From the Shadows

"Twilight," the voice called in the distance, calling the alicorn back from an eventless dream.

"Twilight, are you okay?" it sounded again, closer this time.

The blackness was replaced by two slivers of light as Twilight began to open her eyes. She blinked away the haze around her head, and saw her friends gathered in a circle around her, looking down concernedly.

Apparently, her consciousness wasn't enough to convince her friends she was still alright.

"Twilight," asked Pinkie Pie slowly, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she replied once breath was hers, "I think so. Am I?"

"You've been better," answered Rainbow Dash.

Twilight looked into her hooves, her skin was pale, even in the low light, and had begun to shift to a more grey shade of purple. She felt weak and cold, but, more or less, still herself.

"What did he do to you?" asked Fluttershy timidly, ducking under her mane a bit.

"I don't really know," she replied, still inspecting herself, and confirming that she was intact, "He didn't do much to me, I think, but he did more to himself."

"What do you mean?" asked Rarity nervously.

Twilight lowered her hooves and looked her friends each in the eye.

"He, changed," she said slowly, "I felt him. I heard him. I couldn't before."

"Are you sayin'..." began Applejack, but Twilight continued.

"He said 'blood and flesh, at our expense'. He just, changed...It was like he wasn't real before, but now...He's..." she shook her head, still coming out of unconsciousness.

"He's what?" asked all present.

"He's back. Sombra, not the shadow, but the pony."

The five exchanged glances of lingering fear, and Twilight, slowly, rose to her feet.

"Well, what else did he say?" asked Rainbow Dash urgently.

"That war is coming."

"War?" asked the five together, and Twilight grimly nodded.

"He offered for me to join him against Celestia but I turned him down. He wants the kingdom, and the Crystal Empire. I think..."

"You think what?" pressed Applejack hurriedly.

"I think he's going for Canterlot."

****************

Sombra looked down on the little town from afar, his presence concealed by the dense canopy of the forest all around him, and the light of the rising sun obscured by its overhanging embrace. Intently, maliciously, he gazed downhill and across the grassy plain that separated the trees from the buildings, watching, waiting, planning.

This was his time now. Before, he had been but a shadow, forced to watch and learn and prepare. But now, action was his to take, and like the blood now flowing trough his veins, he would not stop until he was dead.

It was time for redemption. It was time for reclamation. It was time for war. It was his time, and his alone. Celestia's time was up, and he would make sure she stepped down, either by force, or by even greater force. But first, he had a god-like weapon wielded by his enemy, and standing unopposed in the middle of his path to glory. He would have to fix that, and soon, before his time came to pass.

He already knew how to disable the elements of harmony, but his first plan had failed with the princess's denial of his offer. Such a shame; she would have made a beneficial ally. But, alas, she'd turned him down. No matter. He'd make her embrace the power of hate, one way or another. Conveniently, he could kill two birds with one stone; neutralizing the elements of harmony, more specifically, their wielders, would not only liberate him to take free action against Equestria, and following that, the Crystal Empire, but it would also, quite possibly, force the young alicorn to...change her mind.

Looking down to Ponyville, he saw the town's first residents begin to stir. No, not stirring; rather, a group of them sprinting out the front door of the library, barreling down the road to the northeast.

Sombra chuckled. They'd never think he was in Everfree. They thought he was going for Canterlot. They thought the war he had declared was on Celestia. Well, it was, but his aggression was not solely pitted against the princesses of the skies. The wielders, once again, were all too convinced of their own benevolence, their own invincibility. He would have to prove to them that reality was indeed much different.

Sombra smiled to himself, his fangs protruding past his lips as his grin slowly spread. His eyes took on a new fire, and with agility to rival the wind, he turned with a snarl, and sprinted through the trees like a wolf on the hunt, paralleling the mares as they ran the length of the road, with crystals sprouting in his wake.

***************

The only sound Twilight heard was the one her own hoofbeats made against the cobblestone as she and her friends galloped towards Canterlot. Sombra had to be there; where else would he be? War; where else would he wage war, except for the capital of Equestria itself?

He had to be going for Canterlot. She was sure of it. At least, until she heard a voice saying something else entirely.

"There he is!" yelled Rarity, stopping in her tracks as she pointed towards a line of trees in the distance off to their left.

"What?!" answered Twilight, coming to an equally abrupt halt, "Are you sure?!"

