Chapter 3: Magnums and Megawolves
The forest must have been relatively undisturbed normally. Birds and the animals would just be quietly chirping away, or doing whatever it was animals usually did throughout the day. Every now and then a chase would ensue between predator and prey, but such matters would usually be par for the course, and not a lot of noise would ensue during those. Other animals who happened to be in the path of the chase would wisely vacate the premises with as little noise as possible, and when the chase concluded, things would swiftly go back to the status quo of peace and quiet.
So, when a very loud, very prominent disturbance in the form of Yours Truly came crashing through the underbrush, screaming his damn head off, it was quite understandable that every form of wildlife within several dozen meters of me abruptly got up and took right off, raising holy hell of their own on the what the fuck was that line.
I tore my way through the forest frantically, shoving aside shrubbery and hacking through obstructing branches with the survival knife. Behind me, I could hear the pounding steps and the roars of the manticore pursuing me, and ice-cold fear fueled every iota of speed I could muster.
Adrenaline dulled the searing pain in my leg to a strained throbbing, but there was no denying the spikes of agony that accompanied every step I took on my injured calf. If I didn’t ditch this manticore soon, there was no telling what kind of irreversible damage I might cause to myself.
A low-hanging branch came swinging by my head, and I ducked underneath it, weaving to the side. In a panic, I drew and pointed the .44 behind me, firing blindly and not even caring if I managed to hit the manticore or not. Hell, it was extremely unlikely that the sheer noise of the magnum would scare it away, but if it did, I’d take what I could get!
A pained roar sounded from behind me, and I frantically hurled myself over a fallen log, nearly tripping on my feet as my weight came down on my wounded leg. Damnit, it sounded like I’d managed to hurt the manticore, but it also sounded like it was getting closer. I had to find a way out, and fas- WHOA SONOFABITCH!!!
The ground suddenly dropped out from underneath my feet, and I was unceremoniously plonked down on my ass as I suddenly found myself sliding uncontrollably down a slope, steadily picking up speed. My hands clutched on to my stave and the .44 with a death-like grip, and it stayed that way even as my uncontrolled slide came to an abrupt halt when the slope suddenly ended in a sheer drop over a river dozens of feet below me.
Needless to say, I went plummeting over the edge, screaming all the way.
“Whoaaaaaa SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT!!!”
I crashed into the river with one painful slam of an impact, and ice-cold water swallowed me whole. The combined weight of my pack and my weapons worked against me, dragging me downwards, and panic seized me - I was not going to drown here like this! Not after I'd spent so many days before this slogging my way through this goddamned jungle! Frantically, I kicked upwards, fighting against the overwhelming weight of my pack to break the water's surface.
I might as well have tried to bench press a truck for all the good it did me - it was absolutely futile. Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, and my lungs burned as I fought against the desperate urge to gasp for breath. I don't know how long I tumbled about in the murky darkness, fighting upwards against the weight of my gear. But after what seemed like an eternity of blind flailing, I suddenly felt myself tumbling up a bank, and the water broke from above me. Free of the confines of the river's water, I began desperately sucking in deep lungfuls of blessed air, gasping and coughing.
I must have lain there for almost a full minute, just breathing in and out, revelling in the fact that I was still alive. Exhaustion weighed me down like a leaden ton of bricks, and I wasn’t able, and didn't want to do anything more than lamely twitch a couple of my fingers... at least until the searing pain in my leg flared up again, and I quite literally jolted into action as I let out a groan.
“Fuck... this... shit.”
Swearing loudly and at length, I resisted the urge to clamp down on my injured leg with my hands, and focused on suppressing the pain with several deep breaths. Jesus Christ, fuck this pain. I had to get this wound patched up sooner rather than later, and there wasn’t going to be anybody else around to do it for me.
Once I had managed to tone the pain down to something that didn’t have me biting down on my tongue to suppress the screaming, I let out a strained groan as I holstered the magnum and reached around back, trying not to move the injury while I retrieved the first aid kit from my pack. Bandages, gauze and antiseptic were the first things out as I tore the medical kit open, and I bravely wielded the cotton swab and alcohol as I set about cleaning the wound before I dressed it.
Goes without saying, it stung like a bitch. Many screams were literally bitten down upon that day.
Once the bite wounds were cleaned and dressed, I popped a couple of the painkillers from the first aid kit and stashed it back inside my pack, stumbling to my feet in a numb, exhausted haze - I just didn’t have the energy for anything else. My head was still a little muddled from my fall in the river, but there was little else I could think of doing. Had to keep walking - had to stay in motion. If I stopped, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to get myself moving again.
My feet continued trudging on beneath me with barely even any conscious input from my brain, and the next... I don’t know, several hours? They passed by in a blur as I continued following the river downstream, and I paused only when I suddenly dimly realized that it was starting to get dark, and the sun was starting to set.
Oh yeah. Night was falling - I had to find some shelter. Right.
I think I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought, because I still couldn’t get my thoughts in order, even as I gave my cranium several hard taps in an attempt to wake myself up.
