The crisp setptember air filled Nathan's lungs as he stood there taking in every movement the boy made, Nathan raised the bat ready to strike with everything he had then he saw the boy's hand twitch and focused hard on the small white sphere that would be streaking towards him in a matter of seconds. The boy wound back and threw with an audible grunt as the ball came flying at a pace that would make a pro happy. Nathan swung with all his might and a deafening crack was heard as he made contact, a blinding flash of lightning struck the bat directly at this point deciding it would be as good a time as any to find the path of least resistance. Then as the smoke cleared and people's vision returned a scream rang out from the stands as people looked on in horror at the blackened earth under where Nathan had been standing, still smoking with a blackened ball in the center but no sign of him anywhere.
Somewhere in olympus where the gods of old still watched over the human world deciding to let it run its course for now a
smiling Zeus turned to Hades with a smug smile on his face, "there you go little brother I have my defender" Hades looked on
with a sneer "Why in the would would you choose a mortal from that dying rock, he doesn't have any hope of defending the
new realm now, prepare for a lot of innocent's to die now!" Hades was confident that the boy couldn't hope to overcome the
insurmountable odds that was ahead of him but just to make sure he may aswell have a little fun trying to break the boy
before it came to that.
Meanwhile for Nathan it seemed like his blood was boiling in every part of his body as it screamed at him threatening to
burst forth, he was at his breaking point mentally as the pain so intense threatened to compromise his sanity long before he
would die of it. His eyes refused to open as he struggled to regain control of his body and was rewarded after a few minutes
as a dazzling light streamed into them while the pain flared making him scream once more before it ebbed away and finally
left him with only a minor throbbing. Eventually after much willing and pleading with invisible forces he tried to move his body,
it was painful yes but bit by bit the feeling started to rush back to him letting him finally start to get a sense of where he was.
He was lying on his back on what seemed to be grass but what surprised him was the softness of it, instead of a bristly itchy feeling it was soft and warm reminding him of a wollen towel against his back. This seemed an odd feeling until he realised to was mostly nude, all that was left of his uniform was the blackened collar of his shirt and still smoking cargo pants that had been reduced to a few strands of material dangling from the leather belt he had borrowed for the game. Luckily for him it still hid him enough to remain dignified but other than that it was completely ruined, he slood up slowly and winced while doing it but was determined to find out where he was, as he looked around he noticed what seemed to be redwoods that were so tall he could hardly see the tops of them stretching out in all directions. He seemed to be in a small clearing of some sort about the size of an average car parking space with thick tree's on all sides but one. Then embedded in the ground in a corner of the clearing he noticed his bat, the metal shined and for a moment it seemed like sparks were dancing across its handle but he quickly dismissed this as his mind playing tricks on him and hobbled over to it.
In the darkness just beyond the clearing a creature watched patiently sizing up this new being, it seemed hurt and easy prey but this beast knew that from experience there tended to be surprises when dealing with most seemingly helpless prey.
It watched the being limp slowly over to the shiny thing in the corner and grasp it trying hard to dislodge it from its earthly
bond, the time had come for the creature to make its move it decided and began to slowly approach from behind. It raised its
tail ready to strike a killing blow to avoid excess energy expenditure and slowly got within 10 yards of the target without being
seen, or so it had thought.
Nathan was pulling at the bat for all he was worth wheezing and grunting from the pain but determined to have something
as defence against the forest incase it was home to any bears or wolves, he stopped to catch his breath and as he did he
noticed a furry reflection in the bat, something was approaching him and it didnt deem friendly. He yanked one last time with
all his might and was rewarded tumbling backwards as the bat sprung from the earth. His victory was short lived though
because the creature approaching decided that it was time to strike and as he fell backwards a large stinger shot straight
into his right thigh. He howled in pain as adrenaline surged through his system and he swung the bat at the tail attatched to
the stinger, it cracked and the burst through the tail in a small flash suprising both him and the creature that reared
backwards at this strange display of strength. Nathan grabbed the stinger and ripped it out letting blood and venom run from
the wound and down his leg, he turned to face his attacker which had recovered and was now charging him a look of fury
and desperation in its eyes. He wound back and as the creature lept he swung with all the power he could connecting with
the side of the creatures head, a sickening thud was heard as the bat was driven into the creatures temple and came to rest
a few feet into its brain. It crumpled to the floor but not before one of its claws scraped Nathans back sending fresh waves of
pain through him, He fell to his knees with tears in his eyes fighting the battle for conciousness as the world started to
become blurry. Knowing that to stop would mean certain death and using the bat almost like a cane he limped towards the
trees going the oposite direction of where the creature came from incase there were more coming.
