//------------------------------// // Confrontation // Story: Land of Equines // by Daddy Joe //------------------------------// Confrontation April 1st, 2013 2:57 AM I sat up on my usual stakeout tree located near the lower southeast side of the Dovere territories, waiting for any Timberwolves to fall into my mannequin trap. As I waited, I had to continue listening to that speaker that spewed out tale after tale. Like always, the tale was based around a mysterious pony named Stardust and his anonymous friend doing or getting involved with all these crazy predicaments. Still, they're interesting, but can get just a teensy bit annoying once you listen to them for about two or so hours. The only sign that could remotely be a sign of a Timberwolf were the numerous snaps of twigs in the distance, but I would've known it was Timberwolf because Timberwolves give off a putrid odor whenever they're near. But anyways, my attention on my job was broken when my watch emitted ten high-pitched beeps that signified it was three in the morning. I took out the X-ray sensor and gave a quick sweep before climbing down the tree to leave the mannequin. I thought about how strange the Timberwolves were acting lately as I walked back to the Defender. The wolves would leave evidence that they were in the area, but they won't show up. My best guess is that they're messing with me. Once I got inside the Defender, I switched on the defrosters to get rid of the condensation that formed on the windshield. After letting that run for a minute, I shifted into first gear and began my six mile drive back to Ponyville. I like to keep the speed at thirty or forty kilometers an hour because it's a dark forest and I never know when a deer might jump out of the foliage. As I drove onwards, I got a small hunch; a hunch that I was being watched. Sure, I get that feeling a lot when i'm driving in the pitch black forest that can be only be illuminated by the artificial lights on the Defender or the natural moonlight, but this feeling felt way more pronounced. To emphasize, if you ever get that weird feeling in your head when you feel like you're being watched even though it's your mind playing tricks with you, but times ten. That's what i'm feeling. "God, this job is really messing up my psyche. Doesn't make it any better when there's glowing green eyes in the rearview mirror." I said as I looked at the mirror, slow on my reaction since I was pretty tired. Once I realized what I just said and saw, my entire state of weariness switched into a defense mode, pumping my body with adrenaline and giving me a surge of energy. I pressed my foot hard on the brake, causing the Defender to skid a short distance on the gravel path. With haste, I snatched the Igneous and flung the door open to step outside. Giving the X-ray sensor a quick pulse. But it turns out whatever I saw was long gone now. "You're just tired." I said to myself. Holstering the Igneous in the side pouch on the left side of my backpack, I began to turn back to the Defender, only to turn back around to look at the small glimpse that I saw. There infront of me were big pawprints that went across the path horizontally. And there were numerous amounts of them. "Oh great, looks like a pack has been following me. Well, might as well lead them back into the forest." I said. After getting into the Defender, I drove further into the Dovere territories in order to keep the Timberwolves as far away from civilization as possible. Occasionally, I would see them dart across the path behind me, making sure to keep out of the high beam rooflights. It's almost as if they're trying to make their presence known to me, or they just have terrible stealth skills. Either way, it's not good. After driving about four miles deep into the Dovere territories, I shut off the engine, but obviously kept the lights on. I was hoping the quietness and the lights would make the Timberwolves lose interest in me, but so much for wishful thinking. Thinking that I had them off my back, I switched on the engine once again and made a y-turn towards Ponyville. I drove about one hundred yards until I smelled something, something that made me gradually slow down the vehicle until it came to a halt. As I looked onwards at the pitch black wall that the lights didn't illuminate, I could see four pairs of those distinctive, bright neon green eyes peering at me through the darkness. Slowly, I turned off the engine again and went for the X-ray pulse to see how many of them I was dealing with. The press of the button revealed four orange outlines that resembled a giant canine animal. Seriously, these figures had to be about six feet tall. The Timberwolves were much shorter in the simulated dreams back at the C.A.M.A training facility. "Hmm. Shouldn't be much of a problem." I said. Setting the X-ray sensor in a cup holder, I grabbed my backpack with the Igneous and Timberferno holstered on the sides. Not making any sudden movements, I calmly opened the car door and left it ajar. The silence of the forest allowed me to hear the Timberwolves more clearly. They were emitting low growls at the mere sight of me. Even though those things are made out of wood and twigs, they sure as heck sound like actual wolves. As I stared down the wolves, I was deciding what I should do first. Should I just shoot them on spot, or should I give them a chance to leave me alone and let me pass? Even though my job calls me to shoot them on spot, I decided