Chapter 4: Hunters and the Hunted
Rainbow Dash came flying back to the house in pure panic, "I don't know what they're firing at me, but I don't want to find out!" she cried.
The other ponies didn't want to find out either, so they ran back into the house and ducked for cover, as did I. Bangs could be heard once more, some of which shattered my windows.
"What in Celestia's name is going on out there?" Rarity groaned.
"Hunters," I growled under my breath. "They go out and try to hunt down animals for sport. I've caught them on several occassions on my property, doesn't look like they learned their lesson from the last time." I looked over to Rainbow Dash, "what did you do to get them upset?"
"I didn't do anything!" she snapped, "I was just flying high in the sky when I heard several loud bangs and something flew past my wing."
"Flew past your wing? Show it to me."
Rainbow Dash held out her left wing, thankfully there were no holes in any of her feathers.
"You're lucky those bullets didn't hit your feathers, otherwise you'd really be in trouble."
"How much trouble?"
"The type of trouble where if you don't get help, you won't survive. Bullets and guns are deadly to both animals and humans."
Rainbow Dash gulped upon hearing that, then she saw me pick out a gun of my own. She backed away nervously. I looked down to her and explained, "this ain't a real gun, it fires off paintballs. They'll sting, but not seriously hurt someone."
"What good will that do aganist bullets?" asked Applejack.
"In a normal fight, they wouldn't be good at all, but they don't know this is a paintball gun. After their last visit on my property, I had to get something that would scare them off, and if that didn't work, hit them with paintballs. Now stay down, I'll take care of this."
The ponies slowly got up and ran downstairs where they would be safe. I opened the door and pointed my weapon out the door.
"I know you two knuckleheads are out there! You might as well show yourselves and surrender!" I shouted, "unless you want to see who's got the fastest trigger finger!"
The two hunters came out of hiding, lowering their weapons.
"Don't shoot sir, we didn't mean to break your window!" shouted one of them.
"You two dumb idiots, my window is the least of your concerns! Now why are you still wondering around here? You're not going after some poor defenseless animal are you?"
"We just want something to hang on the wall." His female partner nodded in agreement.
In the background, I could hear Rainbow Dash gulp. I lifted my weapon up and pointed it at them, "you two dumb idiots listen to me, your stupid hunting is going to bring the end of someone's life, even an innocent animal. Now get off my property, or your names are going to be changed to mud!"
Scared because they thought I had a real gun, they took off for their truck and drove away.
"Huh, didn't even have to fire any paintballs today."
I walked back inside, picked up the phone and called the chief of police. I told him everything, "right don't worry Sir, we'll find them and we'll make sure they learn their lesson once and for all."
"Thank you Chief."
I put the phone down and leaned aganist the wall. Then I remembered, "you ponies can come upstairs again, they're gone!"
They all came back upstairs, all looking rather scared. This was something I was hoping not to tell them, yet they learned about hunters, and almost at the cost of one of their lives.
"Please don't tell me you face this every night," groaned Rainbow Dash, "cause if it is, I'm not going back out there."
"No, it doesn't happen every night, or every week or every month. Once in a blue moon this happens. I can assure you Dashie that it's safe out there."
"Well if you...hey wait a second, what did you just call me?"
"Uh...Dashie?"
"That's my little nickname for her!" cried Pinkie Pie.
"Oh sorry, but I usually call her Dashie too. Whenever I see her on the show and I see her do something heroic, I always shout out; 'go Dashie'. But if it bothers you, I'll stop saying it."
Rainbow Dash thought about it, then said; "nah, you can call me that if you want, I don't mind at all. Oh and thanks for scaring those 'hunters' off."
"It was my pleasure Dashie."
She lifted her right hoof and pointed it down, which meant she wanted me to get down to her height. I did so, and wouldn't you know it, she actually gave me a big hug.
"Only a true friend would help a friend in need, and you Sir are a true friend of mine."
"You got that right," I smiled.
After a few seconds, we let go, "alright, enough of this mushy stuff, it's so uncool you know."
"Right," I said, rolling my eyes. This was definetly the Rainbow Dash from the TV show.
She flapped her wings and flew over to the window, "you don't think they'll be back do you?"
"Nah they won't be back, not after seeing that paintball gun in my hand, though you should've seen the looks of their faces."
"I bet it was priceless," she sighed. She didn't need to say anything, I knew she was bored, and so were the other ponies, but it wasn't safe to go out until I got the call that the hunters had been caught.