At some point during my exhausted fugue, I’m not sure when, I came across a nice sheltered spot underneath a rocky outcropping after sunset, and I gratefully stumbled underneath it, setting my tired haunches down against the wall while wearily dumping my pack on the ground. I numbly sat there for several minutes, just trying to gather myself back together and recover my strength, but something at the back of my mind just wouldn’t stop niggling at my thoughts, calling for my attention and denying me the peace of rest.
Groaning, I finally acknowledged the fact that I had been putting off facing for days since I got here - I was really here, in the Everfree Forest. And that also meant that I was pretty much on an entirely separate world, or even dimension, from Earth, and I was just about as far off from home as I was ever going to be.
Oddly enough, I found myself feeling hardly anything in reaction to that revelation. Perhaps it was the exhaustion, or the numb buzz of the painkillers I was on, but either way, I found myself just simply nodding at the facts and moving on to the next one.
My rational mind was still reeling at how incredulous all this was, but the emotional centre of my brain had probably just shut down from the adrenaline rush of the past two predator encounters I had barely escaped from by the skin of my teeth. I didn’t feel anything aside from dull surprise, and a vague acknowledgement of the fact that I was a really long way from home.
Taking a look at the wild forest around me, a wilderness environment that I was still at least half-familiar with surviving in while miles away from civilisation, I snorted absently. Yeah, whoop dee fuckin’ do, like being a long way from home was anything new.
Well, if I really wanted to find my way back, there always was that hole in the ground I'd stumbled into that led me here, I thought. I was just as sure that it'd lead me back home if I went back in the other way, but then I almost immediately snorted at the thought.
Yeah, good luck finding that one tiny hole in the entire expanse of this forest, Joe. I scoffed mentally. It'd be like looking for a piece of hay in a deadly needlestack. Even in the depths of mind-numbing exhaustion I was still in full-on survival mode, and I knew that it didn’t really matter where I was - only that my greatest chance of living through this fiasco still lay in getting the hell out of this forest and making contact with civilization - namely, that town I'd sighted two nights ago.
My brain tried to raise some more protests on the grounds of just how impossible this entire scenario was, but I tiredly shut it out and set about gathering wood for another fire, ignoring the voice in my head that was trying to tell me I was missing something vitally important about the town. By the time the makeshift campsite was ready, I was already shivering from the cold of the night, half-conscious from fatigue, and just about ready to crash right on the spot.
I didn’t remember rolling out my tarp and sleeping bag, but several minutes later I found myself already curled up next to the campfire, halfway nodding off to sleep. The fiery pain that burned in my calf had faded long ago thanks to the painkillers working their magic, and I lay my head back, glad as hell to be finally getting some damned rest.
I was asleep before my head hit the floor.
---
Waking up the next morning was a lesson in exhaustion and soreness. When a man's tired and sleepy enough, trust me, he can sleep almost damn anywhere, and my body just simply refused to get up from the soft and pliant slab of rock I was lying on.
Okay, rocks aren’t soft and pliant, you dumbass, quit lying to yourself.
I let out a tired groan as I finally forced myself upright when the sun started getting in my eyes. Rubbing the last vestiges of sleep out of my face, I exhaled tiredly and just sat there for several minutes, trying to boot my brain up. Eventually I figured out that getting some food would do me good, and I set about fixing breakfast.
Given my half-conscious state, I’m amazed I didn’t end up pouring my food into a mug and my drink into a mess tin. Several sticks of beef jerky, a pack of chicken pasta and a mug of instant coffee later, I finally regained something resembling consciousness, and managed to quell my stomach's ravenous rumbling. I was just so hungry that I didn't even think anything of polishing off enough food for two meals at once until I’d let out a satisfied burp, and immediately knew that I was probably going to regret this bad survival decision later.
I wasn't exactly feeling like a million bucks, but the night of straight up hard resting had done my tired body and aching leg a ton of favors. Once the caffeine kicked in, I finally felt ready to tackle the rest of the trek ahead of me, and I knew I’d need every scrap of energy I could muster to finish it.
Grabbing my stave/walking stick, I shouldered my pack and left the campsite behind, hand on my revolver. You can call me paranoid, but since my run-in with the pack of timber wolves and the manticore yesterday, I was starting to get very nervous about being jumped out of nowhere. I wasn’t going to get caught off guard like that again.
The next several hours passed by in relative peace; the terrain slowly started becoming less hostile and treacherous as I continued in the North-Western bearing I’d picked up, and I figured that I was finally getting closer to civilization. Still, it couldn’t hurt to be too cautious - checking up on my guns, I made sure that the chambers and rounds were dry in the .44 and the Remington, and replaced the spent cartridges with fresh ones, slapping each of them closed with an immense feeling of personal satisfaction.
So then, with my revolver in hand, I came across the next wreck I would find in the Everfree forest several hours later, just as it was about to reach noon.
The first sign that I was about to come across something was the sound of several bubbling snarls from ahead of me, and the sound of something tearing wetly and very gruesomely. My body immediately tensed up as I recognized the growls of timber wolves just like the ones that had assaulted me yesterday, and my grip on the magnum’s handle unconsciously grew tighter.
