Warriors: Omen of Friendship

Running full tilt through the forest, Blazingsky had no time to stop. It was behind her. She didn't know exactly what it was but it was there. The ferns in front of her were instantly flattened as she dashed onward. The trees that once comforted her now towered around her, their branches like claws and leaves like teeth. The scent around her was unfamiliar and terrifying as the thing got closer and closer to her. Crashing into a bramble bush, Blazingsky tore right through it, leaving knots of her ginger fur in the tendrils. Blood trickled down her left shoulder, but that did not faze her. A soft breath on the back of her neck made every bit of fur on her pelt prickle with fear. The gorse tunnel was up ahead - the entrance to safety. The beast was also close too, and she wasn't sure if it would have gotten her by the time she got through.

With a mighty yowl, Blazingsky launched herself through the gorse tunnel and into the centre of the camp. Confused faces of cats turned round to face her. Blazingsky let out a sigh of relief. It was gone, for now at least. Shaking herself down, she padded over to a rather muscular, dark brown tom.

"What's wrong?" the warrior asked worriedly his eyes wide by her sudden appearance, sensing something was wrong.

"I need to talk to Lightstar, now," Blazingsky replied, "Something's out there. I know there is!"

Swiftly nodding, knowing it was serious, the tom leaped up to a ledge not too far away, and soon returned with a tall, cream she cat by his side.

"Thank you, Bramblerain," the she flicked her tail dismissively and the tom nodded and wandered off to a pile of fresh kill, "Now then, Blazingsky, tell me what happened."

"Well I...." she paused for a moment to recollect what had transpired. “I was with Onewish and Cometpelt hunting when she decided to split up - to cover more ground - and I heard something and it started chasing me all the way back here."

"What did this thing look like?" the she asked bluntly.

"Well.... Um..." Blazingsky felt her skin flush hot under her fur. "I didn't actually see it, but I knew it was there. It could smell it. It smelled of blood and..... Well... fear." she pawed at the ground for a moment. "Sorry I don't have that much information about it, Lightstar..."

Simply nodding, Lightstar stood up "I'll organise a patrol to scout the area of danger." she gave a gentle smile "You'd better go see Moonprism about that shoulder before it gets infected."

"Ok..." Blazingsky dipped her head and wandered over to the far side of the clearing where Moonprism`s den was.

"Why, hello Blazingsky, is something wrong?" a short grey tom looked up at her with a short smile, before going back to arranging his herbs in a neat fashion.

"Yeah, I got caught in a bramble bush and it cut my shoulder." Blazingsky replied to the wise tom who nodded and quickly took out some marigold flowers and began chewing it into a poultice, and applying it to the wound. Blazingsky flinched at the stinging, but she knew it was for the best.

"There. You look exhausted; you'd better get some sleep." Moonprism suggested, going back to his herbs.

"Sure." Blazingsky suddenly realized how heavy her paws felt. Yawning, she gently walked into the warriors den, and collapsed into a nice warm nest of moss. Her eyes gently closed but she did not fall asleep. Sitting up, Blazingsky began to think of the patrol that set out to scout the area. Why hadn't they returned?

A sudden yowl of terror from the camp interrupted her thoughts as she dashed out into the clearing to see Leafpaw standing there, paws drenched with blood, her eyes wide with terror.

"What's wrong Leafpaw?!" cried her mother, Spiritjewel, rushing up to her licking her vigorously.

"S-Sapphired-dash" the traumatized apprentices fear stricken voice spoke up. "Sapphiredash a-and Cloudpelt are d-d...."

"What?" Blazingsky spoke up, her heart sinking. "What happened?"

"They are both d-dead!" the apprentice yowled finally. Silence filled the clearing, with no cat daring to say anything. There was a sudden yowl as a highly blood-stained cat stumbled into camp and collapsed down by Leafpaw`s side.

"Sapphiredash?!" Blazingsky called out in astonishment. "We thought you were dead!"

By the way she looked; it was no surprise why the apprentice thought she was dead. She had multiple claw and bite marks across her pelt and a nasty cut around her neck. Though it looked deep, it was in no way capable of killing, unless it got infected.

Lightstar dashed quickly up to them and analysed the wounds. "Quickly, take them to Moonprism." she ordered quickly, grasping Leafpaw gently by the scruff and quickly disappeared inside Moonprism`s den.

"Here-" Blazingsky began, but was hit away by Sapphiredash`s tail.

"I don't need your help." she hissed, her ears back as she dragged herself to her paws and limped into Moonprism`s den. Blazingsky watched in bewilderment as the hurt she cat glared daggers at her. What did I do wrong? she wondered as she disappeared behind the bramble screen. And what was that monster?