"Yes, he's right over..." Rarity continued excitedly, pointing to the tree line, where any trace of the king was absent, and her voice lost its volume "there."

"I don't see anything," said Dash matter-of-factly.

"I know I saw him. I'm sure of it."

"Are you sure you're not seeing things?" asked Twilight, "We've been awake for a long time. It could have been a hallucination."

"No, it was Sombra."

"Y'all, we'd better believe Rarity," pressed Applejack, stepping amidst the others as she spoke, "For all we know, it was him. The least we could do is go check it out."

The orange mare didn't receive a response, so she herself led the others towards the trees, followed closely by Rarity. The other four were quick to follow.

It didn't take long to reach the spot where the plain met the trees. But, once they reached the forest's edge, the six all stopped in their tracks, looking into the blackness and gloom of the woods before them.

"W-We have to go in, t-t-there?" stammered Fluttershy, trying to back away from the trees, and escape their reach; they seemed to be trying to grab her, their brown arms beckoning her for a simple touch.

"How sure are you?" asked Twilight coldly as she looked to Rarity; the white mare was as hesitant as she was after finally reaching their destination.

Rarity looked at the alicorn, then back to the forest, then at Twilight once again.

"I'm positive."

"Well," sighed the lavender mare, breathing in deeply, "then let's go."

She stepped confidently out of the light, and into the woods, and again, the other five followed, the trees seeming to close in behind them as they abandoned the light of their world for the shadows of Everfree.

Any doubt of her friend's vision left in a hurry, as just inside the trees, Twilight found, however dim in the darkness of the forest,  a trail of crystals, leading deeper into the wood.

"Hey, check it out," said Rainbow Dash, looking over Twilight's shoulder from her perch in the air, "Looks like you were right."

"Okay, we know he's here, not in Canterlot. Yay. Now can we please go back?" whispered Fluttershy, her teeth chattering as she looked all around her.

Twilight didn't answer. She was squinting deeper into the darkness of the forest. She could almost see something, just beyond the shadows. Something moving in the direction the crystals led. It was as if it was beckoning her, daring her to come closer, almost like...

"Twilight!"

"What?" she responded, shaking her head slightly.

"Are you okay?" asked Pinkie Pie, her mane beginning to revert to its curly state, but still mostly straight, "you seem a little screwy."

"Yeah," she assured them, trying to get them to buy the act, "I'm fine."

"So what do we do now?" petitioned Dash.

"We go after him," came Twilight's immediate response.

She began to walk deeper into the trees, but Applejack blocked her path.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just hold on a minute here. This ain't a good idea."

"Applejack, move."

"Just hear me out."

Twilight stepped back, and suppressed the urge to spark a glow from the tip of her horn.

For a moment, she scared herself as she realized that the thought of forcibly moving her friend had even crossed her mind. She dismissed the notion, giving it up as nothing more than impatience, brought on by fatigue. But still, she could almost hear, though faintly, Sombra's deep, foreboding laughter inside of her head.

She nodded, recomposing herself like the regale she was meant to be, and Applejack explained herself.

"Remember the Crystal Empire? He baited ya then, just like he's doin' now. I'd bet my hide he's leading us into a trap."

"So, what do you propose we do."

'Well," Applejack began, slowly, "we're all in this together. I say we vote."

****************

Again, Sombra looked out on Ponyville from the shelter of the concealment of the trees. His mind was anywhere but the present. It was on the recent past, and the near future.

He admired his own cunning for his latest trap, using himself as bait, and the forest itself as the snare. Nothing less than pure genius.

Having just finished laying down another maze of crystals for his enemies to follow was only the first part of phase two of his plan. Phase one had involved getting to where he was now; getting into Equestria, and becoming strong enough to retake his throne. Now, the objective was to rid himself of the ever-present meddle of the elements of harmony. Without them, there were only two in the entirety of Equestria that could stand to him. Phase three was where that final problem was to be solved. But, that would come in time, and Sombra's mind came back to the task at present.

Getting rid of the elements; something to be done precisely. Standing hoof to hoof with them was not possible. He knew he had the potential and the ability to face them down without being overtaken; he had only hours before in the library, but, perhaps, a smidgeon of luck had been with him as well.

