“Stand up. Slowly. No sudden moves,” the voice ordered firmly.

“A-A’ight, a’ight, jus, calm down,” Tora said placatingly, slowly standing up with her hands behind her head. “Not sure why you’re th’ one holdin’ me up, instead of me, but...just don’t shoot, okay? Not here to cark ya.”

“Turn around,” he said, sounding a mite more ticked.

“Fine, fine!” Tora said nervously, turning around to face him. “...Holy dooley, y’ actually are a hairless ape.”

His palm upturning and bursting into flames was his response. “Say that again. I dare you.”

“WELL ‘OW SHOULD I KNOW WHAT YER SPECIES IS?!” Tora hissed testily, amber eyes glinting in the light of the flame.

“...” The flame died and he sighed deeply, before making a motion with his gun. “Put your weapon down. Slowly.”

In an instant, Tora’s demeanor went from compliant to tensed as her tail and fur bristled, “Yer not takin’ my Gabe from me, ya whacker! I found ‘im fair and square in some bloody scalie ruins, an’ I’m not gonna let y’ have ‘im!”

The roar of a gun sounded, and a bullet whizzed by her ear. He cocked the gun again. “Put. It. Down.”

“Tch, maybe Vinyl was wrong ‘bout you savin’ her from that giant peeper. Maybe y’ were just huntin’ a mark an’ she was in th’ way,” Tora scoffed derisively, still not putting Gabe down. “This beaut has saved m’ life more times ‘n I can count, an’ I’d rather die than have ‘im taken from me.”

The man’s eyebrow twitched. “I didn’t say I wanted to take it. Just...fucking put it down.”

“...Y’ promise ya won’t take ‘im?” Tora asked, and relaxed at his nod, gently taking Gabe off of her back and setting him down on the ground behind her feet. “A'ight...that’s done. Happy, now?”

He gestured with his gun to her knives. “Knives too.”

“They’re fer carvin’ monsters, mate! I can’t bloody well draw an’ throw ‘em before y’ could blow m’ head off with that thing!” Tora said in exasperation.

“...” The man sighed. “Fine. Why are you here?”

“I was sent t’ find ya by some drongo of a mare, but more importantly...that mare ya saved from the giant peeper? She wanted me to c’mere and bring ya back t’ her so she could thank y’ right proper for savin’ her life,” Tora explained, gaze flickering between his face and his weapon.

“...I’m not leaving just so she can thank me. Tell her that’s a hard pass,” he replied. “Who sent you?”

“...At first, the mare I told y’ bout. Reeeal bitch, lemme tell y’ that. Wanted t’ know where ya were so that she could do...somethin’ - didn’t care ‘nough to listen t’ all of it. But since I’m a merc and Vinyl Scratch - the mare y’ saved - offered a gourmet dinner at some fancy din-din place named Le Krakon, I took up on th’ favor she asked o’ me an’ here I am,” Tora explained as calmly as one could with a weapon capable of blowing chunks out of a giant monster eye pointed at their person.

The man frowned, looking to be deep in thought now. “...” ‘So instead of a full-on investigation, they’re sending mercs? That’s almost worse.’ He shook his head, looking back to her. “What’s your name?”

“Tora. Tora Katt,” she said without missing a beat, her bright orange fur meshing well with the odd scruff of red fur around her neck. There was silence after that proclamation.

“...Mind tellin’ me why ya went dead silent when I told y’ m’ name before ya give me yers?” Tora asked dryly, a fuzzy brow raising questioningly at the bloke holding her up.

“...Just a realization. Forget about it,” he lowered his gun a tad. “Durin. Durin Whittlesey.”

“...Y-ya wouldn’t shoot a sheila in the gooch, w-wouldja? Th-that just’s not right, mate,” Tora asked nervously after noticing his weapon was pointing at a very...delicate place on her body.

He stiffened at that. “Wh-what? No!” Durin let his gun’s barrel fall further, no longer pointed at anything but the ground. “I wasn’t going to do anything of the sort!”

