Alex woke up pretty early (such as his instincts from the Red Zone) and he decided to go for a walk (you should know what he means by walk now). Alex ran through the town, only to find the limits of the town within seconds.
Really? Ugh, I need to stretch my legs and this town won't do. Alex thought as he ran for the Everfree forest.
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Aria woke up to find that Alex wasn't next to her. He must have gone stir-crazy and run off into town. Or the forest. Aria slipped out the door and sure enough, Alex was nowhere to be found.
"Great, he ran off into the forest. I might as well leave a note." Aria ran back inside, wrote a quick note and left it where they were sleeping earlier.
Dear Ponies,
Me and dad have gone to the forest to stretch our legs.
Aria
With that, Aria ran off to the forest to find her father.
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Alex was jumping from tree to tree and not really anything else. This was as close as he could get to the excitement of cutting down infected and soldiers in the NYZ. Alex was about to return to town when he heard a loud growl from his left. He looked and saw a blue bear the size of 2 Hunters staring at him with a Hunter's gaze.
"Perfect." Alex grinned as he charged at the bear. Alex dived left as the bear swung. Alex kicked at it's ribs on the right, causing it to roar in pain and turn around to swipe at Alex, only to have it get blocked by Alex's Shield. Alex shoved the paw away and prepared his Musclemass power.
"Now things get fun." Alex put on a sadistic smile as he caught the bear's paw with one hand and snapped it at the wrist. Alex didn't even give it time to cry out in agony as he grabbed the bear's head and planted his feet firmly on the bear's shoulders. With one swift move, he tore the bear's head off and consumed it.
Alex was about to run back to Ponyville to talk to the ponies, when he heard an even louder growl come from behind him. He looked and found an Ursa Major. An angry Ursa Major. And a pretty big one, too.
"Momma Bear's mad." Alex said as he pulled out Claws and charged at the angry, cosmic bear.
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Aria ran into the forest an heard the sounds of battle not far from her location. I hope you didn't do anything stupid dad... Aria thought as she rushed to the source of the sound. She broke the treeline and was met with Alex riding an Ursa Major like you would a horse.
"What the fuck are you doing!?" Aria shouted out to the virus riding the cosmic bear (Sounds like some kind of bad pun, no?).
"I got bored and Smokey here, decided to come out and play!" Alex said with hardly contained joy as he felt the Ursa buck underneath him. As Alex and the Ursa zoomed just in front of Aria, she could swear Alex had his fist in the air as he wore a childish grin. Aria was just standing there, jaw planted in the ground for about 5 minutes, when Alex got bored of this and decided to consume the Ursa.
"This was fun, but I gotta end this." Alex said as he switched to Blade and rammed it into the Ursa's skull. Alex fell to the ground as the Ursa's memories flooded his mind. Mostly primal and instinctual memories but damn, there were tons of them.
"Dad! You okay?" Aria said as she leaned over her father, poking him with a stick.
"Yes Aria, I'm fine. That bear had a lot of memories." Alex said as he stood up.
"What the hell were you doing here?"Aria asked with an annoyed tone.
"I was going stir-crazy in the town. I suppose the virus is starting to adapt to longer periods of no fighting, but I still need to consume once in a while. You do too." Alex said, finally relaxed and not murderous.
"Why don't you go hunt something, something big. It'll help. I'll just go back to town and answer all the ponies' questions." Alex said just before running back to town.
"Dad's right. I'm going to need to consume something big if I want to live here peacefully." Aria sighed and ran deeper into the forest to find something to consume. Then she found it.
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Celestia was the first to wake up. She began her daily ritual of raising the sun and by the time it ended, Twilight was already awake.
"Princess!" Twilight shouted in a hushed voice.
"What is it, Twilight?" Celestia was getting curious as to what would have Twilight so worried so early in the morning.
"Alex and Aria left a note!" Twilight said as she handed, err........ hoofed? it to the Princess of the Sun.
"They ran into the forest? We have to go find them!" Celestia said as she woke the rest of the Elements and Luna.
"Tia? What is it?" Luna asked with a yawn.
"Alex and Aria ran off into the forest!" That woke up Luna.
"We have to go get them!" Luna and Celestia bolted out the door, the Elements following close.
They ran to the edge of the forest with only one of them out of breath (Rarity) and they heard rapid footsteps coming from the forest. Alex emerged from the top of the trees, barreling towards the ponies very quickly. Alex shifted his weight and landed 6 inches front of the ponies. Perfect landing. The ponies flinched and spoke to Alex.
"Alex, where is your daughter?" Luna asked, looking behind Alex, expecting Aria to jump out of the treeline.
"Hm? She's still in the forest." Alex said nonchalantly. The ponies were horrified at Alex just leaving his only daughter in the Everfree forest.
"You just LEFT her in there!?" Rainbow Dash screamed in Alex's face. Alex simply gave her a deadpan stare.
"If I didn't think she could handle herself, do you think I would leave her alone? In a place like that?" Alex jerked his thumb over to the forest.
"I left her in there because I knew she could handle herself well, and I needed to get all your questions out of the way." Alex was getting a little ticked off by their reactions, but he kept his cool. How could they have known?
"Okay, here's a question. Why did you leave town?" Twilight asked with an irritated tone.
"Me and Aria were getting a little stir-crazy, so we decided to run around the forest. We ran into a little problem." Applejack interrupted.
"What kind of problem?" Alex responded accordingly.
"We ran into an Ursa Minor and Major." The ponies were shocked, to say the least. This guy took on an Ursa Minor AND a Major?
