The Dragonship sailed through the river that ran through Ponyville and it's somewhat small pier. As small as it was, it was just big enough for Twilight to dock her ship. She lowered the mast and sails, retracted the two platforms at the side of her ship and lowered the staircase onto the small pier. She finally tied the rope around said pier and began walking towards the still-being-rebuilt Ponyville only to see Celestia and Rainbow Dash in their wheelchairs with their mouths agape at the sight of the giant sand ship.

"Hello princess, hello Rainbow" Twilight greeted "I see that you two are up and about, and doing quite nicely."

"Sh-Sh-Ship..." was all the rainbow maned Pegasus could say to Twilight.

"T-Twilight, wherever did you acquire such a magnificent vessel?" Celestia asked her student.

"This thing?" she lavender mare questioned as she looked up at her ship "I found it with another mare when we were looking for a way to defeat a giant sand whale that was going to destroy Appleloosa if we didn't stop it." she looked back at her friends "Oh yeah; I fought a giant sand whale before I even got to Appleloosa."

"Whoa!" Rainbow Dash snapped out of her trance and looked excited "That sounds awesome! I wish I could've been there to see that! Did you do anything else?"

"Well, I went to Baltimare with that same mare, and found Fluttershy, who's sleeping in the hull right now" explained the most recent hunter of the three "That's when I learned the place was being terrorized by a Lagiacrus. Naturally, we defeated the Lagiacrus only to learn that a Ceadeus was-"

"A Ceadeus?" the cyan mare interrupted "Twilight, I'm not a scholar or a nerd like you are, but I'm pretty positive that Ceadeus are extinct. In fact you were the very same pony who told me that."

"Well, I recently discovered a new one that was infected with the Frenzy Virus" explained Twilight "But somehow, I was actually able to remove all traces of the virus from it, letting swim off never to be seen again."

"And that's it?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow "It just left with no repercussions? Nothing happened after that?"

"Well, the mare I was working with decided to stay in Baltimare with her sister, but other than that-" she then remembered something very important and facehoofed herself "Oh yeah... I was arrested for summoning the Ceadeus..."

"You were what?" Celestia's eyes grew slightly cross, but not with her student "Those ponies of Baltimare... I told them to cease with their accusations with their church and beliefs! I'll be having a talk with Baltimare's mayor later..."

"Thank you, princess" Twilight smiled "Now, why don't I tell you the whole story in a more comfortable area?"

"Agreed..." the Princess of the Day was trying to get over the fact that the ponies of Baltimare would imprison her student. As the three walked/wheeled themselves away, Fluttershy emerged from the bottom of the Dragonship onto the deck and yawned.

"Ahh... What a nice nap..." she softly spoke "Oh, we appear to be in Ponyville again... um, why is it being repaired? Twilight? Anypony? Ohhhhh..."

XXXXXX

The three mares reached the hospital where Rainbow and Celestia got back into their beds and settled down. From there, Twilight told them about the Dah'ren Mohran, the ancient ruins, the Dragonship, Applejack's whereabouts, her meeting with Faust and Nyx, Fluttershy's amnesia, the swamp, the Diorekkusu and it's untimely fate, the filly named Sun Stone found in the swamp, her sister Teal Speck, and the fights with the Lagiacrus and Ceadeus, right down to the two Dragonators she found.

Celestia, who was sitting up on her bed with her pillow, took a sip of tea from her magical grasp after her student finished her stories. She let out a sigh of enjoyment from her drink and smiled at the lavender mare.

"From the sound of things, I'd say you had some very interesting adventures throughout Equestria, Twilight" she said "It seems you have grown as a hunter exponentially. I'm so very proud of you!"

"Th-Thank you, princess" the purple maned Unicorn blushed lightly and bowed.

"No need for formalities, Twilight" giggled the white Alicorn, to which Twilight stood back up and chuckled nervously "Now, as you know, I am the guildmaster of Ponyville and Canterlot's branch of Guilds. As a special mission, I'd like for you to take the day off and enjoy yourself in White Tail Woods for a harvest tour."

"But princess," Twilight spoke up "what about Pinkie and Rarity? They're still missing and they could be anywhere!"

"Calm down, my dearest student" Celestia chuckled a bit "While yes, I think it would be wise to search for your friends, it's even wiser to take a short break. You have trekked through sand and sea to find your friends so far, and you have had little rest from the sound of it. So, I wish for you to just have a relaxing quest, okay?"

"Okay, your highness..." the lavender mare let out a defeated sigh and nodded.

"Thank you for understanding, Twilight" the white Alicorn smiled "Now, the Gathering Hall in Ponyville was unfortunately destroyed, so I'll just give you this..." she opened a drawer next to her with her magic and brought out a small slip of paper. She read through it for a second before nodding and passing it over to her student.

"Princess, what is this?" the Unicorn asked her teacher.

