• Published 28th Jul 2012
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The Element of Willpower - Redwolf15



Human in Equestria. He's gonna kick Discord's ass.

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Chapter Three: The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Chapter Three
The Lion Sleeps Tonight


"There he is." I point towards a manticore taking a snooze. "Are you sure that he's the one?" She asks me a bit worried. "Oh yeah, I can never forget a face lik his, not to mention that one of his wings looks broken. It's definately the same one." The harpy licks her lips. She's excited.

I promissed her that if she let me live, I'll help her get a manticore for her next dinner. Or dinners judging how big it is. It took a while and lots of persuasion, but she finally agreed.

"Alright, you know the plan." She nods and flys away. Alright, all I have to do is wait for the signal. I hold my makeshift spear a little closer to my body. I made it back at the nest. It is made of a real good stick, about four, five feet long, vine, and a bone that I sharpened to a fine point with my knife. I've given it a few thrusts and judged that it would make a great weapon.

I climb down from my perch and get to ground level. I stay close to the ground and keep behind boulders. We're in a rocky region, a between point of the mountain range and forest. It tuck a lot less time han I expected for us to find him.

I sneek a peak to see if he's still there. Yep, still there. Now all I have to do is wait for the signal and we can get started.

There's a high screech and a startled growl. It started. I rush out of my hiding place spear at the ready. The harpy is to distract and startle the manticore while I jump in behind him and kill him. I rush up, spear held high, ready to strike. But that damn scorpion tail of his sends me flying back. The harpy's job is supposed to get in distract the manticore and et out, and now that he's not being distracted, I am his focus.

He stares at me and our eyes meet, I can see the rage and joy in his eyes as he recognizes me. He slowly advances towards me, savioring the moment. But that moment doesn't last long because he quickly breaks into a run. I fumble myself to stand up and ready my spear to strike. The manticore is smart enough to stop when he sees danger. He looks at me, trying to deal with this problem. What he sees is an old meal that escaped and returned with the intention kill him. What he forgets is that this meal didn't come alone.

Another screech comes from up high, the manticore looks in the sounds direction and sees another attack by the harpy. I told you before, her job is to distract the target while I finish it off. A spray of screeches, roars, claws,and feathers go everywhere. When the harpy leaves the manticore is still trying to kill her. In that short time span of three second fight, the manticore forgets about me. When he catches a figure in the corner of his eye, he turns to see what it is and instantly realizes that he is and idiot. You'd be surprised how fast you can move in just three seconds.

I bring the spear back and thrust. Unfortunately, the big guy is faster than he looks. As my spear comes into contact with him, my spear grazes past his left eye leaving a nasty scar across it and digs deep into his shoulder. He lets out a blood sickening roar, I can just about feel his rage. He jerks back to the side breaking my makeshift spear head. He lashes out blinded. Paws, tail, and wings are trashing everywhere, and I'm suck in the hurricane. I'm doing everything I can to dodge him, dodging left, right, jumping, ducking, and backing away.

Still, he's too fast to keep up with. A stray back swing with his paw catches me across the face. The force was so great that I went flying and doing a corkscrew through the air. He nearly took my head off with that one swipe, glad it was the back paw, if it was with his claws I'd be dead right now.

I feel disorientated and groggy. My vision is blurred. Damn, I can't feel the right side of my face. As far as I can tell though, the manticore is still in a blind rage, after all I wouldn't be alive now if he wasn't.

As I slowly regain feeling I can see the manticore -- oh for the love of -, do I have to say manticore every time? It's getting kinda old. You know what, I'm gonna call him Scar for now on. You know, Lion King, scar on his left eye, something of an ass for the time that I've known him.-- I can see Scar calming down. Well actually he looks even more pissed off and looking even more ferocious than ever, but he stopped trashing. He looks at me with pure rage. This time he doesn't savour the moment and jumps straight at me. I lost my broken spear when he hit me so I had nothing to defend myself with. I'm cornered, defenceless, and about to die in just under five seconds flat.

