‘Fun?’ Zecora thought to herself. Her mind reeled as she watched this bizarre creature smirk evilly at the prospect of battle. Her eyes eventually focusing on his weapon; a dark colored serrated sword coated in a fair amount of rust and what was to her dismay, small patches and flakes of dried blood. She had not known many warriors in her life, but those she did treated their weapons with the utmost care. Always maintaining them, for they were a part of themselves, as she heard some put it. It was then she realized that this creature, with a rusted bloody saw and a sadistic grin creeping up its face, was not a warrior. It was a butcher, and the bit of hope that had appeared in her heart was replaced with fear, for what she thought might be her savior, may in fact be worst then the beasts it saved her from.

With blade in hand the young man charged forward at an impressive speed for something on two legs. The barghests however were not alarmed, for they were 3 and he only 1, and so as the man charged straight towards the barghest in the middle, the 2 at its sides circled around the man to attack him from behind. ‘So simple,’ he thought to himself as he suddenly had a drastic increase in speed that the beasts had not expected, and was upon the first of them in nearly the blink of an eye. He lashed out with his blade as the barghest frantically tried to make distance between them, but could not fully escape the sudden and frighteningly fast strike. The man looked upon the large laceration he had placed upon the first of the creatures, giving silent thanks that it managed to dodge so well. If the blow had gone just a bit deeper, it wouldn’t have survived, and what fun would that be?

As the man simply stood there, his grin ever slowly growing, the barghests began to rethink their plan of attack, it was faster than they had expected. As they all look to each other and let out a few growls and roars, they positioned themselves accordingly and all charged at the man at the same time. This attack was also anticipated by him, he was a bit disappointed to find that the barghests of the outside world fought the exact same way those from his “home” did; the only difference being that these are significantly smaller and weaker. He however was having too much fun to truly let that bring him down, as he leapt forward, surprising the barghests with how high he could jumped, laying the sole of his boot on the back of the injured beast, and kicking off it sending it crashing into the ground as its comrades crashed into each other, and he landed gracefully several yards away.

The wounded barghest, in frustrated with this creatures mocking, charged it angrily, and alone. The man’s grin growing just a bit wider as the foolish beast attempted to pounce him. He dashed forward, keeping himself low to the ground and under the jumping beast, but made sure to keep the business end up his weapon pointed up. As the 2 passed each other, an almost guttural tearing sound could be heard that made Zecora, as well as the other 2 barghests wince. The beast landed from its attack in a crumpled heap, and tried desperately to rise to its paws as blood poured from its fresh wound. Before it even occurred to the other creatures to aid their brethren, the man was already upon the wounded beast, swiping his blade across the side of its face, tearing the flesh from the side of its skull and reducing its eye to little more than jelly. The beasts pained cries broke its companions out of their paralyzed state, and they began running with all their might to try and save their kin. Fate however was as cold and merciless as the hand that grabbed the bleeding monster by the scruff of its neck and lifted it up, as cruel as the saw that shred through its abdomen, eviscerating it without yet killing it, and as bone chillingly evil as the maniacal laughter that came afterwards.

With a psychotic grin that threatened to split his cheeks, and a cold gaze filled with bloodlust and madness, the young man turned to the 2 unharmed barghests. ‘The sight of fresh blood, the cries of pain, and the stink of fear!’ the man began a slow trudge towards his next victims. “I live for this,” he said barely above a whisper. After a meager 3 or 4 paces away from the mess that was once a barghest, he heard pained and frantic yelps and barks coming from the beast behind him that refused to die quietly, much to his delight. However when he turned to the other 2 beasts, he noticed something new in their eyes, sadness. He was unsure why this was, until they quickly ran into the thicket of the forest, leaving the man and their dying comrade behind. “That’s new,” the man thought aloud as he sheathed his blood and gore covered weapon back into the recess of his coat. “Maybe the ones here are rather different than the ones back home.”

If Zecora had managed to eat anything in the past few hours, she probably would have thrown it up watching this. She had seen predators hunt and feed, it is natural in the forest, as well as the land from which she hails, but this was different. This would haunt her dreams for many a night. She watched the one monster walk up to the other, and when the creature leaned down to the still dying monster, she shut her eyes. She was sure she didn’t want to see what happened next, and the cries of agony of what the fallen beast told her she made the right decision. After the cry of agony fell silent, and she heard steps approach her, she opened her eyes to see the bipedal monster approaching her, tossing something up and catching it back in its claw. As it came closer and she got a better look, she saw its arm covered in blood, and realized the thing in its claw was the slain creature’s heart. She froze in terror as it approached her, the idea that she was next her driving force to try and flee, but her injuries would not let her. She closed her eyes as to not see her end when it reached down to grasp her, she however did not see it offer its claw to try and help her up.

The young man saw the terror gripping the zebra he had honestly forgotten was here. ‘This might be bad; I’m supposed to make sure they don’t find out where I came from. Not to mention try to keep my-darker impulses in check. I forgot about her and let a bit too much of myself show.’ His mind raced on how to repair this situation, as unlikely as it was. As he was beginning to consider simply killing her so she could never tell anyone what transpired in this forest, he was struck with an idea. “Hey,” he said to the horrified mare.

Zecora winced as she was addressed, and slowly opened her eyes to see the creature offering its hand in what seemed like a peaceful enough gesture, its dripping blood covered hand.

As the female cringed and pulled back, he realized her was still rather-unpresentable, but he was not going to display his magic to this creature, lest her fear grow. “Listen, I’m not going to hurt you.” The man said trying his best to sound as soothing as possible. “I mean come on; it’d be pretty silly of me to save you just to harm you.” The tiniest smile coming upon the man's lips.

“You killed that beast in a cruel and wicked manner, what makes you think I could believe you?”

“Well if I were you I’d start with the fact that if you don’t let me help you, you’ll die in this forest.”

Zecora was once again a bit shocked at how blunt this creature was, and how incredibly right as well. She had no choice but to trust it, at least for now. “You make a rather compelling argument, stranger,” she said as a pained smirk ran across her face. She began trying to rise to her hooves, “if you would be so kind, I could use your aid in reaching my home.”

The young man scooped her up in his arm, “of course, if you would be willing to guide me.” After the mare pointed in a direction, he began walking, keeping up a steady and rather rushed pace.

Zecora took notice of the creature’s claws and realized she did not see the heart. “Where have you place the heart of the beast, stranger?” she asked curiously.

“I put it in my coat, zebra.”

“You may call me Zecora, stranger. Being referred to as ‘zebra’ is a bit rude and unfair considering I do not know what you are.”

“My kind is called humans, and my name is Kastiell.”

Author's Note

Yo all, decided to do another chapter as you are obviously aware of. In case anyone didn't notice, I changed rating to mature. I originally planned to do it later on, and make this chapter a bit less descriptively violent, but buck all that noise, bloody AND gooey. At least I think so, but yeah I was wondering if you guys by any chance wanted any manner of romance element thrown into this? I for one like romance, but I am not particularly planning on going that direction. So whether you guys would like to see more of a, tortured soul overcoming his dark past type of story, or just more of a, necessary evil put to good use. I'm not gonna say I'll let you guys decide, cause lets be real, I decide. I WILL however take your thoughts into consideration. So feel free to let me know in comments, or if you wanna be more personal about it or go off on a tangent, pm me. Till next time, farewell.