//------------------------------// // 1 // Story: Forgotten past, brighter future. // by Steelhooves //------------------------------// Chapter One: Location location location... A dull throbbing in my head told me that I was awake, groaning I opened my eyes only to immediatly shut them having the suns rays beat down on me. Grudgingly I opened my eyes and began to take in my surroundings. I was in a forest clearing, it was early morning and the sun was just begining to rise, yet it was far brighter than I had expected. For some strange reason I was dressed in what appeared to be matte black combat armour, beside me lay a heavily customized M4A1 carbine...wait how do I know this? I thought to myself, and why am I here? Wait where is here?! I stood up and noticed there were trees in all directions with no discernible trace of civilisation anywhere. Glancing around I noticed there was a backpack lying next to a boulder at the clearing edge. I picked up the rifle (Which had a considerable amount of attatchments) and checked it magazine instinctively, it was full I then reloaded it and walked over to the backpack. It was a large pack with a sleeping bag strapped to the top, after unzipping it I browsed through its contents and layed it out on the boulder. 5 magazines for the M4, 3 clips for the Sigma 9mm handgun strapped to my leg and some food and bottled water and a black 6 inch AUS stainless steel combat knife along with some basic survival gear compass etc. again not exactly what I was expecting sitting down I reviewed my situation. One I was in some forest somewhere with no sign of a town or city anywhere, Two I'm dressed in what is obviously military clothi- eh armour, three I have two loaded guns and alot of ammunition and was clearly dressed in some form of military apparel, and four who am I? Seriously I can't even remember my goddamn name! Thinking I might find some clues to my predicament, I proceeded to empty my pockets hoping to come across some form of identification. Unfortunatly all I came across was a pack of gum and a small swiss army knife and (You guessed it) more ammo for the guns strapped to my vest. After briefly sorting my gear I set out in the hopes of finding a town, strangely the forest I was in seemed very dark and foreboding, so I set out while suns rays still provided light. After gathering my, ah, "equipment" I took out the compass from the bag and began to head north hoping to run into a river or something that I could follow that might lead to a town. I quickly became lost in the dense forest around me and began to worry about what I could do for shelter, aswell as the incredibly strange growling emanating from the forest itself, after several hours of wandering I eventually came to a large hill and started to climb in the hope of to getting some sort of vantage point, to see where any sort of town in the area might be. After reaching the top of the hill, I spotted small puff of smoke drifting over the tops of the the trees a few miles off in the distance and for the first time in the last few hours a spark of hope ignited inside me...well until I spotted a giant goddamn lizard off in the distance sporting several heads. Dropping to the ground I prayed one of its massive heads didn't spot me, glancing over the hill I saw its huge body lumber off the other direction, giving out an audible sigh of relief I thanked my lucky stars and continued toward the smoke after making sure I checked the direction on the compass, north by north west. Walking down the hill I began making my way towards the smoke but with dusk rapidly approaching, and I didn't feel exaclty confident in my sense of dierection. Stopping in a small clearing after about an hour of walking I was still quite a few miles away from the village and decided againt testing my luck in the dark, instead I began to gather up some dry twigs and wood off the ground and began lighting a fire using a lighter from the bag then surrounding the small fire in the cirlce of stones. It was dark a half an hour later, so I briefly continued to gather up wood and then sat back and tried and attempted to get some rest. I began to lightly dose when I heard a cracking of twigs just beyond the fires light, it was quiet and stealthy...thats when I knew I was in trouble I quickly fumbled to my feet a shouldered my rifle, thats when all hell broke loose. ******* As I raised the rifle, a large feline creature, easily bigger than a normal car (A lion!?) jumped from the shadows, I quickly dodged to the side, barely avoiding a strike from a large stinger like apendage jutting from its back, I brought up my rifle and fired two shots into its side making it flair it wings (Oh come on what the hell!?!) before I could do anything else it managed to swing towards me and wrenched the rifle from my grip, before it could take another swing at me I dived under its body while also drawing my pistol it seemed confused for a moment as I slid underneath it, I then aimed the weapon at its throat and fired five rounds off causing the creature to rear back and let out and ear piercing howl before collapsing to the ground clutching its throat. Lying on the ground the only thing that kept coursing through my mind was WHAT just happened?!? What was that thing and again, what the FUCK is this place!?! And how the FUCK did I know how to fight like this?!?!? After calming down I walked over to examine the body of the lio- scorp- ughh, whatever it was and looked over it. It clearly had the body of a lion but the tail of a scropion and long black leathery wings attatched to its back, I then proceeded to retrieve my rifle from the bushes it was in and then quickly looked over it luckily it was undamaged. I quickly began making my toward the town, this forest was clearly much more dangerous than I had originally anticipated. Picking up the pace I began to quickly make my way toward the small town deciding it would be safer to get there sooner rather than later. Thankfully a gigantic full moon provided a lot of natural light once I began to move but as I began jogging a sudden movement caught my eye but moved to fast for me to react leaving me wondering what was that multi-coloured blur that just took off? But disregarded it as stress from my current situation. ********** In a particularly beautiful cloud above Ponyville a certain cyan pegasis with a rainbow main