I close my eyes out of fear, fear that I'm about to die in a gruesome way, fear that I'll never see my family ever again, fear that it's a freaking manticore.They say you can see your life flash before your eyes when you're about to die. Thank God for that premature warning because I never saw the past few years of my life.

There is another loud screech and roar. When I open my eyes I can see that the harpy is fighting off Scar. She's using talons and wing to do everything she can, but Scar is too pissed to deal with this. He swats her out of the air with one powerful swing. She sores straight into a huge tree and crashes with a great thud. Scar seems to be too furious to pay attention to more than one thing. He walks up to the harpy, drool drips through his huge teeth, a great and deep growl fills the air. Looks like she's just become dinner.

In that moment I think This is my chance, I can escape. He's too pre-occupied with the harpy that he won't even notice me leave. I look over my shoulder, a clear path with a for sure escape. I turn my head back, But she risked her life for me. She doesn't even know me. I think. I begin to feel a burning sensation in my heart. She's about to become harpy stew, and what am I gonna do? Run away? Let her die her? I pull my knife out of it's sheathe attached to my belt. I don't think so. She risked herself for me. The least I could do is the same for her.

The burning sensation in my heart becomes a blaze of fire. All my fear washes away, no, my fear stays, I just overcome it. I jump on Scar's back and tear into his flesh, anywhere that I can stab.

His blood and roars of pain fills the air. He bucks me off his back. I do a tuck-and-role and land on both feet and left hand on the ground, keeping my centre of gravity low. He turns around and jumps at me. He was so fast that I didn't notice him jump until he was on top of me. Both my arms are pinned to the ground, his massive body on top of mine, his breath literally smells like death.

So this is how it ends, I die in hopes of saving a creature that wanted to eat me for dinner just a while back, in an alien country, and the smell of death filling my nose. Damn fine way to die if you ask me. I close my eyes again, not because I'm afraid, but because I accept this fate. Damn fine way to die.

But not today.

I feel a warm of liquid across my face. As I open my eyes I can see Scar's eyes, their not the usual anger and rage kind that I always saw. Now they say only one thing:"What just happened?" His head slowly slide down, then completely fall off. A four hundred pound manticore's body tips over without it's head.

I stare into the void and keep thinking, Holycrapholycrapholycrapholycrap. I move my head slowly to the right and can see her standing there. The harpy, with one wing stretched out right where Scar's neck was, covered blood. I slowly stand up and look at Scar's body, then his head, and finally the harpy. I fish my tongue out of my stomach and say to her, "What did you do, and how did you do it?" She folds her blood stained wing back and plainly says "I cut his head off of course."

"But-but-but how did you do that? Those are just normal feathers." I stammer. "Aren't they?"

"No. Their steel feathers now."

"Well," I say still not sure how to react. "This certainly has been anti-climatic."


After a long dip in a nearby lake, a very long dip, I washed all the blood of my body and noticed that my tee-shirt is a wreck. Glad I have extras. As I get back to the spot where we killed Scar, I see that the harpy has already started to dig in. How does she stomach it raw? I wonder.

"So? How is it?" I ask. She turns to face me, blood smeared all over her mouth. With an big grin on her face she says, "Delicious." and digs in some more. "I never would have tasted fresh manticore if you hadn't stepped into the picture." She says in between bites.

"You don't mind if I cut some off for myself do you?" I have to be wary about her. I fulfilled my part of the bargain, now there's no telling if she'll keep her's. "Oh course." She wouldn't look up, just kept eating. I pull my knife out and start cutting off the fur.

After an hour of collecting fire wood, lighting it with two rocks (which, by the way, was a pain), and cooking why meat, I started in on my dinner. The harpy had her fill of Scar and look satisfied. "Why don't you just eat it plain instead of cooking it like that?" she asks. "Because," I say before taking a bite "I can't eat it raw without getting sick."

As my mouth comes around the cooked piece I bite down. The meat feels tough to rip apart like jerky, but not too difficult, and once a piece is taken off the rest is easy. The meat tastes like a mixture of roast beef and a tinge of ginger. I never had anything like it. As I keep chowing down the harpy asks, "What is your name?"

