Homecoming of a Jumper

by tosety

06 The Hunters

”Ah, yes, I think that’s all for today. L-let’s continue this next week.”

Steelskin hadn’t complained when he noticed that their session was less than half over. He was hoping that Miss Introspective would’ve been able to take more, but donkeys, like ponies, had a pretty low tolerance for bloodshed. Roughing somepony up was one thing, but even thugs got a little skittish if somepony started to bleed, and death gave almost all of them nightmares. There were very few cut out to be surgeons and even less that could handle actually using a weapon other than combat pies.

“Yo, Pony!”

He stopped at the sound of a familiar voice..

“You that Steelskin I’ve been hearing about?”

Steelskin turned around to see a griffin walking towards him. He smiled despite himself at the sight of a new/old friend.

“Yeah, I’m Steelskin. Nice to meet you,” Steelskin said, holding out a hoof.

“I’m Garudo, most folks call me Gary,” The griffin replied, bumping his knuckles against Steel’s hoof. “But from what I’ve heard, you already know that.”

Steelskin let out a chuckle. “Yeah, been jumping a while and met several of you.”

“So, you looking me in the eye because you like me or...” Gary puffed himself up, accentuating the fact that he was more than twice Steelskin’s size.

Steelskin smiled a very human smile. “Mostly the first, but feel free to try me on the second.”

A his smile grew as he remembered one of their meetings.

“Go back to your nest, pigeon!”

I saw a griffin dodge a rock thrown by a group of almost grown colts. I quickened my pace as he grabbed a second rock out of the air.

“Yo, flank heads,” I called out.

“Whaddya want, runt?” One of them called back.

“To even things out against a bunch of cowards.”

The griffin looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“You gonna help that dirty pigeon?” All four of them laughed derisively.

“No, I’m gonna kick your flanks so he doesn’t have to get in trouble for defending himself.”

I didn’t wait for them to answer before going on the offensive. I was careful not to do any damage, just bruising their cutie marks a few times before they got the hint and beat a hasty retreat.

Gary raised an eye ridge at Steelskin’s smirk. “You really think you have a chance?”

“I can hold my own.” Steel followed up his answer with a hoof club.

As Gary dodged to the side, it followed him, slamming into his chest. He righted himself and spun around, flying at Steel from the side. As Gary reached out a claw to grab him, Steel hopped towards him and bucked him in the stomach. Gary took the buck and grabbed Steel with both claws. He pinned Steel against the ground and locked his beak around Steel’s throat.

Gary noticed three things at once. The first was the taste of metal, the second was four sharp points resting against his neck and belly, and the third was a friendly grin on Steelskin’s face.

“To be fair, I’ve already learned your fighting style. You usually beat the snot out of me. Well, after you’ve learned my tricks.” Steelskin gave a chuckle. “Especially when you find out you don’t have to hold back.”

“This... is really weird,” Gary said as he sat down in the grass.

“Yep, never gets all that comfortable for me either,” Steelskin replied. “I just have a little trouble remembering what memories you have, like whether you got thrown in jail or if Alex was around to call the Night Guard in for the Diamond Dog raid. The one constant has been that I’ve always found you to be one of my closest and most reliable friends.” Steelskin’s smile turned playful. “After I’ve beaten a bit of respect out of you.”

“Oh?” Gary puffed up his feathers, pretending to look intimidating.

“Yep, our fights usually became the talk of Ponyville. Silver Thought once even put a warning to shoplifters on her door mentioning us as her heavies.” Steelskin rummaged around in his saddlebag for a moment before pulling out a piece of paper.

TO ANY WOULD-BE THIEVES
Before you attempt to steal anything from my store, consider the following:
1- Most of what I keep on the shelves are common, usually somewhat cheap books that you can get in just about any old bookstore, I prefer to keep the rarer and more valuable ones in the back, or have to get them ordered in for customers.
2- My special talent is spotting fine detail and I have a wonderful memory, it would not be hard for me to simply go and ask Pinkie Pie if she knows anypony matching your description.
3- I am friends with both Gary and Steelskin and they would be ‘very concerned’ about ponies stealing from me.

Gary chuckled as he read. “Yeah, ‘very concerned’ is right. I’d be hoping for someone to try to steal from her if she had this up.

“Gary!” I skidded to a stop outside the blacksmith’s shop, breathing heavily.

