what she had come for. The creature.
And not just the creature, but also another. The creature rode on its back and it had all sorts of cloths, packs, and pockets strapped to it.
How odd. What's the situation here? Did the creature enslave it? Are they in a mutual symbiotic relationship? Oh, this got so much more interesting!
No sooner had she watched the two creatures cross the bridge did she hear another rustling in the forest. 3 diamond dogs emerged from the foliage line, growls, snarls, and grunts escaping from their wooden snouts. An enraged challenge escaped from the mouth of the largest of the dogs, and they charged.
She saw the creature whip out its weapon and point it towards the dogs. The dogs had chosen to stop in front of the two creatures, so Twilight decided to creep closer to see if she could get a better view.
"I assure you, that if you turn around and leave the way you came, I won't leave you like I did your leader,"
IT TALKED! The creature of the Everfree talks! Excitement set into Twilight's mind at all the talks and findings she could now find thanks to this creature's ability to talk.
The lead dog yelled once more at the creature, and soon, the fight was on.
The creature was immediately knocked off of the saddle by the large dog who had challenged him. Twilight watched as this creature wrestled, stabbed, beat, and fought it as they tumbled around in the grass. She was amazed by this creatures fighting prowess. There was precision in its strikes and a strategic planning to each of them. But also, there was a brutality to it. A somewhat peculiar hunger for combat. Each time it struck, it would become more rigorous, more forceful with its punches.
Eventually, the fighting died down and all of the dogs looked like they were dead. The creature fell to the ground, clutching its paws, blood leaking out. It wasn't in very good condition. Its head leaked out crimson blood down its face and onto its shoulders. It walked with a limp at its knee and its hands were covered with dirt, grim, and blood. However, the creature seemed unworried about its own condition. Instead, it immediately rushed over to its companion, who was equally as wounded as he was.
It fumbled over its body, grabbed some cloth out of one of the pockets, and pressed it down into the wounds of the horse.
Twilight thought to herself for a moment. Now might not be a good time to reveal herself to the creature. But then again, if she didn't take any risks with this creature, she would likely miss her other chances to make contact with it. So she formulated her plan in her mind and stepped out into view.
Richard started to reach for his gun at the sight of the violet equine.
"Easy! Easy! I'm not going to do anything to you," Twilight reassured.
"What do you want? Start talking, or you're getting a bullet through your head," Richard gestured to his rifle.
"Ok, how bout a little introduction. So yeah, I'm Twilight Sparkle and I live in the town of Ponyville. You?" Twilight asked.
"My name is not of your concern right now. What is your concern right now is helping me and my horse," Richard pressed a cloth into his face to try to stop the bleeding from his forehead.
"Well, there isn't really much I can do right now. Magic seems to be quite ineffective against you as you so, umm, bluntly proved in your escape. I doubt it would bode much better for your, horse, you said?"
"Yeah, horse. Listen,"if you can't help, then you might as well run on back to your town. I'll figure this out on my own," Richard started to limp towards the bridge.
"Wait! Wait! I can help you. I just don't have the supplies," a brilliant idea came to Twilight as she uttered these words.
"So, I'll make you a deal. I'll nurse you and your horse back to health in exchange for some answers to my questions. Deal?" She held out her hoof to the creature.
"If you can do that plus getting me and him some food, I'll do it," Richard held out his bloodied hand to the pony.
The two shook and the deal was sealed. Twilight turned to Coal and studied his condition.
"Hmmm, looks like you've stopped the bleeding, but those wounds could get infected real fast. I'll need some disinfectants for you both," Twilight turned to head back to the town and gather her supplies.
"Hey!"
Twilight turned back to Richard. "For every strip of bacon you bring back to me, I'll give you extra questions."
"Bacon. Got it," She turned back and began towards the town once more.
The heck is Bacon? she wondered.
Whatever. She would have to look it up when she got back to the library. But for now, she had a task. A task that could be the start of a whole new friendship.
As Twilight left, Richard turned to Bone, who by now, was starting to stir. Richard reloaded another round into his rifle and pointed it at the dog, waiting for him to wake up. Bone woke up, and clutched his head as a headache set in. He looked up and spied Richard pointing his rifle out him and held his paws up.
"Listen here, dog, and you listen carefully. If you ever set foot inside this forest and threaten me again, I will show no mercy toward you, or any of the fools who choose to join on your quest against me. I want you to go back to where you and your pathetic pack lives, and I want you to tell this Alpha about what you've seen here. You tell him that if he sends another raiding party out here to either find me or raze the town, he will hunt him down across the face of the Earth. I will not hesitate to put a bullet in each and every one of you, men, women, and children. Now get out of here, and don't make me regret sparing your life."
Bone immediately sprang up and began to run away across the bridge. He got to the forest, and promptly disappeared into the treeline. Richard brought his rifle down, and strapped it to his back. He walked over to Coal and sat down next to him. With nothing else to do, he placed his hand on his friend and began to pray, hoping that he would live through the night.