It was a risk; he'd reconciled with that in order to have the chance of gaining Twilight as an ally. But, now with her denial, there was nothing to be gained by the risk of approaching them. There was no reward to go with the risk, and therefore, anything brash would be unwise. He would take his time, and deal with them properly; one, by one, by one.

Only now, it wasn't a dream.

Sombra's horn radiated a dark red, glowing strongly in the darkness of the forest, and he took on a new look, so to say. He became covered with a brown cloak and hood, concealing his face and body, as well as his identity.

It was his time now; his time to act, his time to reclaim what was once his, his time to take, and his time for redemption. He lowered his head, and approached the town, ready to start his war before his enemies could act.

****************

Twilight looked at the five before her, all of them lifting their hooves into the air to vote for 'go back to town.'

"How could you want to go back!" she yelled, interrupting the silence of the forest, as well as surprising her friends, "We're so close! He was just here!"

"Twilight," started Rarity, "you're underestimating Sombra. We already have before; I don't want to make the same mistake twice. We need to get out of here, and somewhere where we have the advantage."

"And what, wait for him to come to us?"

"At least that way we have a chance. He's got everything on us if we follow him in there!" yelled Rainbow Dash as she pointed deeper into the forest, "He's smarter than we think, and I know he's trying to lure us into a trap. If we back out, we can keep fighting, but if we keep going, we may not get a chance to fight back, ever."

"Are you saying you'd rather take a chance than take the advantage?"

"What advantage?" yelled Applejack, frustrated.

"Twilight, I'm telling you, he's toying with us. How do we know he's not just playing with our heads again, trying to make make a mistake?" explained Rarity.

"How do we know he's not counting on us to give up? What makes you so sure that he's not just out of sight, and that we can take him down if we just committed?"

"We don't know anything Twilight," urged Rainbow, raising her voice, "But I'm more sure of him being out there waiting for us to slip up than I am of him being vulnerable. You know me, I'm not gonna back down, but there's a lot more to lose here than just pride. We need to do this the smart way, and the smart way is taking caution. I want to get this ass just as much as you do, but we can't if he wins. He wins, our chances go out the window, so we can't slip up."

"Besides Twilight," began Pinkie, "If we go back, we can get help. We need the princesses. If we just stopped for a second, we could write a letter and get..."

Twilight cut her off before she finished.

"We don't need Celestia!" she yelled, stamping her hoof into the mud, "She told us to do this, and we have to do it! We can't let her down!"

"This ain't about making the princess happy anymore!" countered Applejack, "Sombra's loose, and Equestria is in danger."

"I am a princess!" yelled Twilight suddenly, her eyes shifting to white and her horn beginning to glow threateningly as she rushed into Applejack's face, "And you do not tell me what to do!"

The hot glare between the two of them was put out by four stunned and horrified looks all around them, and Twilight looked down, stepping back as her eyes softened.

"I'm sorry," she apologized sincerely, "I...I just don't know what to do."

She waited a few moments before she spoke again.

"I thought we could take him if we only had the elements, but you all are right. We should back out. We'll get Celestia. She'll know what to do."

The others nodded consent, and Fluttershy, who'd taken a spot at the back of their little column, turned around to bid a hasty withdrawal from the foreboding trees, something she was normally warmed to be among, but not in this case. She squinted at the ground, trying to make out the crystals they'd followed to get to where they were now, but, there was a problem, or rather, many, as an innumerable amount of black, opaque stones were plaguing the forest floor all around them, leading in all different directions.

"Umm, girls," she squeaked as the other five came up behind her, "Which trail were we following?"

****************

Nurse Redheart sat behind the counter of the hospital, reading through the amounts of paper on her clipboard. So many different patients to take care of, so many different needs and schedules to maintain. She was wishing for somepony to talk to, rather than having to keep words in her thoughts as she scrolled through the endless stacks of paper on her desk.

Within moments, her wish was granted, and a fresh, familiar face came through the door.

"Morning Ms. Redheart," greeted the mare, an earth pony with a hat to match hers on top of her neatly tied up mane.

"How are you today Nurse Tenderheart?" she responded cordially, relishing in the opportunity to delay her other duties to chat for a moment.

"Doing well. Have you seen the doctor yet?"

"I know he's in," she responded, "He's probably still working with the patient in Room 203."

"That poor stallion still hasn't recovered?"