Easy does it, Joe. I slowed my pace down, trying not to hyperventilate, and I crept forward cautiously as I brushed aside obstructing leaves with the tip of my stave, keeping the revolver steadily pointed front and centre despite my heart’s anxious hammering. I pushed aside the last obstructing branch, got a good, clear look into the clearing, and saw what I'm pretty sure was one of the most disgusting things I'd ever seen in my life.
Three timber wolves were in the midst of the clearing, tearing large chunks of meat off of something, and the smell of rot and decay permeated the air, similar to where I had discovered Steven’s body. I almost gagged on the stench, but kept the revolver steady as I peered around to take a look at what they were so busy feeding on.
I saw a flash of dark leather, brown khakis, and that was all I needed before I immediately turned my gaze away, fighting down the sickened urge to vomit. Jesus Christ, those timber wolves were feeding on a human corpse.
A moment passed as the thought registered with me, and then the nausea vanished, replaced with a cold fury. Nobody deserved to have their corpse fed upon by the dogs; it was a disgrace to the dead body, a fucking sacrilege! Rage set my gaze aflame with red, and I shoved the .44 back in its holster, planting my stave in the ground next to me while I reached over my shoulder for the Remington.
Screw the magnum, I wanted to see these bastards come apart underneath the fury of a 12-gauge. I brought the shotgun up, sighted down the iron sights at the closest timber wolf, and didn’t even hesitate to pull one of the triggers.
There was a tremendous bang, and the shotgun kicked back against my shoulder violently, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The offending wooden canine however got abruptly blown to pieces, and I didn’t wait to enjoy the aftermath as I immediately swung the shotgun around, searching for my next target.
By the time the wolves had looked up to see what the sudden interruption was, I had already sighted down on my next target, and depressed the remaining trigger on the Remington. With another roar of buckshot, a second wolf was reduced to its constituent kindling. The last remaining wolf alive let out a frightened yip, and it immediately bounded away into the forest, tail between its legs.
“Damn fucking right you should run, you yellow-bellied bastards.” I muttered furiously to myself as I lowered the smoking shotgun. Emptying out the spent shells and replacing them with fresh ones by pure reflex, I stashed the empty ones in my pockets along with the rest of the expended bullet casings from yesterday.
… Yeah, don’t ask me why I did that - my days in the army were far behind me, and I hadn't touched that skillset in years, apart from the occasional outdoors hiking trip and those regular trips to the shooting range. What with my insistence on never coming anywhere near my memories of those two years of national service even with a sixty-foot pole, I'd have thought the entire skillset would've rusted over by now. Maybe it was just a strange tic I got from a few too many weeks spent playing New Vegas, but whatever.
There weren't any other visible threats, but I kept the shotgun ready and in my hands anyway as I approached the corpse. I briefly half-considered scavenging it for supplies, but a cursory glance at it already told me I was shit out of luck - probably already hit the luck quota with Steve.
Unlike the body of Steve the Dead Hunter, John Doe over here was carrying woefully nothing on himself - not even a pack, a belt pouch or anything. Savagely torn hiking attire adorned what little of his body hadn't been mauled by the timber wolves that had been feeding upon it, and I quickly passed my eyes over the more gruesome, unnecessary details, forcibly ignoring them. Poor bastard had probably been out a short hike for the day before he'd intended to return home - he probably never thought he'd actually fall through a portal into another world and end up getting mauled to death by a pack of wolves made out of tree bark and branches.
I didn't feel like staying any longer than was necessary - one dead body a week was already way above my quota for what I'd like to go seeing. Skipping right over the part where I searched his pockets, I went straight to shifting his body into the best approximation of a dignified resting posture as I could, deciding that I'd leave the moment I was done. There wasn't time for me to stick around to give this guy a proper burial, and I didn’t even have the digging tools to do it to begin with.
As I bent over his body, shotgun slung over my back and folding his arms over his chest, I spotted an odd glint of metal standing out from the rest of shredded crimson that was all that remained of his chest. Curiosity demanded a closer look, and I peered closer at it, reaching out to pick it up. Frowning, I tore the mysterious object free of the chain that hung from his neck, and when I finally raised it up in front of me to take a look, I found myself with only more questions rather than answers.
For one thing, the trinket that I held in my hand was a metal chain that ended in a pendant stylized in the shape of a lightning bolt coming out of a storm cloud.
Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark.
I stared at it for a moment, the dots connecting, and then I immediately reached inside of my own shirt, my eyes wide in disbelief and incomprehension.
Steve had been wearing a Rainbow Dash T-shirt. John Doe here was wearing a chain with RD’s cutie mark hanging off the end of it.
And I myself held up in front of me now, a pendant at the end of the chain that I wore around my own neck - the one that had been carved in the shape of a six-pointed star: the Element of Magic.
Okay, what the hell was going on here?
