//------------------------------// // Hunter // Story: Regenerator 228 // by Hopefullygoodgrammar //------------------------------// Regenerator 228 Chapter 20 ********************** Gilda was having a hard time shouldering the angry looks the Ponyvillians were giving her as she walked down the street, but then again, there were things that were far worse than her heading right for the dweeby little town and she needed to find them before something bad happened. She paced through the marketplace, her head cocked to the side, blocking out the surprised and angry voices of the ponies that she had terrified during her last visit. She felt the guilt begin to rise in her stomach, cold and heavy, but she hastily clamped it down; I can apologize later she thought, but right now I have to- “GILDA!” A very familiar prismatic blur raced out of some nearby clouds and struck the griffoness hard in the side, sending her flying into a pear cart. Gilda rose to her paws and shook herself off, feeling an ache in her ribs. “It’s good to see you too, Dashie.” she muttered, not willing to look her former friend in the eye. “Don’t. You. Dare call me ‘Dash’, you traitor!” growled Rainbow Dash, Gilda flinched at the venom in her words. Mustering up some small amount of her former pride, Gilda looked up and said, in a nonchalant tone, “Sorry, Rainbow Dash, but I’ve got a job to do. So I can’t really take the time to chat.”. She turned, but Dash wasn’t having any of it. She flew around and got in her former friend's face, “Oh yeah? And what kind of job are doing? Stealing for someone? Are you some kinda bodyguard? An assassin? What could you possibly want here?” “She’s helping…. me.” said a voice to their side. Gilda and Dash both turned and did a simultaneous double take as 228 passed by them, looking far too distracted by…. something to really notice their squabble. The other Ponyvillains shied away from the regenerator and exchanged fearful looks with one another; it was quite obvious that the return of Gilda and the public appearance of 228 would be talked about for quite a while. Rainbow managed to recover from the shock quickly and she flew up to meet 228’s gaze. “Why are you working with her?” she asked, infuriated, “Do you know what she did to me, to my friends?!” “Yes.” said 228 as he continued his slow walk towards the edge of town. “And?” prodded Dash, flying alongside the creature. “And there are more important things to focus on right now!” shouted Gilda, coming up behind the two. Dash stopped short and turned on the griffoness with righteous anger blazing in her magenta eyes, she opened her mouth to give Gilda the verbal beat-down of the century, but Gilda beat her to the punch. “I was a jerk, I’ll admit it and I’ll accept any punishment that you and the townsponies see fit to give me when this is all over, but right now there are-” she stopped and sniffed the air, “-three very dangerous creatures heading for Ponyville. I can smell them and I can tell that they’ll kick our asses if they get in the town, so we’ve gotta find ‘em and stop ‘em before they can do that.” Rainbow studied her ex-best friend's face intently, Gilda saw her brows crease, then she scrunched her face to the side and made a ‘Hmmm’ sound, before finally settling on a determined look.  “Alright” she said, puffing her barrel out, “I’ll trust you, but only because 228 seems to trust you.” Gilda breathed a relieved sigh and let her tensed shoulders slump, but Rainbow Dash saw the signs of hope and snuffed it out by flying up to her and hissing, “But we will never be friends and I will figure out some way that you can earn this town’s forgiveness.” Gilda recoiled as if struck, then took her eyes off of her angry ex-friend.  So this is what Guilt feels like…. it sucks.  she thought, trying to swallow the lump in her throat, which only succeeded in pushing it down to her chest. She looked at 228 and was surprised to see him glaring at the back of Rainbow Dash’s multi-colored head.  Why is he so angry? I didn’t betray him. she thought as 228 pulled his gray lips up in a soundless snarl. Any further thoughts on the matter were immediately put on hold when they heard the screams coming from inside the Mayor’s office. The trio bolted towards the building just as Mayor Mare and several others burst out of the front door with tears of fear in their eyes. Rainbow Dash flew over and landed next to the sobbing Mayor, “What happened?” she asked, “I-it was a-a-awful!” she wailed, “W-w-we were d-discussing h-how to integrate 228 into-into the town and these…. things broke in through the cellar and attacked us. Me and a f-few others got out, b-but Red Snapper i-is still in there!!”  