"No. We can't find anything wrong with him. No fever, no injuries other than a bruise on his back, but he has all the symptoms of a serious illness; red eyes, paranoia, trembling and vomiting. He can't sleep, he can't recover, and nothing we've tried has worked. It's like he's sick because of something other than sickness."

"Sounds like a riddle," chuckled Tenderheart, her light green mane falling out of place as she did, and she brushed it back into place with a silvery-blue hoof.

"Or something extremely serious."

"I just hope it's not contagious," chuckled Tenderheart a second time.

Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by a chime at the back of the room. The pair looked up, one from the front of the desk, the other from behind it, to see a tall, built pony walking through the doors. He wore a sort of cloak, and his face was covered by the shadows of his hood. He didn't say a word as he approached them.

"Can I help you?" asked Nurse Redheart as he came closer.

"I'm looking for an old...acquaintance of mine. I understand he's in this hospital's care," he said, his voice low and very masculine, and anything but friendly.

"I'm sorry," said Tenderheart as he, again, came a bit closer, not showing any indication of who he was, "but visiting hours are from noon to 2. It's only nine o'clock."

"Oh please," he said, "It will only take a moment, I promise. I just need to clear something up with him. I'm afraid, with his condition, we may never have another chance to do so."

"I'm sorry sir," Redheart explained, maintaining her smile as she did so, "But I can't let you back there. Policy dictates that patients must be left alone by non-staff members except during visiting hours."

"Could you find it in you to make an exception? He is very near death, and I need to make something clear to him. Which room is he in?" he asked, trying to steal a look at the clipboard as he leaned a bit over the counter, only to have the nurse tilt it up and away from his view with a sort of glare.

The nurses exchanged a similar look; there was something very suspicious about him.

"Sir," began Tenderheart, seizing the stallion's attention long enough for Redheart to press a small red button on the counter's underside without being seen, "I'm afraid I need to ask you to leave for now, but you're welcome to come back during visiting hours. In fact, if you would just leave your name and contact information, we can reach out to you when your friend is ready. Who was it you wanted to see?"

"I think you know the answer to that already," he growled.

"And what did you say your name was?" asked Redheart as she marked down on her clipboard hesitantly, nervously glancing towards a door off to the right of the lobby she occupied.

"I didn't."

As the pony finished, the door swung open, and a trio of security guards, all of them stallions, entered the reception area. They wore caps, and had flashlights and billy-clubs on their belts.

They approached the stallion as he eyed them down from behind the shadows cast by his hood, and as they surrounded him, he turned back to face the duo of mares at the desk.

"What is this?" he scoffed.

"These stallions are just going to make sure you make it outside okay. Oh, and by the way sir, it may be better if you didn't come back for visiting hours."

The three guards approached him, and one stepped before him.

"Sir," he asked firmly, "I'm going to have to ask you to remove your hood. Standard policy."

"I don't think that would be a good idea."

"No need to worry sir," the same guard said as he reached out a bit towards the pony's face, and a bit sarcastically added, "I promise you won't get hurt."

"I can't say the same to you," growled the figure, an ivory smile beginning to glow in the darkness cast by the hood, and the faint outlines of a pair of crimson eyes forming beneath the cloak.

The guard's condescending smile left, and as he looked to his left and right at the guards slightly behind the hooded figure, they closed in on him, forming a tight circle with hooves on their belts.

"Sir, I'm going to remove your hood now, and then, we are going to escort you from the premises. Will you comply?"

The smile seemed to grow a bit wider.

"We'll see."

The guard slowly reached towards him, any former confidence exempt from his demeanor, and carefully, he flipped back the hood on the figure.

Before the hood even hit the pony's back, a pulse of energy blew all three guards, as well as the two nurses, back and into the walls. Picture frames were shattered, papers were blown around, and the sickening thuds of bodies hitting drywall resonated through the room.

The guard that had confronted the pony felt the impact of the wall, and following that, the ground, and looked up to the center of the room as his momentum came to an end. What he saw was...unbelievable.

Sombra, the pony of lore and legend, bull-rushing him, fangs born into a predatory snarl.

He tried to get to his hooves, but before he could, the king was on him, slamming him into the floor and holding him down. He called out to his comrades.

"Help!" he yelled, looking through the king's legs to see the other two guards struggling to their feet, "Help me! He's go...UNGH!"

The king reared up on his hind legs, holding the guard in between his two front hooves by the throat, choking his words to death before they ever came to be. Sombra slammed him into the wall at his back, splitting the drywall in a long, spreading series of cracks.

