Boy or Beast

Chapters

Chapter 1: Beast of the Everfree
Chapter 2: Doing some Surveillance
Chapter 3: Mistakes are made
Chapter 4: The fox and the Zebra
Chapter 5: The Lab
Chapter 6: The end
Chapter 7: The Plan
Chapter 8: A new enemy
Chapter 9: Starlight gets got
Chapter 10: Not alone
Chapter 11: Stubborn dragons and painful memories
Chapter 12: Uncertain Goodbye's
Chapter 13: Sleep keeps a mare sane

Chapter 1: Beast of the Everfree

Author's Note

AHHHH, WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE OTHER CHAPTERS? WHY IS IT BACK TO ONLY ONE CHAPTER? WHAT THE HELL IS THE AUTHOR THINKING? these may be some of the things going through your guy's mind right about now, and I'm sure all of you were waiting for the next chapter to come out. Well I've got some things to say so please bear with me.

Okay so I'd like to say, if any of you bothered to read my blog post about this, you would have known that I've decided to go through some massive revision, this is for a few reasons, firstly, some of my grammar was f**ked all the hell. Second I was using a writing style that I wasn't comfortable with, and lastly because it's my story, and I felt like several things were missing from the get go.

Now I'm not going to bullshit you guys on this one, no excuses just straight up truth, I am lazy. I procrastinated for the longest time on the next chapter I wanted to post, mainly because I didn't like where it was going and I didn't want to dig myself deeper into that hole, also until a few days ago I was moving to a different state, needless to say, I'm moved in and situated, so I'm going to be working on this story a lot more, lastly I've put more thought into this story now, it's no longer just, put whatever the hell comes to mind on a piece of paper (so to speak) and just role with it, I've gotten some helpful Advice from Jsyrin, and several others from the Displaced group.

Now onto the news, Techno_muse and I are working on a collab, yes it is a displaced, and yes it's going to kick some ass, so keep an eye out for it, because while it won't hold my main focus, I will be working on it when I'm not working on this.

Anyways thanks again and stay gold

Chapter 1: Beast of the Everfree

In the forest of darkness three fillies wandered aimlessly. Their initial goal had been to get their cutiemarks as explorers. Now though they found themselves regretting their decision as they felt eye’s looking at them from every direction. They had long since turned around, their foalish adventure long since forgotten, but while it had taken them less time to move as far into the forest as they had, their fear caused them hesitation, never moving faster than a crawl.

A growl from a nearby bush sent the three fillies running scared, their collective shrieks of terror following them all the way out of the Everfree forest. From the bush, where the growl had originated, stepped a large beast. The lack of light, from the canopy, did nothing to hide the form of the wolf.

Staying low to the ground, the wolf, found himself on the hunt for his next meal. The growl before nothing more than hunger pains. His nose to the ground the wolf began a slow, but steady walk as he sniffed out the trail of a rabbit. He would have caught his prey long ago, had the three fillies not shown up.

His fear of being discovered, had forced him to remain hidden, and had almost cost him his dinner, thankfully, the rabbit was dim, and didn’t have the common sense to dig itself into a hole, and hide until the wolf gave up, instead it chose to run. In a matter of seconds, the wolf caught the scent of his prey and took off, powerful muscles propelling him forward, as he dodged past trees, and barreled through bushes. A flash of white, set the wolf off, and in an instant, a howl pierced the silence.

Doubling his efforts, the wolf gained ground on the rabbit, and pounced. The rabbit, sensing the danger, lunged to the left, leaving the wolf to catch the air, as the rabbit took off, it’s sense of survival, pushing it forward.. The wolf quickly recovered, and the chase began anew.

Nature has always shown the the strongest, and fastest survive, while the weak and the slow, fall as prey. The rabbit would make its ancestors proud as it managed to avoid the wolf’s persistent chase, but the wolf proved to be too smart for the rabbit. The wolf jumped, before using a tree to redirect itself. Time seemed to slow, as the wolf snapped its jaws closed around the rabbit’s back legs.

The rabbit began to squirm and squeal in desperation as it tried to escape the grasp of the wolf’s jaws. The wolf, wanting to end it quickly, placed a paw on the rabbits midsection, before moving its jaws to snap around the rabbit's neck. The struggle suddenly stopped, as the taste of iron, touched the wolf’s tongue.

With its prize between its teeth, the wolf quickly began to tear off chunks of flesh and bone, before devouring them whole, the skin and fur were paid no mind, as the wolf slowly but surely finished his meal, leaving behind only bits of bones, and the intestines of what had previously been the rabbit. Sighing in content, as the pain in the wolf’s stomach slowly began to disappear, he began to raise his head, as the sound of running water caught his attention.

With a parched throat, the wolf headed towards the sound, and found a stream. Lowering his head, the wolf lapped at the water, his long tongue, snaking from his mouth later to bring the water to him. Once his thirst had been quenched, the wolf took to washing the blood from his muzzle, before standing back up.

The wolf paused for a moment, as the white eye’s, devoid of pupils, looked at its reflection in the water surface. Staring back at the wolf, with a mixture of sorrow and disgust in its eyes, was the reflection of a wolf with green fur. Black surrounding its eyes. The wolf sat, staring at what it had become, before throwing it’s head back, and letting out a howl.

The howl lasted for a solid minute, and traveled to the deepest corners of the Everfree. The howl spoke of loss, confusion, pain, and anger. This was not a howl of a wolf, but the cry of a lost soul who didn’t understand the situation at hand. It was a cry of longing, and hope, longing to see the friends and family he had lost, hoping to one day be back home where he truly belonged, hoped that he was simply having a nightmare

“Hurry up man, we’re gonna be late!” Jake called as he ran ahead, the heat from outside, as well as the excitement in the air, forcing him to lose his patience

“Go on, ahead, I’ll catch up with you later,” Came the voice of another male.

“Whatever man, see you inside,” Jake called over his shoulder, to lost, in his own fantasies and expectations of this weekends events, to bother turning around, and address his friend.

The boy who had been left behind, only smiled at his friends antics, and took his time, as he slowly fell in line, waiting for to enter the convention hall, like everyone else. The boy took this time to look at the others who had decided to cosplay as well, and smiled, and sometimes grimaced, at the creativity, or lack thereof, of some of the others.

Some had only half dressed up, wearing bits and pieces of a costume, others had forgone a costume all together, and a decent few had gone all out, some had dressed as popular anime characters, their attempts at resembling said characters were...subpar. Still a select few had managed to shine above the rest, having dressed as video game characters. The costumes themselves, required large amounts of detail.

The boy had spotted a Link, cosplayer, and noted, with great admiration, that the master sword he held was a near replica. Another had dressed as Death, from Darksiders, the mask he wore, looked to be real bone, and had probably costed him a fortune.

He Himself, wore a purple and black body suit. He had bought a fake pair of elf ears, and spray painted them green. Using temporary spray on hair dye, he had turned his hair into a darker green, and finally, he had used non-toxic body paint, and covered his face, and any other skin that showed, into a lighter green. The boy couldn’t help but to grin as he saw some people gave him impressed looks.

The boy, as well as most of the other con goers, only had to wait for a few minutes before they were inside. The boy himself, who had decided to forego his real name, in favor of his character name, began to patrol the area, his eye’s as sharp as a hawk’s, as he surveyed the various booths. It was the boys intent to acquire a souvenir to remember this day.

The boy searched far and wide, coming across, many booths that housed a wide selection of paraphernalia, from both games and movies, as well as other items that had been hand crafted. Many he would have loved to buy, but a lack of funds, had left him with nary a way to acquire what his heart desired, though he would later admit to himself, and others who came to see his costume, he was ill prepared for this con, having brought only enough money to get him there and back. and just enough for food.

In the end though the boy had, had a good time. The day had been long, and exciting, and even though he had not gotten his souvenir, the boy would never forget the day he had.

As the con was nearing the end of the day, the boy began to notice, it had begun to get hot. Finding a nearby bench, the boy sat down, lifting the pressure from his feet, as he lounged back for awhile. The heat, while not sweltering, was very taxing. Closing his eye’s, the boy rested his head on the back of the bench. Within seconds, he had passed out.

The wolf swiped his paw through his reflection, an angry growl escaping his jowls, as the unwanted memories filtered back into his mind. it had been a month or so since the boy had attended that convention. Having woken in an unfamiliar place, the boy had freaked out, as was only natural, and had run amok through the Everfree Forest. It was not until the boy had come across a Timberwolf, that he began to understand the severity of his situation.

Naturally fearing for his life, the boy had ran, the timberwolf hot on his heels in pursuit. In minutes he had lost the timberwolf, but he had soon discovered his new appearance as a cheetah. The boy was.. less than graceful about his transformation. It had taken him a matter of half an hour to finally calm down enough to try and return to normal, another hour after that, and he had managed with somewhat ease, discovering in the process, that every transformation was but an instinct now driven within his mind, and to take a form, he need only allow the instinct to consume all but his rationality.

However, he did learn other things. Having once spent an entire day in the form of a hawk, he soon found himself building a nest. It was only thanks to a sudden spurt of boredom that he soon discovered the “instinct”, as had begun to call it, consume his rationality, slowly turning him into the animal. He now took great care, with how long he stayed in the form of any animal, though he would push the limits, hoping to expand the time in which he could stay in any given form.

He also learned that any form he took, the movements came naturally, as if he had known how to use the newly acquired muscles that he constantly gained from shifting. Many things had been gained, many had been lost, and some, he was unsure of if he wished to have them, or lose them.

The boy, turned wolf, shook his head of such thoughts, and memories, not wishing to lurk on the past, he went to stand, only to hear the gentle sound of a feminine gasp of surprise. The boy jerked his head upwards, his ears guiding him to the sounds exact location. There on the other side of the stream. He spotted A purple Alicorn.

Her lavender eyes, wide with surprise, and just a touch of curiosity. Soon though, the boy saw her curiosity spark into a blaze. He could see the fires of obsession slowly start to rise, behind her eyes as unasked questions played throughout her mind, not begging, but rather, demanding to be answered.

Standing next to the mare, for surely it was a mare, if not the sight and scent of her proved to be correct, was a dragon, or rather a baby dragon, in standards to the fully grown dragon. His scales nearly matched her fur perfectly in color and shade, the bright green of his spines, and eyes the only other source of color that could be seen.

The boy could not decided if he should be scared of the two, or excited. He knew these two well, for as a brony, he had seen them every Saturday morning on his television. Princess Twilight Sparkle, the bearer of the Element of Magic, former student to Princess Celestia, a mare, who had dedicated her life to friendship and study. spike the dragon, dedicated assistant to
Twilight, a comic relief, who showed greater promise than the show would ever allow him to have.

The boy had watched enough of the show to know that Twilight’s search for knowledge was insatiable, once her mind was set on something, she would stop at nothing to learn what she could. The boy saw only two options, his first would be to run as fast as he could and hope he got away, an attempt that would prove to be futile, or he could transform and greet the princess.

The boy decided to run. Turning on a dime, the boy’s claws dug into the wet soil, as he propelled himself forward, and away from the purple duo. With skill, he had no right to call his own, the boy dodged trees and low hanging branches, only giving cursory glances over his shoulder.

He saw the purple princess hot on his heels, somehow, she managed to say with him, though he paid it little mind, instead choosing to face forward, and increasing his speed. After a while of running though, the boy heard the lack of hooves behind him. The boy stopped and looked behind him. Seeing neither hide nor hair of Twilight, the boy allowed himself a moment to relax.

His rest was short lived as the sound of a bang and a bright flash of light behind him, sent him jumping into the air. Turning around, the boy saw Twilight standing behind him, her horn lit up, and ready to cast another spell. The boy began to panic, any sudden movements and she would blast him with a spell.

The boy was no fool, he knew Twilight had been the single most powerful Unicorn in Equestria. After becoming an Alicorn, that power was no doubt tripled, if she wanted to hurt him, she would. Plans of escape fluttered through his mind, only to be shot down as the one single most present obstacle still stood in front of him.

“Twilight, wait up!” Spike shouted as he busted through the bushes, finding himself behind the boy. A look of fear overtaking his features, as he saw, what he perceived to be a wolf’s ears, swiveled in his direction.

In a moment of poor judgment, mixed with fear, and the need to protect Spike, Twilight fired a spell, however, the boy had expected her to attack, before the spell had even left the tip of the alicorn's horn, the boy was already well into dodging it. The spell completely missed the boy, allowing him enough time to rushed the dragon. Spike to shocked at the sudden turn of events, stood frozen in fear. At the last second, the boy jumped, sailing over Spike, and disappearing in the brush.

Twilight rushed to Spike, looking the young dragon over, but other than a slightly raised heart rate, the young drake seemed fine. The boy had jumped clean over him, leaving not a scratch.

