//------------------------------//
// Chapter Two: First Step, First Encounter 
// Story: The Element of Willpower 
// by Redwolf15 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Two


First Step, First Friend


Oh God, my head is killing me. I've never once drank alcohol before. But I think I just found out what a hangover feels like. My head felt four sizes too small and I felt disorientated.  

I blink my eyes open trying to get used to the sudden bright light. I can hear birds chirping around me. My vision finally returning and I stagger up onto my feet. I take in my surroundings. I can't believe it. 

I'M IN A FRAKING FOREST!

There are huge trees surrounding me with a couple of birds, the source of the chirping, in a few of them.

Where am I? What happened? Oh yeah that's right, I met some crazy man in an alley and he said something about sending me to Equestria. 

There was no way he could have done that, I mean really, it's impossible. 

He probably just drugged me with something, that would probably explain my headache. And I reflect back to what happened back in the alley and begin to doubt myself. 

But all that stuff was pretty real, and I know I broke that snake cage thing that was trapping me.

I see my bag on the ground a few feet away from me and go grab it. My bag looks fine, no holes, nothing ripped or broken. Glad one of us got here unmarked. I sort through my bag making sure I have everything. Yep, nothing's missing.

I sling the bag over my shoulder and look towards the sun. I judge it to be about late morning so that means that the sun is still eastwards. I set my right shoulder to face it and start walking north, hopefully I'll find a town and figure out where I am. 





It's been two hours of walking and you haven't found anything except trees, man. Face it. You. Are. Lost.

"Hey look, I already don't know where I am so it's no shit that I'm lost. Besides, two hours isn't exactly going to be how long it'll take to find civilization. But hey, if you have a better idea what to do, then please, let me hear it."

Maybe you should try calling out once in a while, who knows, maybe there's a hunter around.

"God I can't believe I'm arguing with myself. This is definately a sad state I'm in." 

How do you think I feel.

I come into a small clearing. It's a farely even leveled circle about two meters in radius with thin trees surrounding it.

"SHUT UP!"

I'm  starting to think that if this keeps up then I'll have to murder my conscious. Fortunately for me, a loud roar brakes the ridiculous argument I'm having with myself. Unfortunately for me, it sounded close; and when I heard it a second time, it sounded even closer.

I wasn't sure if I was too curious to know what it was to leave or too stupid to hide before it got here, but either way I was going to meet whoever, or whatever, was making that roar.

I started to hear a thumping sound, like a big animal running sraight at me, which was probably what it was. 

ROAR! It's getting closer. 

ROAR! Closer.

ROAR! Closer.

And then a huge hair ball jumps through the foliage. 

TOO CLOSE!

I couldn't believe what I was staring at. It was a big wtih a tanned brown coat. Huge sharp teeth and claws and a great big black mane. It was the biggest lion I have ever seen. But it wasn't just any ordinary lion. At the end of it's butt was a huge red scorpion tail and two green reptilian wings on its back. 

This was a bloody manticore! And by the way it was looking at me, it was a hungry manticore. Okay I'm a believer, this is Equestria and not Earth. 

It stared at me, snarling, showing his giant, white teeth, slowly circles around me. He thinks he has me, I think he has me. 

As the maticore stares straight at me I look around at our surrounding. I keeping my mind calm trying find a way out, but I never take my eyes off him for more than a few seconds. And I see it, off to my left. Two trees are side-by-side each other in a V shape with the smaller trees jumbled around them. The V is just wide enough for me to slip through, the manticore is too big to go through it, but those thinner trees won't be able to stop him, just slow him down. If I'm fast enough, then I might be able to escape through the trees before it catches me and I'm manticore chow. But if I do escape, how long will it be until it catches up to me? It can run faster than me, but there just might be a way for me to stay out of reach. I just have to wait for the right moment. 

It keeps circling me, sizing me up, waiting for me to run. Then, a bird too stupid to realize the danger, swoops down to the ground looking for a worm. The manticore is surprised by this and cranes it's head toward the bird and gives out a loud roar. That got the bird's attention, and became my oppertunety. I take my chance and run for the exit.

The manticore sees me make a break for it and pounces. It lands close behind me, but the exit's closer. I jump through with one final attempt for escape. 

Success! I was able to squeeze through the opening, but barely. The manticore's claws were literally one inch away from slicing my leg into three pieces. I tuck into a ball before landing on the ground and do a quick role onto my feet. The manticore has it's left arm through trying to reach me. I don't stay there gawking or insult or try intimidating it, I turn tail and run.

I hear two things next: the first is the manticore leting out a furious roar; the second is the thinner trees snapping like toothpicks. I'm dead.

I can hear it's massive paws thundering behind and me getting louder, he's closing the gap. 

I risk a glance behind me and see it. Here he comes. I get a very stupid idea in my head. 

I stop in my tracks, turn a 180 degrees to face him, and charge. As me get closer I wait for the perfect moment. The manticore jumps at me, I bring my fist back, and punch him in the face. As my fist connects with his snout I can feel a jolt of pain going straight through my arm and up to my shoulder. The manticore, on the other hand, actually goes head over heels, cartwheeling through the air, right over me. Don't I feel like the Incredible Hulk. 

I grasp my arm trying to ride out the pain. I'm not doing that again. The manticore lands on his back, and I swear I think I heard a wing snap. As the manticore is getting back on his feet, our eyes meet for a brief instant. The chace is back on. 

As the manticore tries pouncing on top of me a second time, I quickly role to the left, dodging him. I don't stay down forever and instantly run off in any direction. 

I realize  that this chase won't last forever, sooner or later he will catch me. Then I hear water, rushing water. It just might be my salvation.

I change directions toward the water, the manticore still on my tail. I think that broken wing actually slowed it down, not by much though.