“Oh, thank fahk! I could live with being shot in th’ head, but a bolt or somethin’ to the babymaker is just…” Tora shivered violently at the thought. “Fate worse’n death for most sheilas, me included.”

“R-Right, understandable,” Durin replied, trying to hide his blush.

Tora narrowed her eyes at the subtle flushing of his cheeks, “Wait, are...are ya blushing, mate? Th’ fuck?! Does the idea a’ shooting a gal with a weapon getcha off or somethin’?!”

“What?! N-No! Fuck no! I just…” He looked away, then cleared his throat. “L-Look, I just...haven’t even thought about women for a month, so I’m…” He shook his head. “Nevermind, forget it.” He turned around and started to walk away. “Just don’t come back here or tell anyone where I am!”

“...Can I bring Vinyl ‘ere to meetcha? She deserves t’ at least thank you fer savin’ her life,” Tora asked the retreating figure softly. “After that, neither o’ us’ll say a peep ‘bout’cha.”

Durin paused in mid-step. “...” He glanced back at her. “...Fine.” Without another word, he walked into the brush and disappeared.

“...Tch, right friendly bloke there,” Tora mewed sarcastically, picking Gabe back off of the ground and returning her baby to his rightful place on her back before retracing her steps - in the literal sense - back out of the forest, and started the trek back to the train station she’d come into the region from. First, she made a quick visit to the couple and authorities who’d pointed her to the forest to tell them that they just saw shadows, and any stumps they saw were from an illegal logging operation that could be operating out of anywhere in the region.

Then, a visit to the rock farm and the mining company, with an explanation that she couldn’t find hide nor hair of any suspects beyond possibly some kind of subterranean ore-eating creature(s) that could have taken up residence in the area.

That spooked the rock farmers and miners good, and it almost made her laugh if she didn’t feel bad about lying to someone about a threat to their livelihood. And now, with all of her ‘stops’ completed, she finally made it back to the train station and took the first train back to that ‘Ponyville’ place that came along - ‘few available seats’ be damned.

On the trip back, her thoughts went back to the creat- bloke in the forest.

...He was kind of a whacker.

Grumpy, short-tempered, way too quick to pull a weapon on a sheila…

But damn if that display of his wasn’t impressive. She wasn’t normally interested in…any kind of relationship beyond ‘professional’ and the occasional (read: uncommon) ‘friendship’ that managed to strike up, but she couldn’t deny that that assertiveness and the clear strength he held was attractive to most other females.

If he wasn’t being called a ‘creature’ or ‘monster’, he’d probably have a conga line of sheilas lining up to court him.

But none of that was in her mind for more than a second or two.

No...what lingered in her head was that (A) the bloke was actually a mage like she’d suggested when she was questioning Vinyl, (B) that he definitely had a firestick like Gabe (albeit far more compact), and (C) that he was just...tired-looking, almost exhausted and done with everything and everyone’s shit.

Looking out the window of the train from her seat as the locomotive ran along the tracks and the countryside sped by, her thoughts continued to wander.

What did a bloke like him fight to have that kind of gear?

Aside from the Peeper of Unusual Size, that is.

The armor and whatnot suggested he was used to taking down heavy-hitting foes and his weapons suggested he took down both lightly-armored and heavily-armored opponents. It was a hodge-podge of gear that shouldn’t have been able to work, let alone not seem to weigh him down at all.

All of the monsters randomly popping up all over the damn world might have had something to do with him, or maybe been the reason for all his gear and shit...so maybe he’d been anticipating all of this and had just been waiting until now to start ‘saving the world’ like some big damn hero?

“‘scuse me, ma’am, but can my wife and I sit next to you?” An elderly male’s voice from her right snapped the Abyssinian out of her inner musing, and she looked over to see a gray and wizened old pegasus stallion with a pale green coat, chocolate eyes and a graying emerald mane standing in the ‘aisle’ next to the row of seats she was sitting on. An equally old griffon hen with all-around silver fur and amber eyes stood just off to the stallion’s left.