“Spike, are you okay?” Twilight asked, the relief clear in her voice, even though spike wasn’t injured, Twilight knew he might have gone into shock, luckily though, he managed to shake himself out of his daze, giving Twilight a warm. if not shaky, smile.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” despite his words, his voice shook, betraying his real feelings. Twilight saw through it immediately, but didn’t push the issue, instead she decided it would be best to leave the Everfree Forest, to let Spike calm down.

“Let’s go Spike, we can visit the Castle some other time,” Spike seemed to visibly perk up at that. Twilight Charged her horn, Spike getting close, before she disappeared in a flash of light. Unknown to them, that a pair of white eye’s watched them from the trees.

Chapter 2: Doing some Surveillance

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Chapter 3: Mistakes are made

Cyril stretched himself out as he slowly began to wake up. The green shapeshifter had trained his internal clock to wake him an hour before the sun rose. Picking himself up off of the ground Cyril looked around his den. The den itself was nothing more than a hole in the ground, it couldn’t qualify as a home since it lacked any of the necessities required to live in properly, but Cyril had at least managed to make himself a bed.

Wiping a leaf from his face Cyril saw the banner from yesterday, the blue cube was still wrapped inside untouched. Cyril had decided that calling another being to him would be a bad idea. Cyril knew literally nothing about the cube and didn’t feel like calling the wrath of the universe on himself. Pushing the cube from his mind Cyril headed for the entrance of his den.

Once outside Cyril quickly took care of his business before he washed himself in a nearby stream. He did the same with his cloths, though without soap he could only hope to scrub the stench the fabric, before hanging them on the highest limb of the highest tree he could find.

Cyril gave himself a once over before sighing, he didn’t like being an animal for extended periods, but with his clothes in the wash he had no choice. Transforming into a hawk Cyril made his way towards Ponyville. Cyril was starving and didn’t have the time or the patience today to go hunting.

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Ponyville’s streets were still dark but the light of the sun slowly began to creep over the horizon. It would be another hour or two before the first resident of Ponyville woke up at least the first one that Cyril had to worry about. When Cyril had first mastered his abilities, a feat he still felt unsure that had transpired, he had scouted Ponyville for a week. Always as an animal and always out of sight.

During that week he had found that the only residents who tended to be awake at this hour was the apple family, and the animal caretaker, Fluttershy, neither of which bothered to come into Ponyville at such an early hour. In short, for the next hour or so, Cyril would be free to scavenge and eat what food he could, though never the fool, Cyril always chose to be a small animal such as a raccoon or a ferret.

Where a pony to be awake now, all they’d hear was the rattling of trash cans, were they to look outside they’d see nothing more than a raccoon nose deep in their garbage can. Cyril was of course not happy with where his meal was coming from. The thought of eating garbage had originally repulsed him, but the combined efforts of starvation and a lack of hunting knowledge had forced him to take drastic measures.

Over time Cyril had begun to see the benefits of scavenging trash cans, it was an added bonus that most of what the ponies had thrown away was edible. Because of his ability to transform, Cyril had found that his stomach was able to hold the most repulsive looking of food.

Cyril moved on headed this time for the building that appeared to be made from candy and sweets. It wasn’t often that Cyril traveled near sugarcube corner, his fear of the pink monstrosity was cause enough to keep him at bay, though sometimes he found that his hunger could not be sated by the measly hay he found in most trashcans. Sometimes his pallet demanded that he sink his teeth into something sweet. Today was one of those days.

Approaching the bakery as slowly as he could while staying unseen, Cyril made his way to the trash cans near the side of the building. There were three of them that had been placed in a triangle formation. Gently pushing one of the cans aside Cyril found that a plate had been set in the space in the middle of the three cans. On the plate were several cupcakes and muffins in a neat stack. The hair on Cyril’s back bristled as his instincts told him to run.

Pushing the instinct aside, Cyril began to eat. He wasn’t sure how she knew, but whenever Cyril scavenged for food in Ponyville he would always find a plate with sweets nearby sugarcube corner. Pinkie had developed a trademark of setting the cans in a triangle to hide the sweets, and it was always on the nights Cyril decided to eat from the cans at Sugarcube corner. While the thought that Pinkie Pie was setting up a trap to capture him, made Cyril’s skin crawl, he wasn’t going to turn down food.

Finishing the sweets Cyril found a small card nearby, the word ‘enjoy’ clearly scribbled across it. Shuddering yet again, the young shape changer quickly moved on. The sun was starting to rise now, it’s golden rays slowly creeping towards him. Moving to the shadows, Cyril transformed before taking flight and heading towards Sweet apple acres.

Cyril hadn’t forgotten that Twilight and Fluttershy were still headed for the Everfree today to try and find him, and he was prepared to make hold up their trip as much as possible, but he needed to camouflage himself first. It wouldn’t do well to have Twilight see a green hawk as it would only peak her curiosity.

When Cyril spotted the first apple tree, he quickly dive bombed into it, using the leaves as a natural cover, before he peaked out. He swiveled his head from left to right, trying to catch sight of any members of the Apple family. Spotting none he quickly moved to the next tree and the next until he had reached the center of the property, where he found a cozy home and a bright stereotypical red barn.

Looking towards the barn Cyril saw a large window high above the barn doors. Cyril praised his good luck that the window was open. Cyril quickly took flight and flew into the window before he perched himself on one of the rafters. The barn was empty and the door seemed to be closed. Falling from the rafters, Cyril quickly transformed into a human and began to search for paint.

During his search Cyril found a lasso. The boy thought nothing of it until a thought struck him. Turning to the lasso an idea began to form in his head. Cyril was never one for mischief, but considering who was trying to find him, he thought it best to cover his bases. Transforming into a rat Cyril quickly scurried up a barrel and began to gnaw at the rope just below the knot. The shape shifter stopped before he chewed all the way through, and stepped back to look at his work.

Transforming into a human again, he continued his search for paint, shivering as the morning air washed over his naked form. Cyril cursed himself for wearing his clothes, but he hated to run around smelling like a dead animal. Soon after Cyril found the buckets of paint in the back of the barn. Quickly prying the lid off he looked inside to find red paint. Shaking his head he moved on to the next bucket. Cyril went through three more buckets before he found a color he liked.

Transforming into a hawk, Cyril dipped a feather in paint before drawing it out and inspecting it. When the extra paint fell away, his feathers were a dark dull brown color. Cyril smiled before he dipped his feather in again and slowly began to cover himself with the paint. The process seemed to take forever and Cyril wasn’t sure he got all of himself, but for the most part if he were flying fast enough, no one would see green .

Once done with his “face paint” Cyril flew out of the barn and headed for the friendship Castle. Getting there was easy, and Cyril did a few open passes, flying just slow enough for one of the ponies to spot him. When none seemed to be freaked out by the sight of him, he nodded to himself before making his way to the friendship castle. he passed a few of the windows, looking inside to if any occupied the rooms. Finally finding a window that was opened, Cyril flew inside.

Cyril gave the room a once over and discovered he had flown inside of what appeared to be an unused study. The desk and empty bookshelves as well as the thick layer of dust was a clear indication that no one had used this room ever. Returning to his human form Cyril moved to crack the door open. He shivered as his bare feet moved over the cold crystalline floor. Peeking out of the cracked door Cyril found the hallway to be empty. Returning to his bird form, he flew out of the study and kept close to the ceiling in case someone where to see him.

It didn’t take long for Cyril to find Twilight. She was in what appeared to be a large library, the various bookshelves and working tables littered the center of the room. Cyril found Twilight who was currently sifting through a saddle bag. The conversation Twilight had with Fluttershy came to Cyril's mind. Knowing Twilight or at least how the show portrayed her, Cyril had a hunch that she had tried to take notes on what she remembered from her encounter, no doubt it had been the first thing she had done once returning to her castle.

Landing on a nearby bookshelf, Cyril watched the lavender mare carefully, though his eyes constantly returned to the saddles. Instinct told him to flee the castle now, but he needed to get to those bags. Cyril wasn’t a fool, Twilight already knew about his existence. He wouldn’t be able to change that fact, but he wanted to keep her from learning more about him. Getting to those bags, and finding those notes was only the first step in maintaining as much secrecy about himself as was currently possible.

Twilight didn’t seem to move very far from her bag. Twilight had her nose deep in a scroll so her attention was more focused on that than anything else, it was lucky for him because if she were to look up now, she’d spot him. Despite Twilight being distracted, Cyril refrained from moving too quickly or making any sound. Her vision may have been focused on the scroll, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hear him.

Cyril began to think of several ways to get the mare to leave the room, but he quickly pushed several of those ideas out of his head. Turning into a T-Rex and roaring would not help him in the slightest and transforming into a mouse to try and scare her seemed too cliche, a spider would certainly be a step up from a mouse but he didn’t think a spider would work an better than a mouse. There was always the large anaconda approach, but Cyril thought that if he scared her to much, she might blast a hole through him, and being dead was not something he wanted to experience anytime soon.

Cyril was left with two options, both of which didn’t involve scaring the mare outright. one involved the form of a large bat, while the other involved the form of a Lyrebird. Cyril leaned towards the use of the bat form, mostly because he wanted to shatter the window directly behind Twilight so that he could escape easily if he needed to, but ultimately he decided on using the lyrebird.

As quietly as he could, Cyril flew out the only door in the entire room, before he positioned himself a ways down from said door. Making sure Spike wasn’t coming from the other direction, Cyril transformed into a lyrebird. Taking a few seconds to get himself situated Cyril quickly called out, still in the form of a lyre bird.

“Twilight!” he called, spike’s voice coming instead of a bird call. The ingenuity of the lyre bird was it’s ability to mimic any sound, even that someone’s voice.

“Spike?” Twilight called back confused

“Twilight help!” he called again.

There was the sound of hooves scraping across crystal before the door to the library quickly threw itself open. Cyril nearly got caught as the frantic mare rushed past him, her ears trying to pinpoint where sound of distress had come from. Twilight called Spike’s name as she turned down a hall and galloped off. Cyril wasted no time, as he returned to his human form and dashed into the library.

Spotting the bags on the table, Cyril rushed towards them before upending the bag, spilling the contents onto the table. Cyril gave a small yelp as an inkwell clattered onto the table before the stopper came loose and spilled all over the the table. Some of the ink had hit his chest and face as well. Wiping the ink away, Cyril went to work on trying to find Twilight’s notes. It wasn’t hard to find the notes, out of all of the books that Twilight had stuffed into her bags, the notes had been the only one without a title, a quick scan through the first paragraph told him that he had found the right one.

Before Cyril could read through more of the notes though he heard two people talking as the approached the library. Cyril cursed as he recognized one of them as Twilight. Cyril gave the room a once over and noted with frustration that the ink had spilled onto the floor and more precisely around his feet. Looking back and forth between the door and the puddle of ink Cyril made a decision.

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Twilight raced through the halls as she called out for spike. Fear overtook her as she remembered the sound of terror in Spike's voice. She pushed herself to run faster to try and find Spike as fast as she could. It wasn’t until she came running down the steps that led to the entrance of the castle that she stopped dead in her tracks.

Standing in the foyer was Spike and Fluttershy. Both mare and dragon looked at Twilight with confusion and worry on their faces. Twilight immediately turned to look at Spike. The baby dragon seemed fine, he didn’t appear to be hurt, and besides the mild worry on his face, he didn’t seem to be scared. Nevertheless Twilight ran towards the baby dragon before assaulting him with a wall of questions.

“Are you alright, why did you yell is something wrong?” was all either Spike or Fluttershy could catch.

“What? I didn’t yell,” Spike said as he looked towards Fluttershy, the Pegasus seemed more scared than Spike.

“What? No I heard you, you screamed for help,” Twilight insisted. Spike only shook his head.

“I’ve been standing here with Fluttershy for the past ten minutes,” Turning towards the Pegasus, she gave a small eep as she hid behind her mane before clearing her throat.

“Um, well Spike’s right, we have been standing here for awhile and I’m pretty sure he didn’t scream for help,” Twilight gave the two a confused look.

The thought that Spike was playing a prank on her, crossed Twilight's mind, however Fluttershy would never help anypony with a prank, especially if the prank was on one of her friends. No something else was up. The possibility that Twilight might have heard nothing was another thought that passed through her head, but that didn’t make much sense. If she was hearing things it would have been less clear. The voice she heard sounded like it was just outside the door.

“Are you alright Twilight?” Spike asked.

Twilight shook her head to clear it of thoughts. “Yea I”m fine, I probably didn’t get enough sleep last night,” She replied. Memories of last night came flooding back as she had looked through countless books that would explain the wolf she had seen.

“Twilight are you sure you’re alright?” Fluttershy asked as she moved closer to inspect her friend.

“Yeah I’m fine,” she said waving a hoof dismissively. “Let me go get my bags then we can leave,” she said moving back up the stairs. Fluttershy followed close behind just to be sure.

“So this wolf that you want to find,” Fluttershy started gaining Twilight's attention. “Is there anything else you’d be able to tell me about it,” Twilight shook her head in dismay.

