While Marine was happy to lead the group into the forest, his pace being matched only by Applejack, the others were trailing some distance behind, though still moving at a decent pace.
After a couple minutes of running through the foliage, something other than the natural sounds of the forest could be heard. There wasn’t any doubt that it sounded like growling. Somewhat harder to hear was the unmistakable sound of scared children.
Hearing this, Applejack dashed forward, reaching speeds that would make Rainbow Dash impressed.
Quickly outpacing Marine and the others, she emerged into a clearing, where she saw a dangerous sight. Up ahead, surrounded by a group of timberwolves, were the fillies and colts that made up Miss Cheerilee’s class. The teacher herself was in front of them, slightly injured, but still standing, though it didn’t look like she would be for long.
The wolves were advancing on the group, but at Applejack’s sudden intrusion into the clearing, they turned to face the newcomer. “Y’all get away from them!” she shouted, thankful that she wasn’t too late.
Behind her, Twilight also entered the clearing, followed by Chex. However, when seven other humans didn’t enter the clearing with them, the ponies looked around in confusion.
“Where the hay are the others?” Applejack asked, her temporary confusion being mirrored by both the wolves and the trapped ponies. Nearly all of the cornered fillies and colts, Cheerilee included, were now staring at Chex, curious as to just what he was.
Suddenly, from a nearby bush opposite of Twilight and Applejack, there was the sound of an engine turning on, followed by a large amount of rustling as a green armor-clad figure leaped high into the air, clutching a chainsaw in his appendages.
“SURPRISE ATTACK, ASSHOLES!” the newcomer shouted, before landing chainsaw-first on an unlucky timberwolf. Its yelp of pain and surprise was cut off as the chainsaw did its job, reducing the wolf to a pile of kindling.
From the bushes all around the group, six other bipedal creatures emerged from the bushes, carrying various weapons. However, instead of jumping into the fray, they simply sat and watched as the chainsaw-wielding creature went to work on the timberwolves.
“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A LUMBERJACK!” he shouted as he cleaved a wolf in half with his roaring blade. All of the spectating ponies just watched in both shock and awe, while Chex simply brought a hand up to his face, sighing loudly.
“Leave it to him to go on a bloodthirsty rampage.” He looked back at the massacre in the center of the clearing long enough to witness Marine running his chainsaw straight through a wolf. “Even though there’s no blood, this time…”
Suddenly, one of the wolves managed to land a hit, removing the still-running chainsaw from Marine’s hands. This victory was short lived, however, as he then proceeded to tear the wolf in half with his bare hands, laughing maniacally. The trapped ponies were now unsure if they were actually being saved.
Meanwhile, Duke offered a cigar to BJ, who waved it away. “You know I don’t smoke.”
“Well, if he’s gonna hog all the fun, we might as well have something to do.”
Whatever logic Duke was using was lost, and BJ still refused the cigar. Shrugging, Duke lit it for himself, just as Marine crushed a wolf’s head in with another wolf’s head.
However, unknown to the yelling, fighting human, the scattered remains of the wolves were slowly levitating off the ground, a soft green glow directing them to a central point some distance away, where all shapes and sizes of branches were beginning to clump together.
Seeing this, Chex’s eyes widened. “Uh, Marine?”
“I GOT A HAND FULL OF BRANCHES AND A HEAD FULL OF MAD!”
“Marine?”
“DON’T NEED A GUN! GUNS ARE FOR WUSSES!”
“MARINE!”
Chex’s outburst was enough to interrupt the crazed human as he was stomping a now-limp pile of sticks. He looked over to Chex, then to where he was pointing, where the gathering mass of wood was now quite large.
The rest of the fallen wolves joined the huge ball of wood, where it soon began to take shape. In a matter of seconds, the formerly shapeless blob of wood was now shown to be a giant timberwolf. It looked down at Marine, and let out an earth-shaking roar.
Despite this new turn of events, the human was unfazed. He slowly brought his shaking fist up, then pointed it at the offending colossus.
“YOU’RE HUGE!” he shouted. “THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE… KINDLING! RIP AND TEAR YOUR KINDLING!”
While Chex facepalmed again, Marine began to advance towards the behemoth, slowly gaining speed. Letting out a war cry that was nearly as loud as the one the giant timberwolf let out, he punched a hole straight through the monster’s chest. Grinning, he retracted his fist, only for the hole he made to almost instantly rebuild itself.
In a single moment, Marine’s combat high, and the resulting temporary insanity, wore off. “...well shit.”
Meanwhile, the other six humans, who were all watching with amused expressions as Marine shouted his various ramblings, began to aim their weapons.
“Looks like we do need a gun,” Duke quipped, before all of them opened fire. As Marine dove out of the way, picking up his fallen chainsaw at the same time, the incoming fire blasted into the massive timberwolf, sending chips of wood flying. Bullets, rockets, and even a few bolts of fire magic impacted with great force, quickly reducing the beast to a large pile of wood, still smouldering.
Twilight and Applejack were sitting frozen in place, mouths agape the entire time. Chex let out a quick amused grunt, then strode forward, towards the other seven humans, as well as the frightened children and their teacher, who were now cowering from the humans in much the same way they were from the timberwolves.
After a while, the huge timberwolf was reduced to a huge pile of wood and sticks. Then, Duke got out another cigar.
