Naruto slowly opened his eye lids, the light piercing the dark and giving him back his sight. Now within the world of the living, he glances around his surroundings. He was in a desert. Why...
Why was he in a desert?
How did he get here?
Peering around searchingly, he noticed he couldn't bring up memories of how he had gotten here. The last of his memories were of he and Sasuke at the Hidden Valley. He fled the village. He was now a missing ninja. But Naruto had a duty, an obligation toward his best friend. He needed to bring him back to The Hidden Leaf Village. Not only for Sakura, but for Sasuke and himself too.
With this in mind, Naruto rose to his feet. A flash of red made Naruto swivel his head quickly to see the source, his ninja training made his instincts sharper and he was prepared for every and anything at the moment. However, what he was surprised to see was a red chakra colored tail that made his heart skip a beat in fear for several reasons.
That much chakra could kill someone, how on earth was an animal wielding it to such a degree where it should have perished?
Next, he realized the color...
He was the only one he knew of with red chakra. The source of this was Kyuubi, who lied deep within his consciousness sealed away. To boot, it looked like a fox tail.
Lastly, he was accurately aware of his ability to slightly control the fox's chakra. Meaning, he was probably the source of it. Unknowingly to him, if looks could kill anyone in the area would probably burn to death like Itachi's Amaterasu could. Ironically, looks did kill in Itachi's case.
Standing up was quite easy, but it felt uncomfortable and foreign to Naruto. Coming to this conclusion, he dropped to all fours and began stalking slowly to find his way out the desert. With every single footstep, Naruto expected to be in agony sense it looked like he was walking on flesh made of chakra. Curiously, there was no pain. Grateful of this, Naruto continued to press forward to gather his surroundings. He refused to return home in this form. That spelled an awful scenario and he knew it. It was then he let out a groan, knowing that he'd be wandering here for what would probably feel like forever.
Rumble...
Naruto's heart stopped momentarily as he frantically looked around for the source of the inhuman nightmare inducing noise that sounded like a groan.
...He had just groaned. Was that him?
Giving a small growl, he near shouted in fear as the terrifying heart stopped sound send shivers of horror up his spine. He was a monster alright. People probably wouldn't be too happy to see him. Hell, he wouldn't be too happy to see him. He could only wonder what he looked like, and he knew the result probably was just as bad as the sound.
Believe it.
Pressing onward, he gave no more thought to his current form. This wasn't him, so there was no reason to be scared. He'd just return to normal and go back to bringing back Sasuke.
...After he found a way home that is. As it currently was, he was lost somewhere he didn't even know. This place looked barren. Yeah, it was a desert. But The Village Hidden In the Sand's deserts were not like this at all. There wasn't much sand. There was only the cracked hard sand colored ground with a bunch of cactus and the sun's heat beating down causing 'mirage' of water. This was a wasteland, not a desert he realized. This meant he wasn't even in the Elemental Nations anymore.
Was he even in the same world?
He wasn't sure, but he had no idea how he had gotten here. So getting back was going to be a huge issue probably. Nothing that the number one hyper active knucklehead ninja couldn't solve! Naruto had kept pressing forward, never relenting during this whole thought process.
"T-There it is guys..."
And just like that, his thought process had been derailed and exploded in a showery gore of metal and cargo. He turned his head slowly to the source of the talking to let them know he wasn't dangerous. This proved to be a bad idea as he could feel their tension- smell their fear get worse. Apparently he was intimidating them. He silently admitted it was pretty funny. However, what he saw next completely killed this thought.
There stood a group of eight miniature horses with trinkets and armor around them. The leading pony was an angry looking horse with a scowl on it's surprisingly expressive face. Though, he could feel the terror, the tensing of it's body as it's legs began to tremble. Though, it tried to hide it behind a brave face. Tilting his head, he regarded the small horse he would now dub as pony. A small horse was a pony. Therefore, this was a pony. A female by the looks. Eying the pony with curiosity, he noted her attire. A perfectly pointed purple hat with stars of many colors littering the designs. Her dark obsidian mane was long, draping down to her hooves- her tail was the same color. Meanwhile, her eyes were a deep shade of magenta. Her coat was a light splashed white, giving her the pale impression of a ghost. Naruto hated that. He hated ghost. Jutting from her hat was a single smooth looking horn that glowed the same color as her eyes. Naruto would have raised a brow, but he wasn't sure he even had any. The one who had spoken hadn't been in her direction though, so Naruto knew it wasn't her who spoke.