“I have some notes that I got based on what I observed yesterday. It’s not much and there's nothing in them that I haven’t already told you,” Twilight replied. She could see the door to the library up ahead. “The only clue I have to find him, is where I saw him last,”

Fluttershy nodded in agreement. Twilight had said she saw the wolf with blood on it’s face, if the blood was fresh, Twilight could have stumbled upon it’s hunting grounds. Twilight and Fluttershy made it to the library fairly quickly, and without hesitation Twilight used her magic to open the door wide. Both mares froze as they walked into the room.

A growl rang out in library as the wolf the two mares had been discussing stood on the table, Twilight’s bag was torn to shreds. Ink and paper littered the room. The wolf was covered in ink and what looked like brown paint. The paint and ink did nothing to hide the green in it’s fur. Between its jaws, the wolf held a plain book. It, like much of the contents from Twilight’s bag, was covered in Ink. The wolf lowered itself in a defensive stance and growled again.

In an instant it bolted in the opposite direction, leaving both mares startled. Running for the window the wolf jumped. The glass shattered as the wolf fell to the ground. Both mares rushed towards the window and looked out but were ultimately confused as the wolf had vanished.

Stepping back from the window Twilight began to have a mental break down. “How did it get in here!” She nearly shouted as she paced back and forth.

“Um, Twilight it had something in it’s mouth,” Fluttershy said as she placed a hoof on the princess, trying to get her to focus.

“A book! Which book though!” she asked no one in particular. In an instant Twilight began to look over the items that had been in her bag. Most of them were covered in ink and had the imprint of a wolf’s paw She took a quick log of the books that she had and which were left.

“What did it take?” Fluttershy asked as she noted the look of surprise and fear on Twilight's face.

“My notes,” she whispered quietly.

Author's Note

So it's finally out, chapter three. I want to thank everyone for their patience. I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise about making this chapter a crossover, but Flutters is shy is having some IRL problems, and I couldn't keep waiting.

I want to apologize if near the end it feels like it's rushed, that's because it is. I have wanted to get this chapter out so bad, that when I got close to the end I could help it I'm sorry.

Chapter 4: The fox and the Zebra

Cyril jumped back into the stream by his den for the tenth time that day and began to scrub his fur furiously. “Come off!” he yelled as, raking his nails over his skin again and again but despite his attempts to wash the ink and paint off of him, the black and brown pigment would not leave.

After nearly half an hour of scrubbing furiously Cyril walked out of the stream. Transforming into a dog, he shook the extra water off his body before returning to normal. Spotting his clothes nearby, Cyril got dressed. Spotting his belt, he slung it over his shoulder before moving towards a fallen tree.

Retrieving Twilight’s book Cyril cracked it open to the first page and began to read. Subject appears to be a member of the Canis Lupis otherwise known as a Timber wolf (Not to be confused with a Timberwolf made of actual wood) The only distinguishing features of the subject is it’s dark green and black fur. Initial observation leads me to believe that the Subject’s pigment is in fact not due to outside forces, however closer inspection is required to confirm this theory.

Observation time of the subject ranged anywhere between three to five minutes during which time the subject was observed drinking from a stream and batting at the water. Upon discovering my assistant and I, the subject ran. In my excitement I chased after it and nearly put my assistant in danger.

Cyril read more but it mostly consisted of theories and how his fur was green, and what he ate, as well as to the level of his intelligence, nothing however gave any indication that Twilight suspected that he was anything more than a wolf. After a while Cyril stashed the book in his den before he transformed into a fox and darted into the Everfree. He was starting to get hungry and he needed to scout ahead if he wanted to find anything, and going back to Ponyville right now would prove to be a bad idea.

It wasn’t hard to find something to chase after, after all the Everfree was full of animals, though most of them proved to be predators, they could still be killed it just required a certain amount of skill. Sniffing the air Cyril could smell his prey nearby. A glance at it’s tracks told him he was hunting a type of bird. If he had to guess, he’d say it was a chicken. Cyril had to stop though as he noticed something odd about the tracks. It looked like something had been dragged across the ground.

Shaking his head Cyril continued sneaking through the bushes. Cyril could have used the form of a wolf or a raptor to huntbut both forms were too large, it would have been a waste of energy to use them to hunt a simple chicken. The hunt took an hour, but Cyril had long since learned to be patient when hunting, too many nights without food had been a good teacher.

Cyril’s pursuit of his prey lasted nearly an hour before he could hear it. Peaking from his hiding spot, Cyril spotted what he had been pursuing. The creature had the head of a chicken as well as the legs, but everything else was covered in scales. It’s tail was long like that of a snake and it had two small bat like wings. Cyril froze as he stared at the back of a cocktrice. Instinct told him to run and flee before it spotted him, but hunger told him to continue the hunt.

Instinct would only get him so far and so as quietly as he could Cyril moved to another bush that put him closer to the cockatrice. It was over before the cockatrice even knew Cyril was there. The second the cockatrice lowered its head to peck at the ground, Cyril pounced and grabbed it by the neck. A quick snap of his teeth stopped the cockatrice from trying to struggle.

Cyril was about to claim his prize and return home when he stopped. The feeling of being watched crept up his spine making his ears swivel trying to catch any source of movement. There was a snap behind him, and Cyril turned, fear making him forget his abilities. A strange creature stood before him. It’s face was made of wood, and had strange markings on it, yet Cyril knew it wasn’t a timberwolf, it’s body was much to small and only it’s face was made of wood.

Cyril froze as he suddenly remembered something. He and the creatures of the Everfree were not the only ones who lived here. Cyril mentally cursed, and prepared to run, thought before he could do anything, the creature lifted a hoof and slowly removed the wooden mask. Staring back at him with a curious look in her eyes was the Zebra, Zecora.

“A creature of terror who turns you to stone, a meal for the fox with origins unknown, yet your fur is quite the mess, come with me for proper rest,” the Zebra said as she turned in the opposite direction.

Cyril however stayed put. During his month in the Everfree he had scouted Zecora’s hut and tried to make a note of where it was, but it proved hard. The Everfree was hard to navigate and the further in he went the harder it became to see. he never did find Zecora’s hut. Now though he wasn’t sure if he should follow her. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t try and capture him, but who’s to say she didn’t see him as nothing more than an animal of the Everfree.

Zecora stopped when she noticed Cyril wasn’t following her. “I see you think this all too hasty, but my home for you holds only safety,” Cyril stared up at her, but couldn't find any hint of deception in her voice.

Cyril decided to follow the Zebra, if bad turned to worse, he could always shrink into an insect and fly away, or he could turn into a tiger and scare her until she backed off. Either way worked, but only the former really appealed to him. He wasn’t much for scaring ponies when he didn’t need to.

Zecora smiled as she watched Cyril grab the dead cockatrice before following her. The trek through the Everfree proved to be short. A path had been carved through the Everfree which lead straight towards Zecora’s hut. This of course led Cyril to question if he was a moron or not, as it seemed to connect Zecora’s hut with Ponyville.

Zecora opened the door before stepping inside. Cyril followed close behind, the cockatrice still in his mouth. When he entered, Zecora began to mix several ingredients together while she mumbled to herself in her native language. Cyril didn’t even attempt to try and understand what she was going on about, he was more concerned with if he should eat the cockatrice now or save it for later.

Cyril didn’t get the chance to decided as Zecora spoke again. “This brew I whipped up just for you, again your fur shall be brand new,” she said as she gestured to the cauldron in the center of the hut. The fire had been extinguished, and the liquid inside didn’t appear to be bubbling and Cyril didn’t see any steam rising from the top. The image of Zecora being an evil Enchantress briefly popped into his head, her attempts at making him jump into the cauldron did little to help her case but Cyril pushed aside trepidation, Zecora had proven in the past that she only wanted to help. Slowly approaching the cauldron Cyril took a leap of faith as he literally leaped into the liquid. Cyril went under only to resurface a moment later yapping in surprise.

“I should have warned you not to be bold, the waters inside are mighty cold,” she laughed as Cyril glared his teeth chattering.

Despite the coldness of the brew, Cyril found himself dunking his head underneath. The ink and paint still smelled even now that they had dried and it was frankly making his nose burn with irritation, however as he used the water to clean himself off, he could slowly feel himself growing tired.

00000

Twilight paced back and forth in her study, her bags and everything that had been inside it were scattered across her desk. Everything had been noted. Pictures had been taken of the scene before anything was moved, samples of ink dirt and blood and fur left from the wolf had been taken and tested extensively. Twilight had even measured the prints the wolf had left in the ink.

Twilight was at the end of her wits, nothing about the wolf made any sense. It’s fur had a strange cellular structure about it that wasn’t consistent with any known breed of wolf she had encountered. Its blood proved to hold even more mysteries. The blood cells had a transmorph property to them as they constantly shifted from one cellular structure to another. The blood itself was completely chaos if the blood came from this wolf there should be no way it was alive.

Scans aimed at trying to find a magical signature proved useless, for whatever reason, the wolf seemed to lack any connection to magic at all. This was strange in itself because everything needed magic to live, if the wolf didn’t have any magic...well Twilight didn’t know what that meant, other than she couldn’t track it.

“Uh! How did it get in!” she practically screamed.

“Twilight calm down,” Spike called getting the frantic mare’s attention. She turned on the small drake with a look in her eye.

“How can I calm down when this wolf is so biologically impossible!” Twilight asked as she turned to assess her collected data hoping to find an answer, “Besides Spike what if it got in again...what if it’s already here?” she asked turning about franticly.

Spike face palmed, dragging his claws slowly down his face before shaking his head. “Twilight if you’re so concerned with the wolf being here, just use a detection spell,” he groaned.

The world seemed to freeze for a moment as the words sank in. The silence frightened the young dragon as it often meant something bad would come next. “Spike you're a genius!” Twilight proclaimed as she turned to face said dragon.

“Uh, I am?” Spike asked hesitantly. If he had given Twilight an idea she might make him help, and while he didn’t mind helping her, more often than not when she became obsessed with something, it meant hours of hard work and little sleep.

“Yes. See I can’t uses any detection or tracking spells on the wolf because the spell has no magic to track, however, I always put tracking spells on every book I own,” Twilight said happily as she began to gather several things.

“Why?” Spike asked. It was a simple question though his meaning seemed lost on Twilight. “Why do you have tracking spells on all your books?” he clarified.

“It’s an old habit from when we lived in Golden oaks, plus I might never have gotten my Daring Do books back from Rainbow Dash if I hadn’t,” Twilight laughed as she turned to the shredded remains of her bags, before sighing and putting everything back. “I guess I’ll just have to bring the wolf back,” She mumbled to herself.

With that said and done, Twilight powered up her horn and headed towards the Everfree. It was of course no surprise where the tracking spell had been leading her, she already knew the wolf lurked in the forest. The spell lead her to a small clearing but that’s where it stopped. Twilight was a bit confused. The spell was suppose to bring her to her notes however the spell told her she was standing on top of it.

Confused Twilight looked under her hooves and saw only dirt. No grass, no stone...in fact she did see something, just the faintest outlines of...a paw print? Twilight looked around and saw more of them, they were faint, but they were all over this clearing. It didn’t take Twilight long to find fresher tracks. One thing they all had in common was they originated from a single point.

Moving closer Twilight saw that it was a small hole dug into the side of a small hill. The freshness of the tracks leaving the area suggested that the wolf wasn’t around, but Twilight couldn’t pass up the chance to see the wolf’s home. The entrance to the den was big enough for her to walk in but didn’t allow for much movement. Since the wolf had been a little bigger than her, her horn could fit inside as well.

Using a spell to light up the darkness, Twilight Traveled down the tunnel until she reached the bottom. Exciting the tunnel and coming into the main area of the Wolf’s den, Twilight nearly lost her stomach. The den was large and was scattered with bones of all sizes. The den didn’t smell any better either.

Firing up her tracking spell again, Twilight found her notes near the back of the den where she found a small bed made of leaves and grass that had been dragged in. Twilight grabbed her book and looked it over, besides the teeth marks on the spine of the book, it seemed fine, not at all destroyed like her bag.

Curiously she examined the rest of the den, and found strange items inside. There were several sticks that had been sharpened to a point and left around, but a closer examination showed that they were made cut with some kind of blade, and not with teeth or claws. It was odd but it begged the question of who else lived here with the wolf? Could it be somepony’s pet? and if so What were they doing living in the Everfree?

Twilight didn’t know and she didn’t have enough to go on, but she decided to leave her notes for now. If somepony lived here they’d notice if the notes suddenly disappeared. They’d most likely move the Den. No if Twilight left the notes here she’d be able to come back, and the wolf or whoever lived here did move, she’d still be able to find them. Twilight had begun to formulate a plan, but as she left the den behind and instead chose the freshness of the outside air, she began to truly see where she was at. She recognized the stream nearby and knew that Zecora lived not that far from here.

Thinking it over Twilight knew that nopony knew the forest better than Zecora, if something was happening inside the Everfree Zecora would know about it, plus it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of eyes looking for the wolf. Several ideas were scrapped or moved around to fit Zecora into her plans to locate the wolf.

