I hummed to myself as I tilled the soil with Tak at his family’s farm. I didn’t have anything else to do and was asking around to see if I could do anything before my aunt comes. Besides, this was a bit easier then what mother had me do just a bit.

We finished tilling the soil for the next planting of summer plants; I informed that it was the start of Summer by Zecora when I passed her. I wiped the sweat off of my forehead and looked at Tak, “So, what’s next?”

“Now… Now I start planting the seeds.” Tak answered slightly out of breath, understandable as he did most of the work before I arrived. He pointed towards a large sack of seeds.

“Alright then,” I said before the two of us headed over and picked the sack up. “Got to say, this is a nice settlement you got here; it’s so… peaceful.” Tak smiled at this before speaking.

“It’s thanks to our little community working together.” He said as we placed the sack down before he took a handful of them. “But there are… downsides for us.” He said, frowning as he stopped and knelt down with the handful of seeds before bringing to plant them.

“How so?” I asked, taking a handful and planting seeds in a different row. “Grimm troubles?”

“That’s one of them, yes but our problems mostly lie towards the group of pony supremacists,” Tak replied, speaking the last word as if it was the first time he had ever used the term. “Sometimes they would merely insult us, treat us as animals but there are times where things would get physical during our visits to the nearest town.” He said, stopping briefly before continuing to plant the seeds.

“That sounds awful!” I said with a shocked look before frowning. “And does anyone do anything to stop them?”

“Not really, most ponies would simply look the other way out of fear,” Tak said this with a casual tone, giving me the sense that this sort of thing has been going on for longer than I would’ve thought.

“That’s just… wrong!” I said, now angrily planting seeds into the dirt. “No being is allowed to be treated this way, not a Faunus, not pony, not… anyone!”

“As true as that may be, not all think this way,” Tak said, slowly but surely moving down the row of tilled dirt. “But on the bright side, this forest is considered the deadliest forest in the kingdom so the ponies wouldn’t dare venture in here and even if they do, a simple Grimm could take of them,” Tak said with a little smile.

I merely grumbled to myself as we continued on planting. When we finished with the planting of seeds we were tasked to take a shipment to the town as a trade for some tools. I’ve calmed down somewhat as we carried the cargo.

During our stroll through the forest, I had immediately noted the lack of any Grimm activity which I found quite odd. Another thing I thought was strange was Tak’s weapon; it looked to be made using a slightly curved but rusted blade and a peculiar looking wooden handle, both wrapped with some dirty cloth. Connecting the edge to the handle was some form of mechanism.

“That’s an… odd weapon.” I pointed out to Tak. His ears twitched at my words; I guess I might’ve spooked him.

“Wha? My weapon?” He asked, reaching for it on his back before gripping the handle. “Is something wrong with it?” He asked.

“No, it’s just… well, I have seen different types of weapons before, Moten Coil here,” I pat my weapon. “It’s just that I haven’t seen any weapon look like yours.”

“O-oh.” He muttered, letting go of the weapon and lowering his arm. “I made it myself using what little I had at the time, and yeah, it may look odd or even unappealing, but it’s my weapon, one that I wouldn’t dare to give away.” He said proudly. The way he told this brought a smile on my face.

“Yeah, I know that feeling… but onto the matters on hand, it’s quite.” I pointed out. “Too quiet.” He raised a brow at this but soon realized what I meant.

“Oh right, I forgot to tell you that whenever we do one of these trades, we would give one this talisman,” Tak said, stopping and showing the talisman in question around his neck. “The talisman repel the grimm for as long as it is intact.” I looked at this and nodded.

“Right… nice to know.” I said as we continue. The rest of the walk was thankfully uneventful, and once we exited through the treeline, the pony town was in sight. We walked into town as I saw some ponies, anthro ones, seemed to be friendly to wave at us. “At least this place is friendly.”

“Somewhat.” Muttered Tak under his breath. I raised an eyebrow at him as I noticed not only ponies around, but some Faunus as well. I smiled as Tak led me towards a stall on the side of the road we were on as I saw a female Faunus was standing. She had long blond hair with a brown Stetson on top of her head. The woman had a brown jacket on with blue jeans with rope on the side of her waist. The only thing I saw that she was a Faunus was a pair of wolf ears that stick out of her hat and wolf tail. She turned and smiled at us.

