Hunter/Prey

by UnluckyReaver

Chapter 16

“Another journey?” Hunter asked.

“You have learned the truth of yourself,” the memory being informed them, “now you must learn the truth about her.”
Hunter turned and found Selene still standing there. When he turned back to ask the phantom what he meant, Hunter found that it was gone. “So... that happened.” Hunter muttered.

Selene slowly moved forwards until she was standing next to the human. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Hunter sighed, “it’s just a lot to take in. I mean, just a few days ago my biggest problem was dealing with pony politics, now I’m the victim of some ancient curse and the key to keeping some demon locked away.”

“It’s not like anything really changed,” Selene said, gently nuzzling Hunter, “that is what you were from the moment you arrived here; the only difference is now you know.”

Hunter wrapped an arm around Selene’s neck, returning the affection the dark furred alicorn was showing him. “Wait...” Hunter said as he realized what he was doing. “How is it that I can touch you but not the others?”

“What do you mean?” Selene asked, pulling away from Hunter.

“I mean I basically just hugged you,” Hunter explained, “and my head doesn’t hurt. If I tried this with Luna I’d probably pass out from the pain.”

“Maybe it’s because I don’t have a physical form.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Remember that technically I’m just a part of your mind, so there is nothing for the curse to affect.”

“I guess that makes sense, but it also means that we’re still inside the memory spell.”

“And that is where we shall remain until you figure out how to get us out of it.”

“Me? Why do I ...” Hunter sighed, “doesn’t matter, let’s just get this over with.”

Selene giggled softly as she followed the human as he exited the castle.

---

“Let’s hope that all roads lead to Rome.” Hunter said, looking past the gatehouse that led out of the city where several tunnels branched off.

“What does roaming have to do with it?” Selene asked.

“What? No, it’s a metaphor.” Hunter explained. “It means that no matter what path you take you end up in the same place. Hopefully it applies to our situation.”

“Indeed,” Selene nodded, “however the only way to know is to start walking.”

“Guess you’re right.” Hunter smiled, picking a tunnel at random and heading down it as Selene quickly followed behind. After his fourth step, Hunter let out a quiet sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Selene asked.

“It’s nothing,” Hunter answered, “I was just hoping that there would be one of those blinding flashes and we’d suddenly be teleported to our destination.”

“What?” Selene giggled.

“It happened last time.” Hunter said with a straight face.

Selene stared at the human, who kept the deadpan expression for several seconds before bursting out in laughter. Selene continued to stare at him for a moment longer, before she began laughing as well. They carried on for several moments before they managed to calm down. “I needed that.” Hunter said, while trying compose himself. “We probably should start walking.”

As he took his next step down the dark tunnel a blinding light filled his eyes. “Now it’s just screwing with me.” Hunter muttered as he tried to get his eyes to adjust. When his vision cleared, Hunter found himself standing on a small hill overlooking a tranquil valley.

As Hunter took in the view, movement through the valley caught his attention. A large group of ponies pulling carts and wagons entered the valley. After a moment, they parked the wagons in a circle and started unloading them. Bringing out lumber and tools, half of the ponies began to construct crude shelters, while others set about clearing and tilling the ground. “What is... when is this?” Hunter asked aloud.

“My guess would be during the founding of Equestria.” Selene said, slowly walking up beside Hunter. “Probably just after the windigo incident.”

“Founding of Equestria? What would we need to see here?” Hunter asked. As he watched the ponies in the valley, time suddenly sped up as if he was watching a video on fast forward. A week passed in under a minute, then a second and then a third. The crude shelters evolved into true houses, barns were erected, fields were plowed and seeds sown, the crops sprouting under the attention of the ponies. Every morning and evening, unicorns would gather on mass in the middle of the town to raise and lower the sun and moon.

After a month passed, time in the valley slowed back down to a normal pace. Two new ponies entered the town, ponies with both wings and horns. Hunter immediately recognised the pair as Caelum and Terra, the alicorns that defeated the demon Chernabog. The two alicorns were greeted with suspicion at first, but were soon accepted into the community. Time began to flow at an accelerated pace once more, months passing by in a matter of moments. It wasn’t long until a third alicorn appeared in the town. The small filly with a dull white coat and pink mane followed the two older alicorns where ever they went. Time sped up even more, allowing a few years to pass in under a minute. When time slowed down again, Hunter could see the white alicorn had grown, and two new fillies had joined the family. One had a deep blue coat and mane, while the other was a dark purple.