Without realizing it, Twilight had subconsciously started to walk in the direction of Zecora’s hut. So wrapped up in her planning was she that she almost didn’t noticed the creepy mask that she nearly walked face first into. The Princess Gave a shout of surprise which caused a ruckus inside the hut before the door opened and Zecora walked out holding a bag of something that didn’t smell particularly pleasant.

Upon seeing Twilight however the Zebra gently sat the bag down. “Twilight Sparkle you gave me a fright, I thought some creature was looking to fight.” The Zebra said as she gave the princess a warm and inviting smile.

“Sorry Zecora, I got wrapped up in my thoughts and scared myself,” Twilight admitted, her face glowing red with embarrassment.

“Come and join me for tea, I have something inside I think you should see,” Zecora said in a hushed whisper. Twilight was curious now, she wanted Zecora to help her, but the Zebra had never been one to disappoint and if She thought something would intrigue Twilight it usually would, be it a flower she hadn’t seen or the behavior of certain animals that nopony knew about. The Zebra was very knowledgeable.

“Um sure,” Twilight said a bit hesitant, she didn’t want to get distracted but she didn’t want to turn Zecora down, after all she made some of the best tea Twilight had ever tasted.

With Zecora leading the way Twilight walked into the hut, and stopped. There laying on the floor with a towel wrapped around itself was a fox. The species wasn’t what surprised her though, it was the fox’s fur that had her speechless. There just as green as the forest around them was a fox with green fur. Twilight turned to Zecora only to see her already making tea.

Twilight moved to examine the fox closer but Zecora stopped her. “It sleeps for now thanks to my brew, a potion of sleep to keep him subdued.” she said as she motioned Twilight over.

“How did you find him?” Twilight asked sitting at the table with Zecora, the zebra in question placed a cup in front of her before pouring zebafrican red tea inside. Twilight took a small sip and sighed in content.

“A cockatrice had grown to near, and I had planned to run him out of here, when out of the bushes this fox did pounce and turned this beast into a feast,” Zecora motioned to the cockatrice that had gone unnoticed until now.

Twilight made a face at the dead creature but otherwise didn’t say anything about it. “Zecora I actually wanted to ask you something. A green wolf was spotted in the Everfree not long ago, and I just wanted to know if you’d keep an eye out for him?” Zecora only nodded though she turned to look at the Fox a perplexed look on her face.

“And what do you intend to do?” Zecora asked.

“Well… I wanted to study it, see what makes it’s fur green, and see if it’s dangerous or if there's more of him,” Twilight replied rather enthusiastically.

“And the fox who sleeps so close at hoof?” she urged?

“I want to take him with me and have Fluttershy help me examine him,”

Zecora nodded, and the two spoke a bit more while they finished their tea, Zecora assured Twilight that the fox wouldn’t wake for several hours. When all was said and done though, Twilight left, the fox still firmly wrapped in the towel.

Author's Note

I would just like to say, that writing for Zecora is hard as hell and it sucks ass. Now with that out of the way let me know what ya'll think in the comment section below. Did you like this chapter, did you hate it, was my rhyming live up to Zecora or did I completely screw up on that?

Chapter 5: The Lab

Waking up in unfamiliar surroundings would surely put anyone on high alert. Waking up to find yourself behind bars was cause for even more worry. Waking with a start, Cyril found himself in just that situation. He shook his head to clear it of the haze that was sleep. He called on his memories to fill in the gaps, but all he could remember was being at Zecora’s hut, and jumping into that cauldron.

After that things got...blurry. The world had turned into a cascading blur of color and shadows, then warmth. It was that warmth which had drawn him in and ultimately caused him to fall asleep. Leaving the confines of his memories, Cyril looked around himself trying to find any indication of where he was, however he soon wished he never woke up.

All around him, Cyril found that the place glittered like crystal. the walls shone with blue and purple light. Despite the crystal appearance, Cyril found the room he was in to be creepy. He spotted several machines that reminded him of something you’d see in a hospital, as well as a long metal slab that reminded him of a morticians table. Shuddering at the thought Cyril also noted a type of chemistry set nearby as well as a microscope and various bottles of liquids he didn’t recognize.

“Yep,” he thought to himself. “I’m in a mad scientist's laboratory” As he thought that, he could hear the distinct sound of hooves approaching

Hearing them coming closer, Cyril, still in the form of a fox, laid down and curled into a ball, his tail covering his face, and his eye closing pretending to still be asleep. Cyril didn’t have to wait long as soon after he had closed his eyes did he hear them enter the room.

“So you found your notes?” Spike said as they all moved closer

“I did, the tracking spell I put on my notes worked well, though I didn’t find the wolf like I had wanted,” Twilight replied her voice sounding a bit somber but she was still excited.

“but you did bring something back...right?” Spike asked a bit of hope and some exasperation. If Twilight noticed it she didn’t say anything.

Cyril’s ear flicked in annoyance as he heard a single set of hoofsteps approaching him. He could sense someone staring at him, examining him thoroughly. He wanted to open his eyes and snap at them but decided it was best to remain still for now. Eventually he could feel the eyes leaving him.

There was a bit of shuffling before the unknown visitor spoke. “He certainly poses some questions.” A regal voice rang throughout the room, making Cyril's blood run cold.

Risking a peek, Cyril opened an eye slightly only to spot Spike looking at him now. The young drake seemed entranced with Cyril, as a look of wonder and amazement crossed his face. Deciding to give him a bit of a show, Cyril stood before stretching his front legs and ‘yawning’ widely. the entirety of his teeth in clear view. Instead of being afraid he came closer getting on his knees to see Cyril better. In response Cyril sat on his hunches, his tail wrapped around his feet and occasionally twitching, his eyes stared down the length of his muzzle and peered at Spike hoping to unnerve him.

“Hey Twilight, it’s finally awake,” Spike called cheerfully getting the two mares from before to come closer.

The cage lifted off the ground a bit, making Cyril move to keep himself from falling. When the cage leveled out he found himself staring at Twilight, he glared and without thought, a small growl worked it’s way from the back of his throat. Twilight didn’t seemed phased by it, instead the cage lifted even higher, and with more speed than before, causing Cyril to stumble and fall.

When the cage stilled again, Cyril picked himself up and turned to glare at Twilight, instead he found a pair of light magenta eyes looking at him, surrounded by white fur. Cyril slowly backed as far away as he could while in the cage, which led him to sit in a corner, with his head lowered he watched Celestia but he avoided her eyes.

It had only been a glance before, an accident really, but when he had looked her in the eyes for the brief moment that he had, he saw how old she really was, lifetimes of memories, countless friends she had lost, mistakes she had to live with, and a carefully guarded fire. A fire of determination to keep her ponies safe. Cyril had of course also saw other things, kindness, understanding, curiosity, several other things that were hard to pin down.

If Twilight was a mare who you didn’t want to mess with, Celestia was a Mare you would run from if you found yourself on the receiving end of her anger. The cage was sat down, carefully this time and Cyril decided to work on his plan of escape, of course his plan was really simple, wait for them to go to sleep, turn into a bug and fly away. It didn’t require of a lot of planning, not with his powers.

“What do you plan to do Twilight?” Cyril heard Celestia ask, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“I’m going to take some samples and see what they tell me,” Twilight replied as she approached the cage.

The cage opened and Cyril was lifted out before being put on the metal table. Thoughts of what she would do ran through his head, and he had an urge to run, for the first time in a while Cyril was inclined to listen to his instincts. Twilight’s magic faded, leaving Cyril's fur feeling charged, before she went to grab something else with her magic. Cyril walked around, using this time out of the cage to get a better look around him, though every time he looked in Celestia’s direction he’d quickly look elsewhere. This seemed to confuse the mare but Cyril didn’t notice.

It wasn’t until he felt something stick him in the paw that he finally paid attention to Twilight. Cyril let out a series of yaps of pain and surprise as he looked down to find a needle sticking from his paw, the urge to move and rip it out was strong but every time he moved, the needle would move as well causing more pain. After a minute or so, Twilight pulled the needle out.

Cyril immediately laid down and began to lick his paw, the small bit of blood that did leak from his paw, was quickly cleaned up and, his rough tongue helped to ease the throbbing in his paw. The sound of scissors made Cyril jump up and turn on Twilight, but she was already walking away a tuft of fur already held in her magic, Cyril growled again, and wanted to pounce on her, he didn’t expect to cause much pain to Twilight, but he was willing to try.

Or he would have tried if Celestia wasn't there in the room with him. Any attack on her student would surely be frowned upon and would instantly cause the larger alicorn to react without a moments thought.

Letting his anger fade he turned to see Twilight turn to face him again, this time she held something black in her magic. As she got closer Cyril got a better look at what she had. It looked like a needle of sorts, only it was made from rubber. Cyril didn’t know what she was going to do with that, but he watched her carefully. Twilight was circling him, trying to get behind him so that he wouldn’t see what she was going to do with the needle, but Cyril turned with her, keeping Twilight in his sights.

Eventually Twilight got fed up with the little game and she grabbed Cyril in her magic before forcing him to face away from her. Cyril tried to move and keep her in his sights but it was no use. Twilight used her magic to raise Cyril's tail, and his eyes went wide as the realization of what she was doing hit him like a ton of bricks. Cyril did his best to break free of the spell, tried to turn and snap at her and draw blood, but the spell was absolute.

00000

“What did you do to the poor little guy?” Fluttershy asked as she tried to get Cyril to come out from his cage, but Cyril refused to move, instead opting to glare at all who looked at him and snapping his teeth at any hoof or claws that tried to reach out to him.

“I just took a stool sample, I needed to know what his diet consisted of and this was easier than setting food in front of him,” Twilight commented, too occupied with the microscope to look at Fluttershy or me.

“You couldn’t have put him to sleep before you did anything though?” Fluttershy asked, having given up trying to get Cyril to come to her.

“Zecora already used a potion to put him to sleep, I didn’t think it would be good for him to give him a double dose,” Twilight explained.

Cyril’s ears perked up at that bit of information, which caused him to growl and snarl, catching both Twilight and Fluttershy off guard, but they shrugged and continued to talk, Cyril however bristled with anger as he felt betrayed. Zecora had lied to him, not only had her house not provided safety, the zebra herself had literally given him to the one Pony he didn’t want to see. The situation was made worse now that Celestia had been made aware of his existence. Cyril's only reliving thought was that none of them knew his true nature, at least that was the only thing he had to worry about.

“Um...Twilight I wanted to ask if you wouldn’t mind if...maybe I take him home with me?” Fluttershy whispered, Cyril might not have heard it if not for his ears, thankfully though he had and it seemed Twilight had heard her as well.

“Well...I do have everything I need from him for now, and he doesn’t seem to like me to much,” Twilight commented getting an angry yap from Cyril. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if you took him home with you, besides it might be better if you kept him, Faust knows I can’t take care of him.”

Fluttershy did something that Cyril thought he’d never hear. She made what could only be described as a whinny. This caused Cyril to move towards the cage door and look out at the two mares. Fluttershy was smiling while Twilight didn’t seemed to be disturbed by the sudden noise, though she did notice Cyril at the entrance of the cage. Before he could even turn to retreat he was once again held within the confines of Twilight's magic.

“I just have one more thing I want to check,” Twilight said as she laid him down on the metal slab once more, this time on his side. Several straps appeared from nowhere before they secured him to the table. While they weren’t uncomfortable, Cyril could still feel the pressure of them holding him in place.

It didn’t take long before a large machine hovered over Cyril. The straps which held him prevented him from moving his head but he also noted that even his tail had been strapped down as well. The room filled with the sound of loud humming but Fluttershy stood close by and despite the grating sound it didn’t seem to affect her in the slightest. The humming lasted for all of five seconds before it stopped and Cyril was placed back inside his cage.

The two mares quickly said their goodbyes before Fluttershy used her teeth to pick the cage up by a handle that Cyril had not previously seen though he had to admit that he was amazed by the strength of the mares choppers. In his form he had to weigh anywhere between 10 to 14 pounds, add that to the weight of the metal cage and you’re looking at about 16 maybe 17 pounds of dead weight.

Cyril was unsure of where he was going to go after this but one thing he did know was after tonight, he was going to relocate far away from Ponyville. The sound of his growling stomach broke him from his thoughts, causing him to sigh. No doubt Fluttershy had heard that, and she would surely feed him.

“I’ll stay long enough to eat and then I’m gone.” he thought as he spotted her cottage in the distance. “She better not try and give me any dog food though!”

Author's Note

Bet you didn't expect me to update so quickly did you? Well guess what I like to keep you all guessing so guess one. On a different note regarding my DiE story...I wish I was drunk when I came up with that idea, seriously I'll admit it here and now, I did not think that one through, so...my bad if anyone cut themselves on the edge.

Chapter 6: The end

The door to Fluttershy’s home opened and she sat Cyril down by her couch before opening the door, Cyril however didn’t budge, this cage now belonged to him and he would not part with his home so easily. Fluttershy walked away but Still Cyril refused to leave his cage. It wasn’t until Fluttershy returned with a dead fish that Cyril showed any movements.

