//------------------------------// // Dog Food // Story: Guardian of the Everfree // by KaBar42 //------------------------------// Prologue to chapter 3 of "Guardian of the Everfree" Spots had been tormented by that ape. When Alpha had told him to try and catch the ape, he thought it was going to be easy. The ape looked scrawny and sickly. Having lost almost all of its hair, except for on it's head. The ill ape had been wearing clothes, so Spots had thought it must have been an escaped pet. Alpha had thought it would sell well at market. Especially for looking so exotic. They had come across it in a small clearing with a fire going and it sleeping in a tree limb. Alpha had ordered Spots to grab the ape. Spots thought it was going to be an easy snatch and grab. The ape was sick after all. This thought was shattered as the ape shot up right before Spots had cleared the tree line to head into the clearing. The ape lifted the black tube it had been holding and raised it to it's face. Spots was curious as to what it was going to do with what is essentially nothing but a club. That thought also fell apart. It fell apart when the ape had harnessed the power of both thunder and lightning. How did Spots know this? Whatever had hit them was moving too fast for them to see. And it made a sound that sounded like thunder. It had a struck another dog, tearing into its throat and causing the dog to die a quiet death with only a few struggled gasps as the dog's last words. But now Alpha had a new plan. They would capture the tube that sounded like thunder and spat lightning. They would use it to conquer Equestria. Three more times Spots had tried to sneak into the clearing and capture the ape. And three more times did it jolt from it's sleep and release another volley of lightning. Alpha had finally told Spots to hold off and they would attack when they had it cornered. Spot was beginning to think this ape wasn't an ape. They had followed it to the Everfree castle. All of the dogs were waiting in the treeline, waiting impatiently for Alpha to signal the beginning of the attack. Spots watched as Alpha calmly walked to the bridge, raise his head and howled. This was the beginning of the attack. The creature had also heard it, as Spots had seen it poke it's head out of a broken window.They had all agreed that because it had killed a fellow dog they would consume it's flesh, even if it surrendered. Alpha yelled to the ape, "Ape, come out and give us your lightning bow! If you surrender you will be spared!" The ape did nothing. After a few seconds Alpha ordered Spots and two other dogs to lead the charge against the ape. They had crossed the bridge in a few seconds, not being as careful as the ape had been. However, as they had reached the other side, the ape appeared with an even bigger lightning bow. This one looking like a wooden pole with a green tip. The tip disconnected from the lightning bow and flew at them. Landing at their feet. The tip impacted the ground, and then all Spots saw was nothing. He was vaguely aware of pain all over his body, but could do nothing as his mind slipped into the darkness. (-) Guardian of the Everfree Chapter 3 An entire pack of huge bipedal dog like creatures stood before me. The only thing separating them from me was a rickety old bridge and a chasm. I had a feeling they weren't friendly door-to-door salesman. Because of my feeling, I rushed back to the supply box. I was going to need a bigger gun. When I got there, however, I saw something that made me question my sanity. " What the fuck?" I was pulling a minigun mounted on a tripod from the box. And as if that wasn't enough, there was more. "Oh for God's sake!" I exclaimed, as I pulled a loaded RPG from the box. "HOW BIG ARE YOU?!" Doesn't matter, I grabbed the minigun and set it up in the archway of the door. I rushed back and grabbed the RPG. The dogs had started to cross the bridge. I waited for the first three dogs to clear the bridge. I pulled the back safety trigger, and then the front trigger. The explosive head shot out of the front, hit the ground in front of the dog. It exploded into hundreds of small pieces and fragmented, the dogs acting as frag sponges. Oh, thank god, the bridge is fine. But that brought up another problem. The rest of the pack was now charging me. I dropped the now useless RPG tube, and switched to the minigun. These dogs weren't very smart were they? I waited for them to clear to bridge, as I did not want to do undue damage to that poor bridge. However once they cleared the bridge, I rained horizontal hell fire upon them. They all dropped dead like flies after about five seconds. Going to have to secure the bodies. I don't want big predators being attracted to my site. I replaced the minigun with my G36C. It was time to christen her. I started walking to every dog and putting a bullet in it's skull. As I was reloading my magazine, I heard movement behind me and then yelling. I couldn't get out the way fast enough. The dog slammed into my back and my rifle flew out of my hands. It flew a couple of feet. I rolled over onto my back just in time to see a giant paw coming down on a collision course with my head. I rolled to the left, ducked as the fucker sent another paw my way. It tackled me and was about to bring it's fangs down upon my head. I raised my left arm, and his fangs punctured that instead. I screamed out in pain. I managed to reach my right arm across to my left side and grab my knife. Swinging around with an underhand grip, my arm still in it's mouth, the knife punctured the dog's right side and possibly punctured a lung. This caused the dog to let out a yelp. Thus releasing my left arm. My arm now free, I threw a punch, and jerked the knife towards me. I heard a crack and I'm pretty sure I broke it's nose. While doing this, I had also managed pull my feet up, and brace them against his chest. I kicked him off of me. He was a lot lighter than he looked. After he was off of me, and heaving on all fours, I rolled over onto my chest and pushed myself up. I couldn't feel the pain in my left arm, as my survival instincts had kicked in, full swing. The dog was now standing up and I charged at him. He was trying to bring his paw up to block. I tackled him, using my one hundred- eighty five pound frame to pull him to the ground. I brought my right arm down on his face stunning him. I pulled my knife from it's chest and brought it down on it's head. However the dog brought it's paw up. Deflecting knife over to it's shoulder, it yelped in pain. I was forced to fall back onto my ass to avoid it's paw, the dog had the sense to pull my knife from it's shoulder. It attempted to bring my knife down into my chest. I responded by rolling, and as the dog was stuck trying to pull the knife from the ground I kicked it in the head. As the dog laid there on it's back, heaving for air from the lung I most likely punctured. I pondered something. Should I let it go? I killed this thought with extreme prejudice. The dog wouldn't survive making it across the bridge. the fact that it had survived this long was a miracle. Even if it did survive longer than I expected it to, there was no way they had advanced far enough in medicine to repair a punctured lung. The fact that they were using spears was enough evidence. I pulled my HK and took aim at it's head. I pulled the trigger and watched as the .45 ACP penetrated the dog's head and scrambled his head. Right... now. I need to burn the bodies. Get the bodies destroyed so predators wouldn't come to the castle. I need a better name for it. Designate Firebase Citadel. Better than just calling it the castle. I dragged all the bodies into one spot. There were a couple of trees on this side of the gorge and collected as many limbs as I could. I surrounded the corpses with the limbs. Lighting a limb I had held back, I tossed the limb into the mess of bodies and tree limbs. I sat there and watched as the bodies were consumed by the flames. The smell of burning flesh drifting into my nostrils, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it made me hungry. Nor am I ashamed to admit that it made me contemplate dragging one of their bodies out of the fire to skin and eat the meat. but I didn't want to eat sapient creatures if I could help. I looked at my left arm. This wound was nasty. I grabbed one the dog's spears and held it over the fire, this was going to hurt.I held it in the middles of the fire down close to the base of the fire for about five minutes. I pulled it out of the flames. I quickly thrust the head of the spear onto my left arm. Cauterizing the wound. It wasn't deep, but it could easily become infected. I made a decision. I would have to go to the pony settlement and steal supplies. This would be done tomorrow. I laid the sleeping bag down, and rested my tired brain as the sun was going down in the sky and the moon was raising.