Every single human body I had discovered in here had at least one MLP-themed trinket on their hands, and I myself had one as well. It was possible that all of this could be chalked up to nothing more than coincidence, but for every single body I found in the Everfree Forest to have an MLP-themed trinket on them? Some things are just way too contrived for coincidence to be the cause. There was definitely some sort of connection here.
Well, whatever it was, I sure as hell wasn’t going to discover it by sitting around, pondering on the issue. There was no other evidence to be gathered here - I had to keep moving. Hefting the shotgun again, I stepped over John Doe’s body and was about to continue on my way when the hairs on the back of my neck abruptly prickled something was wrong.
I spun on my heel, bringing the shotgun to bear, and barely kept my jaw from hitting the ground when I saw not one, not three, but six new timber wolves, slinking slowly out of the woods, all staring at me with those hissing emerald eyes that burned with what I swear was the need for vengeance.
Several of them were growling, their bubbling snarls a herald of much pain to come, and I could’ve sworn the branches that composed of at least three of them looked broken and shattered, rather than whole and undamaged... almost as if something had broken them before, and now they’d reassembled to return the favor.
Something like a .44 magnum round, or a 12 Gauge.
Before I could think on it any further, my attention was swiftly redirected from them as I noticed a distinctive puke-green aura surround several branches on the ground, and then I realized something much more pants-shittingly terrifying.
The remains of the timber wolves I’d blown apart not more than a few moments earlier - they were reassembling themselves.
As I watched, the remains slowly began to form together into a cohesive whole, and then when I took in the proportions of the leg nearly as tall as I was that was forming, I realized something else.
Remember ‘Spike At Your Service’? Yeah, we all remember the combi-wolf Megazord.
I swore loudly, and quickly switched the shotgun out for the magnum - I wasn’t about to wait for this son of a bitch to reform on me while I still had two fully loaded guns on my side. I pulled the .44 free of its holster, and right at that moment, two of the wolves took the opportunity to rush me, snarling savagely.
I instantly reacted - with two very angry wooden canines descending upon me, you couldn’t really blame my immediate reaction for being HOLY SHIT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!
The magnum roared twice, and two more showers of kindling joined the branches on the forest floor. And they didn’t lie there for even a second before they were rapidly encased in the same emerald glow that suffused the half-completed body of the mega-wolf, swiftly being drawn back into the main body where it continued to build itself back up.
I took one look at the half-formed torso, the rest of its completed legs, the remaining four wolves which were just disintegrating as their constituent parts joined together with the whole that was rapidly beginning to complete itself, and then I realized that continuing to just stand there was a very bad idea.
Something in the back of my mind connected a couple of dots and came to a stunned conclusion - this looked like the work of a communal intelligence, something greater than the individual wolves themselves directing them to another purpose besides that of mere beasts. They weren’t just animals. Animals didn’t reanimate themselves and pursue their killers purely for the sake of revenge. This seemed more like the work of a force of nature straight out of a D&D monster manual; something was guiding these things.
That was only a tiny part of my brain, though - the rest of it was just screaming SWEET JESUS KILL IT WITH FIRE.
I didn’t even hesitate - the shotgun came up to my shoulder, and I pulled both triggers at once. Buckshot roared as the upper half of the mega-wolf’s torso got pretty much blown to pieces... and then seconds later, the remains started knitting themselves back together again, the body’s overall size only shrinking slightly. The mega-wolf shook its now-completed head, simply snorted at me, and stared down at the human that was just a mere third of its size, its nostrils flaring.
“Well, fuck that.” I muttered, and then I turned and ran.
---
If there was one thing that I had to be grateful for, it was that while the megawolf might have made itself a lot bigger and lot deadlier, it also unintentionally made itself slow as fuck. A normal-sized timber wolf probably would have been able to keep up with and even outstrip my encumbered ass, even as I ran with the weight of my pack and weapons weighing me down, but Wolfzilla back there, with all of its extra mass, was moving along at a lumbering gait that I was still barely able to keep ahead of.
I tore my way through the forest, fear and adrenaline pumping my body onwards despite the fatigue that was starting to rapidly burn away at my limbs and my lungs, and the resurging pain of my injured calf. Behind me, I could hear the sound of branches breaking and the furious roars of the megawolf, and I didn’t dare slow down even in the slightest. Flinging myself over fallen tree logs, I ducked in between whatever tiny gaps I could find, in attempts to slow the damned Godzilla ripoff down from trying to squeeze inside after me.
Surprisingly, it worked in the most unexpected way. It didn’t get slowed down from the trees I was putting in between it and myself, no - it crashed right through those as though they were made out of paper. I only managed to keep ahead of it because once it got going, it got damned hard for it to stop. Just a sudden change in direction on my part, and soon enough I’d be leaving it in the dust until it managed to grind itself to a halt to change direction and resume its pursuit of me.
Once, I faked a left after slipping through a crack in between rocks before taking an abrupt right turn off a shallow drop, and the giant canine fell for my feint as it went after where it thought I’d gone, crashing right through the obstructing trees until it realized its mistake and came pounding after me a few seconds later. When it came bounding over the crevice I’d hidden myself in and landed in front of me, I immediately hefted my reloaded shotgun at it and unloaded both barrels into its chest.
