//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: The Howlers' Delight 
// by Night Striker 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 5


Garret
        “ROOOOOAAAAAR!”
        Everyone turned in the direction the sound was coming from.
        “The hell was that?!”
        “Oh, God, are those the monsters?”
        I turned to Celestia. “Change us back to humans! We need to be ready to fight!”
        She nodded. “Just imagine yourselves turning back into humans. You need to really concentrate, though.”
        Everyone closed their eyes and focused all of their attention on becoming human again. After a bit of time, everyone was back. But we had lost time.
        “Everyone! One person on the Humvee gunnery! Everyone else take a gun for yourselves! Face away from the center of the circle!” I ordered. Everyone scrambled to get their weapons and take their positions. Following some confusion, we had a good defense.
        “I’ll get into the Humvee. Not much I can do from here,” Sam said to me.
        “Good idea,” I told him. He climbed into the passenger seat of my Humvee.
        We had about six Humvees with people ready at their gunnery, thirteen soldiers in between the Humvees, ready to fire, seven ponies and myself in the center of the circle, and a scientist hiding in a Humvee.
        “Everyone, be as quiet as possible,” I said softly.
        Everyone was silent. The only sounds that could be heard were some distant birds and the wind rustling the leaves of the trees.
        Sam looked out of the Humvee window. “Garret?”
        “Do I need to know?” I asked.
        “We have a great defense and all. No one could get through from the sides.”
        “Where are you going with this?”
        “What about the trees above us?”
        Silence. I looked up.

Sam
        “What about the trees above us?”
        Garret was looking at me, confused for a second. Then his eyes widened in horror. He looked up. Then, some kind of shadow fell onto him.
        “Agh!” Garret yelled. His gun started firing, trying to get the shadow off of him. Everyone else turned around, seeing their commander being attacked by a shadow. No one shot, fearing that they would instead hit Garret.
        “Shoot the damn monster!” Garret yelled. “It’s solid here! You won’t hit me!”
        All nineteen other guns erupted into fire, sending hundreds of bullets flying through the air, at the shadow. Sparks flew off of the monster, as the bullets failed to break through its armor and kill it. The shadow apparently decided it had enough and flew off of Garret. All of the gunfire stopped immediately.
        “Where’d it go?” someone asked.
        “It’s not here anymore...”
        I looked out the windows of the Humvee, desperately trying to get a glimpse of the shadowy beast, trying to find the danger. There was no trace.
        “Agh!” someone yelled. I realized that it was the gunner on top of my Humvee. A body went flying off of the roof. When he landed, I caught a glimpse of deep claw marks.
        “What is that?!” someone yelled.
        “It’s what killed those pegasi!” another soldier shouted.
        “Shoot the damn thing!” Garret yelled, pointing at the roof.
        Suddenly, darkness covered the windows of the Humvee. I tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
        “It’s turned into shadow!” someone yelled.
        “Sam!” Garret yelled.
        “I can’t get out of here!” I yelled. Then I felt the Humvee being dragged backwards. Slowly at first, but then gaining speed. Then I felt the sensation of lifting off of the ground.
        “Oh, God, what’s that?!” I yelled to myself.
        “Sam!” Garret’s distant voice yelled.