Placing the bowl at the edge of his cage Fluttershy moved back a bit to let him get a better look at the food. Cyril moved towards the food slowly before snatching the thing and dragging it to the back of his cage. It wasn’t until he had finished eating the damned thing that he realized what was happening.

“How long have I been a fox!” he thought to himself. If he remembered correctly he had been out in the Everfree for awhile, and when they had left Twilight's Castle it was dark. It had been almost a full day since he had first transformed. He’d have to get out of here soon.

“Um...I already had a bed made for you, I mean that’s if you wanted it,” Fluttershy commented.

Fluttershy was admittedly having trouble with her new housemate. Since the fox had woken up, he had yet to speak to her, or any other animal. It was...different. The news of a pony who could understand animals had traveled far and wide in the critter community as such many animals knew about Fluttershy and all of them were desperate to talk to her, to let somepony know about what was troubling them, yet the fox before her acted like an animal of the Everfree. He took care of himself and had a deep mistrust of Ponies.

Eventually Fluttershy had given up trying to coax the fox into speaking, at least for the day, and she quickly made sure the rest of her animals had what she needed before she went upstairs to sleep. Cyril noted, with a bit of distaste, that Angel, the white Devil, had been glaring at him from across the room. It wasn’t until Fluttershy went to go to sleep that Angel followed soon after, his bed being close to Fluttershy’s no doubt.

When the house finally quieted down, Cyril made his move. The cage door had been left open, so transforming wasn’t required, and he saw that the back door had a doggy door which had been left unlocked. Cyril had to sigh, it wasn’t the most daring of escapes but it would work.

The backyard was fenced but once again the gate was left wide open, it was a simple matter to simply walk out of the gate and head back into the Everfree forest. Cyril had to wonder at his luck, was he really getting away without being spotted? He thought so and thus with that thought he didn’t bother hiding or creeping away.

Life however is not always as we think it, for as Cyril walked out of the gate he didn’t see a small white form sitting up in the window that overlooked the backyard. Angel’s face turned a deep shade of red as his foot tapped furiously on the windowsill, before he jumped off and got Fluttershy.

00000

Twilight was up and about, the news that the fox had run off last night had kept her awake all through the night. Spike still rested easy though, the young drake had had enough excitement the past couple of days, and he was still a baby, he needed his sleep more than anypony.

Even though the fox had gotten away under Fluttershy’s watch, Twilight didn’t blame her. The mare had an affinity for animals, and even though her house had birdcages, the doors had either remained opened or had the doors removed all together. Twilight couldn’t blame Fluttershy for wanted to the fox to feel comfortable in her house.

What Twilight was mad about though, was that despite how quickly the message had gotten to her that the fox had disappeared, she couldn’t find any trace of it. She thought the wolf’s den might hold some answers as to where the fox might be, and if not she’d at least be able to get the wolf.

Twilight had no luck with the den, as it had been completely demolished. It looked like something large had torn it apart from the inside out, leaving Twilight to suspect that it might have something to do with a manticore or a timber wolf. It was hard to say but what ever did it, was powerful.

It wasn’t all bad though. Fluttershy had been able to help track the fox to a degree. It seemed like the fox was staying near ponyville. For whatever reason it didn’t want to stray far, “Probably because of an abundance of food” Fluttershy had said. Twilight didn’t care why it was staying close so long as she got some answers.

Twilight of course realized that she may have been taking things a bit too far, after all the samples she had gotten yesterday had indicated that the fox was just that, a fox, there were a few irregularities with the protein and iron content in it’s blood, and it’s stool had traces of berries and other things that wouldn’t normally be found in a fox’s diet, but other than that, it was just a fox. There was nothing special about it other than it’s fur.

Twilight considered forgetting about the fox, sure it was a bit strange, it’s fur and lack of a magical presence certainly made it an oddity, but that was it. It was only Twilight's need to understand the unknown that had been driving her, and Fluttershy had told her that her actions were a bit irrational.

Twilight sighed. The prospect of letting the fox go pained her, but she couldn’t think of a way to track the fox, and keep it contained. The idea of dropping everything and getting some much needed rest was starting to look better and better the longer she thought about it. Looking at her charts and equipment Twilight made up her mind, and began to slowly clean up.

She was going to put everything up, but she stopped for a moment as she noticed the chart that held the a portion of the wolf’s DNA sequence. It was perhaps this section that baffled her the most. The gene sequence here didn’t make any sense to her and Twilight had brushed it off as junk genes. That to was soon put away in a box that would later be shelved.

A ding caused Twilight to turn and look at a machine that began to slowly spit out paper. Putting her things down Twilight went to it and began to look over the contents. It was the DNA results of the fox. Twilight nodded to herself as she looked over the paper. This confirmed her suspicions. The fox wasn’t anything interesting.

She was about to put that away as well, when she stopped and noticed something strange. Digging into the box that held the DNA results of the wolf, she retrieved the papers she had just put away, and began to scan over both. A gasp escaped her lips the paper dropped from her magical grasp.

“This, this is...this changes everything,” she said, as she turned and raced out of the room to go retrieve her friends.

00000

“Woo-Hoo!” Cyril shouted as he jumped from the top of a tree into the swampy lake below. Falling into the water Cyril made a big splash before he surfaced only moments later, covered in mud and slime. Dragging himself to shore, he shook himself off before sitting under a tree

“I should have come here a long time ago,” he said aloud as he relaxed. “I wonder why I never did till now?” No sooner had he said that did a large crocodile spring from the water and snap at him.

Rolling away from the crocodile Cyril transformed into a bird and flew into a nearby tree before he returned to normal, giving the crocodile the middle finger when he was sure he was safe. Cyril's heart was pounding a mile a minute, as he watched the crocodile snap at him a couple more times before returning to the water, though Cyril kept a hawks eye on him.

“Now I remember,” he snarled out loud. “Froggy bottom bog has too many crocs,” he spat in the water before transforming into a bird and flying away from Froggy bottom bog. His stomach was rumbling and he was tired. He’d need to find a new food source and a new home. H regretted having to tear his old den apart from the inside, but well it was a bit cramped and devoid of sunlight.

Cyril just flew out of the tree line of Froggy Bottom bog before a shadow passed over him. Looking up he nearly Screeched in fear before he did a sharp turn and retreated back into the tree. Landing on a branch Cyril watched the sky carefully. There he spotted her. Her prismatic mane was hard to miss, and it often left a streak behind her. She was circling a wide area, with her eyes scanning the ground.

Cyril’s eyes narrowed and he knew something wasn’t right. Twilight had to be behind this. She wasn’t going to give this up.

00000

It had been hours since Twilight had first called her and Applejack to explain what it was that she wanted the two to do. Rainbow Dash could recall it even now, despite her focus being on trying to find the fox.

Rainbow Dash had nearly crashed into another window, but thankfully the window had already been busted out, and while she appreciated the fact that she would have to pull glass from her mane again, it didn’t mean that her landing was any more gentle than if she would have crashed through the window.

Skidding acrossed the floor on her side Rainbow Dash came to a rather harsh stop when she bumped into a bookcase. The force of her momentum had caused the bookcase to shake. Seeing the books coming down Rainbow Dash covered her head with her hooves. Several seconds went by before she dared to open her eyes and saw that all the books were being held in Twilight's magic.

As Twilight put the books back on the shelf, making a mental note to reorganize them later, Rainbow Dash picked herself off before moving to stand by Applejack, who had been standing there the whole time. The two mares said nothing to each other as Twilight moved to stand before them and started to talk.

“Rainbow Dash, I’m glad you came, I didn’t want to have to explain twice,” She said as she used her magic to levitate two sheets of paper before she held them in front of the mares to show them. They were the DNA results of the fox and the wolf respectively.

“What’s this about sugercube?” Applejack asked as she looked between the two sheets of paper confused.

“Yeah, all you’ve said is that it’s important and you wanted us to come as fast as we could,” Rainbow supplied.

“Well for the past few days I’ve been trying to locate this wolf out in the Everfree,” she started to explain.

“This the same critter Applebloom was going on about?” Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes. You see I’ve seen the wolf twice, and I’ve even managed to get a sample of it’s fur, but I wasn’t able to catch it. Yesterday however Zecora found a fox, and I brought it back to the castle,”

“Yer not making much sense here Twilight, what’s so special about this wolf and fox Yer telling us about.” Applejack asked again,

“There green Applejack. Both the wolf and the fox share the same physical trait, that shouldn’t be possible in either animal. I wanted to find out why so I did some tests,”

“That’s all good and everything Twilight, but you still haven’t explained why were here?” Rainbow Dash cut in causing Twilight to nod her head.

“Right, well the fox escaped. Normally I wouldn’t mind and I was even thinking of just leaving it alone...until I saw this,” she said as she brandished the two pieces of paper in their faces. “These are DNA scans of the fox and wolf, but do you see this section of DNA sequencing?” she asked as she pointed at the area’s in question.

Both mares nodded before Twilight continued. “Well I did to. At first I thought it was nothing, but these are the same genes.”

“Twilight, not everypony is as smart as you, maybe you could lay it out a little clearer?” Rainbow scuffed.

“These aren’t two genes that look alike, these are the exact same genes, as in they came from the same source,” That seemed to get their attention. If anything they looked a bit confused.

“So if yer saying what ah think yer saying, ya’ll think these two critters...are the same animal?” She asked still a bit confused.

The conversation quickly escalated at that point, and Rainbow found it hard to follow, but something she did understand, what that Twilight wanted her help. That was why she was flying around right now. Twilight had asked her if she could keep an eye out for the fox and Rainbow agreed, though now she wished she’d said no, because as far as she was concerned it was…

“So boring!” She yelled to herself as she did another circle around the fields. “I don’t even know what I’m suppose to be looking for,” She mumbled to herself, though Twilight assured her she’d know when she spotted it. “As if,”

Looking towards the horizon she could see that the sun was getting awfully close to setting, they wouldn’t be out here for much longer, so at least that was an upside. Sighing she looked down at the fields a final time before she stopped in mid air. Something had moved down there. Narrowing her eyes she flew a little closer to the ground to get a better view. She roved over the flowers and greenery several time but couldn’t find anything.

Rainbow was about to shrug and turn away when a pair of white colorless eyes opened and stared directly at her. Not that she knew what she was looking at, the outline of the face of the fox began to come into view. She nearly gasped with how easy it had been to completely overlook the thing. Before she could do anything though, the fox turned and bolted in the opposite direction.

Catching her senses, Rainbow Dash flew higher to watch its movements before she called out, “AppleJack, this way!” she shouted getting the mares attention. She had been patiently waiting in the grass and hiding, now though with the shout from Rainbow Dash, she emerged from the flowers and retrieved her lasso from under her hat and quickly gave chase in the direction that Rainbow had pointed in.

Twilight had also been nearby, though the Alicorn had placed a spell of brief invisibility upon herself, now that the chase had begun though, she quickly cast the spell aside and gave chase along with Applejack, forgoing her wings and opting to run alongside her friend while Rainbow kept an eye in the sky.

“It’s headed to Froggy Bottom Bog!” she called getting the two mares to put on an extra burst of speed.

They were gaining on it now. it was slowly coming into reach. In a moment of pure instinct Applejack threw her lasso. Time seemed to slow as the rope soared through the air before it found purchase on something. Applejack Whooped when she felt the tug on her lasso and quickly began to reel the rope in. Twilight was excited and the victorious shouts from Rainbow Dash proved the same for her.

The celebration was short lived however as the rope snapped and the fox turned tail and put on an extra burst of speed. The chase began anew but the fox had gained a lot of ground. The three mares could just make out the fox as he escaped into the trees of Froggy Bottom Bog, but the chase was not over yet.

Breaking the edge of the field and finding purchase into the swampy marsh of Froggy Bottom Bog, Twilight and Applejack gave a holler of triumph as they saw the fox in mid air jumping over an area of water. Twilight's horn lit to freeze the fox in mid air, but before the spell could be cast, the water’s surface was breached.

A large crocodile had jumped from the bottom of the swamp before engulfing the entirety of the fox in its maw. The two mares heard a sickening crunch as the crocodile snapped its jaws shut and fell back into the water. The fox hadn’t even yelped in pain. It was over before it even knew it was lunch.

Twilight stared wide eyed at the spot where the crocodile had retreated into the water, a look of utter shock and confusion on her face. The fox was dead, and with it her answers.

Author's Note

....So yeah that happened. I guess I don't have anything else to say except thank you all for taking the time to read this. I had a lot of fun writing this but it's time to move on to other projects, honestly though this felt more like a chore than a story to me so I guess my story might have suffered a bit because of that. Again though Thank you all for the support and for reading, really just thank you all.