More bark, sap and branches exploded outward as the wolf’s body shrunk by another foot or two from loss of mass, but apparently Wolfzilla had absolutely zero fucks to give, given his lack of reaction to the blasts as his wooden body immediately began knitting itself back together. I immediately ducked out of the way, yelling in panic as it swiped at me with a forepaw the size of my head, and I literally felt the claws just pass inches from raking against me. The moment I recovered from my desperate dodge, I didn’t waste a second and immediately sprinted off like the devil himself was on my heels.
My breath burned savagely in my lungs as I ran, Wolfzilla’s enraged roars echoing out behind me as I heard its pounding footsteps of pursuit resume. A familiar pulsing ache in my neck’s arteries signalled that my heart was starting to take pumping too hard, and I realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was going to start running out of breath damn soon - damn me for not staying in shape for the last two years!
On my back, the weight of my pack was a burden I felt I could do without, and I was already half-considering dropping it, but I just couldn’t do it. All of my supplies were still in there - if I dropped it and still couldn’t find my way out of the forest even after I ditched this megawolf, I’d be a dead man.
I didn’t have much more to worry about, though - already, some distance away, I saw wide, open grassland beyond the edge of the trees ahead of me, and a fierce burst of triumph surged through my chest. Screw it, the forest was already starting to thin out around me the further on I ran - I was almost out of here! Come on Joe, last round - let’s do this shit!
The following hundred metres or so was the longest sprint of my life, my burning legs screaming at me to stop with every stride that I took, but I kept them pumping like pistons on overdrive. Gasping out in relief as the canopy above my head finally ended and wide grassy plains opened up all around me, my sprint slowed down into a near stumble as I came to a halt, panting desperately for air. Gods, thank the heavens, finally! I was out of that blasted place!
My throat burned dryly as I swallowed back some of the saliva in my mouth, and I already found myself longing for the canteen of water in my pack. Right then I wanted nothing more than to just open it up and drain every last drop of water I had left in it, but a series of dull, pounding steps from behind sharply reminded me that I still had a very large, very angry megawolf to deal with.
Jesus Christ, what would it take for a guy to get a break around here!?
“Okay, you know what, fuck this shit.” I muttered darkly to myself, and I swung the spent shotgun around back on its sling while pulling out the magnum. Four shots left, as I hadn’t had the chance to reload it yet since Wolfzilla had first started forming. I remembered that the megawolf from Spike At Your Service had still pursued Spike and Applejack beyond the boundaries of the Everfree, and he’d managed to somehow kill it with just a single rock in a classic David-vs-Goliath move, by throwing it down its throat until the megawolf somehow choked to death on it. Not sure how that worked, but I wasn’t going to think too much about the details.
What I’d seen of Wolfzilla so far however totally contradicted the toughness the megawolf had displayed in the episode - the bloody thing had taken four shotgun shells to the chest, and I still wasn’t anywhere closer to killing it than I had been before. But still, there was one other thing that I hadn’t tried yet. Wolfzilla could regenerate the wounds that were inflicted on the main body, but who’s to say that it could regenerate the same kind of damage that was dealt to its head?
Spike had killed the one he faced by pretty much shoving a rock down its throat - right now, I had four very heavy servings of high-velocity lead for Wolfzilla to choke to death on.
You know, I’d already spent the past four days roughing it out, lugging around enough heavy weight to develop a major crick in my back, suffered from more than enough pain of injury to last me an entire week, and gotten banged up enough in general that I was sure if I didn’t see the hated Everfree forest again even for months after this, it’d still be too soon.
I’d had enough.
I think it can be excused that I pretty much lost my composure at that point, and I vented all of the frustration, anger, and irritation I’d accumulated over the past few days into a single sentence that I shouted as I turned to face Wolfzilla’s charge.
“Hey asshole!” I raised the magnum, aiming carefully for the charging Megawolf’s head. “Why don’t you choke on this!?”
BANG!
The first round passed through the megawolf’s left jaw, and kindling was sent flying as the left side of its face exploded. Its head snapped to the left, but its charge still continued unabated.
BANG!
The rounds were starting to have an effect now - the second bullet went straight down its throat and exploded out the back of its neck. The wolf’s giant body actually recoiled backwards slightly as it stumbled unsteadily, and its charge slowed down visibly. Gritting my teeth, I took aim, and fired again.
BANG!
The megawolf was about twenty metres away by now, and the shot went wide as I realized holy crap it’s gonna run me over. Branches blew off of its side as the bullet dug into its flank, and I immediately threw myself to the right in a graceless belly flop. Wolfzilla continued pounding across the grass past me, and I scrambled onto my feet frantically, bringing the heavy pistol to bear. The giant megawolf snarled as it realized that it had missed, and it dug its heels into the ground, grinding to a halt as it turned to face me.
But by then, I had already raised the magnum, taking aim at its head again.