“Howdy there Tak, good to see ya!” she greeted him. Tak smiled at her greeting and bowed at her.

“Hello, Jacqueline.” Greeted Tak before straightening back up. Jacqueline smiled before looking over at me.

“Hey there, don’t believe ah ever seen ya before.” she offered me her hand to shake. “Jacqueline Smith.”

I smiled and took her hand, almost wincing at the grip of her, “Hi there… I’m Viri Mal Kun.”

“Well again, howdy. So moving on to the trading,” I watched at Tak and Jacqueline talk and traded the shipment for tools and what not as I watched the townsfolk go on with their business.

“This place looks lively,” I said out loud. I heard Jacqueline chuckle at this.

“Yeah, this place is sure something, more so now than before,” she said quietly. Tak nodded at her words. I smiled as the two talked.

“Alright, that should do it. See ya for the next shipment?” Jacqueline asked Tak. The latter nodded with a smile. With that said, Tak and I headed back towards where we came from with the new tools and stuff.

“She seems nice,” I commented.

“She’s one of the few I know here.” He said, still smiling from having had a conversation with a friend. I smiled, somewhat happy for him. “It’s hard for me to socialize, especially outside the village.” He said. I raised a brow at this before asking.

“How so?” I asked him. “You seemed friendly enough, and not all ponies are rude to Faunus’.”

“Yeah but…” Tak sighed, not knowing what to say but after a brief moment of silence, he continued. “I don’t know; maybe it’s because I’m just awkward at socializing. Having been look down at and even made fun of because of my condition throughout my childhood hadn’t given me any socializing skills.” He said, a slight frown forming as he did. I merely shook my head and patted his back.

“You have a few friends, like the Faunus woman we were talking to and you have me as a friend as well. If you keep on trying you’ll get better and better at it.” I said with confidence. This earned me a little smile from the teen. The rest of our trek to exit the town was spent in silence, but I did notice some unfriendly glances that a few ponies gave us. I frowned at them as we moved on. “Though some others think otherwise…” I muttered to myself.

Once out of town, it wasn’t until we were back in the forest. An odd sense of dread greeted upon entering the forest, something didn’t feel right. I felt my tail bush up a bit as I looked around us, seeing if there’s something around us before leaning closer to Tak.

“Hey, do you feel… off?” I asked him. Tak stopped and knelt down before placing his free hand onto the dirt. I heard him take a deep breath before silence, but as quickly as he did this, he gasped for air with a panicked look.

“Oh Gods.” He gasped, shakily standing back up and dropping the bag of tools he carried before grabbing his weapon. Without any warning he sprinted off towards the direction of his village, almost tripping as he did. Having no idea as to what had gotten into him, I followed him back. At the pace I was going, it was only seconds before I saw the village and its current state.

It was chaos, building was set ablaze, and a few bodies of both faunus and pony littered the floor. I could see the village faunus men fighting off what I assume were the invaders.

What was more shocking was that the invaders were ponies. As I looked around, I saw Zecora fighting off three of them at once. Seeing that she needed help I ran off towards her. As I got closer, I saw her knocking one of them out with a simple staff before spinning around in a circle, knocking the other two out. I blinked in amazement before going up to her.

“Zecora! What the hell is going on?!” I asked her loudly as an explosion went off near us from the left. Zecora spat out some blood before looking around.

“Invaders came out of the forest and attack without warning,” she explained, spinning her staff around. “Come young one; many lives were lost today and much more as we stand here.”

With that Zecora quickly headed off into the chaos. I looked around and saw no sign of Tak. Frowning I sent a prayer to Mother that he’ll be alright before following after the shaman.

As I followed her I loaded up some empty cartridges to Molten Coli and started to fill them with the flames from the buildings. As I did, I heard someone screaming overhead, and I saw a pony falling at me with an ax in hand. I blocked it and pushed the stallion down to the ground. I pointed my sword at him with a frown, “Alright, what the hell is going on?! Why are you attacking this village!?!”

“We’re ridding our kingdom of your filth!” He yelled back, a look of pure hate looking back at me. My frown deepened as I aimed my weapon at him.

“There are families here, children! You would go ahead and kill them as well!” I shouted, my weapon reacted to my building anger as the cartridge was giving off a white light.