“Oh, uh, sure, have a seat, mate,” Tora replied awkwardly, earning a smile from the stallion as he walked up next to her and carefully sat down beside her, the griffon hen following shortly after and almost immediately nuzzling up against the stallion with a content sigh.

“Thank ya kindly, stranger,” the stallion said as he returned his wife’s nuzzling, a hoof wrapping gently around her back. “Every other car was either full or no one wanted to share seats. It’s really a shame that such selfishness is so commonplace, especially when this whole world is experiencing an upsurge in the appearance of these ‘monster’ things we’ve been hearing about.”

“Yer welcome, mate. There were free seats, an’ I don’t really care if someone takes ‘em. ‘Sides, ya looked like ya needed ‘em, and I’m not ‘eartless.”

“Good on you, miss,” the hen cooed as her wings flapped softly against her back. “Still...all these monsters appearing all over are worrying. Anyone could be attacked at almost any time, and there aren’t many folks who are able to fight on shorthand.”

Tora smirked, “Well, I happen to be one a’ them monster hunters, ma’am. Not going to try t’ impress ya with some bottler story about what I’ve done, but rest assured - if anythin’ happens on this train, she’ll be apples.”

At the couple’s blank and confused expressions, Tora sighed, “That’s Faussie for ‘it’ll be alright’, mates.”

Their expressions turned into ones of understanding with a duo of ah’s, and they nodded with smiles on their faces.

“Well, that’s certainly a relief. Hopefully nothing’ll happen, but you get what I mean,” the stallion spoke up, a yawn escaping his lips at the same time that his wife‘s beak let out one of her own. “If you don’t mind, my beau and I will be taking a nap together. I hope that you’ll succeed in whatever you end up doing, Miss…”

“Tora. Tora Katt,” Tora provided her name for the second time that day, tail flicking in amusement.

Nodding sleepily, the stallion snuggled up against his wife’s fluffier form, “Well, Miss Katt...I wish you good luck on your journeys.”

With that, the elderly stallion and griffon hen fell asleep in each other’s embrace - an admittedly cute sight that would have made a younger, more naïve Tora’s heart melt; as it was, however, Tora merely smiled and brought her gaze back to stare out the window, and returned to her thoughts.

“...Hope I’ll have some bloody good luck, too,” Tora mumbled as the landscape flew by her and the train.

“So he’s been in Whitetail this whole time?” Vinyl asked as she sat next to Tora, Octavia at her side as the train rhythmically rocked while it chugged along.

“Yeah, seems like it. Dunno ‘ow long, but prolly long enough t’ need to cut down enough lumber fer a house or two, with furnishin’,” Tora nodded, brows furrowed as her body rocked with the motion of the train. “Still can’t believe both of ya are comin’ along to meet the bloke; I don’t think that he’ll bloody well like more than you and I bein’ there, Vin’.”

“I’m not leaving Vinyl alone, especially with how dangerous things have become of late,” Octavia said firmly, narrowing her eyes at Tora.

Tora stared at the cellist for a few moments, then silently gestured to Gabe, which was still hanging on her back, and then the assortment of knives sheathed on her person with a raised-brow look that asked if she was being serious.

Octavia rolled her eyes. “I am aware you are skilled, Miss Katt, but my point still stands.”

Vinyl sighed. “Best to not push it, Tora. She’s a stubborn one.”

“Drongo, more like, but fine. Her funeral, if somethin’ come a gutser,” Tora huffed, rolling her eyes and fixing them on the land passing by them at high speed.

A short silence passed.

“So…” Vinyl started up, looking to Tora. “What was he like, when you met him?”

“...Well, he certainly gargles nails, that’s fer sure,” Tora spoke up after a moment’s pause. “He’s built like a brick shit house, seemed at first to be as mean as cat’s piss, and acted bloody cranky.”

Vinyl chuckled a bit. “Yeah, sounds just like when he saved me.”

“Eh, if ya say so. Now, when we meet him,” Tora returned her gaze to the two mares sitting by her. “Don’t startle ‘im. He’s liable to be jumpy and shoot ya if ya sneak up on the bloke.”