HA! Just kidding. If you thought the story was over you're sorely mistaken. Keep you're eyes peeled for the next chapter

Chapter 7: The Plan

Author's Note

SURPRISE! Ever since I started to write the last chapter I've been giddy to get this one out, and once I did finish the last Chapter, I couldn't wait. Even as I'm writing this now I'm shaking it's not even funny.

So let me just say before you all start reading that this is by far my favorite chapter I've written so far. If anyone wants to ask me any questions go ahead and PM me because I am wide awake right now and I'm looking to burn off some energy and get this whole, -waves hands erratically- thing out of my system.

Chapter 7: The Plan

Twilight couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed. The fox she had been chasing, the answers she had been determined to get, all of it swept away in only a moment. Honestly Twilight didn’t know how to feel, certainly she was disappointed, the opportunity to learn about something she didn’t know about was something she cherished almost as much as her friends, to have that opportunity stolen from underneath her was...new.

Being the princess’s student she almost always got what she wanted, now being a princess herself nothing was out of her reach, or so she thought. This was something that didn’t happen very often for her.

Just then Rainbow Dash, who had been circling Froggy Bottom Bog, flew into the swamp and landed next to Applejack. “So did we get it?” she asked looking around trying to find a trace of the fox.

“No, a darned crocodile done got ‘em,” Applejack replied in a whisper, the fear that Twilight might snap at the news forcing her to stay as quiet as she dared.

“Got him how?” Rainbow asked a bewildered look on her face. This caused Applejack to facehoof and growl in slight frustration.

“The crocodile ate the fox,” Twilight said, her voice hinting at sadness and a bit of disappointment. Rainbow’s only reply was a small ‘oh’.

“Ahm sorry Twilight, we tried our best, but there aint much more ya can do,” Applejack supplied, hoping to comfort her friend. Twilight only nodded before turning to face the sky, or rather the underside of the leaves of the trees that hung overhead.

“We should head on home girls,” Twilight finally said after a few moments of silence. “I’ll be dark soon, and we’ve wasted enough time chasing that fox,” The others seemed to agree and before long they had found themselves back in the fields around Ponyville, Froggy Bottom Bog quickly fading behind them.

Once they had left the swamp returned to its peaceful silence. The frogs started up their croaks and the crickets began up their songs again. It remained that way until the sun had set and the moon had taken it’s place. Now that the moon shone in the night sky, the fireflies began to come out, which turned the normally ugly swamp into a beautiful and peaceful scene.

Then on the water, small ripples began to form on the surface as something large slowly made it’s way to the surface. To an outside observer it might appear to be nothing more than a fallen tree trunk and it did indeed look like a tree trunk. That was until it opened it’s eyes. The two white orbs breaking the darkness making them stand out.

Slowly the mass moved to shore and dragged itself onto land. There was a brief moment where the crocodile did nothing but that soon changed as the croc began to shrink, its tail quickly retracted into its body while it’s legs slowly grew out to accommodate his shifting form. Before Long Cyril was lying on the ground covered from head to toes in moss and much.

Flipping himself onto his back he gave a weak chuckle. “I can’t believe that worked,” he said aloud before he finally moved to the water's edge and released the contents of his stomach. The acidic taste of bile mixed in with a few earthly flavors of moss and pond scum were doing little to comfort his already upset stomach.

“Never again,” he groaned to himself just before he released another torrent of vomit.

He stayed like that for little over half an hour. It was half an hour of torture as his insides felt like wrenching themselves apart, but it finally ceased and when it did Cyril was up a tree in no time with his head setting against the trunk, his legs propped up against the branches. The events of today flashed through his mind, and he couldn’t help but feel that had even the smallest thing not gone right, he wouldn’t be free.

00000

Earlier that day

Cyril narrowed his eyes as he watched Rainbow Dash circle again and again. She was scanning the area that he had taken last night when he entered Froggy Bottom Bog, no doubt Twilight had put her up to it, though if she actually knew what it was she was looking for, Cyril was unsure.

He grunted in frustration, as a hawk it came out more like a screech than anything else. He needed to lure her away, get her to leave the area, but how. The first step was obvious, but it was also very dangerous. First he’d need to see exactly what it was Rainbow was seeing, the only way to do that was to fly higher than Rainbow and look down.

This in itself presented a large problem. If Cyril were to be spotted, the chase would undoubtedly be on. The option to go as a smaller insect was also out of the question. Flying that high with such a small body would leave him to the mercy of the winds, and not to mention other predators. No he’d have to be a bird to get up there the only question he had to ask himself now was, “which bird was the fastest to get the job done?”

Closing his eyes Cyril focused on wanting to bring out speed, and as such his instincts began to filter in and out of his conscious mind. Cyril could feel the instincts of every bird that met his criteria, they pushed against his mind, trying to gain some type of purchase, hoping to spill into him and allow them to take over.

He remembered this intensity from the first time he had tried to gain control of his powers. In those first few days he tried to transform, he found the instincts to powerful as they threatened to crush his own mind with the raw animalistic nature of their presence. Over time though he learned to control the ebb and flow of his mind, allowing him to place a kind of glass barrier between him and his instincts, what’s more once he had perfected his ability to shift, he only got better at subduing the instincts. Each shift provided him an extra bit of understanding to how an animal thought, and the more he diversified his forms the more he began to control himself while as an animal.

Now though as he searched through his instincts he felt something. It was hard determine what animal was trying to get to him, but it was forceful, almost primal. The need for speed had summoned more than just bird instincts, something else was trying to get to the surface, was trying to force its way into his mind. It scared him and he forced it back, instead choosing the best form which filtered through his mind.

Letting the form set in he did a short examination of himself, and discovered that his size had been drastically reduced. If he had to venture a guess, Cyril would say he was anywhere between 20 to 30 centimeters long. Trusting his instincts, Cyril flew to the top most branch he could find before he spread his wings and shot straight up. Even against gravity Cyril knew he was going fairly fast.

It didn’t take long before Cyril had long since passed Rainbow. Looking around he noticed that she hadn't strayed from her path. In fact her was sure that he was high enough up that none below would notice if he transformed. Quickly shifting forms, from what cyril believed to be a swift, into a hawk, he gently circled along with Rainbow Dash, while he used his improved vision to survey the surrounding area.

It was no surprise to Cyril when he spotted the brown leather stetson hat sticking out from the top of the Fields flowers, though he did note with some mild amusement that Twilight sat just next her her. He couldn’t see her face, but based on how she was fidgeting , Cyril chanced a guess that she was uncomfortable. “Good” He thought to himself. “Let her be the one uncomfortable for awhile,”

Cyril did a few more circles before he was confident that nopony else was hiding nearby to help Twilight. Cyril did find it a bit odd that Fluttershy wasn’t with them though, he was positive that she would be right there along with them if she knew. The thought of chasing an animal down wouldn’t sit right with her, and no doubt she’d want to be their to try and calm him down.

As he thought about how mad Fluttershy would be if Cyril had been hurt, it gave him an idea, though he was hesitant in wanting to pursue it. The prospect of fooling all of them like that didn’t set well with him, in fact it almost seemed cruel, but Cyril couldn’t help but admit that the perks of it was certainly worth it all. Seeing no other alternative he decided to start putting the plan into action. His mind worked quickly as he scanned the surrounding area.

From what he could see, Froggy Bottom Bog and the Everfree were practically the same place, the surrounding area showed no sign that the two were anything more than a single forest except for the river that separated the two and the marshy landscape of Froggy Bottom Bog. To the west he could see the outline of another forest. His memory served him well as he recalled that it was the Whitetail woods.

He also saw a small mountain range that seemed to just sprout out. He smiled and remembered that a pair of tracks ran through those mountains leading to ponyville. It would be child's play fly over those mountains and find what he needed in the whitetail woods, all without being seen by any of the three mares.

The train tracks would help him keep his sense of direction, and a small, more subdued forest rested on the edge of Froggy bottom Bog, before being sliced in half by tracks yet again. This small section of forest was considered peaceful and safe to venture into. If he could smile Cyril would, but his beak held no muscles other than to open and close it. Without hesitation he headed for the mountain ranges.

It had been a long and hard day for Cyril. The flight to get to whitetail woods had taken more energy out of him than he had thought and he had to spent at least an hour catching himself something to eat. A couple of rabbits was his meal, but they didn’t really fill him as they should. Nonetheless he began his search for the animal he needed, and was quite surprised when he came upon it’s tracks.

Finding the animal was easy, killing it without ripping it to shreds had admittedly been harder. Though he quickly found a solution to the problem when he saw the animal bedding down for a nap. Taking the form of a large snake and crushing the air from its lungs proved to be the best option for him. Due to the animals small size and having been caught off guard when Cyril suddenly fell from the tree and wrapped his coils around the animal, he didn’t put up much of a struggle allowing him to squeeze the animal very tightly. Any fight it tried to put up afterwards proved useless.

The tip back to Froggy Bottom Bog was somewhat easy. The animal didn’t weigh very much, and for the first two miles Cyril felt fine. As time passed though he began to feel the exhaustion wear on him. Cyril would have been back at Froggy Bottom Bog earlier, but the constant need to stop and rest had slowed him down.

When at last he did return to Froggy Bottom Bog, he was exhausted. Allowing himself a short rest, Cyril was soon scouting the area inside of the swamp, before he found a perfect spot. The area was nice and secluded. Somepony would have to barge through the greenery in order to see what lay beyond. It was perfect and the water was deep here. Everything was set in place, though Cyril wondered how well this would actually work. Nonetheless made his way to the edge of the swamp before he took the form of a rat and began to sneak his way into the fields.

Once he was in position he quickly transformed into the fox yet again. Though he had closed his eyes to calm himself. The prospect of what he was attempting to pull of was daunting, it seemed like a stupid idea and it had been constructed in only a few minutes, of course it was improved upon over the hours in which he set it up, but he still felt like things were going to go wrong.

That’s when he heard it. The sounds of wings as the got closer. He steeled himself as his nerves began to go haywire. The seconds seemed to turn into hours, and he wondered how long he was going to stay like that. Would he remain Frozen in the fields just outside of Ponyville, or would Rainbow Dash spot him and sound the alarm. What was going to happen?

Cyril soon realized that the sound of wings was growing no closer, and that he had allowed the instincts of prey cloud his mind. Pushing back the fox’s need to run, Cyril took a deep breath before he opened his eyes. There he saw her hovering over the field some distance away from him. She seemed surprised as he suddenly began to appear, and for a moment the two stared at each other intently, her’s a look of shock and his of determination.

Before she could speak he turned tail and bolted for the swamp, his legs pumping furiously as he moved as fast as his small and sleek frame would allow. The silence was quickly broken as Rainbow Shouted. “Applejack, this way,” she called.

Cyril didn’t bother to look back, his legs continued to move at incredible speed. He could see the tree line just ahead. If he could only make it a few more meters he’d be home free. There was another shout but Cyril couldn’t make it out, the sound of the wind and his blood filled his ears as his heart pumped just as fast as his legs.

Just as he thought he was going to break the fields and enter the swamp, he felt something yank back hard around his neck, causing him to yelp at the sudden pressure on his windpipe. His instincts flared for a moment, and he began to fight against the pull of it. Cyril was glad he had lost control. The furious struggle he had put up broke whatever connection was holding him and his fight or flight mode kicked in choosing flight.

Running for all his worth, he broke the treeline of the swamp, and crashed through the bushes that blocked his way. Up ahead he could see the moss and swamp scum covered carcass of the animal he had killed earlier today, the vines that hung from the tree’s kept it strung up in a perfect posture of flight, just over the edge of the water.

Without hesitation Cyril dover for the water headfirst. The transformation was instant and Cyril had just enough time to right himself in the water before he pushed upwards, breaching the water’s surface. His jaws opened wide and the force of his momentum placed the carcass directly into his mouth. Without hesitation He clamped his jaws shut, feeling as bones crunched under his mighty jaws and the vines that held the carcass in the air snapped and fell away from the tree’s.

The body was gone before the ponies could even register what they had witnessed, and before they could get a good look at him, Cyril retreated into the water, where he began to digest the scum covered carcass of a common fox.

00000

Thinking back on how well that had worked out, Cyril wasn’t sure if the universe had decided to give him a break or not. He didn’t really care, he was free now. Twilight thought he was dead, and after today, he wasn’t going to stick around Ponyville for very long. As far as he knew Twilight would search for the wolf, or maybe try and find another green furred animal.

Cyril had to think on the events of the day though. Firstly he was glad he had decided to chew through Applejacks lasso. He hadn’t expected that to come in handy so early after the act, but he shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to him, had he not. Something else was bothering him though. That feeling he had earlier. That primal instinct that had tried to force its way into his head, it was...unsettling.

Cyril had dealt with the instincts of many of his animal forms trying to gain access to his mind, but this wasn’t like any normal instinct, this time it was more...aggressive, dangerously so. Cyril didn’t like the idea of what that form might look like. Cyril didn’t know of any animal that was right out aggressive. Sure many animals were territorial, but this wasn’t that, this was some kind of...bloodlust, with murderous intent.

One thing was for certain though, Cyril didn’t sleep well that night.