“Your kind doesn’t belong here.” He said through gritted teeth. I felt my arm tremble a bit as my anger grew more and more. I could just kill him, right here and right now and move on to the next. And then the following…

I let out a breath as I lowered my weapon. I saw the stallion shift a bit as I dart forward and grabbed the stallion’s shirt and brought him close, “I could kill you, right here right now if I wanted to. I could simply leave you like a burning corpses that no one could identify. But I’m not.” With that I headed butting him, oddly knocking him out. I dropped him and continued on through the village.

Far off into the forest, up on a mountain looking down at the burning village Axycia was watching everything unfold. She shifted a bit as she held an communication orb in her hand that glowed a sky blue colour.

“She still has that temper sister, even with those lessons of yours.” the Dragoness said to the orb. “But she did good… if I was in her place I would’ve roasted the pony.”

“I have no doubt that you would have, sister.” Came her sister’s voice from the orb before a chuckle. Axycia frowned at this.

“Shut it you.” she said, earning a laugh from her sister. “Oh look, you can laugh. I thought you the stoic leader was all you can do… that and have worry moments.” Axycia said with a smirk.

“There are plenty of thing I am capable of.” Her sister’s voice once again rang through the orb. “Such as beating you in a sparring match without giving it my all.”

“... I’m going to ignore that…” the Dragoness said bitterly as she looked down when there was another building set on fire. “So after this I should bring Viri back?”

“Yes but only after the situation has died down, in the meantime keep an eye on her and her new friend.” Spoke her sister through the orb.

“Alright.” Axycia said as she turned her head back towards the village, watching the chaos run it course.

I was panting after all the fighting from the invaders. The fires has been put out and the bodies… I didn’t want to think about it. The sounds of shouting and crying filled my ears as I looked at Molten Coil. She still gave off some heat from using her so much in one day. I had knocked out a few of them that I faced, but some others… I didn’t want to think about it right now.

I slowly pushed my way up to go look for Tak, hoping that he’s alright. I made my way to his family’s farm to see if everyone there is alright. The farm was like much of the town, the buildings around were smoldering but somewhat still standing. I started to call out if anyone was still around.

“Over here!” Came an older man’s voice. I turned towards the voice and ran towards him.

“Are you alright?!” I called out as I ran over, almost tripping over some wood. I arrived to see a middle aged horse faunus sitting with his back to a tree with two daggers embedded on each shoulder. “Oh lords… That’s a no…” I went to him, trying to see if I could help him. “We gotta get you to someone who can heal you sir.”

“Take it easy there, girl. I don’t plan on dying yet.” He said, chuckling as he did but grunted as he attempted to move his arms. “But as you can see I am in quite the predicament.” He said. I frowned as I helped him as carefully as I could towards someone that could help.

“I just… don’t understand why…” I muttered to myself. “Why would they do this? The village did nothing wrong, and simply existing doesn’t really make it a reason.”

“Some ponies just like to take things further than anyone would like. Extremists you might call them, those who view the Pony race superior than us Faunus.” The man said. I grumbled a bit as I got him closer to where all of the injured are taken.

“Have you seen Tak anywhere?” I asked the man. “I haven’t seen him since we got back.” Hearing the name of his son, the man attempted to move his arms but failed.

“Gods, Tak. I-I haven’t seen him since you two left.” He said with worry. My stomach dropped a bit when he said that as I saw some villagers coming over towards us.

“I’ll go find him sir.” I told Tak’s father as I passed him off to get treated. I didn’t stay to hear what he said as I sprinted off to find Tak. I ran back to the farm and started there as I made my way around the village while calling out his name. “Tak! Tak were are you!!”

I soon came to a complete stop, seeing Tak lying against a tree. As I made my way towards him I noticed the bodies of dead stallions, each having the same large wound on their neck and once I made to Tak, I saw that his cleaver was still embedded into someone, this one being an armoured mare. I looked at Tak and saw that his head was limp while his eyes were wide open.

“Tak?” I said his name softly as I leaned down and shook his body. “Tak!?!” In doing this, my hands were violently pushed away from some unseen force as Tak’s body shone a bright yellow. His entire body was encompassed by the yellow energy before suddenly changing into a bright green color.

“Hmm… huh?” The energy that once surrounded Tak soon disappeared, leaving a fully conscious Tak behind. “What-” He stopped and winced, no doubt from a headache.

“Hey hey hey, easy there.” I said softly as I kneeled in front of him. “Everything is alright Tak.”