The two looked to each other at those words, then back to Tora. “Did he really seem that wound up?” Octavia asked with a hint of worry.

“He had that thunderstick pointed at my ‘ead and fired it past my fuckin’ head when I didn’t put Gabe down. So, I’d say that, yes, he seems bloody wound-up,” Tora replied with a scoff, rubbing the side of her head that his weapon’s shot had grazed.

Octavia and Vinyl winced. “Yeeeah, we’ll uh, keep that in mind,” Vinyl conceded.

“Aces,” Tora replied simply, letting her paw fall back down to her side as another silence fell over the trio.

...A silence that didn’t last long, as Tora spoke up a few moments later, “He...doesn’t seem all that bad, to tell deadset, just...beyond stressed, maybe.”

Vinyl furrowed her brow. “Why would he be so stressed, though…?” she wondered aloud.

“...When I asked ‘im how I’d know his species, he sighed and dispelled this flame on ‘is palm,” Tora replied softly, tracing circles in the window sill with a claw. “He might be th’ only one o’ his kind around ‘ere...or left.”

Vinyl and Octavia’s ears lowered at that. “That’s…” Octavia started to say, but couldn’t get the words out as she lowered her gaze to the floor of the car.

“Depressin’? Yeah, that’d be right, but to be fair...I’m just throwing shit at th’ wall ‘ere. Might not be the last one of his mates left, or maybe he is...we just dunno,” Tora shrugged helplessly. “An’ I doubt we’ll be findin’ out anytime soon, given how shit house his interactions with the locals have been.”

“Yeah…” Vinyl agreed, nodding slowly.

At this, they all went silent once more, minds abuzz with thoughts of the mysterious man.

‘...Well, that’d be one thing we’d have in common,’ Tora thought bitterly, the hand at her cheek unconsciously going down to a locket on a chain tucked away in a pouch on her right thigh.

‘I hope her guess is wrong…’ Vinyl thought morosely.

‘To think there were such endangered species...It’s almost unthinkable…’ Octavia mused, frowning.

All three, now lost in their own thoughts, took little notice of the graveyard they passed by...and the shadow that was emerging from it’s mausoleum as the moon began to rise.

“Shhh! Quit stepping on twigs, ya drongos! You’ll attract a fuckin’ mob o’ nasty little fucks!” Tora hissed as one of the mares - by this point, she didn’t care who, exactly, did it - stepped on the fifth or sixth twig they’d come across since entering the forest.

“We aren’t exactly trained for this like you!” Octavia shot back with a growl.

“Can’t see as well either! It’s pitch black!” Vinyl added.

“Well, light also attracts the fuckin’ blighters! Hell, you breathing prolly attracts ‘em too!” Tora hissed back, tail flicking repeatedly in agitation as she found the stump that had marked where she’d gotten a quarter or a third of the way to where she met the bloke.

“Well excuse us for not being monster hunters and wanting to stay sane and safe at home!” Octavia argued.

“Then why the fuckin’ hell did ya even tag along, if ya wanted to stay ‘safe and sane’ at home?!” Tora restrained the urge to hiss and yowl at the famed cellist.

“Because Vinyl’s my friend, and I’m not leaving her here to get hurt or worse!” Octavia pressed as they walked through the brush.

Vinyl’s ear twitched, as did Tora’s and Octavia’s. “Wait, guys, hold on, did you all hear that?” she asked, looking around them.

“...Wish I hadn’t,” Tora mumbled, shifting Gabe from her back to a ready position in her arms, amber eyes scanning the surroundings with crystal clarity thanks to her feline heritage.

“It sounds like...crunching, and…” Octavia shivered.

“...meat tearing?” Vinyl finished.

“...Stay close behind me,” Tora whispered as she kept following the trail that had led her to the encounter with Vinyl’s savior, which thankfully kept the trio moving away from the sound of someone or something being fucking munched.

Only for Vinyl to let out a scream of terror and point to the sky. “I-I-It’s-!”

Looking up, Tora could see a fairly large, floating and grotesque eye looking down at them.