her voice rose until it was nearly a scream, then she fainted into Dash’s arms. Dash gently laid the Mayor on the ground as 228 and Gilda went in through the front door. The Mayor’s office was in shambles: the desks and tables had been overturned and reduced to splinters by powerful blows, and the walls and floor were marred by claw marks, Gilda reached out and pressed a talon into one of the claw marks: her talon sank into the mark, right up to the first knuckle. “Whatever was in here had some seriously long claws.” said Gilda with a slight shiver, 228 nodded and scanned the room. A second later he stopped and gave a small, hissing gasp, Gilda came forward to see what made him react like that, but 228 blocked her with his arm. “No” he said in a shaky voice, “don’t look.” Gilda scoffed and pushed past him, “What, did one of the monsters take a crap or some-” Her humor withered away when she saw the blood. It was everywhere: it was splattered across every surface, it was sprayed across the walls, where it ran down in thick rivulets and created large pools of crimson on the floor, the carpeting had been drenched with the red stuff and was sticky underfoot; the flies were already starting to investigate the red pools. But it wasn’t just blood that smeared the room, there were other things too: scraps of bloodied fur, bits of dark meat and what looked like several teeth lay in some of the smaller puddles. The farther in she looked, the more carnage she saw, cumulating in her eyes landing on a severed hoof that lay amidst a pile of mangled pony meat. That was the last straw, Gilda turned tail and bolted out of the Mayor’s office, barely managing to get her head over the nearest bush before she vomited. She was aware of the sound of Rainbow Dash laughing uproariously over the sounds of her retching, but she didn’t care; she knew that the sight of that mutilated hoof would be forever burned into her mind. 228 walked out of the charnel pit that had been the Mayor’s office to find Rainbow Dash laughing at Gilda as she vomited into some bushes. Feeling anger burn through the cold blockade of fear and disgust that had formed in his gut, the regenerator walked up to the guffawing pegasus and roughly grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. “She is sick because there is a dead pony in there.” he growled, looking her in the eyes. Rainbow Dash’s face paled and she started to stammer, “This isn’t the time to be… laughing like an idiot or making baby sssoundss.” hissed 228, tightening his grip ever-so-slightly so that the prismatic pegasus stopped her babbling. 228 released her and pointed at the office, “Nobody goes in…. or out, undersstood?”. Dash nodded weakly and turned to look at Gilda, who was wiping her beak with a trembling talon, looking paler than usual and trying to keep herself from breaking down completely. 228 saw Dash bit her lip and avert her eyes guiltily, but he was still not about to let her off the hook. He walked towards Gilda and placed a clawed hand on her back, “Are you... alright?” he asked, Gilda heaved a shuddering breath, then turned and gave him a shaky smile, “Y-yeah… I’m fine. I just-” she gulped and clenched her talons,” -I just didn’t expect to see something like that.” 228 nodded and turned back to the house, “We’ve got to… *hhng*.. find them before they kill more ponies.” Rainbow Dash returned with the Element Bearers, as well as all the able-bodied ponies she could find, a few minutes later. Every one of them looked wary and more than a bit afraid, but the fact that they were there in the first place spoke volumes as to how brave they all were. “So… what’s the plan?” asked Twilight. “We need to find these…. thingsss before they cause more…*hhn*...havoc.” said 228, gesturing to the Mayor’s office, which was being cordoned off by several police ponies. Twilight nodded, “I can use a tracking spell to find them, but I’ll need something that belongs to them.” 228 nodded and went back into the Mayor’s office, returning a minute later with a small, sharp object. “It’sss a piece of claw.” he said, handing it over to Twilight after wiping it off on some grass. The claw led them down an alleyway, then it took a left and rocketed down a back street  littered with trash, finally it came to a stop outside of the last house on the left of the street; the house’s windows were darkened and the door had been torn off its hinges. Oh no. thought 228, clenching his hands and feeling his heart start to race. He could tell by the paling faces of the others that they were all thinking the same thing. They approached the house slowly, each feeling like their hooves and hearts were weighed down by something large and unseen. The darkened bowels of the ransacked house bore the stench of reptile. 