"What!? How did you survive?" Dash was really eager to hear another story from Alex.
"Simple. I consumed both of them." Alex said with pride. He didn't know what they were capable of, but it was obvious that killing an Ursa Minor AND Major IN A ROW has never happened before.
Twilight was curious about consuming the moment Alex said it a few days ago.
"What's consuming?" Twilight really needed to know when to shut up.
"Consuming is when I kill something and break down it's DNA structure to use as my own. In other words, I kill it and then I eat it. Then, I can use it's identity as a mask. I can take it's personality, it's speech patterns, everything. I can effectively lead a normal life with no one being the wiser." The ponies were disgusted and Alex chuckled at their reaction.
"You ATE your kind!?" Twilight and Fluttershy were disgusted to the point they looked like they were going to throw up.
"Yes, but I couldn't do anything about it. But, I have refined it so that I don't have to anymore. Not so much with Aria, but she's getting better." Alex heard a familiar growl coming from the forest, one that he swore he left behind the moment he left the NYZ.
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Inside the forest, Aria found her meal without trouble. A Hydra poked each of its hungry heads out from the trees, saliva dripping onto the forest floor.
"Well, that was easy." She said as she got down into a combat stance. No sooner than it appeared, it attacked. It thrust one of its heads forward, but Aria anticipated. She jumped backwards and let the Hydra eat dirt. Before the head could get back up, she ran up to its neck and slashed at it with her Blade, removing the head and letting its blood spill onto the forest floor. She didn't let the Hydra have any time to react. She climbed up on one of the heads and jumped high, causing said head to hit the ground. She shifted her Blade into Hammerfists and performed an elbow slam on another head, turning it into nothing more than a bloody stalk that soon fell to the ground. One of the heads roared in anger as it lunged to swallow Aria whole. Aria let her guard down for a second and was swallowed by the beast.
Somewhere in the Hydra's throat, Aria felt her forehead begin to pulse. A tick mark showed on her forehead and she spoke softly.
"This little fucker's getting on my nerves..." She growled as she gripped on the tissue in the neck, causing the Hydra to have a coughing fit. She forcefully separated the muscle tissue in the neck, the Hydra all the while coughing hard. Soon, she broke through and tore the neck open, spraying blood and saliva everywhere and killing the head in the process. She dropped to the ground and shuddered. She was covered in Hydra saliva. It was nothing like blood. It was thick and soupy. It felt disgusting.
"Ewww.... This sucks..." She moaned as the unconscious Hydra head got up. It growled and it lunged, ready to finish what its brother started. Aria turned in time to see the head charging in. She grinned. She simply held her hand out at the head. As the head approached, Aria quickly shifted biomass to her arm to form a lance. The Hydra didn't see it coming. Its head crashed straight into the lance, the tip of the pointed biological weapon protruding from the other side of its head. Aria kicked the head off and began to feast on her meal. She jammed the lance into its head and began consuming it. Its many collective memories flooded her mind as she finished.
"Ahh... That was good.." She said as she walked towards the exit of the forest. Soon, she found the exit and she could hear a shout from the other side. She crouched low and saw that Alex was talking to the ponies. She was about to just walk up to them, but she had an idea. She snickered as she readied her means. This would be great.
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Alex heard the growl and his mind began to race. No, no it's not possible. How could they... Alex was interrupted by a Brawler Hunter pouncing on him and knocking him to the ground. He quickly kicked it off and got into a combat stance as the ponies let out screams of terror.
"What the hay is that!?" Twilight screamed. Her screams were followed by the others as they began to worry for Alex.
Alex ran in and kicked the Hunter in the face. Normally, this would crush it's skull, but this one held it's ground and swiped at him with a claw and a roar. Alex moved back and realized what he was fighting.
Aria, what the hell? Alex spoke with the Hive mind.
Just a little act to scare the ponies. Aria giggled in the Hive mind. Alex grinned at the thought. The Hunter took another swipe, only to meet air and get kicked in the back, causing it to fall to the ground. It rolled over and was met with Alex's blade in front of it's face.
Aria switched back and acknowledged defeat.
"Alright, you got me." Aria said with a chuckle as she held out a hand that was taken by Alex, pulling her to her feet. The ponies' jaws hit the ground and stayed there, not being able to give any response.
The silence was deafening and Alex decided to break it by saying two words.
"Too much?" Alex was responded by Rainbow Dash, who reacted to him with some of the only positive words she had said to him thus far.
"That.Was.AWESOME!!!" Dash exclaimed. Alex was about to say something, when Twilight piped up with a question.
"What in Equestria was that?" Twilight asked with shaky legs.
"Not in Equestria, but on Earth. That, my dear ponies, was a Brawler Hunter. They're a common sight where we're from." Alex said as he ruffled Aria's hair.
Twilight was too shocked to react. Those things were a common sight where Alex was from? Luna asked another question.
"If you could turn yourself into that, does that mean you consumed one of them too?" Luna asked with a fairly shaken voice.
"Of course. These things used to always come after us." Alex said. Twilight recovered and asked another question.
"Since those things were obviously made by the virus, are there more of them?" Twilight asked with a tremble in her voice.
"Yeah, tons of different strains. There's the Hydra, the Common Infected, the Hunter Leader, the Juggernaut and the Goliath. Just to name a few." Aria chimed in.
The ponies collectively decided to just shut up about such a matter and introduce them to the town to alleviate any fears that the town might have of them. If that would work, they could only find out.