Then she realized that the munching had stopped, replaced by the sound of something BOLTING right for them.

“GET THE FUCK DOW-” Tora yelled at the mares right as a disgusting tongue lanced out and grabbed the eye from the sky over their heads and pulled it back into a disgusting, fanged maw.

Poison dripped from the tongue as it retreated, dousing the females in tiny droplets that burned the skin on contact.

Tora yowled at the sensation of her fur and skin burning, and followed the tongue on its return trajectory, and reeled back at the sight of the tongue’s owner.

It was, for all intents and purposes, disgusting. It looked like a withered, deformed and fat, old bipedal female with discolored skin, a skeleton draped across her spined and hunched back, long, oily black hair going down her face and in between her bare, saggy breasts. Long claws were on her hands, and her maw was filled with sharper teeth than even Tora’s. She chewed - almost thoughtfully - on the eye, then let out a disgusting, rotten belch as she finished.

“Chewy,” she began in a distorted voice. Her black eyes seemed to gleam as she looked the group over. “But you lot seem more appetisin’. Come now, give us a taste.” She let her tongue flick over her whole form.

A large crossbow bolt fired from Gabe and headed straight for the horror’s head, followed by Tora turning and running with a shout back at the two mares, “FUCKING RUN FOR IT!”

They did not need to be told twice, galloping after Tora as fast as they could. As the beast cried out from the bolt that hit it's shoulder - thanks to it having moved - they ran for their lives.

Sadly, it was fast, and was coming after them and gaining very quickly.

In that moment, Tora knew she had to make a decision. The survival-focused side of her told her that Tora could certainly outrun the two mares, and that’s all she really needed to do to get away, and she was tempted to agree with that course of action...until she remembered that’s what she did at her own mother’s pleading, during the last minutes that she saw her mother alive.

She skidded to a halt and whirled around, pulling the firing bolt back on Gabe before firing another bolt at the creature.

“Shaarrh!” the creature growled, stumbling back as the bolt embedded itself in her side.

“YA WANT SOMETHIN’ TO MUNCH ON, YA FUCKING DOG?! THEN GIVE IT A BURL!” Tora shouted as she reached down and retrieved one of her knives, then flung it at the creature with a flick of her wrist.

“Agh!” The creature stumbled back again as it sunk into her breast. Clutching it, she snarled. “Wench! Ye’ll pay for that!” Flinging her tongue out, the appendage lashed out across Tora’s side, easily cutting into her leather armor and seeping it’s poison rot into the cut.

Tora took a step back and bit back an agonized shriek, but managed - somehow - to stand her ground.

“Tora!” Vinyl cried, halting in her escape to turn to the Abyssinian.

“K-KEEP FUCKIN’ RUNNING! DO THE HAIROLD HOWLT AND DON’T STOP!” Tora said as she stared down the monster with a furious glare and snarl on her face, hackles raised and every other threatening measure her body could muster in full effect - challenging the creature.

The creature simply chortled, tongue flipping about. “How cute, how cute,” it taunted, before it’s tongue lashed at Tora again, this time across her cheek. “Keep squirmin’! We loves us a good feisty meal!”

“YOUR MOTHER WAS A SENTIENT PILE OF JUMBUCK SHIT!” Tora shot back, charging the creature with a knife held in a reverse grip by the hand holding the fore end of Gabe’s underside as she lined up another shot. “FUCKING RUN, YOU IDIOTIC HORSES! NO DRAMA, I’LL BE FINE!”

“No! We’ll help!” At these words, Vinyl’s horn lit up, and she shot a blast of magic at the creature, whom dodged both it and Tora’s charge. She didn’t dodge, however, Octavia’s own charge, the mare headbutting her in the gut and knocking the hag over.

“Take that, you brute!” she crowed with a smirk of triumph.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID I TELL YOU BLOODY MORONS?! I SAID RUN!” Tora yowled as she turned and pounced at the hag with the leftover momentum from her charge, burying the knife in her hand in the creature’s back before using the hag as a springboard to jump off of and put some distance between them.