“Twins?” Hunter wondered out loud. “Can ponies have twins?”

Several more years passed by in moments, as Hunter watched the young alicorn grow. One day, the white alicorn joined the group of unicorns who were about to raise the sun. Their horns glowed, and the sun started its slow journey upwards into the sky. The light crept across the valley floor until it touched the group of ponies in the town’s center; the sun’s speed violently increased reaching its midmorning point moments after dawn. A flash of light drew Hunter’s attention back down to the village. The alicorn was floating off the ground, her fur was now pure white and her mane had changed from the simple pink to an ethereal rainbow, her previously empty flank now had a golden sun emblazoned on it.

The unicorns desperately struggled to regain control of the sun. At the same time, Terra carefully made her way through the crowd until she was standing next to the filly. The elder alicorn placed a gentle hoof on the younger one, bringing the filly out of her trance. The sun immediately slowed back down to its normal pace. The glow emanating from the unicorn’s horns faded as they released their grasp on the sun. Several of them collapsed, while others stared at the filly in awe. It wasn’t long until the ponies started talking to one another in an attempt to figure out what had just happened. Eventually a consensus seemed to be reached as they all turned their attention to the filly. The unicorns began to debate what this revelation could mean. Time fast-forwarded once again, each day the filly would join the unicorns in raising and lowering the sun, and as her skill and control grew fewer and fewer unicorns gathered with her.

Although now only a small handful of unicorns working with the alicorn were needed to move the sun, the same was not true for the moon. Each night dozens of unicorns gathered in order to set the moon on its course. The idea that if one alicorn could help or even control the sun by herself, then a second alicorn may be able to do the same with the moon began to spread through the village.

As night approached and the unicorns gathered to raise the moon, the twin alicorn fillies joined them in the center of town. Along with the unicorns, the fillies’ horns lit up and a moment later the moon began to rise up over the horizon. Just like the previous alicorn and the sun, there was a bright flash as magical energy surged through the twins, and the moon rocketed up into the sky. As Terra and Caelum calmed the two fillies down, the gathered unicorns began talking with one another.

Once everything calmed down, Hunter had a chance to see the changes that the fillies had gone through. Although they both now had an ethereal mane and tale that looked like the night sky full of stars, that is where the similarity ended; the first was now a deep blue and had a crescent moon for her cutie mark, while the other was completely black and had a gibbous moon on her flank.

Angry shouts drew Hunter’s attention away from the alicorn’s appearance and back to the village as a whole. The human watched as the gathered unicorns where shouting and pointing accusingly at the twins, who where now hiding behind their parents, then back up to the moon. Hunter looked toward where the unicorns where pointing and found a half moon shining brightly in the sky.

“I don’t get it.” Hunter confessed. “Why are they all panicking over a half moon?”

“Didn’t you notice?” Selene asked quietly. “As days and months turned into years, you never noticed the moon?”
“I’m pretty sure it was there.” Hunter shrugged. “I don’t think I noticed anything strange about it.”

“It was always full.”

“Always full?” Hunter asked his confusion clear on his face. “But the Equestrian moon has phases, doesn’t it?”

“It does now.” Selene said cryptically.

Closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, Hunter let out a soft sigh. “Fine, be no help then.” he muttered.
“Oh, look time is speeding up again!” Selene announced. “And the ponies have gotten over fear of the alicorn twins and are actually enjoying a moon that has phases. How nice.”

Hunter slowly opened his eyes and found that the ponies had indeed accepted the now changing moon, even if they still spent their nights inside. “You think that ponies’ spending their nights inside is nice?” Hunter asked, a little confused given what he knew about Selene’s past.

“At one time I would be consumed by anger and jealousy,” Selene admitted, “but not anymore.”

“Really?”

“Well, I might be a little annoyed over the whole thing.” Selene said with a smile.

Hunter stared at Selene blankly for a few seconds before his lips turned upward into a smile and he started laughing. “And I thought you didn’t have a sense of humor.” he said as he slowly calmed down.

Time continued onwards as more years rolled by. Everything in the valley fell into a routine, each day passing much like the one before until the region was struck by a small tremor and dark smoke began to billow out of a nearby mountain.

“This is the day Caelum and Terra die.” Hunter said as he let out a low sigh.

“How can you be so sure?” Selene asked.

“This is Equestria’s Pompeii; the mountain is going to explode.”