She felt her paws get heavier, so she walked back into the warriors den, and curled up in the furthest corner, hidden in the darkness, guilt clawing at her stomach. Laying her tail across her face, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift into a nightmare of cats demanding things of her. There was a sudden, gentle whisper in her ear, saying;

"The seven of cats, and the six of another, shall unite as one to stop the evil that has been fought once before...."

Staring out of the transparent rock, Zoë's eyes remained clouded, as they had been for hours, her gaze sweeping across the beautiful lake and its surrounding territories. She had lived with the humans for as long as she could remember, as well as other cats. Michael and Luke belonged to different humans, but usually hung around her place, mainly just to hang with Cameron, another cat she lived with. The two other cats she lived with were Heather and Lauren.

"Hey, mangy fur ball!" Luke called from the dirty-green pelt on the ground. "Fanaticising about the lake again? Bah, pathetic!"

Zoë sighed and jumped down from the ledge she was sitting on. The room around her was decorated with several, strange objects, mainly made from the stuff from fallen trees. On the ledge there was an odd, round silvery object which constantly made ticking sounds. Across the room, there were several beasts, which seemed to be dead. They seemed to have no head, very thin but long bodies, and tall legs, all made out of the same thing that trees were made of. They usually had different, colourful things that she couldn't understand. Looking at the pale walls, Zoë noticed again the large colourful things that hung there, covered in an odd language she didn't understand. Rolling her eyes around the room again, she noticed the two toms standing by the doorway, which lead to the garden.

"I think she zoned out again." she heard Michael mutter to Luke, and both proceeded to chuckle at her.

Zoë hissed at them, drawing her ears back threateningly for a moment, before flicking her tail at them and walking across the room and pushed her way through a thin doorway.

Instantly, she recognised her two other friends, but Cameron was no-where to be seen.

"Hey, Heather, hey Lauren," Zoë smiled towards her friends whom flicked their tails towards her. "So, uh, where's Cameron?"

"He's outside, trying to catch a magpie." Heather replied, her eyes sparkling with amusement. Zoë jumped up to join her in gazing out at the tom.

The silly tom had just leapt at the black and white bird, right on target. However, the magpie had other plans as it simply sidestepped, forcing the tom to skid along the ground on his chin. Sitting up, the tom looked to her forehead, where the magpie had just landed. Yowling with frustration, he coiled himself into a ball, desperately trying to catch the bird. Heather, Lauren and Zoë laughed as hard as they could, and the frustrated tom outside simply glared at them, before rolling his eyes, and entering the room.

Zoë chuckled as he passed. "Hey Camy!" she smiled.

"Hey ZoZo." he retorted playfully, hitting her ear with his tail. "Those birds are harder to catch than you think!"

"I can see that." she laughed, walking beside the tom into the next room.

"Camy and Zoë, sittin' in a bush~" sang Michael and Luke seeing them both enter.

"Finnish that sentence and I'll rip your throat out." Zoë growled slowly, her ears flattening to her head.

"K-I-S-S-I-N-" the duo was suddenly cut off by a ground-shaking roar, tossing everyone off their paws.

"What the hell was thaaaa-" Michael turned around and his face collided with that of a gigantic wolf. "Well, we're fucked." he finished simply, using a word he learned from the humans.

The beast opened its mouth, revealing two sets of teeth. A long muscular tongue lay on the bottom jaw, and everyone was able to see clearly down to the back of its throat. There was a short pause as Heather and Lauren entered, and instantly froze at the sight.

Suddenly, a second roar boomed through the entire house, making the walls shudder, and acted like a flash bang, blinding all the cats in the room and made their ears ring. It lasted for several minutes, and once it stopped, everyone collapsed to their sides, gasping for breath, their paws struggling desperately against the dirty-green pelt trying to get their jumbled heads back into order.

The first one to regain proper consciousness was Zoë, and when she looked towards the place where the beast was, but it was gone. Rushing over to her friends - and Michael and Luke - she checked to see if they were ok. Once she was sure they were ok, and were simply unconscious, she sat on the ledge and stared out the transparent rock again, but she couldn't help thinking; What the hell was that, will it come again, and what will it do next... She sighed and curled up on the ledge, and stared at the stirring forms of her friends, and suddenly noticed another cat poking around the door frame to outside. William.

"Hey, Michael, Luke?" he called over to the two cats struggling to stand up. "Did you see that thing?"

Shaking his head to try and clear the light-headedness, Michael stood up and flicked his tail. "It depends if you call 'having your face collide with it, then getting screamed in the face by it', seeing it, then yes." he growled towards William, swiping at his ears.

"Well jeez! Sorry for asking!" the fuzzy tom retorted angrily, dashing out into the garden.