I thought about what they could do. Video games were out of the question, and I'm sure they were tired of watching television. Music on the other hand, or hoof in their case, was perfect. I went over to my closet with my DVDs, VHS tapes and CDs, picked a CD out and put it into my CD player in the kitchen.
"What are you doing?" Fluttershy asked.
"You'll soon find out."
I pressed the play button and instantly, music came out. The ponies were surprised at first, but as soon as they heard the beat of the music, they started dancing. Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity danced on the floor of my living room, while Rainbow, Fluttershy and Twilight danced in the air, with help of their wings. I have to admit, they were pretty good at dancing.
"I guess we have more in common with humans than I had originally thought," said Rainbow Dash.
"I told you so," smiled Twilight.
"Aren't you going to dance with us Matthew?" Fluttershy asked, noticing I was just standing near the kitchen counter.
"Oh no, I couldn't. I'm not really good at dancing, or singing for that matter. If it's alright with everybody, uh everypony excuse me, I'll just stand and watch."
"Well if you're sure," said Rainbow Dash and went back to dancing.
Little Bridget was startled by the music, but I was able to calm her down. She looked up at Rainbow Dash, and this time didn't hiss. I guess she had gotten used to the idea of having ponies in the house. I was getting used to the idea too, even though I knew they would leave soon, but hopefully they took Starlight Glimmer with them.
"I wonder what that pony is up to anyways?" I thought to myself.
It just so happened that at that point and time, Starlight Glimmer had made her way to Brechin Ontario, which was over an hour's drive from Markham. She had managed to sneak away from Markham and many of the towns in between, now she had to get threw this town without being spotted once.
"It's so fun to terrorize humans," she muttered to herself.
Using her dark magic, she unleashed a blast of energy onto the highway. Cars, trucks and buses swerved to avoid the flames now on the highway. Then she unleashed some attacks on cars, making them burst into flames. Thankfully, the people inside the cars got out in time. Starlight laughed as she headed for the train tracks.
"I think one more 'accident' will keep them off my trail," she snickered and blasted the track.
A train was on the approach, Starlight got out of the way and watched as the train tipped over and crashed down on it's side. Starlight laughed in an evil way and slipped away while the townsfolk went to help the injuried.
"They think they know me, well they'll soon be proven wrong, after I've dealt with Twilight Sparkle."
And she ran off into the night, not being noticed once, somehow.
Meanwhile back at my house, we had stopped listening to the music and were outside on my deck, telling stories. I had gotten the phone call saying the hunters were going to be spending the night in jail. It was certainly a peaceful night and it was interesting to hear stories that had not been shown on the television series. I would have to remind myself not to tell anybody else.
As Applejack was telling me about the time her sister helped Trouble Shoes in Appleloosa, we heard my phone rang.
"Just one second AJ," I said. "Hello, Matthew speaking."
"Hey Matt, it's Patrick, you might be in for a shock when you hear this, but there was an attack in Berchin Ontario tonight." I fell out of my chair in complete shock.
"What?! You got to be kidding me!"
"I wish I was, but it's true. They're showing it on the news. Cars are on fire and a freight train was derailed, no lives were lost thankfully, but this is worse than what happened in Markham."
"I'll say it was."
Setting cars on fire was a bad thing, but a train derailment was worse than that. The only way it could be worse is if an airplane crashed. That's something else I don't want to think about.
"Worse still, there's no sign of the attacker. Whoever these fools are, they sure do know how to hide themselves from the world."
"Yeah, I guess they do. Thanks for letting me know Patrick, talk to you later."
I hung up the phone and told the ponies of what happened. They were in shock, except for Rainbow Dash, she was furious, "ugh! She's attacking and we can't get her! How far away is this town?"
"Still over five hours in driving, more if you're walking or flying."
Rainbow Dash shouted out into the night, "this is not right! We got to stop her!"
All the ponies agreed, but they had no idea of how they were going to stop her at all, nor did they know how they would hide their pressence in my world. Twilight could've used a memory charm like she did during the 'Discord' incident, but then I remembered, that would wipe out all the memories, not a good idea.
"We'll come up with something," said Twilight, "until then, I can only hope the other towns can find a way to protect themselves from her."
"You and all of us Twilight," I groaned.
I knew these towns all too well, I often passed them as I travelled down that very highway when I used to travel to New Liskeard for vacations. It was hard to imagine them under attack from a pony from Equestria. Not meaning to sound like a broken record here, but I wasn't sure how I was going to protect my new friends, or my own town should Starlight appear. It left me scared out of my wits.