Gary set down the knife he’d been hammering into shape and looked up.

“I need your wings,” I panted, trying to catch my breath.

Gary looked over to Stronghammer, who nodded. Turning back to me, he asked “What’s wrong?”

“That idiot Rocky’s gone into the Everfree. You’ve got the sharpest eyes and I’ve got the sharpest nose.”

“And none of the ponies are brave enough when Brennan’s involved,” Gary added.

“As in Matthew Brennan?”

Steelskin nodded grimly. “That world only got Matt as a jumper and that Matthew Brennan did nothing to endear himself to ponies.”

“Did we rescue the kid?” Gary showed more concern than Steelskin had seen on a griffin in a long time.

Steelskin took a moment before continuing.

“Gary, grab all the knives you can carry, Stronghammer, can I borrow a few rods of iron?”

Stronghammer shook his head sadly and tossed four rods over to me as Gary gathered all the knives in the shop.

“Have fun storming the forest,” Stronghammer called as Gary grabbed me and took off towards the Everfree. “Wish I had a miracle to give you,” He added quietly.

As Gary flew, I guided him along the scent trail and quietly prayed to Celestia that she’d keep the sun up a little longer. I also took that time to eat two of the rods and wrap the other two around my neck.

We passed the heads on spikes and I shuddered even as cold anger filled me.

“Heads on spikes?” Gary got quiet. “As in...”

“Yeah, he made it clear that anything that ventured into the forest was fair game for him to hunt,” Steelskin said. “And he pounded it home by taking the head of anypony intelligent and mounting it on a pole at the edge of the forest.”

Gary clenched his talons. “Do we have any sort of plan for if our Matt goes feral?”

“Yeah, there’s a few of us who have workable plans.” Steelskin gazed off into the distance as he said this. “All of us jumpers need to be prepared for that sort of thing... I’ve given a few of them what they’d need to take me down...”

“Take you down?” Gary looked at Steel with concern.

Steel ignored it.

“There he is,” Gary said and dropped towards the clearing Rocky was standing in.

All at once, I caught Matt’s distinctive smell.

“Fewmets! Drop me and grab him,” I said. “I’ll distract Brennan and then lose him in the brush. I know how to mess with his tracking abilities.”

“I see him,” Gary responded, completely ignoring me and diving towards some underbrush.

I responded by spiking his palms just enough to get him to drop me. “I said, grab Rocky.”

On my way down, I focused on thickening my skin into plates and getting them as shiny and reflective as I could. I hadn’t tested that on his blaster, but figured any bit should help.

As I landed, I hopped to the side to try and keep his targeting from getting a lock on me. I thanked Luna I had gotten a lot of practice with him and prayed that he hadn’t faced anything like me.

A metal slug bounced off my flank and I silently swore. I could only hope that he thought I had some good armor on and would try to shoot between the plates. I caught a glimpse of Gary flying around to flank him. I turned my ears to try to catch the sound of Rocky running away. Another slug bounced off my ear, bending it, but it would be clear to him that it did no damage.

Fewmets, fewmets, fewmets!

I had to push the regret of not hearing Rocky’s hoofbeats to the back of my mind as I heard the telltale whine of a blaster powering up.

The tinkle of metal on metal reached my ears as a few of Gary’s knives uselessly hit their target. All my senses merged as I caught sight of Matt aiming his blaster at Gary. I let loose a blast of shrapnel, forcing the bits as sharp as I could make them. Apparently, his suit saw some danger and he rolled to the right.

He squeezed off a shot at me before turning back and firing a shot at Gary. I easily rolled to the side and continued my charge while Gary just barely dodged. I heard a scream from behind me.

A scream of pain.

Rocky’s scream.

I stupidly looked back and saw him clutching a blackened stump with his remaining forehoof.

I stumbled just in time for another blast to singe my ear rather than put a hole through my head.

The grove lit up with lightning as Gary let loose a primal scream. My heart echoed that scream. I turned my stumble into a spring, twisting midair to aim my back hooves at his armpits. I sharpened them and kicked them out.