Chapter 8: A new enemy

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 9: Starlight gets got

Finding the cave that held the cutiemarks was easy. Starlight had made no attempt at trying to hide it, which had thrown Cyril off for a second. He had assumed, much like a lot of bronies, that she was evil and didn’t want ponies to see their past. Now though he stood in front of the large box and couldn’t help but be impressed by the sheer size of the holding compartment.

Breaking the compartment that held the cutiemarks would have been simple. All it would take to bring that wall down was a well placed Rhino skull, Cyril didn’t want to do that though, mainly because it would save him a headache, but he didn’t see a point in releasing the cutiemarks right now. All he’d do is give himself away, and the ponies here were still brainwashed, they’d go right back to Starlight and have their cutiemarks removed yet again.

Cyril thought about breaking the staff that Starlight would use, if he showed the ponies that the staff was a fake maybe they’d start seeing the truth. Cyril didn’t know nearly as much magic as Twilight or even Starlight for that matter, but he was pretty sure that strong magical items didn’t just break so easy.

Cyril tried several ways to break the staff. first he tried to snap it over his knee which only resulted in a lot of pain for him. Then he tried to grab it by it’s two prongs and tear it down the middle. It was another failed attempt. Smashing it against walls, dropping heavy rocks onto it, trying to use it as a lever, none of these worked to snap the damned stick, Starlight probably put some kind of spell on it to make it harder to break. Eventually Cyril gave up and put the staff back where it was and began to pace back and forth.

“How do I stop her?” he asked aloud, before he laughed mockingly at himself “I could always just walk into town and call her out,” he shook his head at that. “I might as well throw a big sign over my head that says ‘come and get me’.”

There was only one option that Cyril felt would work well. Cyril would have to douse Starlight in water and wash away the makeup that covered her real cutiemark. The question Cyril had to ask himself now was, how to go about it. Attacking her head on was bad idea if she saw him dive bomb her, she might attack him with magic and that just wasn’t going to work out, plus what if she aimed the kill him? It wasn’t likely but still Cyril didn’t feel the need to take that chance.

Cyril’s best option was to fly up on her from behind and drop water on her as he passed over her. If he did it quick enough she’d be revealed, the town’s ponies would revolt, and then Starlight would be taken care of. That last one Cyril was still a bit unsure about, he wasn’t sure if the ponies who lived here would be able to actually hold her, but one thing was for certain. If Cyril stopped her before Twilight and her friends got to the town, the Starlight wouldn’t seek to destroy Twilight and her friend’s friendship. A time traveling crisis would be averted, Twilight and her friends would be safe and most importantly, if Starlight did manage to get away Cyril would always track her with his wolf form.

Before Cyril could even begin to put his plan into action however, he heard something outside of the cave. Confused, he walked outside and looked down on the town. To say that he was surprised would be an understatement, down below in the village, ponies were singing. Normally this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, Cyril figured that ponies were prone to breaking out in song, and while he had never seen it happen before, he had decided long ago to simply roll with it.

What had surprised Cyril was the song the towns ponies were singing, and who he caught a glimpse of in the sky before two other pegasi placed their hooves on her withers and lowered her to the ground. There was only one rainbow maned pony that Cyril knew of and if she was here right now then that meant that the other mane 6 where here as well.

Pacing, Cyril started to worry. Things were happening like they had in the show, Starlight was going to get away, of course that meant that everything was going to work out fine in the end. The towns ponies were going to get their cutiemarks back, the mane 6 were going to solve a friendship problem. Now would be a good time to turn and get the hell out of Starlight’s village and away from the mane 6, but the thought that Starlight would get away kept him planted in place.

At least that was until he heard voices nearby. Looking up Cyril recognized the voices of the mane 6 were approaching and cursed himself for getting lost in his thoughts. He should have been planning, instead he had wasted time. Looking around Cyril quickly turned into a bat before he flew to the top of the cave and looked down watching the mane 6 as they moved closer to the cutiemark vault, and right behind them skulking in the shadows was Starlight.

Cyril could hear them talking. It was the same thing they had said in the show, all down to the same tone of voice, then more ponies showed up as the mane 6 tried to run. Cyril watched as Starlight grabbed the staff and began to charge it up to steal their cutiemarks.

Without thinking Cyril changed into a hawk and dived at Starlight, his talons extended before he pulled up. There was a scream of pain and confused murmurs from both the mane 6 as well as Starlight’s brainwashed villagers. Hiding behind a large rock Cyril looked down at his talons and saw a large chunk of mane that had been ripped from Starlights Skull. Smirking at his small victory Cyril returned to his base form and peeked over the boulder to see Starlight clutching her head while the mane 6 looked on in confusion. Twilight, ever the smart opportunist, rushed forward, casting a spell that hit Starlight in her barrel. Stumbling back, Starlight regained her composer and began to fire magic blasts at the mane 6. Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy took cover While Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Twilight began the offensive

Twilight fired back her own spells, while Rainbow Dash flew around Starlight trying to flank her, Rarity was using her telekinesis to hurl rocks at Starlight, Starlight however had put up a shield blocking both Twilight’s magic, and Rarity’s rocks. Rainbow seeing an opportunity to strike, dived at Starlight hoping to knock her out, however Starlight quickly turned and fired a blast of magic that hit Rainbow square in the chest.

Rainbow Stopped in mid flight as her Cutiemark quickly peeled itself off of her flank before taking up an empty container in the vault. The rest of the mane 6 gasped as did Cyril as the black equal sign faded onto her flank and her bright color drained from her. Anger rose inside of Cyril as he watched Rainbow fall to the ground. He may not have been on the best of terms with the mane 6 but that didn’t mean he didn’t care.

Before he could even transform however a lasso shot out from behind a rock and wrapped itself around the staff. Starlight saw it coming however and quickly shot a spell at the rope which caught fire. The rope snapped and Starlight fired a spell which hit Applejack. The same effect that had happened to Rainbow happened to Applejack as well.

Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie quickly stood up to help AppleJack, but they to were hit with the same spell that forced their cutiemarks to remove themselves from their bodies. Twilight growled and fired more spells at Starlight’s shield. The spells bounced off of Starlights shields. Twilight growled in frustration before she charged a massive spell.

Starlight quickly took advantage of the situation and fired her spell at Twilight. Twilight screamed in pain as her cutiemark peeled itself from her flank, as the spell she had been charging quickly lost power and sputtered out. Rarity looked between her friend Twilight and Starlight, but before she could so much as blink, she to was hit by the spell and her cutiemark joined the others in the vault.

“Okay Double Diamond, escort the Princess and her friends back into town and put them in the ‘guest house.’” Starlight said putting emphasis on the last two words.

“Starlight I think we should talk about what just happened,” Double Diamond replied as he looked between the mane 6 and Starlight.

“Double Diamond, you saw for yourself they attacked me first,” She replied as she moved a hoof to her mane. “Just look what they’ve done to my mane, they could have hurt me,”

Double Diamond seemed to think about it for a moment before he nodded and decided that she had acted in self defense. Once he had made up his mind Double Diamond began escorting the girls out of the cave.

Cyril peeked over the boulder he had hidden behind and saw Starlight glaring around the cave before she finally left with the rest of the ponies. Cyril watched her leave as a low growl escaped him. The thought of turning into a wolf and sinking his teeth into her throat before ripping it out ran through his mind. Cyril could already taste the blood in his mouth as he slowly crept out from behind cover.

The taste of copper became too real and Cyril had to stop a moment. Spitting onto the ground, Cyril could see the red as it stuck out against the cold grey of the floor. The light from the vault bringing a sense of clarity to his mind as he realized the blood he had been tasting was his own. Cyril had been so caught up in his anger that he hadn’t even realized he had been biting his own lip, his anger clouding his mind and not letting the register the pain.

Spitting again, to rid himself of the taste of blood, Cyril looked to the entrance to see that Starlight had already left. Looking down at his blood Cyril growled again, this time at himself. This was getting out of control, already had his anger nearly caused him to die, but now he was unknowingly hurting himself. Cyril would have to keep a close eye on his anger, however he had to laugh a bit as the thought that he was actually the Hulk played through his mind.

Pushing his humor aside, Cyril focused on the problem at hand. The mane 6 was in trouble, and he was going to get them out of trouble, however possible. Screw the integrity of the show.

00000

Sneaking down from the vault in his base form was easy for Cyril, especially when night had fallen. Most of the towns ponies had returned home and fallen asleep. The only one’s who seemed to be awake right now were two ponies who stood on either side of the “guest house”. In fact they made it really easy for Cyril to spot which house to look for.

It also helped that it was the only house blaring propaganda about how being the same as everypony else was to be equal. Behind the “guest house” away was a window that was barred and showed the inside. Standing with his back against the wall Cyril turned and whispered inside the house.

“Pst, Princess,” he called keeping himself out of sight. “Princess Twilight, come to the window,” He wasn’t sure if she had heard him, he wasn’t even sure she was awake. He didn’t want to risk peeking inside for fear that one of them might see him.

The night was silent for a few seconds, except for the speakers, before Cyril’s ears picked up the sound of approaching hooves. “Who’s out that? What do you want?” Twilight hissed her muzzle barely visible from where I was standing.

“Let’s just say I’m a friend,” I whispered back. That got a snort out of her, it seemed she didn’t believe me. “I’m the one who ripped part of Starlight’s mane out,” I whispered back before I was meet with silence.

“How barbaric,” I heard Rarity say.

“I thought it was pretty cool, someone needed to knock that mare down a few pegs,” the voice of Rainbow Dash said, making Cyril smile a bit.

“So if you are a friend why are you here now, why didn’t you help us back in the cave when Starlight was stealing our cutiemarks?” Twilight asked hints of anger in her voice.

“If I showed myself I would have been caught like the rest of you, and I wouldn’t be able to help you now,” Cyril replied getting them to keep quiet. Deciding to push forward Cyril spoke again. “Listen when you were in town did you notice something strange about the towns ponies?”

“Ya mean besides the fact that they share the same cutiemark?” AppleJack asked.

“No, look all of them share the same cutiemark but they also share something else, something Starlight doesn’t share with them. Their colors are faded, but who’s the only brightly colored pony in this town?” Cyril asked. The inside of the room was quiet for several seconds before Twilight spoke up.

“Are you saying Starlight still has her cutiemark?” Cyril smiled, but said nothing. Instead he slowly moved away from the window and towards the front of the front of the house. He spied the two ponies who stood outside.

Moving as fast as he could, Cyril punched the first pony in the face, making him stumble back. Using the second pony’s surprise, Cyril jumped over the first before he landed and swept the legs of the second pony making him fall to the ground. Getting up on a knee, Cyril punched the pony in the face, knocking him out, before he turned to face the first pony again. Still dazed, the pony tried to charge Cyril, however he simply sidestepped and charged forward himself, his fist connecting with the ponies face for a second time before he fell to the ground unconscious.

“What’s happening out there?” Twilight asked, causing Cyril to quickly move out of sight from the windows.

“I just took out the guards, I'm about to open the door,” Cyril replied as he looked the door over. Glancing at the door he saw it was locked and needed a key.

“You attacked somepony?” Twilight asked. It was clear she was angry, and Cyril had to frown.

“Oh I’m sorry Princess I couldn’t just ask them if I could let you guys out now could I? Besides I only knocked them out, they’ll be fine, if a little sore,” Cyril commented. No one replied so Cyril continued. “What do you plan to do when I get this door opened?”

The question seemed to catch Twilight off guard. “What?” She asked, causing Cyril to shake his head in frustration. Already he was getting somewhat angry.

“Listen Princess, since you don’t seem to know what you’re going to do I’ll just tell you. When I get this door opened, you’re going to head to Starlight’s place, and you’re going to restrain her, meanwhile I’m going to smash that vault wide open,” Cyril hastily said as he looked left and right.

Being out in the open for as long as he was, was unsettling, not to mention it had been awhile since he had talked to someone else. Social standards had gone out the window and the fact that he was talking to the pony who had unknowingly violated him still left him on edge. He glanced around again before a light caught his eyes. Turning to glance at it he saw that the light came from the second story of the only house that wasn’t in a line.

In the window staring down at him with a mix of fear, anger and curiosity was Starlight. The two stared at each other for a long while before Starlight bolted out of view of the window. “Shit,” he growled which caused the mane 6 to jump in surprise at the anger in his voice. Transforming into bear and not caring if he was spotted or not, Cyril pounded on the door, causing the wood to splinter and the ponies inside to scream in terror.

Cyril ignored their cries as the door broke under his assault and fell to the ground as nothing more than splinters. The light from the moon illuminated his beastly form which caused the mares inside to shrink back. It was not until his form shrank that they seemed to calm down a bit, but they still looked at him with fear.

“Starlight is getting away, you need to stop her before she disappears for good,” he said before he walked out of the house and ran for the cave.

“Wait?!” he heard Twilight call from behind him, causing him to falter for a moment. Turning to face her, Cyril saw gratitude as well as curiosity, but fear still marred her features.