One round left. I pulled the trigger.
BANG!
And pulled it again. And again. And again.
The heavy magnum round went flying in through the roof of Wolfzilla’s mouth, and the upper half of its head exploded - literally. Nothing was left. The giant canine’s body teetered capriciously for several seconds, still leaning in my direction as it acted upon the last line of thought whatever passed for its brain had been dictating, and I held my breath right up until it collapsed limply onto its side like a giant sack of potatoes, disintegrating into so much kindling, branches and pebbles.
Only when the ringing in my ears finally subsided and I heard the repeated click!s of a hammer dry-firing on an expended round did I realize that some poor sod was screaming in a rage. After a moment of reflection, I realized that the poor sod had been me.
My heart was still hammering inside my chest like a jackhammer, and as my screams died down I realized that I must have hollered myself hoarse. My throat felt absolutely raw, and my hands were still shaking, clutching onto the revolver with a white-knuckled death-like grip. I suddenly became aware of myself starting to breath again, and then the full ramifications of what had just happened hit me like a battering ram.
Holy Jesus Christ, I had just fucking survived a run-in with a Godzilla ripoff.
I didn’t know whether to feel elated, horrified, shocked at my survival, or all of the above. All I knew was that I was still effin’ alive, and that much had to still count! I’d gone up against a mutant megazord-wannabe and lived to tell the tale - HA! Imagine this story being one for the boys back home!
The moment the thought of home crossed my mind however, the giddy high of my survival rush immediately came crashing back down, and my thoughts quickly sobered up as I was reminded of my priorities. Taking in a deep breath, I set aside all of the horror, fear and anxiety that had plagued me for the past several days, and focused on what was around me - namely, the two very empty guns that I was still holding on to and needed reloading. That much, at least, I could concentrate on without freaking out with what had just happened.
Lowering the .44 with still-shaking fingers, I emptied the magnum and began loading in fresh rounds one by one, thankfully not dropping any of them despite how my hands were still trembling unsteadily. I slowly got up on numb, shaking legs, when I could’ve sworn I heard a tiny squeak. There was a sudden rustle in the bushes behind me, but when I turned around to look, all was still.
Okay, so that totally wasn’t a sign that I was being watched. I mean, I was splattered in remnants of Wolfzilla’s yellowish sap, and probably looked as dirty and disheveled as Jason Voorhees right out of Friday the 13th. Even if anything had been watching me, I didn’t think they were going to dare attack me right after witnessing my horrendously bloody display of firepower.
Still, I eyed the bush suspiciously, but I didn’t go over to investigate until I had unslung the Remington and reloaded it, just in case anything might have been waiting in ambush. Feeding two fresh shells into the boomstick and snapping the breech closed, I then circled around the shrubbery with the shotgun raised, fingers on the triggers while keeping a wide berth between it and myself.
I was still shaking slightly from the leftover adrenaline of my encounter with that thrice-damned wolf-megazord, and my breath was still shallow and thready. But despite all that, I held the shotgun steady as I slowly came around the side of the bush, and I immediately sidestepped around the corner in a flanking maneuver, ready for anything.
Well, ready for anything except for nothing. There was absolutely nothing hiding behind the bush - whatever it was had probably vamoosed off already. Conflicted between vague disappointment and relief by the anticlimax, I lowered the Remington as I stepped closer to investigate. Peering at the ground, I realized that there were actually tracks in the grass, leading away from the bush.
I squinted down at them, mildly surprised at the shape I was seeing. The footprints that I saw on the ground looked more like... well, hoofprints than anything else.
… Wait a minute, hoofprints?
Okay, now that's stretching my suspension of disbelief. There is no way a horse can possibly move that quietly and quickly at the same time. I hadn’t heard any hoofsteps at all- ... Hang on.
I took a couple of mental steps back, recounting the facts. One, I'd just come out of the Everfree forest. Two, right outside that forest was one town that no self-respecting brony would ever not know about. And three, that one particular town was chock full of one particular type of resident, one that would definitely have been able to leave behind the kind of tracks that I was looking down at right now.
I nearly smacked myself over the head for not having realized this earlier - I'd landed up in the Everfree forest, of course this would naturally be where I'd end up next! God, contrived coincidence, could you ever get any more blatant?
Something inside me grimaced sourly at the thought that crossed my mind next - the town was still going to be my next destination if I wanted to ensure my survival, but the mere thought of going there just made my insides crawl in cognitive dissonance. The more I moved on, the more I was starting to feel like I’d somehow fallen into a HiE fanfic somewhere, and let me tell you, I was seriously weirded out.
I liked to think that I stayed firmly on reality’s side of the line rather than indulging in fantasy, but the more time I spent here, the more I figured I was either experiencing a very real, very vivid hallucination, or reason and sanity had gone leaping right out the window, because I was in fucking Equestria. Needless to say, this entire premise was rubbing me very much the wrong way, but the fact that I was now out of the forest, and therefore had a lot less to scavenge from, meant that supplies and my sustained survival were still a very real and very inevitable concern.