“Another job well done,” he said as he lit another cigar and dropped his lighter onto the pile, burning it to ashes.
“Well… at least, this time we did it for good reasons.” Chex said while watching the fire.
“Speaking of which...” BJ said while turning toward the ponies in the corner of the clearing, who were staring at them with fear on their eyes. BJ then saw a bag in the ground of what seemed to be marshmallows, most likely what one of the children brought for a snack.
Seeing that they wouldn’t trust them so easily (not that he blamed them), he picked a marshmallow, inserted it on a stick and put it on the fire.
Twilight and Applejack, curious at what BJ was doing, approached to see him burning a marshmallow.
“Is right now really th’ best time for that?” AppleJack asked.
Ignoring her, BJ just got the marshmallow out of the fire and inspected it for a few seconds before pointing it to Applejack.
“Taste it,” BJ said while holding the stick at her.
AppleJack, though unsure for a few moments, took a bite of the marshmallow. Suddenly, she realized that, even burned, it tasted good, since, regardless of who cooked it or what the source of the fire was, it was still a roasted marshmallow.
She just grunted in approval.
Burning another one, BJ turned to give it to Twilight, who reached out like Applejack and tasted it, before eating it in one single motion.
The foals, seeing how the others seemed to enjoy the sweet treats from the strange creature, opted to get closer and see for themselves. After a few moments, they saw the strange creature turning around with enough marshmallows for each one of them. Advancing slowly and nervously, they saw the human walking toward them. The human then leaned down and offered a marshmallow to a random foal.
The foal in question took the marshmallow and tasted it, instantly liking it. Seeing his reaction, the other foals joined his classmate to enjoy the burnt marshmallows.
Content with how the foals seemed to get closer, the human retreated with his human fellows, who just looked at him with a mocking wide grin, except for Cyber. BJ just looked at them.
“... What?”
The other humans just grinned wider until Chex approached him.
“D’aaawwww”
“Oh, shut up.”
The humans walked up to the group of ponies, who welcomed them, though they maintained their distance from Marine. Almost instantly, they were bombarded with questions from the foals as for what they were and where they came from. The humans did their best to answer their questions, but there were just too many to answer. Despite this, once Cheerilee calmed them down, the foals cheered for having eight heroes escorting them back into town.
Behind them, Applejack and Twilight simply looked at each other. The humans had just slaughtered a large group of timberwolves (albeit most of that was Marine), and not moments later they were cheerfully chatting with children.
Shaking their heads, the two of them followed behind the humans and the foals, simply glad that everypony was safe.
The next morning, Cheerilee decided to make another trip to Zecora’s hut, since the foals were pretty adamant on going there, despite what happened last time.
It probably helped that, this time, the humans would be escorting them, along with Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friend, Applejack.
The journey went without any issue, until the humans called for the group to stop at a seemingly empty clearing.
“Hey, guys. Do you recognize this place?” Chex asked the others.
“Kinda… I’d say that we’ve been in here before but… I can’t remember,” BJ responded.
“Hey, guys, look,” Ranger said, picking up an object. The group got closer and noted that it was a stomped cigar. “We’ve been definitely in here before,” Ranger continued, looking at Duke, who simply shrugged.
Suddenly, the humans noted some broken scales in the ground, followed by a huge trail just ahead of them, which looked like something was dragged through there.
Seeing the broken scales closer, Marine had a sudden realization.
“Hey, I think I remember! This is the place where we skinned that lizard yesterday!”
“What lizard? What are you talking about?” Twilight trotted over to them, having heard their chatting.
“Yesterday, after our first encounter with your three friends, a dragon came by and attacked us. Quite frankly, it was kill or be killed,” Duke explained while lighting another cigar and starting to smoke again, ignoring the glare Chex gave him for being so blunt.
Twilight opened her mouth in awe. “You… you k-killed… a dragon?” The group hesitated, then nodded at her. Twilight just stood in there with a nervous expression in her face, shifting her eyes from one to the other. Suddenly, something occurred to her.
“How did you kill it?”
Chex stepped forward. “Well, we pretty much did the same thing that we did to-”
Marine cut him off. “I jumped into its mouth and chopped its fucking head off. It was sweet!”
Wincing noticeably, and ignoring Chex’s facepalm, Twilight looked around the clearing, when she just realized something. “And where’s the body?” she asked, causing the humans to turn around, searching for it.
Duke just shrugged as he continued leading the group into the forest. “Who knows? Not our problem anymore.”
Torches were lit again in the huge cave, where the huge demonic face was displayed. The face opened its eyes and looked to the other side of the cave. With an ear-piercing scream, it summoned his minions again.
Once that all the demons entered the cavern again, the face screamed at them. One demon got in front of the group. In their own language, the demon sounded excited as for something. A cyclops came in the front of the group, interrupting the other demon. The cyclops made gesture with his hand of something big, and then made gestures as if describing something even bigger.
The face screamed again.
The demons turned in time to see other demons carrying a table in which, a dragon with its head severed was shown.
The face emitted a scream. The demons retreated from the chambers, the spider-like one, showing more excitement than the others, eyed the dragon’s corpse, then turned to look at its own mechanics parts. An idea popped in its mind.
A wonderfully, awfully, positively evil idea...