was suddenly awoken from her heavy sleep by what she thought was the sound of distant thunder which she knew couldn't be right, being the leader of the Ponyville weather team Rainbow Dash knew there were no showers or storms planned for the next few days. Quickly getting up and going to the window of her home which faced out towards the Everfree Forest she listened intently for the sound. She stood the for a few moments before five strange bangs rang out in the distance though not as lously as the first sounds, followed by an howl of pain a howl that could only belong to a manticore Huh what could possibly make a manticore howl in pain? Rainbow thought before her curiousity got the better of her, she quickly took to the sky reasoning that she could easily outrun anything that was dangerous. After about ten minutes of flying Dash arrived at a small clearing and circled before stealthily landing in the trees at the rim of the clearing what she saw was an incredibly strange site. In the center of the clearing there was a small campfire lighting and an odd looking saddlebag resting beside a tree but what truly caught her attention was a strange two legged creature cradling and fussing over a piece of metal in its arms. Only a few feet away lay the body of a full grown manticore that was recently killed judging from the blood running down its body and neck from several holes, one thing was for sure this strange black coloured creature was definetly dangerous and it was heading towards Ponyville! Before doing anything else Rainbow took off towards Ponyville as fast as possible with one thought racing through her head I gotta tell Twilight, she'll know what to do! ************* After another hour of ducking and weaving my way through the dense forest I arrived on something I had been hoping to stumble across since waking up, a small dirt path. It didn't look like it was used very often but considering how hostile this place had been to me so far I could understand the locals hesitating before going near here. Checking my direction on the compass I began to follow the correct way on the path towards the town and without the need to constantly climb over obstacles or find other ways around things I began to make good time. Sure enough as the sun began to rise I could see the edge of the forest, at this point I was incredibly grateful because I had used the last of my food and water shortly after reaching the path. After exiting the forest I began to notice some things, that even in my tired disorientated state stood out, like the clouds here weren't moving, even though when I glanced back to the forest the clouds were gently rolling by. Ignoring that for the moment I followed the path down to the town and saw something I certainly didn't expect. Standing there in the middle of the path into town was a purple pony. Now this in my state I could accept this, but when it began to speak then I questioned exactly how tired or high I was...? ************* Since Twilight Sparkle had moved to Ponyville she had seen alot of strange things, she had seen Nightmare Moon attempt to conquer Equestria only to be stopped by her and her friends, she had seen an Ursa come to town which she dealt with with her magical abilities, she had seen Parasprites almost devour the town itself, she had even seen the god of chaos, Discord rule equestria for a short time, but except with an encounter with a dragon, she had NEVER seen Rainbow Dash scared. The cyan pegasis had come to her through her usual method: crash landing through her window. This happened regularly but when Rainbow wasn't her usual cocky self Twilight knew there was a problem "Dash are you OK? You look like you've just seen a dragon!" Rainbow quickly gathered her bearings and said "Sorry for waking you so early Twi but I needed to tell you something. I heard some sort of thunder comming from the Everfree Forest and when I went to check it out I came across a weird looking creature! It killed a manticore and began to head towards town so I thought I'd go to you and see if you knew what this thing is!" Twilight quickly began to float books from their shelves on the library's walls "Now Dash calm down, can you tell me what this thing looked like?" Rainbow Dash pondered for a minute before shrugging and saying "Well it was standing on two legs, it was coloured as though it was wearing clothes but it could be its skin I guess. Oh yeah! It also had a strange looking metal pole with it that I think it used on the manticore!" Twilight listened intently, she had never heard of something like this and scanning through her books it didn't appear to be a creature native to Equestria. "Well its not in any of my books. One moment," Twilight turned towards the upper floor of the library and called out the name "Spike come here please!" A few moments later the small purple dragon appeared from her bedroom wearily rubbing his eyes and wondering why he was being woken up so late at night. "Geez Twi relax, now what do you need?" Twilight rolled her eyes before saying "Spike, Dash has spotted a strange creature in the Everfree forest and I need the book on "Ancients myths and Legends" to see if it has anything on this thing." Spike snapped to attention saying he knew where the book was before quickly running into the main hall to begin his search. Dash turned to Twilight "So what are we going to do? That thing will arrive in town soon." The lavender unicorn thought for a moment before saying "We don't know what it wants so I think that we should see why its here before writing to Princess Celestia." Rainbow nodded in agreement "So whats your plan exactly?" Twilight glanced out her window towards the forest and then proceeded towards the door. "I'll wait on the trail from the Forest it has to come by that way." Rainbow immediatly objected "Twilight think for a second! And that comming from me! This thing killed a manticore with no trouble and you want to wait for it to come to you!?" Twilight nodded but said, "You should tell the girls about this I'll be waiting for you, OK?" Rainbow Dash didn't move, "Swear you won't do anything dangerous." Twilight smiled and then said, "Cross my heart hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye." Whilst making the appropriate gestures, Rainbow nodded before giving a quick salute and flying out to gather their friends. **************