After what seemed like hours but in reality was probably only 15 minutes he came to rest against a large boulder while his
eyes streamed and his wounds bled, he knew he was suffering dizziness from blood loss but didnt have any means of
covering the wound so could do nothing but wait to bleed out. As he was about to resign himself to death he saw a
pinky/yellow blur in the corner of his vision. The colors were vibrant but he couldn't see properly so distinguishing what sort
of animal it was was impossible, but the only thing he though was that vibrant colors in nature normally meant poison and he
already had enough of that coursing through his veins. Shakily he raised the bat towards the blur and tried to growl
menacingly at it, embarassingly for him though the growl came out as more like a whimper which did not have the effect
he had hoped as the blur got closer. He tried to swing the bat at it but he could only make a slow arc towards it causing him
to fall to his knees as the blur seemed to rise over the bat evading it. 'great' he thought to himself 'a flying poisonous
monster' he tried to lift the bat again but just groaned in pain as his conciousness slipped away slowly, the last sound he
heard seemed to be a womans voice singing. Soothed and very much thinking that it was an angel as he was abviously
about to die at the hands of the phantom blur that was coming for him he relaxed and fell to the floor completely out of it and
as ungraceful as possible.
The pinky/yellow blur which was known as fluttershy by her friends quickly rushed to the strange being's side quickly
turning it over to see the worst injury which was coming from its leg, she took out the first aid kit that she always carried in
case one of her critters got hurt and wrapped up the wound as best she could, she continued to to the same to the gashes
on his back and after a few minutes it seemed like he was no longer in danger of dying just yet as the small rivers of blood
stopped flowing down him. she grabbed him by one of his forearms and struggled under his limp frame, he was surprisingly
heavy but she was determined not to let him die, she struggled through the forsest and after 20 minutes arrived back at her cottage, lying the creature on the floor she flew around in a panic grabbing medical supplies and blankets. After half an hour of working on the strange being in front of her she covered him with a blanket and turned to a small bunny that was watching in facination, "now angel i need to go get help from my friends could you please watch him and make sure he's ok while im gone?" The small bunny saluted his timid owner and marched over to the being, sat down and engaged in a staring contest with the top of its head, satisfied that he would be ok fluttershy whizzed out and off towards ponyville.
She arrived at a large tree that doubled as the town library and burst through the door causing a startled puple dragon to jump off his ladder and land face down on the pile of books by the bottom, groaning he looked up expecting to see a rainbow
streak looking down at him with a grin but was surprised to find fluttershy with fear and determination in her eyes. "Spike what is going on, you better not be messing around with any of the books again!" came an annoyed voice from the kitchen, Fluttershy raced there and found her friend reading a book intently not noticing the pegasus enter. "Twilight i need your help there's an animal i haven't seen before and he's in trouble and he's hurt so bad and...and..." Twilight was taken aback by this outburst from the usually quiet reserved state associated with fluttershy. "Calm down Fluttershy now slowly this time explain what happened." Fluttershy didnt have time for this "twilight you need to come with me now!" she said in a tone that was very close to the one she used with the dragon incident, Knowing this was serious twilight didn't ask any more questions, "spike im going to help fluttershy i'll be back soon" then turned to fluttershy "ok show me what's wrong." With that the two mares galloped out of the lobrary and towards fluttershy's house.
On arriving fluttershy immediately went over to the strange being and checked its bandages and made sure it seemed
comfortable, twilight walked round fluttershy and gasped as she saw its face, she had seen a being like this in canterlot, it was on a very old window that was in the starswirl the bearded section of the canterlot archives, the window depicted a bi-pedal creature clutching a long silver weapon of sorts facing off against a great evil, it was simply called 'The Defender'!