"That is a makeshift quest note should the time for anypony to want to take a quest here in Ponyville come" she answered "I've already marked a harvest tour quest on it, so there's nothing else to say but have fun!"

"Take care out there, Twi!" Rainbow called out from her bed.

"Rainbow, I'll be fine" Twilight giggled "It's just a little harvest tour. What's the worst that could happen?"

XXXXXX

White Tail Woods was a peaceful place known by all yet visited by few. The trees were always clean and the grass always healthy, as well as the monsters themselves living within the forest were all but hazardous. Even larger monsters, such as the Nerscylla and Seltas, would stay underground to leave the woods alone. Twilight took a deep breath in and out as she smelled the cool spring air of the quiet forest.

Before she even got to the area, she had her armour and insect glaive upgraded from all the Lagiacrus scales and Ceadeus Horns she had on her ship. As of now, she was wearing a full Lagiacrus armour set and Ceadeus insect glaive, which, with her Kinsect, was currently on her back.

"Maybe Princess Celestia was right" Twilight sighed with a smile "It would be nice to have a break after fighting two Elder Dragons and, well... just about everything else I fought. And in the meantime, I can get some materials for potions and all that good jazz... wait, did I just say that? I guess Teal must have rubbed off me a bit..." she giggled as she bent down and picked some herbs and blue mushrooms.

XXXXXX

As Twilight continued through the forest, she saw a herd of Aptonoth running away from something. By reaction, she withdrew her insect glaive with her magic and readied herself. Rustling could be heard through the bushes around her. Finally, the thing circling her stopped moving and shook around in just a single bush.

Slowly and carefully, the lavender hunter approached the rustling bush. Taking a deep breath, she opened the bush up to reveal the monster. She expected a huge and terrifying monster to pop out at her. Instead, she saw a harmless little rabbit look up at her before bouncing away.

"D'aww..." she cooed as she put away her glaive and Kinsect "I can't believe those Aptonoth were running away from a harmless bu-"

Twilight never even finished her sentence before she was tackled by something on her left. She never even got to see what it was that attacked her before she had to shake it off. After a short while, she was eventually able to get a better glimpse at her attacker. It was a scrawny, raptor monster with red scales and a purple crest on it's head.

"An Iodrome?" the lavender mare recognized the monster "What's an Iodrome doing in White Tail Woods?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXj_LCChlbE

Her question was immediately answered as countless Iopreys, an Iodrome's underlings, ran around her. However, what made these particular monsters special was that each and ever Ioprey was mounted by a dark grey pony-like thing. Each of them wore simple leather armour, but that's all that was truly needed if one managed to tame and control a monster. They had bug-like wings sticking out of their armour, and all of their eyes were blue. They bore sharp fangs and had holes in their legs. They were Changelings, an intelligent subspecies of pony and rulers of the Badlands.

The purple maned hunter took out her insect glaive again, but the Changelings and Iopreys continued to circle her with no fear whatsoever. Suddenly, all present in the area heard a horn sound. They stopped and, with the Iodrome, looked up to the direction of the sound. Twilight did the same and saw a much taller Changeling female with a full leather armour set and a lance on her back walk out from the treeline. She had bug-like wings and a crooked horn which was capable of magic as she held a small bone horn in her magical grasp. She eyed the Unicorn and smirked.

"Sick her!" she laughed.

As the taller Changeling watched the Changelings, Iopreys and Iodrome circled Twilight again, the lavender mare swung her insect glaive around to try and knock a few of the bug ponies off their mounts. She took a few down, but after a while the riders became just too much for her to handle. She grabbed her glaive with her hooves and pole-vaulted over the Changelings before running away as fast as she could.

"Intriguing weapon..." the taller Changeling thought with a smirk "I'd like to see that in the arena... AFTER HER!!"

The riders nodded and began to chase after the Unicorn hunter. She tried with all her might to keep running, but the Changelings inevitably caught up. She prepared herself for another pole-vault, but one of the Ioprey riders shot a tranquilizer bomb at her, slowly putting her to sleep.

(Music stop)

"A shame somepony with your type of weapon would go down so easily..." the taller Changeling spoke over the sleeping body of Twilight before turning back to her Ioprey riders "Take her back to base and await for further instructions."

"Sure thing, boss" a Changeling spoke with a hiss to his voice. He and a few others put her weapon back onto her back and brought her up onto a spare Ioprey. Finally, the leader Changeling mounted herself onto the Iodrome and called out to her troop to dash back to the Badlands. What they didn't realize was that Twilight's Kinsect had escaped and saw the whole thing, a worried expression on it's face. It began to follow the Ioprey group in an effort to save it's master.

XXXXXX

Twilight awoke uncomfortably and felt as if something whacked her in the back of her head. She rubbed her forehead with her front left hoof and looked around her still in her lying down position. She was in a tinted red, stone cave lit only by a single torch. The room-like cavern was semi-circled and not exactly large. Behind her was a metal prison gate that looked sturdier than a Basarios's rocky hide. However, what caught her attention was the four ponies lying on the wall of the room, staring right at her. One was a bright pink mare with a poofy darker pink mane. Beside her was a heavy bowgun.