to give them a chance to book it out of here. First, I grabbed the Timberferno and twisted the valve on the end of it. Holding it upwards with my right hand, I began to walk towards the Timberwolves, still staying in the piercing bright light. The Timberwolves then became extremely agitated as I approached them, beginning to snarl viciously and make intimidating chomping sounds with their wooden jaws. It was the complete polar opposite to what I was expecting from them. From what I remembered, Timberwolves should cower in fear to something much more larger than them. In reaction to this, I brought my head back and raised my left eyebrow. I then aimed the Timberferno forty-five degrees in the air towards the Timberwolves direction and squeezed on the nozzle, spewing the sparkling red hot flame outwards. The wolves reacted by lowering themselves low to the ground, almost as if they were about to pounce, and stopped snarling. Their eyes stared up at the flame and back at me, forming an expression of worriment in their eyes. The wolves then looked at each other and back at me once again. I took their fear as an opportunity and began to make myself seem more intimidating. With the Timberferno still throwing the flames, I began move even closer to the wolves, but still making sure to stay in the light. The wolves quickly moved backwards as I approached them. "GO! GET OUT OF HERE!." I boomed, echoing through the forest. The sudden loud tone in my voice made them slightly jump and shake in startlement. Not only that, but they really moved back into the forest after I yelled at them. "That's more like it." I thought to myself. However, as the Timberferno reached the overheat limit, the flame that spewed out of the muzzle suddenly stopped. "Uh oh." I said, shaking the flamethrower. As I shook the Timberferno in hopes to reactivate the thing, I also noticed the wolves not looking as worried as they were before. One, the Timberferno was out. And two, I was right near the edge of where the light from the headlights ended, making me more vulnerable. Without much warning, one of the pack mates lunged right towards, but my reaction was quick. I dodged the attack by thrusting backwards into the light more as the Timberwolf's head landed right smack inside the light. "ARRGH!" I yelled as I forcefully brought my foot down on the snout, creating a large fracture on the thick wooden snout and impaling a few wooden teeth into the dirt. The Timberwolf wasted no time to scurry away from the light and regrouped with its pack. After regrouping, the pack boldly approached me once again and began to viciously bark at me. I then let out a sigh. "Okay, if you're not going to move..." I said, unholstering the Igneous. I then turned the valve for the Timberferno shut and pressed the button on the side of the Igneous to activate the lethal magic inside it. With the press of the button, the Igneous hummed lowly. After cocking the lever on the left side, I brought the sights up to my right eye, lining up the blue dot with one of the pack mates abdomen. Squeezing the trigger gently, the beam of yellow energy shot towards the Timberwolf, instantly stoning it in place. As the others looked at their fallen pack mate, I quickly cocked the lever and aimed at another. Just like the first one, that one fell to the same fate, leaving only two left. Both looked at their stoned packmates for a few seconds before they stared back at me. I then furrowed my eyebrows, glaring right at them and bringing the sights up to my eye once again. Both seemed to get the message as they began to back away from me, but giving me a furious expression and growling at me again. As they slowly walked away from me into the darkness, I brought my weapon down and switched it off, holstering it once again. To make sure I was completely alone, I went back for the X-ray pulse and swept the area. Thankfully, no other wolves or mythical creatures were around in the vicinity. Once I knew the coast was clear, I left the light and retrieved the stoned Timberwolves and brought them into the light where I could use the sledgehammer to break them into small or medium sized chunks of stone. As I was breaking the statues into chunks, I smelled a strong scent of sulfur, the same scent that Timberwolves breath gives off. Should've known there would be more or the other two would be watching me. I guess that would make sense if I just killed two of them. While I loaded the stone chunks in the back of the Defender, I noticed something in the corner of my left eye. I could faintly see a pair of those neon green eyes once again. I froze for a second, still holding a chunk of stone. Then, I setted the chunk in the back of the Defender, equipped the Igneous, and pressed the button to switch it on. The eyes shifted to the right a little bit, almost as if the wolf was expecting me to shoot at it, but I didn't. Instead, I placed the Igneous inside the back with the stones and pretended I was doing something else. Once the wolf thought I was doing something else, it returned to its original position. When the wolf returned to its position, my trap was sprung. Faster than the Timberwolf could react, I swiftly aimed at the Timberwolf and shot it, stoning it like the others. And so, after sweeping the area with X-ray pulse, I went for the other wolf to break it into chunks as well. Finally, after loading the stones into the back of the vehicle, I drove to the pond to chuck the stones into the