Gary’s lightning had done its work. Matt’s HUD failed to see me as I lanced between his armor and through the bodysuit. The suit responded by electrifying itself. The edge of my foreleg touched the plating and I was thrown to the ground. He punched at my shoulder, his knife extending with the thrust. I spun and gave an upperbuck, catching a spike in his jaw. Gary grabbed him as he arced through the air and flung him headfirst at the ground. He leveled his blaster as I charged straight at him. My bloodlust made me forget about dodging. All I could think about was making him pay for what he did to Rocky and the other ponies. He turned it as Gary became the closer threat. His shot went wide as he hit the ground while squeezing the trigger.

I wanted to slam my hooves into his face, but a part of me knew his helmet would take too long to smash through. Cruelty surfaced as I remembered the wonderful feeling of my hooves piercing his armpits.

Gary was ripping the gun out of Brennan's hand while dodging the other hand’s blade. I got there just in time to grab the blade in my mouth and bite it off. With a squawk of victory, Gary wrenched loose the gun and used it to block as Brennan used the blade on that hand.

I saw my target and rammed my sharpened hoof into his inside elbow, bending and breaking off a piece inside. Gary, noticing what I did, grabbed the other arm, giving me access to that inner elbow.

As Gary and I caught our breaths, I swore at him. “You...” Only two insults could even come close to how pissed I was at him. “You cutie plot pigeon!”

His feathers ruffled in anger, but he didn’t respond.

“I bucking told you to get Rocky out of here! He’s lost a leg because you were too proud to bucking get him to safety!” I tried to calm myself down, knowing I had gone too far. I turned and kicked some dust at him as I went over to see what I could do for Rocky.

By the last light of the sun, I could see that he’d lost half of his left foreleg. The good news was the wound was cauterized, the bad was that he was going into shock.

As I turned to yell at Gary some more, I saw Matt wind up to punch Gary with his remaining blade. Luckily, the shock of seeing him driving my spikes into his arms didn’t slow my hoof as I shot it out, hitting his wrist and spinning him around and to the ground.

“Shards of my mother’s egg...” Gary sat there with his beak hanging open.

Steelskin sat, not knowing how to respond. It was weird talking about that Gary with this Gary.

“So...” Gary stopped, not knowing how to continue.

“He flew Rocky back to Ponyville General while I marched our captive to the town square,” Steelskin said.

“Herbivores!” Brennan followed up this epithet with a string of curses, only half of which I had ever gotten a definition of. “I had a nice, clean shot lined up when you and Birdbeak McPigeon had to jump in and mess up my hunt. Damn pelt is gonna have a leg missing when I retrieve it.”

”Shut your bucking mouth! I screamed and bucked him in the small of the back. He, apparently, was expecting this and I got hit with a second shock that evening.

I recovered before he was able to get to his feet and happily noticed the dent in his armor.

"You damn idiots, he came to me to be hunted. You can't tell me you missed the warning signs. Heads on a pike are so overblown that not even herbivores can miss the hint," Brennan snarled.

It was only my knowledge that the princesses were going to deal with him that kept me from taking the time to rip through his helmet and cut out his tongue. It was all I could do not to cut off his arm to make him feel what Rocky was feeling.”

As I got to the town square, I saw the princesses coming down for a landing. One last bit of cruelty popped into my head as I realized he wasn’t going to bow before the diarchs.

Two metal spikes shot through his knees, pushing the plates guarding his kneecaps to one side and causing him to fall forward in agony. I gave a stomp on the bit still protruding from the back of his right knee just before looking up and meeting Celestia’s gaze.

“Was that really necessary, my little pony?” Celestia’s eyes, while kind, had a glint of fire behind them.

I looked over at Princess Luna and saw deep disappointment. As I lowered my head in shame, I heard several ponies scream at the sight of what I did to him.

“Brennan got put in Canterlot Psychiatric Hospital and Twilight made Rocky a magic leg that worked almost as good as a real one...” Steelskin took a ragged breath. “...But I got a pretty good taste of what it feels like to be a Griffin or Warg in Ponyville with everypony screaming and running at the sight of you.”

Gary looked down at his claws, flexing them a few times as he tried to think of something to say. After a while, he gave up on finding something profound to say and just put a claw on Steelskin’s shoulder.

“Hey, kid, any time you need it, just let me know, and I’ll be there to listen.”

“Thanks,” Steelskin said, giving a weak smile. “I’ll probably be taking you up on that.”

Taking a calming breath, Steelskin renewed his inner strength and gave a real smile. “Actually, what helps the best with you is our sparring matches. Let me know any time you’re up for a fight.”