I finally get to the source of the running water and stop instantly in my tracks. I just made a huge mistake. This wasn't a river, it was a watefall. And I'm right at the edge. The manticore bursts through the trees and sees me by the edge. It has me cornered. It licks it's lips and slowly advances. I look over the edge and see a lake at the bottom. I face the manticore one last time. And step back.

I hear the manticore give out another roar in anger because it just lost it's dinner. I feel the wind rushing against my back, or my back rushing against the wind I should say. This is a drop that I don't think I can survive. I close my eyes and wait for the impact.

Then suddenly there's a jerk on my legs and I stop falling. I keep a strong grip on my bag so I don't lose it and looked down. I see the trees rushing past me. I look up to see who had caught me, but could only see the back of my saviour. 

It was a bird. A giant, bird with feathers that were a mixture of blue and grey had saved my life.

So here I am, upside-down, being flown through the air backwards by a gigantic bird. Oh boy! Well at least I got away from that manticore. Man, that guy was a dick.

I notice that trees are starting to thin out as we fly over them. I crane my neck to the side to see where we're going. I could only catch a glimpse, but I could see that we were heading toward a wide mountain range. 

We fly through a lot a mountains until the forest of trees becomes a forest a stone.The bird drops me in the centre of it's nest high on the tallest mountain there is. We were so far in the mountains that it would take hours to just reach the edge of the forest, unless you could fly of course. I fall on my back into the nest. I land with a great thud that knocks the wind out of me. I role over on my stomach and come face-to-face with the bird. But for the second or third time today, I'm wrong as what to expect. It wasn't a bird that saved me from falling to my death; It was a harpy. She was a harpy.

Harpies, a cross-breed between a bird and a human, generally human females. Everything below her waist was from her bird half, and had wings instead of arms. But her torso and head were human (with a patch a feathers covering her chest). She wasn't beautiful, but she did have a pretty face with blue eyes and red hair, tanned skin (no doubt from living outside with little shade all the time), and a pointed nose .

She looked at me with stone cold eyes that I could not read. She hops down and begins to circle me, as I slowly stand up I begin to get a sudden sense of deja-vu. She looks at me from my feet to my face, eyeing me closely. She tugs at my shirt, I just realise now that my clothes have gotten ripped and torn from all the running I have been doing. But the parts about me she looks more curiously at is my arms and legs. 

Okay, yeah, I get it, 'You meet a harpy?' is what you're all thinking. In a world where ponies are the dominant life form and there's a cross-breed that's part human. But hey, there are other mythical creatures in the show that we've seen, hydra, Minotaur, phoenix, and dragons. But I doubt we've been shown them all, so I guess a harpy would be possible in the land of Equestria.

I try breaking the tension. "Umm, thanks for saving me. I would have been a gonner if it wasn't for you." She didn't respond, just kept inspecting me, I wasn't even sure if she heard me or even understood me, but I needed to try something.

"Listen if there's anything I could do to repay you I would be more than grateful to help."

"You have no hooves." She actually spoke. Her voice wasn't harsh, but it sounded as sharp as a knife. "No tail, or fur, or horn, or wings, or mark on your leg." She looked at me suspiciously. "You are the only creature that looks close enough like me, but you're not me. You have weird leg things, small featherless wings, flat chest, and short hair. In fact you have no feathers." She keeps looking at my hands.  Looks like there's someone who has the same interest along with Lyra.

"Hands." I say to her. I hold up my 'small featherless wings' to her, palms open and fingers spread. "They're called hands. And the reason why I look like you but don't have the same physical appearance is because I'm not a harpy, I'm a human."

"Human?" She squints her eyes. "Well, won't matter what you are now, in a bit you'll be dinner." 

Wait a minute, what? Did she say dinner? I finally see the nest, there's sticks, rocks, trinkets, books, old feathers, and... bones. Great, I just jumped off one plate and onto another, this time there doesn't look like to be an escape. 

"But for now, just relax. I'm not hungry yet." She walks to the edge of her nest and takes off.

Okay, don't panic, everything's fine, just a harpy wanting to eat you, no big deal. There has to be a way out of this right? Yeah I mean who just leaves there meal alone while it can escape. I walk up to the edge and look down, it's pretty much a ninety degree drop on all sides except the back where the mountain goes up. Unfortunately there's no place for hand or foot holds. Crap.  

Wait, take it back a few steps, did I see books? I go back and look at them. There's a bunch of different books.

The Mystery of the Golden Hoof, The Last Sea Pony, A Thousand Years of Disharmony, The Alicorn Conspiracy, Daring Do and the Kingdom of the Crystal Scull. I can already tell that that one could be the worst.

I flip through each book and see that each page has been ripped and torn a little in the bottom corners. It's obvious that she reads these, or at least tries to. I look through pile of bones. Most of the bones look like like ponies, damn. But something's wrong, some of the legs look like they've been cut in half, like someone's hacked them off with one clean swing of a sword. Peculiar. 

I hear her returning. She perches on the edge of her nest. "Alright, I'm hungry now. Hold still while I cut you open." He walks up to me expentding her left wing out. 

Crap, thinkthinkthinkthink. What can I do to make her stop. Well she's intelligent, so maybe I can persuade her into eating something else. But what? And it comes to me, I can take care of two birds with one stone. 

I lay down on my back and lock my hands behind my head. "Alright fine, just make it quick. But I mean hey, you're throughing away a chance for a once in a life time meal by killing me." She stops walking. Got ya. "What do you mean a 'once in a life time meal'?"

"Oh well, while you were away I looked around your nest and saw that there are a lot of bones. Mostly pony bones by the looks of it. But you know, I bet that you never once had something big, like, really big." I look straight into her eye's. I can tell that she looks intrigued. "What kind of meal?"