228 slowly made his way down the wide basement stairs with Gilda at his left and Twilight at his right. Twilight had her horn lit up and was keeping her eyes straight forward, and Gilda was looking around anxiously; 228 could see the sweat beading her brow. “Gilda” said 228, turning to the griffoness, “are you alright?” Gilda looked at him and shot his a shaky smile, “Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just a little tired is all, you know how it is.” Rainbow Dash, who was walking behind her, scoffed at this, earning herself a hard glare from both Gilda and 228.     The stairs stopped and the group spilled out into the wide basement. The lights were on, but the bulbs were so small and grime-encrusted that it didn’t do a good deal to drive back the darkness that now surrounded them. “Don’t worry, guys, I’ve got this.” said Twilight, letting the glow around her horn intensify, and the resulting light spread out in a sphere around them, illuminating more of the basement. It was only then that they noticed the tell-tale claw marks on the wall and floor. 228 heard Fluttershy gulp and turned around to see his poor friend trembling like a whipped puppy, looking around for any sign of danger and flinching at every shadow. The regenerator stopped and walked back so that he was right next to the yellow-pegasus. Fluttershy turned and graced him with a small, albeit wavering, smile. “Don’t worry, Fluttershy” he said, “I’ll protect you.” Fluttershy’s smile grew and she opened her mouth to reply, obviously feeling better, when they heard somepony scream. 228 and Fluttershy exchanged frightened glances before racing to the head of the group to see what was wrong. They found a hysterical Rarity using her magic to scrub something off of her hoof. Fluttershy asked her what was wrong, but the fashionista was incomprehensible with terror, the only thing that she was able to do was point at a spot on the floor: a spot that was colored crimson. 228 bent down to examine the pool of blood and saw a trail leading away from it into the darkness. “Something was killed here and then dragged away.” said Twilight from behind him. The sudden noise caused 228 to yelp and whirl around. “Opps…. sorry.” said the unicorn, pinning her ears back and giving him a sheepish smile. 228 sighed through his fangs and gestured to the blood, “We need to follow…. the blood”. Twilight nodded, “Of course.” she turned around and addressed the other members of the group, all of whom balked at the sight of the gore, but followed Twilight nonetheless. Twilight followed the blood trail, wincing every time she came across a bit of fur or a lump of meat, but she kept her horn lit and her hooves on their path. She’s so brave. thought 228 and Fluttershy, the former smiling slightly and the latter blushing furiously. “We’re here.” said Twilight, jarring them out of their thoughts. The yellow pegasus and the regenerator turned to see a dark hole, seemingly carved from the rock wall of the basement, yawning before them. If the atmosphere was tense before, it was certainly now even more so; the stench of fear wafting off of the ponies made Gilda and 228 want to gag. “They went in there?” asked Applejack, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “I-I think s-so.” said Rarity, not even bothering to keep her terror hidden. But who could blame her? thought Gilda, The priss just stepped in a big ol’ puddle of gore. “I think this is the entrance to a tunnel .” said Twilight, turning to her companions with an expectant look on her face. The group was silent for a few seconds before Twilight heaved an exasperated sigh and trotted right into the hole; her magical light faded as she went deeper. A moment later she called out, “Well? Is everypony just gonna stand there like a bunch of cockatrice victims?” 228, Gilda and the rest of the Elements didn’t need to be told twice and they followed their friend into the black. The rest of the group did need to be told twice, however; it took Rainbow Dash threatening to bring in a tornado to blow them all in to get them to follow. But follow they did. And not a single one of them had any clue what lay in wait for them within the darkened depths of the tunnel.