//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: Silent Hill 
// Story: The Tales Of A Night Stalker 
// by Don Pedro von Poltergeis 
//------------------------------//

It took us a week's worth of walking before we reached Arcadia's capital, Silent Hill. As we walked up to the main gate, that was guarded by a few guards in black armor that looked like that they received the short straws of their work day amongst their peers. I half expected Pyramid Head to greet us at the city's main entrance, but alas, that was not the case.The two shivering guards that blocked us from entering the city didn't give a shit about us and let us in without a problem.

The first thing we did upon entering the city was raiding the closet clothing store to get us something warming to wear from the cold snow of December. With me being cold blooded, this particular season didn't mix well with me so much. If it wasn't for Windy being my personal heat-meat-walking-bag, I would have rubbed up against the nearest body of warmth to prevent me from going into hypothermic shock. 

After we finished our raid on the clothes shop called, Warm and Cozy. I left wearing a warm aviator jacket with a British style patch on the right sleeve. We all stopped for a moment outside the shop, wondering what to do next. 

“So where to now?” I ask while adjusting my boonie so it protects my head a little more from the cold wind.

“How about a bar?” Apple Twilight, or how she prefers to be called A.T  answered, pointing towards a building on our left.

“Sure, why not?” I answered with a shrug.

The second we entered the bar, all eyes were on us. I scanned over the patrons while looking for a place to sit. I noticed that most of the looks that we were getting were mostly out of curiosity, except for one. In a corner both, with a tankard in a hoof. A brown stallion with a dirty yellow mane and sporting a dirty beard was looking at us with slight hatred in his eyes. He noticed that I was noticing the look that he was giving us, and spoke up in a gruff voice. 

“What do you freaks think you're doing?” The stallion sneered. 

“This looks like the perfect set for a bar fight,” I thought with a smirk towards A.T. 

“Looking for the most stupid pony in existence. And by looking at you I think we found him,” A.T shot back.

The stallion definitely didn't like the insult that A.T gave him.He stood up with a slam of his mug, bristling with anger. Both A.T and I glanced at each other, getting ready for a fight with the possibly drunk stallion. 

“What's that? Can't take a little insult?” I mocked the stallion and with a scream of anger, he threw himself at me in a drunken rage.

I rolled out of the way just in time for the stallion to crash into the floor with a hard, *Thud!* This only made the stallion angrier than he already was as he jumped back up to his hooves and charged at me again.

“Stay still so I can hit you!” he growled while throwing a heavy punch at my face. 

“Nope!” I answered dodging the punch.

The stallion growling with irritation as he stumbled from his miss. I jumped back a bit, getting ready for another attack, and in the corner of my eye I saw A.T grab a nearby chair, and slammed it over the back of the enraged stallion, but he shrugged it off like it was nothing. 

“What the fuck?” A.T muttered before having to dodge a kick from the stallion.

With A.T’s sudden distraction of the drunk stallion, I used the opening to jump on his back in a hard tackle, effectively pinning him to the ground. This, however, was a vain attempt as he stood back up with an annoyed growl. With the sudden hostility elevating from the stallion, my tail rattled nervously, causing him to paused long enough for A.T to buck him in the face. Knocking him out instantly. 

“Well, that escalated quickly,” Windy commented mirthfully but her mirth died when a pair of guards looking identical to the two at the gate rushed in.

“What's going on here?!” one of the guards asked with authority.

“This stallion attacked these two mares here and they defended themselves,” the bartender explained while calmly polishing a glass in his hooves. 

“Is that so?” the guard asked, earning himself some nods from the patrons. “Well then, we'll take him—Where did he go?” the guard asked as he searched around the bar for the stallion. 

Looking around the bar myself, I couldn't find him anywhere.

“Probably ran off,” I thought, “dick.”

<(…………………….<<0>>..............................)>

Later that day

After a few hours of wandering around the city, we had found ourselves a place to stay in the form of an inn named, Homecoming. It was a small inn located near the shipyard on top of a small hill, giving us a gorgeous view of the flying battleships to the west, and a clear sunrise to the east. 

