A Hunt to Remember

by REDMAMBA


Campfires

Day 1 3

You spent most of the night tossing and turning in the bed that Twilight lent you. You couldn’t sleep knowing all things that have happened. Here you are an entire planet away from home, everyone thinks you’re dead, and well it didn’t help what Celestia told you after your little talk.

I believe you, but if you try anything to hurt Princess Twilight or anypony, I will personally throw you into the sun,” she said.

Didn’t help that was literally the Princess of the Sun and raised it each and every day.

Physics… don’t question its simplicity,” you whisper to yourself sarcastically.

You look out the window to see the sun getting ready to peak over the mountains. There was no point in sleeping any further. You decide to get out of bed and try to distract you wandering mind. You get out of bed and decide to explore the castle. As you walk and look at the décor you can see various pictures here and there. As you examine them you can clearly see Twilight with what looks like her friends. You can clearly recognize them from the other day. You couldn’t help but smile. As you walk around you happen to pass an open door. You hear a mumble in side and take a look. Peeking your head in, you can see Twilight in her bed, but she appears to be shivering.

‘Is it really that cold in here?’ you think.

You don’t have the slightest idea where you could find another blanket. But you do happen to notice the fireplace in the room; it’s odd but kind of convenient. Walking into a girl’s room unannounced not only makes you nervous but how would she react if she caught you. For all you know she’d do something violent, you feel a chill crawl up your spine.

But you don’t want her to freeze to death either. So you decide to take a risk, you push the door open a little further and slowly work your way inside. You monitor Twilight for few seconds to see if she does anything, but to your relief she just lies there. You finally make it to the fireplace and see that there are a few burned logs in there, but it wouldn’t last very long. Turning your head to the right of the fireplace you can see a decent size stack of wood there. You grab some of the smaller pieces and set them up in tepee style.

'Some newspaper would make this work better,’ you think, knowing full well that it’ll make the wood light better.

Not seeing any nearby, you begin to look for any kind of paper. You can see a desk located just under the window nearby. You think there might be some paper in there, you quickly get up and walk over to the desk, where there happens to be a nice stalk of blank paper. You grab three sheets and crumple them as you return to the fire place. You place one under the tepee and start looking for something to light it with.

“Hmmm,” you mumble.

After taking a second to look around you find a piece of flint and steal.

“Ah ha!” you whisper victoriously.

You grab the flint with your left hand and the steel in your right. You hold them near the paper and get ready to hit them together. Raising your right hand, you bring it down quickly and just lightly tap the flint, it wasn’t even enough to make a spark. You grumble to yourself knowing that you can do better. You’re a hunter; it’s practically the law to know how to make a fire. You prepare yourself one more time and give the flint a good hit this time. But what happens next catches you off guard.

Instead of the paper lightly smoldering, it and the wood burst into flames.

Holy shit!” you whisper in surprise, “Well that’s convenient,” you say with a smile.

You grab a couple or larger logs and place them in the fire. After a couple of minutes you can feel the heat filling the room. You stand up and look at Twilight; she appears to have stopped shivering and is resting nicely. You can feel a light smile form on your face; it’s a pretty warming sight.

No pun intended.

You quietly make your leave out of her room and walk the halls once again. But after a while you get bored and decide to go for a walk outside. The fresh air wouldn’t hurt and maybe you can go before everyone wakes up. You make it to the front door… eventually. Once your there you grab your boots and take a seat. Once their laced up you stand and put on your dirty coat. You left your ball cap and skull cap in your room but it’s no big deal, you’re just going for a short walk.

“Eh I don’t need them anyway,” you say to yourself not caring about your head.

You open the door and step outside, once you’re out you close the large door and start to walk toward the town. As you walk you look at the quite little town. It’s a nice little place, reminds you of some of the towns back home. You continue to walk and enjoy the scenery, but something catches your eye. You can see a large plume of smoke rising over the town, and there appears to be a rather large glow.

“Well that’s odd.”

You decide to go and check out what’s going on. You walk about a block and round the corner, you can see a small crowd has gathered. You glance over too see what their looking at, and you can see flames, large ones coming from the burning home. A chill runs up your spine, without even thinking you head straight for the burning building.

You come to a sliding stop in the edge of the crowd as you watch the burning house.

‘I hope everyone’s out,’ you think to yourself.

A few seconds pass, then a large man comes running out from the side of the building, he’s covered in ash and soot. He must have come out from the burning home. He runs straight up to the nearest person and grabs them by the collar.

“My wife and daughter are in there!”