Well I sure as hell wasn’t going back inside that forest just to get more food when I already had a few more days worth of supplies still in my pack. I still had some time left to find an alternative to living off the Everfree like some sort of demented Rambo or Robinson Crusoe, and it wasn’t like there was anywhere else practical that I had left to go to.
So, turning in the direction of the town and trying to suppress a groan at what I felt was a monumentally corny and contrived decision, I began walking down the path that would doubtlessly lead me towards Ponyville.
---
Okay, I am now convinced. The universe has somehow decided to make me the butt of a cosmic joke, and I’d just reached the punchline.
I mean, there I was, lying at the crest of that hilltop, staring down through my binoculars at a town of technicolor ponies strolling about on their everyday business, and I was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I was really here.
My stomach abruptly rumbled again, reminding me of my logistical predicament (meaning to say that I was still going to run out of food in a couple of days), and I set aside the mind boggling fact that I was in a world of technicolor equines. I had to focus on securing more food and water for later first, however the hell I was going to do it. Indulging in an existential crisis could come later.
A direct approach was out of the question, that was for sure - the standard reaction of Ponyville residents to any form of strange, unidentified creature was the purest form of ‘HIDE YO KIDS HIDE YO WIVES’ I had ever seen, and I didn’t want to start a panic by simply just strolling into town down the street. That left stealth and an indirect approach as my only remaining option, and already I was starting to roll my eyes at how exasperatingly difficult this whole thing just had to be.
My belly let out another growl of complaint, and I winced. All right, I’d wasted enough time observing from up here - it was time to get down there.
Time to find a nice, quiet, deserted place to effect an entry.
---
I found it just about an hour later, and in about the last place I expected. As large as the countryside surrounding Ponyville was, I didn’t think I’d stumble upon Sweet Apple Acres that soon. It had been several dozen metres after my first apple tree before I noticed I was walking past several more, and it took my exhausted mind a couple of seconds to connect the dots before I even realized I was in an apple orchard.
I looked up at the apple tree that towered above me, briefly considered reaching up just to pluck an apple, and almost immediately smacked myself mentally for even entertaining the thought. That was somebody’s livelihood that I was looking at, and even if just one missing apple might not have made that great a difference, it was the entire principle of the thing that mattered. As hungry as I was, I still wasn’t a thief, period.
Still... that shade underneath the tree looked pretty inviting, and I was just about ready to collapse after having kept on the move for almost an hour straight even after my encounter with Wolfzilla from earlier. This seemed like a quiet, deserted enough place to get some rest. There wasn’t anything for me to build a fire with, but then again, I was also tired enough to think fuck it, I’ll eat the rations cold.
I didn’t even bother with the mess tin - after dumping my pack on the ground and setting the Remington across my lap, I pulled a ration pack out, tore it open, and squeezed the contents directly into my mouth, skipping on the finer points of culinary dining. Once I had some food in my belly and had drained almost my entire canteen, I flopped against the tree trunk limply and pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes, taking a moment to just sit there and do nothing.
After so many days of slogging my guts out through the Everfree, it felt good. I closed my eyes to let sleep take me, and I could have sworn that I’d actually managed to take a long, solid nap, but I swear to God it felt like not longer than a second later before I suddenly felt something poking and prodding at me incessantly. High, excited voices whispered at the edges of my hearing, and I struggled to clear the cobwebs of sleep from my mind as I strained to listen in.
“Ah’m tellin’ ya Sweetie Belle, it’s a Human! No kiddin’!”
“Come on, stop pulling my leg, Applebloom! Everypony knows humans don’t exist! They’re only mythological creatures!”
“Yeah, way to stay in denial when it’s right in front of us, Sweetie Belle. It’s right here!”
“I’m just saying, Scootaloo! It could be something else, something from the Everfree that we’ve never seen before!”
“Hmmm... ya’ll think it’s awake?”
“You think? Applebloom, we’ve been poking at it for a few minutes now - I’m surprised that it hasn’t woken up yet!”
I twitched. Oh. Oh, crap. Emperor on Earth, why did it have to be them first?
“Oh... hayseed. Um, girls? Ah... think it just moved.”
“It did? Oookay, I think it’s time we got out of here!”
“Oh, stop being such a chicken, Sweetie Belle! It’s not like it’s going to hurt us, right?”
“Scootaloo, look at it! It’s covered in dirt and sap, it’s dressed weirdly, and it’s carrying those... those... hey, what are those things, anyway?”
Oh, fuck. The guns!
My eyes shot open as I immediately snapped a hand protectively over the shotgun across my lap - no way in hell was I going to let an untrained child, let alone the Cutie Mark Crusaders of all foals, get their hooves on a firearm they could hurt themselves with. But the sheer suddenness of my movement must have scared them, because I heard three frightened gasps and a series of rapid steps retreating away from me. I blinked the remnants of sleep out of my eyes, and found myself faced with three tiny fillies any brony would recognize who were huddled together in a group, staring at me with huge, curious, terrified eyes.