water. As I drove, I would occasionally check to see if anything was following me with the X-ray sensor and would only get nothing. I also had to drive relatively slow because the heavy stone chunks, being close around two or three hundred pounds, would bounce upwards if I were going too fast. If they bounced too high, they could shatter or break a window. Once I arrived at the pond, I opened up the back door and placed the chunks by the shore of the pond. The total of chunks was seventeen, so it was a lot of heavy lifting to do. After counting up the chunks, I began to chuck them far out to the center of the pond, the deepest section of the pond. Things were going pretty swimmingly for a while, but I recognized a familiar smell once again, the putrid scent of sulfur, and it was strong. I was curious why a Timberwolf would follow me out to a field that had a wide range of open space and nearly no places to hide itself, so I decided to sweep the area again with X-ray sensor. Sure enough, there was a lone Timberwolf peeking its head over a small hill about forty meters to my left. Since the wolf was in this position, I couldn't get a clear shot at it and decided to temporarily brush it off for awhile. "Yeah, what are you gonna do?" I asked, softly. With that, I went back to throwing the stone remains into the pond. As I threw the remains, I could hear the Timberwolf circling me and snarling at me with a low tone, but I didn't care because as long as I was in the light I would be a-okay. However, that carefree thought would only come back to bite me in the butt. I was just about to finish up disposing of the remains when something preposterous happened. With no explanation, every single light on the Land Rover started to shut off one by one. I quickly turned my head around to see the darkness of night begin to take its place. I gasped loudly as it felt like my heart dropped and dashed over to the Defender to switch the lights back on. Just like me, I could hear the Timberwolf making a dash too, but not to the light switches, but after me. I knew right away that I was not gonna get all the lights back on in time, so I went for my high beam flashlight that was attached to the front of my leather jacket. Once the blinding flashlight was on, I turned towards the oncoming Timberwolf. By the time I turned towards the Timberwolf, it was already airborne as it pounced at me. "WOAH!" I exclaimed, dodging the pounce. The missed pounced caused the wolf to smack its face right into the left fender of the Defender, leaving a dent. The Timberwolf yelped as the light shined on it and tried to run away, but I managed to grab it by the right hind leg while switching the Defender's lights back on. The Timberwolf than doubled its efforts to escape as it kicked up dirt and grass into my face, but didn't move a foot further. Now all I had to do was to stone it with the Igneous, which was situated on the passenger seat. I then reached my left arm towards the Igneous, but couldn't reach. While I tried to reach the weapon, I noticed that the Timberwolf was now using its free leg to hit it up against my hand, which felt like a mallet smashing my hand. I used my free hand to swat the leg away, but the Timberwolf persisted. Not only that, but my hands were becoming slick from the amount of sweat being excreted, making it easier for the Timberwolf to slip away. I gave a forceful yank on the wooden paw, and just like that, it snapped off, freeing the Timberwolf from my grasp. The Timberwolf wasted no time to get away from the bright light, not caring that it just lost a paw. I looked at the paw and looked back at the wolf, which was now sprinting away from me back into the deep section of the Dovere territories. I looked down at the paw again, which crumbled into tiny twigs and pieces of wood that fell onto the grass. With a deep breath, I let out a sigh of relief. "Man, never again am I letting my guard down like that again. But how did the lights turn off when nopony's around?" I asked myself, rubbing my chin. I grabbed the X-ray sensor once again and pressed the sweep button to check the area for a pony or something that could've switched the lights off. After looking around the field and finding nothing, I shrugged it off and got back inside to Defender to drive back to the library. As I was driving back to Ponyville, I checked the time on my watch and it was 4:49 in the morning. "Great. Now i'll have to sleep until noon to get a full eight hours of sleep." I thought to myself. I then rubbed my eyes to stay awake for a little while longer, just until I get back to the library. While my eyes were closed, I heard a faint *click* sound that repeated. I opened my eyes and saw the green light flashing on the dashboard and a orange light blinking in front of the vehicle. "Wait... what?" I asked. I looked down at the turn signal handle and found the culprit. Never would I have guessed that it was a small squirrel dangling on the turn signal handle. "You've got to be kidding me." I said. The squirrel then gave a sheepish smile at me and a quick wave. Even though this squirrel nearly got me attacked by a Timberwolf, i'm pretty sure it didn't know what it was doing. So, I decided to let it off scot free. I then rolled down the driver window and pointed my thumb out the window, signalling the squirrel to get out. The squirrel nodded and hopped out the window. After all that, I continued on to the library to get a well deserved sleep.