It just occurred to me that I haven't introduced myself to her. I swallow what's in my mouth and turn to her, "Jesse. My name is Jesse Ruesgen. It's nice to meet you." I extend my hand. She looks at it, It suddenly occurred to me that she doesn't know what I'm doing. "It's called a handshake. My species does it as a form of greeting. Here I'll show you what I mean, give me your claw." She does so and I take it in my hand and shake it up and down. a small fleeting smile slowly comes across her face, this must be the first time anyone was ever positive towards her.

As I eat my dinner some more we sit by the fire in silence. After a while she speaks up, "Flora." I turn and look at her questioningly, "Pardon?" I ask.

"It's my name, Flora, or at least that's what I've always called myself." A name, she actually has a name. I guess if just live nameless it wouldn't be much of living would it?

"Thank you for sharing that with me." I honestly meant that. "So uh, Flora, how is that you cut off the manticore's head? You said something about them being steel wings."

"Years ago while out searching for food I encountered a pony, one of those magic ones with the horn." A unicorn huh? "I thought that he would be a good meal. As I chase him through the woods his horn starts to glow. and then shot a spell at me. The spell was originally meant to make my wings feel as heavy as steel, that way he would be able to escape. Guess he was still in training because the spell backfired and made my wings like steel, still as light as ever but a hundred time sharper. After that hunting has been easy."

"So how come you never mentioned this before, we could have killed the manticore a lot quicker if I knew this." I tell her.

She simple puts, "Well you never asked."

Women. They never make sense.


Flora offers me to stay at her nest for the night. I'm no longer wary of her, after all, you don't give your next meal your name. I find a new shirt in my bag and the two of us sit in the nest and watch the sun go down. While we do that I work on making something new. I still have my stick that was used as a spear, I'd make another one, but quiet frankly, I'd prefer something else. There are a lot of old feathers around her nest, I take any decently good ones and test them out. Even when they've fallen of her they're still incredibly sharp. I begin sticking the quills in so the feathers are facing along one side.

"So, how come your all alone here, aren't there other harpies around?" It has been a question that's been bugging me for a while. She looks down, I see a sort of loneliness in her eyes. "No. I'm the only one of my kind as far as I know. I've searched al along the forest region and beyond it at times, but with no luck." She was alone. All her life and she has been alone. That must be hard for her, no wonder she seems so hostile. For all I know I could be the only person, or pony, that she has had a connection with. That must be hard for her.

"By the way, what are you doing?" She changes the subject towards my activity. I don't blame her really.

"There's a reason why I'm here, Flora. I don't know what it is but it's out there. That's why I have to go out and find it for myself, and if I'm going to do that, I'll need to protect myself. I'm trying to make a sword out of your feathers. But truth to tell, a preschooler would have a better time painting the Mona Lisa." It's true, this was crap.

"Who's Mona Lisa?" she asks.

"Oh right. Uh, never mind. Hang on there could be something in my bag that could help keep this together." I rummage through it trying to find something. Then my eyes come across something different, something that I didn't put there. I pull out a small sheet of paper. The moment I made contact I started to feel weird. A tingly sensation went through my body. It felt kind of painful, but at the same time it was nice, not relaxing, just nice. And the nice part I was a scared of. It didn't feel nice like sitting in a warm bathtub, it felt powerful, scary, and carzy; and I liked it. Flora notices my confused expression at the paper, "What is it?" she asks walking over.

"A note." I say still trying to figure out how it got here. "But I didn't put it there."

"Well," she says, "if it was in your bag and you didn't put it there then it was left for you to read."

That certainly made sense. I read it out loud.
"Congratulations! You have successfully succeeded in surviving the first day of your adventure. I must say you are a slippery one. I can't wait to see what sort of mischief will arise after this event. Anywho, I thought that you should know I'll be waiting for your arrival, just don't get yourself killed like what happened today." And with a little embarrassment I finish off, "Smooches."

"Uh, smooches?" Flora asks with curiosity she knows not to get into.