For a moment, they met eyes. The king's were blood red and fierce, contorted into a scowl, but there was something else in his gaze; pleasure.

With one hoof pressed to his throat, Sombra used the other to beat the guard's head like a brawler, each vicious blow launching his head backwards and into the wall. The cracks became rifts, and the wall, as well as the black hooves of the king, grew red with blood. The guard's eyes began to drift shut, even as tears began to flow from them, but Sombra kept the blows coming. Finally, he reared back, and with a savage punch, caved the guard's face in, and blew him back through the wall completely, what was left of his head and torso disappearing through the hole, but his hind legs protruding out of the drywall.

As soon as he finished the first one, Sombra heard the approaching hoof beats of a second guard. He spun around to meet the oncoming swing of a billy-club with an outstretching forelimb, and the black stick splintered around his flesh. The guard looked at him in shock for a moment, but only for a moment. It was a quick transition from shock to fear as Sombra grabbed him by the forelimb, and wrenched the jagged, splintered handle of the club from him.

He viciously flipped the guard over his shoulder, and slammed him into the ground. All the air in his body left as the floor vibrated with the impact, and Sombra reared up, plunging the ragged remnant of the club into his throat. The guard began gurgling softly in a blood-drowned scream, and Sombra mercilessly tore to the side, ripping his throat open, and letting his blood flow out freely in massive, hemorrhaging spurts.

Suddenly, Sombra felt something constrict around his throat, and felt the weight of something substantial on his back.

"Sedate him!" he heard the third stallion on his back yell, and he saw one of the nurses retrieve a syringe from below the desk she'd recently risen from behind.

The nurse came sprinting towards him, and Sombra relieved himself of the burden on his back, reaching up with a single hoof to launch the stallion over his head, into the ceiling, and onto the ground on the far side of the room. The nurse reached him, and lounged forwards with the syringe, but Sombra sidestepped the needle.

He caught her forelimb under his, wrapping his leg around the joint of her leg. With his free elbow, he came down with a vicious blow on hers, and the sharp crack of the bone sounded over her frightened whimper. Quickly, he landed a kick on her rear left knee, and her frightened squeal was, again, lost in the sickening crack of the bone's snapping.

She dropped the syringe as he spun her around to face away from him, forcing her to her knees in the process. He wrapped a hoof around her neck as she sank towards the ground, and he held her at his stomach. She screamed a shrill note of fear, and Sombra nonchalantly looked to the other nurse, Redheart, in the room. With a swift twist, the mare's scream was abruptly ended, and he released her limp body to the ground, her corpse coming to rest with her skewed spine bulging out of her neck.

Redheart, panicked, made a dash for the door to the side of the counter, but Sombra only grinned. With a weak glow from his horn, the deadbolt on the other side of the door clicked shut, and he smiled as the nurse began pulling and pounding on the sealed door in vain.

Sombra heard the guard behind him getting to his feet, and turned around.

The stallion brandished his billy-club, and through a determined glare, yelled, "Come On!"

"As you wish."

Sombra charged forward, as did the guard with a scream. Sombra lowered his head, as well as his center of gravity, and lead into the oncoming guard with his horn, plunging it up to his forehead into his abdomen. He lifted up as they met, impaling the guard fully on his horn, and carried him on the end of his horn to the wall. He crashed into the drywall, replacing the white paint with a red furnish, and pulled back.

The guard slumped to the floor, clutching his bleeding stomach and exposed entrails with wide eyes and a quivering lower lip. Sombra looked down on him, his eyes as intense as before, and smiled.

"No," whispered the guard as Sombra reared back slowly, brandishing his horn as he stared him in the eyes.

But Sombra didn't stop.

"Nooo!" yelled the guard, only to be cut off by a dark, ivory horn piercing the skull between his eyes, and pushing through and into the wall behind him.

Sombra stood up straight over the fresh corpse, his obsidian head corrupted by the scarlet rivers of blood flowing downwards from his horn. He brushed his long black mane back into place, moving it from his face to its flowing home at the back of his scalp. He breathed deeply through an open mouth with closed eyes, taking in a moment of ecstasy. He relished in the satisfaction of a long suppressed bloodlust, until the time quickly came to seek more.