Walking through the door numbered 101 revealed a cozy looking room with a fireplace in front of a sofa. On the left side of the room were three doors; two of them leading into bedrooms and one leading to the bathroom. All of us were cold from the snow storm that buried the city in a foot of snow, and tired from have to walk through it all to get to the inn that Windy and the Doc chose to take refuge in for the night.

“A.T and Night Heart, you two take the room on the left. Windy and I will take the one on the right,” I said with a slight yawn.

“Sure,” A.T said through her own yawn, while Night just shrugged and followed the mare into the room for a good night's rest.

I walked into the room and threw off my boonie and jacket to the side to call it quits for the night. My hooves were cold from having to walk through the ungodly amount of snow, and climbed on the queen sized bed in the middle of the room with Windy following suit. I let out another yawn as I curled underneath the warm quilt on the bed with Windy shutting the lights off without saying a word. With a content sigh from the comfortable bed that felt like I was sleeping on a big, fluffy, cloud. I was soon greeted by a mare nuzzling against my back.

“Goodnight.” I said with one final yawn as I felt her tail curl around mine. 

“Goodnight,” Windy replied before she left a sweet kiss on the back of my neck, and wrapped all of her hooves around my body like I was an oversized teddy bear with scales. I cracked a small smile and let her cute snoring sooth me to sleep.

<(…………………….<<0>>..............................)>

A few hours later 

I was jostled awake from a strange sound echoing from the other side of the hall in the middle of the night. At first, I thought it was Night getting up to use the bathroom or something, but judging from how many hooves that were pounding quietly on the carpet, I don't think that was the case. 

With blurry vision from the gunk in my eyes, I got up and grabbed my guns in case we had an unannounced guest hiding in our room. 

Then, just as I tip-toed my way out of my door in the darkness, I heard a hard, *Thump!* That came from A.T's and Nights room. 

"HELP!" screamed a voice that could only be A.T's, causing me to get out of my daze, and bolt into her room, but when I got through her door. I was bowled over by someone, causing me to smack my head against the walls of the hallway, then the ground, hard. 

For a few short moments of seeing nothing but stars, I looked up and saw Night on the ground, unmoving. Right beside her unconscious body was the bar stallion that attacked us earlier  with a few of his friends with A.T tied on his back. With an angry hiss escaping my mouth. I scrambled back onto my hooves. 

I tried to leap onto his back in an attempt to pull A.T off of him, but my spinning head threw off my sense of balance, causing me to land right beside him and into the nightstand. I heard him laugh for a moment, giving me enough time to bite down on his hind leg. Unfortunately, my poisonous fangs were still folded, but I still could latch onto him with my non-poisonous fangs. 

“Get off me!” the stallion growled and kicked my face, but I didn’t let go.

I held onto his leg as long as I could, just as his friends fled the room out of fear for the amount of the sound that we were making. It took him a few more kicks before the pain caused to my muzzle became unbearable, and I had to let go, giving him a chance to bolt out the bedroom window. 

I ran after him when I remembered that I still have my pistols on me and whipped them out.

I fired all forty rounds after his fleeing form, being careful not to hit A.T., but all of them missed. I let out an ungodly screech of rage and all the muscles in my legs to tense in preparation to jump after him.

“Spooks!” Windy’s shout snapped me out of my rage, “What’s going on?!”

“That fucker from the bar took Apple Twilight!” I hissed with barely restrained anger with my teeth bared.

Then I remembered that I saw Night Heart unmoving and quickly went to check on her. Arriving at her side, I saw that she was still unconscious and moved on to check for any visible wounds and luckily enough—I only found a forming bump at the side of her head.

“Is mom going to be alright?” Windy asked with concern.

“She only got a knocked out. Nothing too serious.” I replied, “Come on help me move her onto the bed.”

Upon lifting Night Heart on the bed, I saw a folded piece of paper flutter onto the ground, so I picked it up and unfolded it revealing a letter.

Take the false skin to the docks, and make sure that the guards didn't follow you to the drop-off point. Then once you are finished with the false skin, take the Sigil of Alta to master, Ahuizotl, at the rendezvous at Mount Sif, and make sure you don't damage it. It's the only key we have to enter the flying temple of storms.

Destroy this once you have the mare. 

-J