Selene’s eyes went wide, and she found herself unable to say anything; instead she stared at the human with her mouth agape. The ground shook again, and the volcano erupted. The top quarter of the mountain was launched in a million different directions as it exploded. Giant columns of ash billowed out and churned across the sky, blacking out the sun. Lava bubbled over the volcano’s lip and began to pour down the mountain side, burning or burying everything it came across. Ponies screamed in fear as they ran blindly through the streets in a desperate attempt to flee to safety.

Light suddenly broke through the ash cloud as Caelum led a small group of pegasi into the sky, they raced back and forth clearing the ash away. At the same time, Terra and a dozen unicorns casted a magic spell in unison causing a massive force field to appear, redirecting the flow of lava away from the village. Groups of earth ponies loaded the young, the sick and infirm, and the elderly onto wagons, pulling them out of town and away from the devastation. The three alicorn fillies screamed and fought against a group of ponies who were loading them into a wagon. The trio continued to protest as the wagon carried them away from their parents. A few moments later, the wagons climbed the hill opposite of volcano. Keeping to the high ground it disappeared into the distance.

The efforts put in by the ponies down in the valley begun to pay off when the ground shook again and a second volcano erupted, which was quickly followed by a third. As more ash flew into the sky it quickly undid all the work the pegasi had accomplished. Now caught in the toxic clouds, pegasi began to fall to the earth one by one as their bodies gave out on them. As more lava poured down from the mountains and struck the force field, the unicorns began to waver under the added stress put on them, and one after another they collapsed. A dozen or more wagons were now trapped inside the town, each one filled with ponies who now had nowhere to run.

Finding it unbearable to watch the scene below any longer, Hunter turned his back on the valley and closed his eyes tight in a desperate attempt to block out the tragedy he was being forced to witness. Hunter clamped his hands over his ears, attempting to mute the screams that rose from the valley.

“No more.” Hunter said, trying to will the scene away.

A monstrous roar echoed in his ears, drawing the human’s attention reluctantly back towards the valley. Rising out of one of the volcanoes was a giant serpentine creature with forward swept horns, three pairs of wings and cover in black scales that glistened as the reflected the light from the lava below. It circled the valley, seemingly reveling in the destruction that engulfed the valley. Flashes of multicoloured light filled the sky as the surviving unicorns fired bolts of magic at the flying creature.

Two forms rose up out of the devastation; the ash covered alicorns flew towards the monster with their horns glowing as they summoned the Elements to them. Just as they had done when confronting Chernabog, the alicorns used their magic to send out the elements so that they surrounded the massive flying creature. One by one each of the elements began to glow; when the last one was radiating its light they fired bolts of magical energy, engulfing the beast in a brilliant multi-coloured orb.

As the light faded away a large stone statue fell to the earth, landing in a pool of lava where it sat for a moment before slowly slinking below the surface. The alicorns horns glowed once more as the launched the Elements towards the horizon, before they too fell to the earth below, the volcanic ash and heat had done its damage. Hunter closed his eyes once more, unable to watch but still knowing what their ultimate fate would be.

A gentle breeze blew past the human, and when he opened his eyes again Hunter found that he was no longer standing over a valley surrounded by volcanoes but standing on a castle’s battlements. In the courtyard below him, Hunter saw a trio of alicorns faced off against a strange creature with a long serpent body and mismatched limbs. The strange creature laughed as it raised its arms, the deep blue and the black alicorns were both levitated off the ground then sent flying towards each other. A massive explosion occurred when the two alicons collided, the light was so intense that it blinded Hunter, the shockwave forced the air out of his lungs.

Hunter dropped down to his knees, desperately gasping for breath but otherwise unhurt. Swarms of angry screeching birds took to the air, and drew Hunter’s attention to them and the other changes to the landscape. As he slowly pushed himself back up onto his feet, he could feel the wind swirling around him, blowing his hair in every direction. The clouds began to churn and swell, changing from a pure white to a menacing gray. Lightning flashed between them, quickly followed by massive thunderclaps. Even the trees, which once stood tall and strong, were now twisted and scarred. In the courtyard below where the two alicorns had collided, was a single alicorn laying on the ground. She had black fur and a crescent moon for her cutie mark. The white alicorn with a sun on her flank quickly rushed over to her sister.

“That is how I was born.” Selene said as she hung her head. “That is how Nightmare Moon came into being.”

“Nightmare Moon, yes.” Hunter said, raising Selene’s head so he could look her in the eye. “But not you.”

“How can you say that!” Selene demanded, before turning away from Hunter. “You saw what happened.”