Your eyes go wide at the comment, without even thinking you head straight for the front door. You push your way through the crowd while screaming, “MOVE… MOVE!”

You stumble out of the crowd and charge for the front door. You grab the handle but pull your hand away immediately, the door knob is very hot, causing your to burn your hand.

“AHHH!” you scream while shaking your stinging hand.

Time for plan B, you quickly cross your arms over your chest and bring your leg up. You jerk your arms out and force your foot forward, kicking the door in. You stumble inside and begin to cough as the smoke begins to fill your lungs.

Quickly you cover your mouth and nose with your arm and begin to search the house.

“*cough* where are you!?” you scream.

“Up here!” replies a frantic female voice.

You take a second to find the stairs, which happen to be right in front of the front door. You circle around the rail and jump up the stairs. Once you’re at the top you do your best to look around but all you see are flames and black smoke.

“Where are you!?” you scream once again.

“Over here!” replies the female voice once again.

You head down the hallway and try to follow the voice, but the thick smoke and sound of burning wood makes searching very difficult.

“Where!?” you scream.

“In here!”

You follow the voice once again, “Keep talking to me!” you order.

“In here please hurry!” you take a few steps and find a partially opened door.

You forcefully shove it open with your shoulder and step inside. The smoke is lighter in the room but it’s still pretty bad.

“Please help!” screams the female voice.

Through the smoke you catch a glimpse of a young woman lying on the floor, she appears to be caught under some debris. You quickly run over to her and kneel beside her.

“I’ll get you out.” you say frantically.

“Please save my daughter!” screams the woman, while looking at her daughter.

You glance over and see a young girl passed out on the floor.

“I’ll get her next!” you scream while trying to move the debris.

You realize that it’s too heavy to push off the young woman, so you decide to try something different. You stand up and get into a squatting position; you grab the charred wood and do your best to ignore the pain shooting up both of your arms.

You scrunch your face and pull as hard as you can, its takes a second, but the debris begins to rise, once you get it up about six inches you hold it there. “MOVE!” you scream ordering the young women. She quickly gets her legs out of the way and heads for her daughter; you quickly drop the debris and move over to the young girl.

You look at the mother and say, “I got her, GO!”

You cradle the young girl in your arms and quickly stand up, the mother heads for the door while you follow close behind. As tears fill your eyes you struggle to see, but you slowly make it to the stairs. The young woman’s standing at the bottom of the stairs watching you, as best as you can you stumble down the stairs. “GO!” you order the woman once again. You watch as she makes it out the front door and into the street. You’re so close, just a few more feet and you’ll be out safe and sound. But fate says otherwise, the ceiling comes crashing down blocking the exit.

You freeze and try to look for another exit. You turn your head to the right and head for the burning living room. At this point your eyes fell like their on fire themselves but you do your best to ignore the pain. As you look around you catch a stream of light bleeding through the smoke. You realize that it’s a window; it’s your best exit at this point. You take a second to look for something to break it with; you find a lamp on a nearby table. Without hesitation you grab it and throw it with all the strength you can muster at the window. The sound of glass shattering fills the room. Without a second thought you head for the newly opened window. Before you jump out you cradle the girls head and rotate your body, making sure that you take the hit of the ground.

You jump with all the strength you have left and fly through the window. You hit the ground with your back landing with a hard thud. A sharp stabbing pain shoots up your left leg but you ignore it. The house is still on fire, and you need to get away. You begin to crawl away on your back while you cradle the girl and drag your injured leg. As you look back at the crowd two men run up and grab you, they dragging you about 50 feet away from the building. They lay you down in the snow, you gently lower the unconscious girl onto the ground. You immediately begin to do CPR; you put you left hand on her throat and begin to search for the artery in her neck.

“Nononono!” you panic to yourself.

You place your ear next to her mouth and focus on her chest, you can’t hear or feel anything, and it doesn’t appear that she’s breathing. Without a second thought you place your left palm on her diaphragm and you’re balled up right hand on top of your left. You start to push down forcefully and begin to breathe in unison with every compression.

“Come on, come on!” you scream.

Your breathing begins to get heavier and exhaustion starts to set in but you keep pushing forward. You ignore the crowd that’s circled around you. All you want to do is save this girl’s life, she’s too young to die and you intend to make sure death doesn’t get this innocent soul.

Seconds feel like hours as you press down on the young girl’s chest, you begin to shake your head as you mumble to yourself, “Come on! Come oooon!” As you continue your compressions you feel something under your hands give and a light crack can be heard.

“SHIT!” you scream knowing full well that you cracked at least one rib.