"Well that's what it say!" I blurt out flustered.

"Right, well who's it signed by?"

I scan the page. "I don't know, there's just a D on the bottom right. A backwards D." This is getting down right ridiculous. I meet a crazy man in the alley, I magical come to Equestria, I nearly die several times on the first day, and know I'm being monitored and expected to be somewhere. This is down right crazy.

And to top it all off, I have a shit sword. I need something better, I really do. I began to get annoyed. Then the feeling I got from the note began to intensify. I was getting scarred but didn't show it, because for some reason I wanted it to continue. The letters began to glow a bright dark colour, however that's supposed to work. Flora didn't seem to notice this, which was crazy because the letters on the note began to get brighter. The letters were glowing so bright that the paper began to burn. Something was happening and I didn't like it but I didn't try stopping it. Even though the paper began to glow so bright that I had to cover my eyes with my arm that held the makeshift sword, and the paper was so hot that it could melt through my hand, I didn't let go. There was a sudden loud popping sound that was so great it made Flora jump out and screech out of fear. I swear, I'm sure that the entire forest heard that one.

The paper cooled off in that instant, in fact, it wasn't even warm, not even my hand felt hot. It was like it never happened. Flora looks back at me, "WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THE STARS WAS THAT?" I think she almost had a heart attack, I know I sure did. "You noticed that but not the bright glowing coming form the-" I show her the note, except it wasn't a note, it was a blank sheet of paper. I checked the backside, nothing. The letters had disappeared. Does nothing make sense any more?

"Jesse, " Flora says, "your sword." I look down to see what has her speechless. When my gaze meets where she indicated, I was stunned. I no longer held a stick with a bunch of razor sharp feathers sticking out. I now held in my hand a smooth, sharp katana. The handle was as long as my forearm, wrapped in a fine black cloth. The cloth felt soft and gentle, but rough and firm enough to keep a grip. The guard was a hard black material carved to look like a snake coiling around itself and holding its tail in its mouth. Just seeing that made me think about what happened in the alley. I pull it out of the sheathe, the blade sings as it is released. The blade itself had a silvery polished look to it, but you could tell that it was truly the finest steel.

I gave it a few practice swings. It felt extremely light and accurate, you could hear the air sing as the blade passes though it. "Where did it come from?" Flora asks finally finding her tongue. I shake my head not taking my eyes off it, "I don't know, but it had something to do with the note." Looks like I have something to use a defence.


Morning. Flora flew me down to the ground where it was safe. I stand facing her before we part ways. "Are you sure you don't want to come along?" I ask her. "I would love to have you by my side." She nods her head, "Yes. This is my home, and I have no interest in seeing Equestria. Beside, I'm sure ponies wouldn't think kindly of me if they knew I ate them." The two of us laugh knowing that it's probably true.

"Listen, I've noticed ponies going one way or another on a path just north of here. The closest settlement should be east, about a two day flight from here. But here, before you go I have something to give you." She uses her wings like a pair of hands, it doesn't look easy but she manages. She hands me feather tied to a thread. "Uh, thanks Flora, but you don't have to give me one of your feathers for a reminder, I'd never forget you." She laughs some more as if it was the funniest joke in the world.

"It's not a feather." she says finally calming down, "It's a whistle." I look at it more closely. The quill has a hole in it and another midway through. "I've had that all my life. No matter where I am or how far away it is, I have always found my way back to it whenever it has been blown. If you ever need a harpy's assistance then all you have to do is blow."

"Thank you Flora, I'll be sure to remember that if the time ever comes." I put the whistle around my neck.

As I turn around I get the sudden feeling that somewhere, someone is laughing at me with glee. My bag over my shoulder with all my stuff, my new sword that I have named Silver Fang and knife strapped to my side, and an ambition growing in my heart. With questions that need answering and things to explore I set off northwards towards the path that Flora mentioned. Who knows what I'll encounter. If I meet a pony will he or she be as friendly as everyone on Earth would expect, or would they be just as wary as me as humans would be to them? Only one way to find out. Lets see where this road takes me.