Slowly, I helped Tak up to a stand and helped him hobble towards where his dad was, “Hey, you remember what happened when we got separated?” He nodded and looked at the bodies but his gaze was soon set on the one with his weapon still embedded into it. I looked over to it as well. “Can you walk?” He nodded once again. With that let him stand on his own as I went to get to his weapon. Grimsley I pulled the cleaver out of the pony and carried it over to Tak. Sad to say I had to sorta drag it over. “Jeez, how can you carry this thing so easily!”

“It’s not something I can explain easily.” Tak said as I handed him the grip of his weapon for him to grab. I frowned at the ease he carried it as the two of us headed off.

“Hey… you okay?” I asked him. He released a shaky sigh as he shook his head.

“I just… I’m still trying to wrap my head around all this.” He said while gesturing the village. I frowned sadly as we made our way back to the others. As we got there Tak went off to find his father as I simply watched the villagers come together after this. As I watched this I felt someone tap my shoulder. I turned to see my aunt standing behind me. She didn’t say anything as I looked back to the others.

“Why…” I asked her.

“That’s something that I can’t answer my dear.” she said before turning away. I heard the sound of the portal opening up near us. “Come on, your mother is waiting.”

I let out a sigh as I followed her back through the portal, the cold feeling of the portal was all I felt as we returned home.

I sat on a large rock overlooking a dense fog covering the meadow early in the morning. I couldn’t sleep after the events from Tak’s village a week ago… I think? Time acts odd here. I turned some bolts in a pistol gun I was working on for a time ever since I got back.

“Is something troubling you?” Asked the voice of my mother as she appeared, flying down towards me. “I’ve noticed a change of behaviour since you’ve arrived. Is there anything you wish to talk about?” She asked as she touched ground and folded her wings against her back. I looked over at her and shrugged.

“I… I don’t know mom…” I said as I went to screw in another bolt only for the tool I was using fell out of my hand into the grass. My hand was shaking as thought back. “... I don’t understand… all that hate…”

I felt myself get a bit more cold the more I thought about it. Sure I was trained to fight but… I never killed I mortal being before. Minus the Void creatures and other beasts my aunt summoned during training. I moved my other hand over to try and stop myself from shaking. Mother walked up and sat beside me, a sigh escaping her lips before gaze met mine as she grasped my hand within hers.

“Some beings are capable of immense hatred for another, such as the Ponies to Faunus.” She said with solemn tone. Sighing, she added. “While I would like nothing more than for myself or even my sister to put a stop to this sort of hatred, we can’t.”

I looked down at my hands as they were being held by my mom, “I… the attack on the village… I knocked some of them out but… others…” I couldn’t finish as I swallowed some saliva down my throat.

“I see…” She said, going into deep thought for a moment. Her silence brought me to an uneasy state. I shifted uncomfortably as I waited for her to speak again. “While I’m not happy to hear this, this does not mean I will treat you any differently.” She finally said.

I started to tremble a bit as I closed my eyes, holding back the tears, “I… I feel sick…” Hearing this, I felt my mother’s hands let go of mine before feeling her arms wrap around me in a comforting embrace.

“They left you no choice, it isn’t your fault and don’t blame yourself for something you left forced to do.” She whispered, tightening her hug as she did. I didn’t say anything as I cried into her embrace. I don’t remember how long we were like this but after a while I calmed down enough for her to pull away to wipe away what is left from crying.

“T-thanks… mom…” I stuttered. She nodded before standing up.

“Just remember, dear, that if something ever troubles you in the future, that you’ll speak with me.” She said, smiling lightly at me. I smiled back and nodded to her.

“Okay mom, I will.” I told her, earning her a smile on her face. With a nod she spread open her wings and took off, leaving me to think by myself. I sat on the rock and saw the fog slowly dispersing, letting me see the rolling green fields the laid before me. Memories of me as a kid running around playing in said fields brought a smile to my face as I looked down at the pistol I was working on. Frowning I went to pick it back up the tool I had and started to work on the object some more, moving things around.

After a few hours passed I finished what I was working on, turning the pistol to a clockwork bird that I read in my books. I turned one last bolt before the bird came to life in my hand, which is saying much as it was simply palm size with what I had with me. It hopped around in my hand before starting to clean itself, sounds of scraping and tapping came from it.

After a few minutes I let it hop onto my shoulder as I stood up, heading off to find Mother.