A heavy hand falls on your shoulder and forcefully pulls you away from what you’re doing. A large man looks you in the eyes and screams, “You’re hurting her!”

Without thinking, you bark, “SHES ALREADY DEAD!”

You stare daggers in to the man for a second, then go back to doing compressions on the girl. A few seconds pass, than you hear the girl let out a couple of light coughs. Immediately you stop you compressions and lean over her, placing your ear next to her mouth while you look at her chest. As you fell her neck looking for a pulse you watch her chest rise slightly as you find her pulse. A smile crawls across your face; you sit up and let your body fall backwards into the snow.

“I did it… I did it,” you whisper triumphantly with relief.

You close your eyes and let your breathing relax, as the adrenaline begins to wear off, the pain in your arms, hand, and leg sets in. You wince at the pain while you sit up; your eyes immediately rest on your left leg. They go wide and your jaw goes slack. You notice a rather large piece of glass sticking out of your lower leg. You stare at if for a second, until you raise your left hand. It’s shaking like a leaf as you slowly reach out toward the glass and begin to wrap your fingers around it. But you let go while you close your eyes and shake your hand at the glass shard. You wince at the pain once again, but you can hear voices in the crowd.

“Move… move!” screams a male voice.

“Let us through!” barks another male voice.

You watch as two young men run up to you and the young girl, they are wearing white clothing and are carrying bright orange bags. They look a lot like the old EMS guys from back home. A jet black colored man with light grey hair runs up to the unconscious girl. While another white colored man with red hair runs up to you.

“It’s alright son I gotcha,” he says calming your nerves.

You let your body go limp as you fall back into the snow, “Thank you.”

The EMT works on you while you stay still in the snow. He splints your leg and places two gauze wraps on each side of the glass, once he has them set he wraps them tight to your skin with another set of bandages. You wince at the pain as he works on your leg but you suck it up. You avoid looking at your new battle scares as you look up at the now bright sky. It appears that it’s going to be a beautiful day.

______________________________________________________________________________

Sometime later

Here you are… in the hospital… yet again. You look out the window at the beautiful blue sky. Doctor X-ray was a little surprised when he saw you yet again. And in less than 72 hours, but he was more than willing to sew you up yet again. You spent less than an hour in surgery, the wound wasn’t all that bad, it was just a puncture wound that was two inches deep and three inches wide. You only got eight stiches, while your hand was wrapped with gauze soaked in burn ointment. As for the smoke inhalation, that has begun to ware off.

As you sit there the door opens, you turn your head and expect it to be a nurse but what you see isn’t a nurse. It’s the man that escaped the house and the woman you saved. Now that you have time to look at them you notice what they really look like. The man is grey in color, has the same color hair and tail and golden eyes. The female standing next to him is a light very light blue; she has light violet hair with a greyish color streak running through it and she has these light greyish purple eyes.

“May we come in?” asks the man.

You look him in the eyes, “Sure, grab a seat anywhere.”

Both him and his wife walk into the room and take a seat next to the bed.

“So how can I help you too?” you ask.

“Well…” begins the man.

You sit there and wait for him to continue.

“I… I want to thank you for saving my wife and daughter,” he finishes.

You can hear the sadness in his voice. You sit there for a moment before responding.

“Well… I just saw a situation and reacted,” you tell him in a hushed tone.

“We…” says the woman, “We want to apologize also.”

“For what?” you ask, furrowing your brow in confusion.

“For judging you, we heard about this strange furless creature with the princesses… and we heard about what you did to those timber wolves and nurse Redheart…” she stops.

“We decided to follow rumors and let our fears take over… instead of learning who you really are,” finished the man.

“Oh,” you say, “well uh… apology accepted… I guess.”

Silence fills the room.

The man extends his arm, “My names Baritone,” he says with a small smile.

You reach out and take his open hand with your left one, “The names Anon.”

“Nice to meet you Anon,” he replies.

You look at his wife.

“My names Diamond Mint, but you can call me Minty,” she says as you shake hands.

“It’s nice to meet you Minty,” you reply happily.

“Once again we want to thank you for saving our little Liza,” says Minty.

“Liza?” you repeat the name as you glance at the ceiling, “that’s the first normal name I’ve heard so far.”

“What do you mean?” asks Baritone.

“Well where I’m from, names aren't as odd as Baritone,” you look at him, “no offence.”

“None take, personally I think Anon is a pretty strange name,” he says while giving a dismissing hand gesture.

“Her full name is Liza Doolots,” says Minty.

There it is,’ you mentally deadpan.

“Well I hope she’s feeling better?” you ask with a hint of worry.