Sombra turned slowly, a growl beginning in his throat as the guard at his feet slumped over in death, his blood corrupting the floor. The king's eyes rested on Redheart, panicked now as she still tried to jolt the locked door free. She looked behind her to Sombra, seeing his devious grin growing wider at her despair, and with invigorated panic, continued tugging and pounding on the door in hopes that it would open.

Sombra stood in place, and admired his work. Bloody tracks, his own, permeated the wooden floor, surrounding the still bodies. The first, the stallion in the wall, the drywall around him stained with wet crimson as his hind legs marked his unfinished grave, with the other half of his destroyed being concealed. The second, the guard with the splintered club in his throat, still bleeding profusely though his body was still, and the tool used to inflict his death still pointing to the ceiling, embedded deeply in his larynx. The third, the mare, her grey-blue hide tainted by the blood seeping from her lips, and her beauty ruined by the mangled bones of her legs and neck. The fourth, the most recent at his feet, silent with a hole bored through his skull, his eyes and mouth still open in shock and fear. And the fifth, the only one still alive.

Redheart stole another look at the king a moment later; he'd come closer, and was now grinning no more than six feet from her. She gave up on the door, and with tears in her eyes, she faced Sombra, her jaw quivering as she anticipated the worst.

Sombra stood over her, and she sank to the ground at his feet, pleading with her eyes for mercy. But, the king, not amused by her pitiful existence, only grumbled down at her.

"What room is the prince in?"

"Are you going to kill me?"

Sombra rolled his eyes, redirecting a crimson trickle flowing down onto his face from his blood-caked, ragged horn.

"If you tell me, I'll consider sparing you."

"He's in there," she said, weakly tapping her hoof against the door at her back, "First hall to the left, room 203."

Sombra nodded, and gently, the deadbolt on the other side of the door turned in his telepathic grip. He pushed through the door, and passed the nurse, unharmed.

"Oh, thank you," she sobbed as he receded down the hallway, a weak glow beginning to emit from his horn, "thank y...flghhh."

The nurse's words were halted by a crystalline shard shooting up through the floor, piercing her throat and pinning it to the wall behind her. The blood filled her mouth, and spilled over onto the floor, but the crystal connecting her head to the wall kept her body upright. Sombra didn't even turn around to see his latest creation; he just kept walking, his eyes dead set on the hallway, as well as the prize, before him.

There was bigger prey in this hospital than a few nurses and petty security officers. Sombra replaced the hood over his head, and advanced down the hall.

His steps echoed through the empty silence of the halls, the only sound in the entire building other than his breathing. He sauntered past the rooms, ignoring the patients within, though every ounce of their fearful attention was his.

Closer and closer he came to his prey, reading the numbers on the walls of the hallway, marking darkened, unimportant sanctuaries, as well as the worthless patients within them.

197.

198.

He breathed deeply in anticipation of retribution and reclamation.

199.

200.

"Hey," he heard behind him, "you can't be here. This is a restricted area."

The king stopped, and leisurely scratched his nose as the sounds of the voice's owner came closer.

"You need to leave. I'm working here, and visiting hours aren't until noon."

Again, Sombra ignored him, and the approaching steps came to a halt at his back.

"Are you deaf?" the voice asked challengingly, and Sombra felt a hoof land aggressively on his shoulder.

Without hesitation, Sombra threw the hoof off of himself, and whipped around, plunging his hoof up and into the stomach of the doctor. He doubled over, and Sombra met his descending head with an upwards rising hoof. The doctor stepped back, clutching his snout, but Sombra followed him. He kicked at the inside of his knee, locking it out in a way it wasn't designed to bend.

The doctor fell towards the floor, but the king held him up. The doctor came to a halt on his flanks, and Sombra landed a blow with his forelimb on his kidneys. The doctor recoiled backwards, leaning back over his hams, and Sombra came down hard. He landed an arcing kick on the doctor's throat, and with a savage crunch, the struggle was over, and the doctor laid limp on the white tiles of the hospital floor.

Slowly, Sombra turned his crimson eyes, the blood from recent battles won flowing down around them, back down the hallway, and again, found his scowl being replaced with a genuine smile. Oh, How he enjoyed this.

His advance continued, and his breathing quickened as his smile grew with each step closer he came to the prey.

201.

202.

He stopped for a moment, relishing in the moment.

203.

His horn glowed crimson, and he pushed through the door.