"Hiya, Twilight!" she bounced "It's good to finally see you up and awake! Welcome to the Badlands! We're going to have so much fun here! There's parties, jousting, cake, friends, more parties... It's all I could ever ask for! Well, maybe not EVERYTHING I could ask for, but it's a lot! And now you're here to join me and my new friends! We're going to have-"

"Oh my god, will you shut-up?!" shouted one of the ponies. He was a Pegasus with a light yellow coat and a long mane that was a slightly brighter yellow. He wore a full set of Kecha Wacha armor, pants and all. His helmet was off currently and next to him was a Brachydios switch-axe.

"Hey jackass, don't be an asshole!" shouted another pony. He too was a Pegasus with a light blue coat and a decently long brown mane with a streak of red down the middle. He wore a full set of Zinogre armour, and his helmet was off as well. He too had a switch-axe, but this one was more Zinogre-like.

"Well at least I wasn't the one who got us into this mess!" the first one shouted back.

"I was picking some blue mushrooms for some more potions" the second argued "I would have been just fine if you didn't run ahead and try to take the Tetsucabra all by yourself!"

"They're easy monsters!"

"We were fighting it in High rank!"

"We would have lost it if you fell behind!"

"And we would have lost you if I hadn't been there to save you, dammit!"

"ENOUGH!!! For the love of Christ, will you two shut-up?!" yelled the final pony. He was a Unicorn with an ash grey coat and a short black mane with a few red highlights at the ends of his hairs. He wore some Stygian Zinogre armour with his helmet taken off as well. Beside him was a Brachydios longsword.

The two lay silent after the ash grey stallion, who appeared to be the leader, spoke. He let out a huge sigh before getting up and turning his attention to Twilight.

"I'm sorry about them" he apologized "They bicker a lot. Allow me to introduce myself" he bowed for a second "My name is Dark Thunder, and these two idiots are my team. The yellow one is my brother Butter Hero, and the the blue one is my friend Rage Quit. Together we make Team Brachydios, a semi-successful team currently in High rank."

"Pleasure" Twilight smiled "My name is Twilight Sparkle, student and friend of Princess Celestia."

"And I'm Pinkie Pie, the best party planner EVER!!" the bubbly pink mare beside her lavender friend bounced up and down.

"We know who you are" Butter said "You've only been saying your name for the past hour..."

"So you're a student of the princess, eh?" Dark ignored his brother's comment and continued speaking with their new guest "I guess if even a top hunter from her highness herself was caught, there's not much we could do now..."

"Oh, I'm not a-" Twilight froze once she realize what he has said "Wait, what do you mean by 'caught'?"

"You mean you don't know?" Rage Quit spoke up "The Changelings around here like to wrangle hunters up and use them for hunting monsters. After that, they like selling their body parts on the black market. The monsters, not the hunters. Don't worry. They're like rogue hunters, if you want to get technical."

"So, in short, I'm a slave?" the lavender mare asked with worry in her voice.

"Afraid so, honey" he sighed "But I suppose it isn't so bad. We get to keep our weapons, for one. Looks like they even let you keep that pole thing over there..." he raised a hoof and pointed to her insect glaive leaning on the gate, much to the purple maned hunter's surprise.

"You five! You're on a mission today" hissed a Changeling guard with leather armour from the other side of the cell gate, getting all of their attentions "We want you to take out a Tetsucabra. You will remove its tusks and you will bring them back to our boss. Is that perfectly clear?"

All five of them nodded, some with scowls on their faces, and some with crossness in their eyes. The Changeling laughed and walked away, preparing to get the five ready for their new quest. Rage and Butter stood up, put on their helmets and equipped their switch-axes. Dark sighed and went to go and get his longsword before Twilight stopped him.

"Are we really hunting that Tetsucabra for them?" she asked.

"No, we're escaping this hellhole" he smirked "And I have just the plan for it."

Author's Notes:

Hello, hunters of all ages! Tis I, your humble guildmaster for this evening, and I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for not putting out a chapter yesterday. I was sidetracked. But it's okay since I'm here now!

So rogue Changeling hunters? The idea was suggested by DarkThunder144 and I really liked it, so I put it in and made a good story! Will our heroes escape from their Changeling captors? Who knows? This story really can go either way!

Place a comment down below for what monsters you want to see Twilight fight in the future. As long as that tag down there doesn't say "Complete", you're free to say any suggestions you want!

Be sure to Like, Comment, Favourite and Follow, and until then, happy hunting!

Oh, and if you happened to leave a Favourite, leave a Like as well. I have a bit of OCD when someone doesn't add themselves to the collective, but if you want to give me a hard time (which you can, by the way. ), then you don't have to take my advice.