“Oh, actually we just saw her,” says a more lively Minty, “She’s awake and was happy to see us.”

“We that’s good to hear,” you pause, “I hope I didn’t do too much damage when I performed CPR?”

“The doctor said she had one cracked rib, but that’ll heal in time, I mean… you saved her life,” said Baritone.

“It would have been a tragedy if I didn’t do something,” you reply.

“And we can’t thank you enough,” says Minty as she rises up from the chair and takes you in a big hug.

“Ah!” you wince in pain.

She immediately pulls away from you; she covers her mouth with her hands as her ears fall back, “I’m so sorry.”

“Its fine, I’m still a little sore,” you look at her, “it’s been a rough few days.”

“Huh, I bet,” Baritone pauses for a second as he rises from his chair, “anyway we’ll get out of your mane.”

“Take it easy you two,” you tell them happily as they approach the door.

“We will, hey! Maybe we can go out for tea sometime, I think Liza would be really happy to meet her new hero,” says a joyous Minty.

“Well I’ll be at the castle for the time being, just stop on by and we can make arrangements,” you tell her.

“Will do,” says Baritone, “anyway take it easy.”

“You too,” you holler as they leave the room.

Not even 30 seconds pass before Twilight comes running into the room. She’s clearly distraught, “Oh my goodness, Anon are you alright!?”

“Yeeeah!” you say calmly.

She runs up next to the bed, “I came over as soon as I heard are you alright? Wheredoesithurt? Ifeelsobad!” she says in a panic.

“Twilight?” you say calmly.

“Thisisallmyfault! howcouldIletthishappen?”

“Twilight?” you say again.

You notice five more women run into your room along with Spike, but you ignore them while you try to calm down Twilight.

“TWILIGHT!!” you scream getting her attention.

“OH MY WHAT HURTS? DO I NEED TO GET A NURSE!?!”

You roll your eyes and let out a frustrating sigh, “Twilight I’m fine, just a little beaten up, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“But you’re my responsibility,” she says, still feeling distraught.

“Twilight I’m not a child, I can handle myself, I’ve been doing it for a few years now,” you explain.

“But…”

“Twilight,” you deadpan.

You take a second before speaking up again, “I found civilization, fought off three wolves,” you raise up three fingers when you said that, “and even got my arm to stop bleeding, eight stiches and a small burn is nothing compared to what I’ve seen or done the last few days.”

“But I…”

You shoot her a frustrating glance.

“Am I dead?” you ask.

“No,” she answers.

“Then I’m fine,” you pause, “I’ve seen car crashes go smoother than this,” you mumble to yourself sarcastically.

“What’s a car crash?” asks the rainbow haired girl.

You look at her in utter confusion.

‘She doesn’t know what a car is?’ you think.

Then again you haven’t heard or seen anything resembling a motor vehicle since you got here.

“Uh… I’ll explain later, who are you? If I may ask?”

“I’m Rainbow Dash,” she says sounding rather confident in herself.

“Now that,” you point at her,” is an odd name.”

“What!? I’m the best flier in all of Equestria, everypony knows my name,” replies a shocked Rainbow.

You point to yourself as you say, “Do I look like I’m from here?”

“Well… no” replies Dash.

“Anyway,” you look at Twilight, “is it alright if you introduce me to your friends?” you ask kindly.

“Uh… sure,” she looks at her friends, “You’ve already met Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah the cocky sounding one,” you say sarcastically.

Dash lets out an angry huff as she crosses her arms and looks away.

Twilight continues, “The white one is Rarity, next to her is Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy is the one with long pink hair, and the last one is Applejack.”

As you look at her friends, something about Applejack seems familiar. That’s when it hits you; she was the figure in the woods. “You saved my life… didn’t you?” you ask while pointing a finger at the orange woman.

“Yup,” she says, “I heard some loud noise in the Everfree Forest and decided to see what in tarnation was goin on.”

You think about it for a moment, “That was probably my rifle.”

“Your rifle?” she asks.

“I’ll explain later, anyway it’s nice to meet you all,” you say cheerfully.

“It’s nice to meet you,” they all say in unison.

The doctor walks in shortly afterwards.

“Hey doc!” you say happily.

“Hey Anon, how are you feeling?” he asks.

“Well my legs sore and my hand stings but otherwise I’m good,” you say.

“At least you’re comfortable,” he says.

“Yeah, I could be better though,” you say.

“We all could,” he says, “so I have some bad news.”

Twilight practically faints.

“And that would be?”

“You have to stay here until morning,” he says.

“Damn.”