“Then we saw two different things!” Hunter said sternly. He reached out and turned Selene so that she was once again facing him. “What I saw was the tragic story of two sisters.” he said, his face and tone of voice softening. “Sisters who were shunned, their abilities ignored by those around them. Sisters who lost their parents at a young age in a tragedy that no one could foresee. Sisters who barely managed survive an attack from giant monster that could turn peaceful mountains into raging volcanoes. Sisters who shared a very special connection, and at the end, that connection was used against them. Changing what would have been two lives filled with joy into one life of sorrow and misery.”

“You’re talking about Celestia and Luna’s lives, aren’t you?” Selene asked, her voice containing a trace amount of sadness. “Those are the sisters you are referring to, not me.”

“I’m referring to Luna and you.” Hunter said, pointing at Selene with the tip of his finger touching her forehead. “I once said that to me you were not Nightmare Moon, when what I should have said was you are not Nightmare Moon.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Nightmare Moon is nothing more than a combination of you and Luna, your desires brought fore and corrupted by fear and insecurity, and probably whatever magic that thing did to you.”

Selene said nothing; she just stood there with tears starting to fill her eyes. Hunter wrapped his arms around the alicorn’s neck, brining her into a caring embrace. Closing her eyes, Selene buried her face into his shoulder. A faint glow from her cutie mark caught Hunter’s attention.

“It’s ok.” Hunter said as he raised Selene’s head off of his shoulder and indicated towards her cutie mark. Turning to see what was on her flank, Selene found that cutie mark had changed from a crescent moon to a gibbous moon. “You are who you always were, the twin sister of Luna, the younger sister of Celestia, alicorn of the moon and night sky, and my friend.”

“You think of me as your friend, even after all this?” Selene asked. “Even after learning what I am and what I was planning to do to you?”

“Granted, making friends with a being that isn’t more that a voice in my head would raise some serious questions about my mental stability back home, here it just seems to work.” Hunter said with a small laugh. “But yes, despite everything that has happened to me, and everything that you planned to do, I still consider you to be my friend.”

Joy spread across Selene’s face as she suddenly wrapped her forelegs and wings around the human. “Thank you. I was so worried that you would reject me.” Selene confessed. “That you would try to lock me away in the back of your mind, but you accept me for who I am, mistakes and all.”

“It’s what friends do.” Hunter said as he returned the embrace. “Even when everything... starts to fade out?”

Selene looked over Hunter’s shoulder and saw that the world around them was slowly fading away. “Do not worry, the spell has ended and your mind is returning to your body.” she informed him. “When next you dream we shall speak, but until then I will watch over you.”

The world slowly faded away into darkness, the last thing Hunter felt was the warmth of Selene’s embrace.

With an audible gasp, Hunter woke, his eyes shooting wide open. He remained motionless for several moments as he tried to regain control of his breathing. Eventually his desperate need for air subsided, he was able to take in is surroundings. He was in deep cave or underground tunnel, lying next to a large geode. The only source of light was a small crystal that way on the ground next to him. As he checked himself over, he found that not only was he still wearing the armour, but he also had the axe and dagger he had found in the world the spell had created.

“I am never going to get use to this whole magic thing.” he muttered before grabbing the crystal and pushing himself up onto his feet. “Time to start walking... again.”

Comments

[Merchent343]

As usual, awesome.

Nothing else needs be said.

[More Dakka]

2693091

nothing at all.

[LuluTia]

Aww man!

AUTHOR! a question

Is TECHNOLOGY gonna play a big role here or not cause it will suck if Hunter gets MAGIC weapons instead ;(

Remeber technology is what makes us humans dangerous >-<

I just hope he doesn't just start giving ponies guns because it all because it will make their defenses "better" And Ohh yes is there by any chance he would be able to make some Human armor. Like Kevlar

Giving tech to ponies is like giving the keys to the death star to a 12 year old and say

"Have fun!"

[LuluTia]

Hmm Kevlar is several more TOUGHER than steel btw

Uhmm and yeah the reason why I suggested that is because I feel the Fear of the human capabilities is not weighting enough to the ponies or other species.

Im sure you feel it too

[UnluckyReaver]

2696531
2696555

Remember its armour he found, that belonged to a medieval society.
The reason no one fears human technology is because he hasn't used any of it yet. Hunter has given hints at what humans in general, and him in specific, are capable of but none of it has come into play yet.

As for who ends up with what: spoilers.

[Warman1138]

What an interesting story, it meshes together very well.