"Hey, Luke." Michael poked the side of his friend with his nose. "Come on, let’s go."

The black tom rolled over and gave out a short moan. "Five more minutes...."

"Hey, Luke, Michael." Zoë called over, prompting the two toms to raise their heads up at her. "You have any idea what that was?"

The toms glanced at each other, and Luke stood up. "No idea really." Luke called up to her. "But, uh, it may have been that loner." rolling his eyes, he turned over to Michael. "Want to go look for that thing?"

"I don't think that would be-"

"Sure! Let's go!" Michael grinned, and they both wandered out to go search.

Sighing and laying her head down, Zoë closed her eyes, and drifted off into sleep, filled with pictures of the beast attacking the lake, and destroying the scenery. There was a soft whisper in her ear, a voice she knew but didn't recognise.

"The seven of cats, and the six of another, shall unite as one to stop the evil that has been fought once before...."

The sky was studded with numerous stars, and the moon shone brightly, making the crystals of the Crystal Empire glow in all sorts of different colours. Everypony was indoors and asleep by this time, after all, it was half past three in the morning. All but one pony. Twilight Sparkle. She had told her friends she was just fetching a book from the library and was coming straight back. When she said straight back, she literally meant, straight back.

Trotting along one of the main streets, Twilight held a book in her magical grasp. The book was a fiction novel about animals. This book series was Fluttershy's favourite, but last night, Twilight heard a soft sniffling from the room next door. When she went to check, it turns out it was Fluttershy crying because her favourite character died in the book, but Twilight couldn't quite remember who.

Suddenly, Twilight was taken out of her thoughts, when she almost crashed into a magenta crystal, emitting a faint glow. Sighing and shaking her head, Twilight continued down the road, thinking that lack of sleep was the culprit to the hallucinations. Those hallucinations being large shadows creping around her, making out to be a gigantic panther with ice-blue eyes and a contrasted, single white paw, with the rest covered in ragged, jet-black fur.

Feeling a sense of uneasiness, Twilight began to move a bit more hurriedly towards the castle. Every moment she felt herself running faster and faster until she was running full tilt away from the beast that was following her. Stealing a terrified glance behind her, she saw the beast in full glory. It looked at least two stories tall, and about five feet between both its shoulders. As its massive paws slammed into the ground, Twilight had expected the ground to simple shatter below it, but instead, there was nothing. No sound, no noise, no nothing.

But Twilight knew this wasn't a hallucination, so she turned her head back around and saw the castle not too far from where she was. What the beast did next took her by surprise,. Twilight hit a junction, but kept going for the straight shot towards the castle. Either it was planning something, had terrible eyesight, or was just plain dumb, the beast sharply leapt into the alleyway, and shrouded it's self in darkness once more.

"Ok... that was weird....." Twilight murmured, allowing herself some time to breath. "Now, I need to get back before-"

She had begun trotting down to the castle again, when she hit another junction, and the beast quickly leapt out of the darkness and pinned her against the ground. Luckily for her, the first rays of dawn were beginning to show, expelling the darkness, unluckily for her, the sunlight would take at least ten minutes before it completely dispels all the darkness from the alleyway, and the beast.

The beasts grin was about as charming as a snake bite, and showed all of it's gigantic, long teeth. It's eyes narrowed in murderous malice, but a sudden voice from atop it, halted it with a single, soft word.

"Stop."

Twilight tried to blink the tears of fear out of her eyes, and confusion filled her as a familiar-yet-unfamiliar shape rose onto the forehead of the beast, and gazed down at her. Its body seemed to have been made of shadow, the colours of its pupils were a daunting, blood red colour, and the rest of its eye was a lime green. A shattered horn rested on top of its head, and Twilight instantly recognised her old enemy, King Sombra.

Frozen with fear, Twilight gazed towards the terrifying king with wide, petrified eyes. The king, seeing this, grinned wider.

"I am not here to harm you, Twilight Sparkle." the king snarled, then said something under his breath, before continuing. "I have come to give you a message."

"I-I...." Twilights lips shivered with fear as she tried to reply, but fear got the best of her.

The mighty beast that the king was standing on, lowered it's head, allowing King Sombra to speak clearly into her ear. Slamming her eyes closed, Twilight braced herself for pain to shock through her body, but it never came, instead, the king whispered in her ear, quite gently, considering his rough voice.

"The seven of cats, and the six of another, shall unite as one to stop the evil that has been fought once before...."

And with that, the last ray of darkness was washed away from the empire, and when she opened her eyes once more, King Sombra, and the beast, was gone. She was left alone on the ground, in the middle of the street of the Crystal Empire, with only her memories and thoughts of the events that just transpired, remaining.