Okay, easy does it now, Joe. You’ve got them like deers in headlights - last thing you want to do is startle them further.
I slowly raised a hand, palm out in what I hoped was a placating gesture, and spoke slowly. “Look, I-”
I didn’t get any further. My voice was deep, but still hoarse and cracked from dehydration, and the moment the first word of my sentence had left my mouth, the three fillies immediately screamed and bolted off in the opposite direction. As I watched the crusaders flee, I saw them rush past a certain recognizable tree house the size of a small room, and I belatedly realized that in my exhausted stupor, I’d picked a camping spot just a few trees away from the CMC clubhouse.
Way to go, genius. So much for keeping a low profile.
Okay, now I had to double it up. With three panicked and frightened fillies out there raising the alarm, I had to disappear before someone came looking for me. There was hardly any doubt which mares the crusaders would go to first - either a certain chromatic pegasus who would be the fastest monster ass-kicker they’d think of, or the most dependable, most overprotective big sis known to the Apple clan, and I certainly didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any beatings either of them might be itching to dish out if they ever spotted me.
I didn’t waste any more time - I gathered up my things and set off at a quick lope, praying to the Lord that I wouldn’t have any more unlucky chance encounters. Moving quickly and quietly, I exited the orchard and spent the next five minutes after that circling around the perimeter of the town looking for any particularly deserted street or alleyway where I could make my entry before I finally found one.
I took a quick glance around to make sure that there wasn’t anybody around looking, and my descent down the hill after that was a quick, quiet, and practiced one. Making sure that all the straps and holsters of my weapons were secure, I ducked into the deserted alley that I’d spotted, and immediately crouched up against the nearest wall as I crept forward, sticking to the shadows.
A shadow passed overhead briefly, the profile of a pegasus flier starkly obvious in the bright sunlight, and I reflexively cringed backwards underneath the nearest roof, praying that I hadn’t been spotted. Great, now I had to keep an eye on the sky as well - as though keeping a lookout for threats on the ground wasn’t hard enough already.
Keeping in mind that I now had to stay out of open, unsheltered areas, I spent the next several hair-raising minutes darting stealthily between alleyways and across deserted roads, trying to minimize the time I spent out of being hidden in the shadows. The streets were surprisingly empty for this time of day, and I could see only a handful of ponies strolling about, chatting with one another or otherwise carrying out their daily routines. I’d caught sight of Roseluck tending to her garden when I’d been slinking in between alleyways, and had narrowly avoided being seen by a hairsbreadth when she looked up from watering her plants just in time to see the edges of my silhouette disappear around the corner.
I must’ve just stood there for several seconds with my back pressed against the wall, my heart pounding and my breath held, just waiting to see if she got a bit too curious for her own good. Thank God she didn’t decide to come and investigate in the end - I was clutching onto the .44’s heavy steel frame tightly in my right hand, and though the hammer wasn’t cocked back and I didn’t have any intentions of shooting anyone, if I got spotted up close and they were within reach, I wasn’t above attempting to pistol whip them into unconsciousness to prevent them from raising the alarm.
Then again, I’d also probably feel horrible as hell while doing it, but the last thing I wanted was a general panic shutting all the doors of the town to me. I had to get to at least one particular house and find that one particular unicorn who was the least probable to go apeshit on me upon sight, before I could see if I’d be able to ease an appearance into Ponyville, instead of appearing out of nowhere without any prior explanation covered in dirt and timber wolf sap.
I had to get to Twilight Sparkle’s library.
The huge tree-house thing wasn’t hard to find - large as it was, it almost towered over the rest of the buildings around it, and it was kind of difficult to miss it. I could already make out the upper floors by the time I was only a couple of streets away, and those were thankfully as deserted as the ones I’d spent the past several minutes sneaking through. A couple of alleys later, I was swinging myself over the fence surrounding the library in a running jump, and came down next to one of her windows with a soft thud.
Okay, at this point, I had to admit myself that I probably hadn't thought this all the way through. I would go to her library, gain access to it, and then what? I’d bust in and hold her at gunpoint, demanding food and shelter?
No freakin’ way - there are some things that people are able to do and still be able to sleep at night. For me, this was absolutely not one of them. I didn’t threaten innocent civilians with bodily harm even if it meant compromising my survival. Perhaps I could try to negotiate a deal of some sort with her using logic and reason? Yeah, good luck getting past the fact that she’d probably start spazzing out at the notion of discovering an entirely new species of ‘magical creature’, which she would doubtlessly think I was.
All right, screw this - the more time I spent out here in the open, the greater the likelihood I was going to be seen. I’m just going to have to make this shit up on the fly. I reached for the window, got my fingers underneath it, and was about to try lifting it up when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Oi, Suzy!” Someone said quietly from behind me, and I briefly wondered to myself who the hell even uses that phrase anymore?
Hey wait a minute... that high, scratchy voice sounded kinda familiar.
I turned around, already preparing myself to dodge, but all I saw was a sky-blue hoof hurtling right at my face.
WHACK!
Everything went black.