The Hunters of Secrets

by Arkantos

The Serpentine

Back in the Badlands, Black Fall and Cold Blood had been walking over mountains, ridges, and sometimes through forests and caves. It was late noon when they decided to take a break on a ridge. Cold Blood pulled out a piece of a hunter and started munching on it. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. “Hey, do you know what we’re looking for?”

Black Fall answered his question simply. “We’re looking for the seal of the hunter.”

Cold Blood scratched his chin a little and asked, “But where is it?”

“It should be at the top of a mountain. At the base of the mountain, there should be a fortress. And there should be a road that leads us to it. That’s pretty much what I know about it. As for its exact whereabouts, that’s another story.”

“OK, so all we need to do is find the fortress?”

“Yep. Unfortunately I don’t know who owns the fortress, and as I said before, I don’t know where exactly it is.”

Cold Blood looked at the ex-hunter before asking, “What do you mean you don’t know who owns the fortress?”

Black Fall sighed before saying, “Well, we are in the Badlands, and ponies here can be hostile toward military presences. An oversized bandit force could easily take the fortress with most of the force getting slayed. And if there is still a military force in the fortress, it is most likely that they have magical artifacts that could easily tip the balance of victory in their favor.”

Cold Blood’s eyes widened a little. “Well, that sounds interesting. In fact, back in my day-” Cold Blood looked the other way and mumbled, “when I was a librarian-” Unfortunately, Black Fall heard his mumbling perfectly and tried her hardest not to laugh as he continued. “-there were several rumors going around that some ponies in the Badlands aren’t actually ponies. That they are actually like oversized snakes or scorpions that somehow became intelligent enough to take up arms and challenge any creature that walked through these lands.”

“Is that what we are!?” came a very sneaky voice.

Both ex-hunter and Werepony got up as several hoofsteps approached. Cold Blood dropped the lump of flesh he was eating and Black Fall pulled out her crossbow with one hoof and the spear of the First Hunter with the other. Cold Blood jumped into a fighting stance as Black Fall realized that her crossbow had no bolt in it. She quickly dug through her saddlebag and pulled out an explosive bolt of fire, loading it in the crossbow.

Several ponies approached them. They were covered in dirty cloaks and bits of armor that looked very rusty and probably didn’t protect them from anything. Their heads were covered with different kinds of skull masks that had goggles strapped on them. And then there was the Leader of the group who wore the mask of a Changeling skull with beating feathers on the back. He also had a full suit of rusted armor and a dirty cloak. His weapon of choice was a rusty spike. At first, it looked like several ponies were approaching, but there were actually only five ponies, their leader included. Black Fall and Cold Blood looked at each other briefly before the leader got their attention by slamming his spike to the ground. One of the other ponies who was closest to the Leader and completely covered in cloth was the pony who had spoken earlier. He spoke again in that same sneaky voice. “Is that what we’ve been reduced to? Fairytales!?”

The Leader glared at the one who spoke for them as if to say, ‘Not now. We can discuss it later.’ There was a hint of anger in his eyes.

The pony with the sneaky voice headed the glare and said, “But let’s not get into it now.” He slowly approached them and asked, “Who are you and why have you trespassed into our territory?”

Black Fall answered the question. “I am Black Fall and this is Cold Blood, and our business is our own. But we didn’t know we were trespassing on your land. We just have one important thing to do and we will leave. So, could you please leave us alone so we can get to it?”

“And on a side note,” Cold Blood added, “you should really put up some signs telling everyone that this is your area.” Cold Blood had unknowingly insulted their intelligence with that comment.

All five of the ponies glared daggers at Cold Blood. The silent Leader looked at the pony right next to him and brought down his spike two times. Sneaky voice pony said, “Unfortunately for you, my Leader wants to know what you’re doing here and he has ways of finding out what he wants to know. You clearly misunderstand your position in this scenario and how things will work out. Believe it or not, you are surrounded right now, and all he needs to do is call upon them for them to attack you with no questions. So I ask again, Ms. Fall. What are you two doing out here?”

To the right of the pony who spoke for the group was another pony who wore a cloak with rusted mighty helm armor and a pony skull on his head. He said to Cold Blood, "Oh, I can't wait to strangle the life out of you. You basically just insulted our entire clan, and because of that, we all hate you now.” Cold Blood’s eyes widened as he realized what he had done.

The pony speaking for their Leader cleared his throat and said, a little frustration creeping into his voice, “My leader asks again, why have you come here?”

Suddenly, Cold Blood, who was clearly not thinking, yelled loudly, “Bring it on! I'll eat all of you!” He charged at the hoodie ponies.

Unsurprised, the Leader slammed his spike hard to the ground about five times. Cold Blood was about two inches from him before seven creatures that were half pony and half snake burst from the ground. They tackled him and four of them burrowed under the ground again, each holding one of his legs to keep him grounded.

The other three creatures made extra sure that he couldn’t move by tickling him. When Cold Blood laughed very hard and constantly struggled to get free but could not, they were satisfied that he couldn’t break out of the grip. The three sneak ponies burrowed underground again. Cold Blood started to calm down again.