Garret
        “The hell was that?!” someone yelled.
        “They just took the Humvee?!” another soldier shouted.
        I ran over to a Humvee. “We’re going after them,” I announced.
        “Wait!” Jake yelled, running after me and grabbing my arm.
        “You want to let them get away with Sam?!” I yelled. Jake must have gone crazy if he wanted to let Sam die at the monsters’ claws.
        “No, I don’t,” Jake said calmly. “But they’re way too fast for us to catch up with. We’ll run out of fuel before we get anywhere near close to them,”
        I was getting irritated with Jake. “What do you suggest we do, then?” I noticed that my words had a sort of venom to them.
        “Let’s check out the library in Canterlot first, and see if we can find a way to combat them,” Jake explained. “After that, we can track down the monsters,” he glanced at Celestia, “possibly with the help of the Royal Guard, and then destroy them and save Sam.”
        “But what if they kill him?” I asked.
        “I don’t think they will, for some reason. After all, they would have killed him already if they wanted to, right?”
        I couldn’t argue with that logic.
        “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He’s pretty good at fighting, if he needs to,” Jake pointed out. I had forgotten that Sam had occasionally beaten me in fights.
        I sighed. “Fine. But let’s hurry up, okay?”
        “We can get on a train to Canterlot at Ponyville,” Twilight said. “You’ll have to transform once we’re there, though.”
        “What about all of the ponies that saw us as humans?” Jake asked.
        “I wouldn’t be surprised if they simply dismissed it as rumors,” Rarity said. “In such a small town as Ponyville, rumors can be more... Interesting that reality.”
        “Alright, everyone,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Twilight
        All of us climbed into the “Humvees”, which I noticed on a sign inside were actually called “High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles”. As we rode back, bumping along the forest floor, I thought about what had happened. The scientist, apparently named Sam, was captured, and everyone was very concerned about that. If it had been a close friend of mine, I would be too. So that means that the monsters have killed three and kidnapped one. What if there were more monsters, and more damage was being done without us knowing it? What are they trying to accomplish? Or what if they’re just mindless beasts, acting on instinct.
        It didn’t seem like much time had passed before we reached Sweet Apple Acres. The Humvees were stored away in an empty barn, and Celestia cast a powerful guarding spell to protect them. The commander, Garret, seemed very nervous leaving the apparently expensive equipment in there. He had made an argument to bring at least one with us, but the argument was quickly stopped by Jake. Garret protested, and received a smack to the face along with a “Pull yourself together, man!” Needles to say, this turned into a full-on wrestling match between the two. It was finally settled that they would bring the things they call “guns” along with us.
        “How much do those cost?” I asked him.
        “How much does an apple cost in your currency?” he asked.
        “About two bits.”
        “Then about six hundred thousand bits.”
        Needless to say, I knew why he was so concerned about them. Suddenly, I found myself concerned about their safety as well.
        “You will need to transform now,” Celestia said.
        “Alrighty, then,” Garret said. The soldiers closed their eyes for a minute, and then quickly changed forms into those of ponies.
        “I can’t get over the feeling,” Jake said. “It feels like I should have fingers and stuff, but they aren’t there.”
        “I think there’s a name for that feeling... I think it’s called ‘Phantom Limb’,” I pointed out. “It’s usually related to amputations.”
        “I think I actually am missing a part of me,” Garret said.
        “What’s that?” Jake asked.
        “The Humvees.”
        The sound of hooves slapping faces could be heard.
        “So, we’ve got... Twenty-six of us left,” Garret said.
        “Let’s try not to lose anyone else,” Jake said. “Let’s head over to the train station.”
        We all walked for a few minutes to Ponyville’s center. According to a clock, it was 4:15 PM.
        “The next train leaves in about five minutes. Let’s hurry up!” I said to the others.
        “I will meet all of you at Canterlot,” Celestia announced. “My presence on the train would be somewhat disturbing to the guards.”
        “Okay. We’ll see you later,” Garret said. Celestia winked out.

Garret
        “Okay. We’ll see you later,” I said. Celestia blipped out of existence.
        “Let’s get to the train station quickly,” Twilight said.
        By the time we got to the station, the train for Canterlot was pulling in. “All aboard!” the conductor yelled. We had managed to quickly buy twenty-five tickets, costing a total of 125 bits. By my calculations, this was about 250 dollars. Thankfully, Twilight paid for it all.
        “It’s always a good thing to invest,” Twilight pointed out. “It’s made me a good deal of money.”
        Since the sheer number of our group was very large, we had our own car to ourselves. All of us were sitting around, chatting idly. At first, everyone was tense and tended to stay quiet. Within a few minutes, and after some really horrible jokes, we were chatting like schoolgirls.