"Come on t-team, I know it's the most terrifying thing we've ever been against... But we've taken down Dragons! One small creature like this couldn't stop us!" She glared confidently at Naruto's way, who was just plain confused at what was going on. One moment he was walking, then the next he was being hunted down? The pony was backed up by her crew, consisting of two curious Lion-Bird creatures, two other Unicorns, a pony that was flying that he'd call a Pegasus, and a pony with no wings or horn.
"WE CAN DO THIS!" This sparked a rallying war cry from the group where they began to charge at him without a further thought except for the Unicorn who looked like she was using some form of energy to prepare something.
Not wanting to have to fight these creatures, Naruto figured he'd try a scare tactic. He roared back at them.
~ * * *~
Nimbus Cloud felt her wings lock up and stiffen onto her sides in terror. Being in mid flight this caused her some serious pain as she slammed harshly into the ground below with an audible thud. She wasn't the only one who had paused in horror, other members of the party had come to a screeching halt when the creature let out a terrifying noise she couldn't even identify as a roar. It wasn't like anything she'd heard of before. The very noise was fear itself, and it placed fright into her heart. Idly the creature- no, the monster flicked it's four tails around and admired it's hoofty work with a equally terrifying smile. She then found two ominous white glowing void like eyes gazing into her very core. It made her want to be anywhere but there, doing anything but being here. She wished she was back with her mother at that moment hugging her tightly. It was a common fact that if anypony's, or anything's eyes gave the frightening glow in front of her that they were not a force to be trifled with. This has been proved time and time again, and now the same eyes were gazing at her almost hungrily. She was the toughest of the group, she prided herself on always looking danger in the face and laughing at it. She'd laughed in the face of death several times before too. But this...
This wasn't death. This was a monster. A demon... The oppressing energy it gave off was suffocating her to death slowly and making her feel fear like she never had. Death would be a pleasure, to get away from this thing.
"R-Retreat!"
The order came from their leader, Raven Light. This was one order she would forever be grateful for being called out. As soon as the words were out her mouth, Nimbus had dashed over to her leader- and hopeful lover in the future and picked her up- this got a small squeak from Raven. She then zipped the opposite direction of the walking personification of fear. The rest of the team would follow.
She glanced behind her to see they were trailing closely. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the creature giving chase, if she had been any more scared she may have began crying. The creature stopped pursuing them, even though she knew if it wanted to catch them it could. When it had began running it was already hot on their trail with a head start and looked like it was about to take a bite out of her friend Earth Shaker. To her immense relief it didn't even chase them, even if it could catch them. It just watched them leave.
Apparently, it had mercy on them and didn't want to be bothered with scared creatures not putting up a fight. She dearly hoped it didn't change it's mind.
A frenzy of red lightning raged through the now blood red sky, spastically, black arcs of energy danced above as the thunderclaps that followed each bolt boomed continuously. Black droplets fell in sheets from the cloudless sky filling the world in a melancholy state of being. And as soon as the creature was no longer in sight, it gave a terrifying roar that would forever haunt her and give her nightmares.
She prayed to Celestia.
~ * * *~
Watching the creatures flee with an amused smile, Naruto considered giving chase. He didn't feel up to the task. However he let out a howl of annoyance as they got too far away and he realized he needed a map to find out where he was.
"WAIT!!"
That's what he tried to say, but it only came out as a bone chilling inhuman demonic evil roar. Covering his mouth with his hand he gave a sheepish smile pointedly ignoring the dirt that he'd gotten across his mouth for the act.
'Well, that could have gone better.'