Black Fall watched the scene with widened eyes, then looked at the Leader. The four ponies with the Leader approached her, believing that she wasn’t much of a threat. But they were wrong. She was more dangerous to them than they could have imagined. Suddenly, she was reaching into her cloak and then hurling several daggers at the four approaching ponies. What happened next was completely unexpected. The throwing daggers easily pierced through the rusted armor, but instead of red blood, green blood came pouring out of the wounds. And then, suddenly, several more sneak ponies popped out of the ground to tackle Black Fall. But she was expecting them. She quickly transformed her crossbow into a sword and started slashing at everything that came at her. They soon realized that they couldn’t grab her without getting sliced up, so they kept their distance. Every now and then, they would try to tackle her, but each time, they failed. The Leader then stomped his spike to the ground nine times. At that, two of the sneak ponies quickly dug their way to the top of a nearby cliff and started to dig out a boulder from the edge of the cliff. As soon as that was done, they used their tails to push the boulder and get it rolling.

Black Fall ceaselessly defended herself from her burrowing attackers, but somewhere near the beginning of the fight, she somehow lost the spear of the First Hunter. And it was one of the first things that they went for. So, after slitting the throats of two snake pony creatures, Black Fall grabbed another weapon from her cloak, a second sword. When three more Serpentine jumped at her, she pressed a button on the new sword The blade of the sword began to break apart and fall to the ground in pieces with a metal line connecting each and every piece. She began swinging it around like a whip, and managed to whip the blade at the stomachs of whatever these things were. The Butcher of the Night made deep wounds that the creatures would never recover from. The three Serpentine fell to the ground, wrapping their serpent hoofs around their stomachs in a hopeless attempt to prevent their blood from spilling. Despite their efforts, green blood squirted thickly out of their wounds.

Back on the ground, Cold Blood thought to himself, ‘These things are not ponies, but somehow, they kind of look like ponies.’

Then he looked up at the cliff where the two Serpentine were digging out the boulder.

“Black Fall! Watch out!” yelled Cold Blood.

Black Fall looked up and saw the speeding boulder just in time. She quickly transformed her sword into a crossbow and fired an explosive arrow of fire at the boulder, blowing it up into dust. The Serpentine quickly began to burrow underground to try another surprise attack.

Black Fall looked at Cold Blood, still pinned to the ground. Then she looked at the Leader and saw how determined and frustrated he was. Her ability to see the Leader’s expression through his skull mask came from generations of Chiroptera being able to see through the dark. In fact, back at Blood Moon, everyone could see in the dark.

Black Fall’s eyes widened when she realized that no matter how hard or how long she fought, the Leader would continue to send sneak ponies her way. They would keep attacking her until the Leader got the truth.

“We’re on our way to the Seal of the Hunters,” said Black Fall. “We’re going there so that we,” she gestured to Cold Blood and herself, “can free the Wereponies and change the world for the better. That’s why we’re here.”

The Leader pondered her words for a moment as several more snake ponies popped their heads out of the ground. Suddenly, the Leader slammed his spike to the ground and the Serpentine all backed away from Black Fall. She had killed six of them. Their bodies lay sprawled out on the ground.

Black Fall turned around to face the Leader, who was standing over her partner. On the part of his face where the mouth would normally be, something started to glow. Realizing what was about to happen, Black Fall dropped all of her weapons and raised her hooves. At that, the purple glow coming from the leader’s mouth area faded away. Then, two Serpentines came out of the ground to take her weapons, which they tossed into a pile.

Black Fall glanced at the pile and saw the spear of the First Hunter had been thrown onto it as well. She looked back at the Leader. He approached her slowly and studied her. A couple of minutes went by before another rusty-armored creature walked up and spoke for their Leader, saying, “You seem to have been trained and prepared well.”

The Leader put out one of his hoofs to move her cloak all the way to look at her side. He saw her ex-hunter mark, an arrowhead with a black X on it. As soon as he saw that, he backed away from her. Then the Leader’s speaker said, a little fear in his voice, “You were one of them, weren’t you?”

Black Fall replied, “If you mean a Hunter, then yes. I was one of them once; but no longer. I questioned the countless times I had to kill a Monster. Now, I’m willingly going against them, which is why I have sided with this Werepony. And since you now know that I used to be a Hunter, I feel that it’s necessary to tell you that Cold Blood and I are planning to go.”

The Leader glanced from side to side before the pony that spoke for him said in a hushed voice, “Not here.”

Then they let Cold Blood go and allowed the ex-hunter to collect her weapons before heading south. As they traveled, Black Fall checked all of her weapons to make sure that they still worked. When she finished her inspection, she looked up and noticed a fortress at the base of a mountain. She saw something else too; there were several ponies on the walls of the fortress, and there were two towers with ballista's pointed at the countryside. It was the fortress that she and Cold Blood were looking for. But Black Fall wasn’t a fool; she knew all too well that you needed an army to breach a fortress like that. Maybe she could convince her new friends to help her?