Twilight
	“So, how big is Equestria?”
        “...and the duck said, ‘Got any grapes?’”
        Everypony was talking about everything. Things were looking pretty good, despite the circumstances. I guess it was better to enjoy the moment than to dread the future.
        “So, Pinkie,” I started.
        “Yeah, Twilight?”
        “You seemed really quiet today. Is something up?”
        Her face fell. “Well... Everything was going pretty bad. Ponies died. Ponies were sad. I didn’t like that... I’m happiest when everypony is having a good time, and since nopony was having a good time, then that must have been the reason I was so sad.” She perked up and smiled again. “But, everypony’s happy now, so I’m happy, too!”
        I smiled. “Yeah, that’s great-”
        Suddenly, a crash was heard as a window broke. A shadowy figure flew in from the hole.
        “Aw, heeeeeeeell, naw, That son of a bitch made me drop my bagel!” the “Bagel Man” said.
        “Oh, God, the monster!” somepony shouted.
        “Everyone!” Garret yelled, levitating his gun with his magic. “Grab your guns!”
        “Uh, how?” a private that was transformed into an earth pony asked.
        “Use your mouth!” somepony said.
        “Eh, erh gehrt ert nerh!” the private said, with his mouth full.
        Loud bangs filled the air as the soldiers fired their weapons at the monster. I was blasting attack spells at the thing. More shadowy figures burst through the window to assist their comrade.
        For the second time, I got a good look at the monsters. Their bodies were in the shape of humans, but they were covered with fur and had a snout and pointy ears on top of their heads. Their paws had huge claws on them. They looked like wolves, but also like humans. They looked shadowy in the forest, but even in the light of the train car, they had shadows all over them. It looked like the shadows were part of them and they used them to fight.
“I knew we needed the Humvees!” Garret said.
“You wanted us to put the Humvees on this train?!” I yelled.
“...good point,” Garret admitted.
The shadows seemed to protect the monsters from the guns, but finally a shot got through. Blood spurted from the wound, and the monster cried out.
The cry was nothing like I had ever heard before. It sounded vaguely like the howl of a wolf, but it was ear-shattering and seemed to affect everypony’s minds as well as their ears. All of the gunshots stopped as everypony covered their ears with their hooves, desperately trying to block out the horrendous sound.
Finally, the howl stopped, and everypony continued the fighting. The monster that was injured had dissipated into shadows that spread everywhere and faded out of existence. Finally, more injuries were inflicted on the other monsters, who howled out and died.
The car was a wreck. There was broken glass from the windows and lamps, and the room was shadowy with the light of dusk and the lack of proper lighting. Everypony was exhausted. Luckily, though, the train was pulling into Canterlot.
Once the train stopped, we were pulled aside after getting out and interrogated by the Royal Guard. Luckily, they believed our story, and left us alone. They said to call a guard if there was anymore trouble. I heard somepony say something about “increasing the security” and calling Shining Armor. I hoped that my brother would be able to do something about this.
“Well, that was exhausting,” Garret pointed out.
“Let’s go to the Princess’s castle,” I said, and led the way. Once we arrived, we had to confirm our identities with the Royal Guard. Since some of us were the Element Holders, we were able to get through without much trouble. Since the others were with us, they trusted them. Just barely, though, especially given their guns that they were still carrying.
Princess Celestia met us in the castle. “All of you look exhausted. You should get some rest,” she said. 
“Praise the great bagel in the sky!” Bagel Man cried out.
After that, we did as we were told.

Garret
        Each of us had our own rooms. The Princesses must get a lot of visitors. For a while, I could hear the guards patrolling down the hallways. They must have increased security after hearing our story. I was sure that I would do the same.
        That night, I had another nightmare...