The hag flailed in agony, screaming as it did and clutching it’s head. “AAAAAH! Fiends! Fiends! Denying a woman her proper feast!” Swiftly, she stood up and backhanded Tora with her claw, knocking her into a nearby tree bodily.

All of the air in Tora’s lung was swiftly knocked out of her as she slid down the tree and to the ground.

“I’ll show you not to mess with this lady’s dinner!” the hag roared, picking Octavia up by the throat and squeezing hard.

“ACK!” Octavia croaked, struggling in the hold and trying to get out of it, hooves pounding on the hag’s arm to no effect.

“Tavi!” Vinyl cried, before growling and pawing the ground with a hoof. “That’s it!” She charged the hag, horn poised to spear the horror with all her might.

The hag laughed and simply snatched her up by the throat as well, chortling to herself once more. “My my, you all just run right into my clutches, don’t ye?”

The sound of thunder cracking popped the ears of everyone present as something fast and with a lot of mass ripped through the shoulder socket of the arm holding Vinyl, ripping the arm clean off with the remaining kinetic energy.

The hag screamed in agony as Vinyl fell with the arm, the hag dropping Octavia to clutch the stump of her arm. “Fiend! Fiend fiend fiend fiend fiend!” She whirled on Tora, snarling ferally.

“Heh...missed yer fugly head. Girls...run. Now. Get anyone who can fight,” Tora laughed weakly as the hag advanced on her, blood leaking from her mouth and weeping profusely from the gash in her side.

Vinyl coughed weakly, as did Octavia, both struggling to stand. “B-But…” Vinyl tried to say, but coughed hard again.

“Don’t...die with me,” Tora said breathlessly.

“None of you are dying on my watch,” said a familiar rumbling timbre from the trees.

“Wo-?!” the hag whirled around, only to receive a blast of fire to the chest, knocking her back and burning her flesh.

This was followed by the roar of a pistol, the lead ball of a bullet piercing through the hag’s leg and forcing her to her knees.

Soon after, Durin emerged from the dark of the woods, a silvery sword with glowing red runes on it in one hand, and his pistol in the other.

“Y-You’re…” Vinyl once more tried to talk, but could only muster another coughing fit.

“Bout...time...bastard,” Tora exhaled, hacking up blood in the process.

Durin grit his teeth at the sight, then approached the hag as she clutched her leg. “You’re going on my wall for this shit,” he hissed, before, in one swift movement, he lopped her head off, the body falling on it’s back as the head rolled to the floor. He stood up, approaching Tora and kneeling down to her. “You look like shit.” He stated.

“Sa...ame to you...fuckin’ bastard,” Tora chuckled, which quickly became pained tremors of her entire body. “NNNRGH!”

Durin rolled his eyes. “Crude as always.” He looked her over, then gently grabbed one of her arms. “Feel anything when I do this?” he asked.

“...Noth...ing,” Tora’s reply came out much weaker than the one before it, and her eyes seemed to flutter as if she were fighting to keep them open.

Durin frowned deeply, then sighed. “Right.” He looked to the others, who were just finally getting up. “...Guess there’s only one thing to do.” He picked Tora up at this, slinging her over his shoulder with surprising ease.

“...H...eh...than...ks…” Tora said, hanging limply over his shoulder as she tried to stay awake.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Can’t very well leave you here to get eaten by the nightlife. Wouldn’t weigh well on my conscious.”

Tora didn’t reply.

He frowned. “We’ll have to hurry, then.” He looked to the mares. “Can you two walk?”

Vinyl helped Octavia to her hooves, looking to the man with a shaky nod. “Y-Yeah, I think we can.”

“Good,” he said, before marching off. “Follow me, then.”

“Wh-Where are you taking us?” Octavia asked as they hurried after him.

There was a pause from him, despite him still walking briskly. “...My ‘home’.”

This hasn't been edited yet, but later on today it will be, so apologies for any current problems. I do hope you will all forgive the state of the chapter as well as Tora's speech while me and Nova work on fixing any mistakes.

Thanks for reading!

-Timeless Overlord