Twilight opened her mouth as if to say something but Cyril cut her off before she could let a single syllable escape. “Stop Starlight!” he growled, which forced Twilight to take a step back. For a brief moment regret flashed over his face before he turned and ran to the cave.

Once inside the cave Cyril turned into a Rhino before he charged at the vault. Spiderweb cracks appeared on the vault’s surface but otherwise the vault remained intact. Cyril moved back before he charged the vault again. More cracks spread along the surface but still the vault remained. Puffs of steam escaped his nostrils as he pawed the ground before letting out a bellow and charging for a third time.

Lowering his head at the last second, Cyril felt his horn lodge into the vaults surface. Raising his head and pulling back as hard as he could, the glass shattered. In a show of light, the cutiemarks flew from the vault before leaving the cave to find their owners.

00000

Cyril stood above Starlight’s village. He had to grin as he saw the unicorn bound and gagged. The whole of the town surrounded the mane 6 and Starlight. Cyril watched as Twilight used a rag to wipe away the makeup that hid her cutiemark. Gasps and angry shouts met Starlight as she looked at the once loyal members of her “Perfect society”. Twilight turned as she seemed to notice him from his spot up high.

Realization flashed through her eyes and she looked like she was ready to to rush towards him to ask all sorts of questions. Cyril only shook his head before turning around and walking out of her sight. A moment later a bird rose in the sky and took off.

Up until now Cyril didn’t know what he was going to do, or where he was going to go. Staying out of the way of ponies seemed nearly impossible, but Cyril had begun to change his mind on a few things. Getting to see Starlights village had made him more open to the idea of seeing the rest of Equestria, and now that Starlight had been captured, Cyril didn’t have to worry about her messing with the past.

Turning to the icy mountains that Starlight had used as her escape in the show. Cyril had decided that he’d like to see Rainbow falls, after that he was going to head to the Crystal Empire. Cyril had a new goal in life now, and while Cyril had never once given any thought to traveling the world...now it didn’t seem like such a bad idea, in fact Cyril almost felt compelled to travel now

Author's Note

Wow...I am not happy with this one. I really don't know why but I feel like this one suffered a lot. I think it's because I've been sick, or it could be because of the holidays. Let me tell you right now I hate the holidays. I hate them almost as much as i hate my own birthday.

Family coming together only to argue is not fun in the least.

Chapter 10: Not alone

Author's Note

Okay Stop before you read because this is a big announcement. Firstly I had a lot of help from Moon_Fire with this chapter so I just want to thank him for helping me.

Now why did he help me with this chapter? Well that's easy, because he's writing a new displaced about a certain dragon. I'm not spoiling anything but I will tell you this, Both Cyril and Moon_Fire's character have both been displaced to the exact same universe. This chapter is an introductory to his character, and I'm helping him develop his character as well as helping him with his story.

No no worries and certainly no fears, because Moon_Fire's character is not going to be a big part of this story, and vice-versa. There will be a few chapters where they show up together, and they will most likely become friends, but again the plot for both stories is not going to be widely effected.

Now due to the lack of ponies in Moon_Fire's first chapter, his story hasn't been published yet, however the moment his story is published I will get you all the link to it. The chapters that Cyril and Moon_Fire's characters meet up will have different perspectives so that the same information is not told twice. I hope you enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think about this new development

Edit: Due to the comment made by Lycanthromancer.

I can't say I care about the new character, and unfortunately, glossing over everything that happens in the beginning is certainly not helping with that. If an event is important, you need to go into detail and flesh out the scene. "Cyril found a couple of dragons fighting and helped one kill the other" just doesn't give anyone a reason to care about the event. If it was important, you would give more detail, so it's really hard to care about it for that reason. Think about The Law of Conservation of Detail. It works in written form just as much as it does in a TV show or movie, and for largely the same reason. If you gloss it over, it's obviously not important, so why should anyone care?

I decided that he was right. You see I already wrote the scene with Moon_fire for his new story, but I didn't want to go and rewrite that. It was incredibly lazy of me to do, I get that, so...I wrote it in despite being lazy. I hope you enjoy

Chapter 10: Not alone

Walking out of the caves in the mountains that separated Starlight’s village and Rainbow falls, Cyril stretched and turned to the north. He’d spent the past week stuck in in those mountain caves due to a snowstorm that had come out of nowhere. Even as an animal Cyril found it hard to navigate through the blinding whitewash and cold. He didn’t even dare attempt such an act. Even now that the storm had passed, he could barely stand outside without shivering.

Walking without hesitation, Cyril headed for Rainbow Falls. Despite the small settlements close proximity to the northern Crystal Empire, Cyril had witnessed a lack of snow, which led him to believe that despite the frozen wastelands at both the Northern and Southern fronts of the town, Rainbow Falls enjoyed a pleasantly warm atmosphere.It was the perfect town for Cyril to live in for awhile, at least that’s what he thought.

“Ugh, put that thing away before you lose it, you damn Hentai reject!” someone suddenly shouted, causing Cyril to look around for the source of the voice. “Besides, I’ve taken down bosses bigger than little minion NPCs like you,” the voice continued.

“NPC?” Cyril thought, he had only heard that term used back home. “Could someone else from home have ended up here?” he asked himself. “And if so how could they have mistaken this for a game?” No it didn’t matter to Cyril what the other person thought. What mattered to him was that someone was in trouble.

Cyril knew this world better than anyone else from back home, both from the show and from having lived in it. No matter how peaceful this world looked, no matter how nice the ponies seemed, danger was always right around the corner. It wouldn’t take long for some monster or mythical creature to pop up and ruin a perfectly good day.

Rushing towards the sound of the voice, Cyril stopped as he came rushed over the side of a large snow bank, only to spot two dragons, both fighting. One of them was a large green male, in fact Cyril remembered seeing him from the show, it was the dragon who had chased Spike when the young drake had eaten his gems. The other was a red female. She was different than the green dragon though. She was smaller and she resembled more of a wyvern than a dragon. She had no front legs, but rather he wings served as her front legs.

It was clearly the red dragon who he had heard before, as Cyril heard her threatening the dragon once again. The thought of rushing in to help the dragoness popped into his mind, but it was quickly squashed, when he saw her jump up and latch onto one of his spines before flipping him onto his back. Cyril watched her pull her tail back, it’s point reminding him of a scorpion, and readied to lunge it into the green dragons throat. The dragon however caught her tail and threw her into into the boulders that lined the valley they were in.

Cyril heard the green dragon growl something at the green as he stalked toward her. His tail lashed out and hit the thin membranes of one of her wings, causing her to scream in pain. Cyril couldn’t help but feel bad for the red dragon. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been here in Equestria, but it was clear she wasn’t taking thing seriously, and she was going to-

Cyril saw something as the green dragon now pinned the red underneath him. He watched the red dragon struggle, fear now evident on her face, and the first thing Cyril had heard the red dragon say now made sense to him. What was happening was wrong. Cyril knew that Equestria was dangerous, but the place was suppose to be rated G, what was about to happen broke that concept.

Hey asshole!” he shouted without thinking, his anger now taking over again as he changed into a Rhino and charged the green dragon. Lowering his head, Cyril’s horn punctured the side of the green dragon. A large hole now bleeding profusely, as he tried to stand. Cyril quickly returned to his human form and allowed his anger to simmer off, believing he had now won.

“I’m not in a VR, am I?” the red dragoness asked, causing Cyril too turn to her in surprise.

“I don’t know what that is, but I’d say no,” he replied still staring at the green dragon, as he slowly got back up. “Need help?” he asked.

Cyril watched as her eyes opened wide then narrowed “I don’t need help from a boy such as you!” She struggled a bit before she quickly righted herself. “I have this under control.” she growled.

Cyril didn’t believe it for a second, she had easily been subdued by the dragon before and if he didn’t intervene again, she’d lose again, but before Cyril could stop her, the green dragon roared and charged. The red dragoness reared back and opened her maw to shoot fire at the green dragon, but he quickly clamped his jaws around her throat, cutting the charged fire off before it could be released.

The red dragon began to struggle and in doing so, blood spilled from around the green dragons mouth. Again the anger boiled up inside of Cyril. He had no notion as to why, but it was as if he mind was finding any excuse to get angry. Transforming into a T-Rex Cyril charged yet again at the green dragon, roaring as his head connected to the male dragons head. Not letting up Cyril’s teeth dug into the dragon's wing and he twisted, making the dragon lift his head and roar in pain.

In an instant Cyril returned to normal and jumped back, barely avoiding a torrent of fire. Cyril prepared to make his next transformation but the red dragoness lunged forward and clamped her own teeth around his throat. The dragon tried to say something but she quickly tore his throat out, spewing blood against her and staining the white snow.

She turned to Cyril, before spitting out the chunk of flesh. “I told you I had this under control.”

00000

To say that Cyril was having a strange day was an understatement. Fighting off a dragon usually left someone in bad shape, had it not been for his weeks of dodging the creatures of the Everfree forest, Cyril was sure he would have been dead by now, but he wasn’t and he was thankful for that.

When the battle was all done and said, Cyril couldn’t help but feel a bit bad. Seeing the wounds on the red dragoness neck and stomach quickly made him realize the consequences of his anger. The dragon had her by the throat with his teeth, and while she was already bleeding at the time, Cyril was sure he had made it worse.

he was thankful that he had convinced her to return to his cave with him. The promise of treating her wounds and giving her the answers she needed had helped greatly, but she had bitched at him the whole way. It had incited his anger some, but remembering he was the cause for her wounds had helped him subdue his anger. It seemed his guilt was far stronger than his anger.

When he came to his cave he told the dragoness to sit and wait for him to return with medical supplies to treat her wounds. She had told him to ‘hurry the hell up,’ but he let it slide, she was after all in pain, quickly leaving the Cyril turn into a bird and was on his way to the closest town he knew of.

Cyril now found himself flying towards Rainbow Falls, his original destination, however he wasn’t headed there for sightseeing. The show didn’t really give any indication that a settlement was at Rainbow Falls, but Cyril was positive he’d find something. Soaring through the air as a falcon, Cyril rose above a mountain range to find his view filled with color.

Needless to say Rainbow falls did indeed have a settlement. The town was thriving and ponies walked the streets much like how the ponies of Ponyville did, in fact if it wasn’t for the large rainbow that hung above the town, Cyril might have mistaken it for Ponyville. Not allowing himself the luxury of being distracted Cyril circled the town his eyes glued to the ground hoping to spot some building that gave indication that it was a hospital, or at the very least some kind of clinic.

It took Cyril five times to circle around the village before he finally spotted the large white two storied building. The only indication he had from above was it’s sterile white walls, however he thankfully spotted a pony leaving in a wheelchair. Landing on the sign just outside Cyril looked the building up and down and noted, with irritation, the large red cross painted at the top of the building.

Cyril circled the building trying to find an open window, but considering most of the ponies inside were probably sick, it wasn’t good practice to keep the window open thankfully one of them was open, and Cyril took advantage of it immediately.

The room looked like it was for doctors and nurses, the multiple couches, the fridge, and even the coffee maker all pointed to this being a staff lounge, and Cyril couldn’t help but notice that the door to the lounge was opened slightly. Turning into a mouse and slipping through the crack was easy, maneuvering through the empty hallways even easier, trying to find a supply closet was hard.

The stench of cleaning supplies was messing with Cyril's sense of smell, making it nearly impossible to sniff out what he needed. It was hard to find disinfectant and bandages when everything smelled like disinfectant. His hearing though was still perfect. Down the hall to his left he could hear ponies talking. Creeping around the corner, Cyril watched as a cream white mare moved back and forth between rooms, a cart with some of the supplies he needed stacked on them.

It was a lucky break for him but he saw that not everything was there. Looking both left and right to make sure nopony was watching Cyril quickly scurried towards the cart and hopped on the bottom platform. Hopefully the nurse would be done with her rounds quickly and she’d return the cart to the storage closet.

00000

2 Hours. Cyril waited on that Cart for 2 hours before the nurse finally put the cart back in the storage closet. He found the supplies he needed rather quickly, everything was organized and in bins with labels on them, Cyril even found a spare sheet that he used to carry all the supplies back to his cave.

Landing just outside of his cave he took the sheet and slung it over his shoulder before stepping inside. Cyril was glad to find that the dragon wasn’t dead, though she was lying in a puddle of her own blood. He was thankful to see that she had built a fire, it would help considerably when he started wrapping her wounds.

Setting the sheet down Cyril undid the knot at the top and let it’s contents spill out. “I’m back, are you still alive?”

“You sure took your sweet time getting back,” the dragon said. “I’m surprised you didn’t just leave me here.”

Cyril scuffed at her remark before he grabbed several bandages, a bottle of disinfectant and stitches. “You’re already a pain in my ass, but I wasn’t going to let you die,” he replied moving closer to get a better look at her wounds. “Besides I’ve got questions.”

“As do I.” She shifted some to let Cyril get at the marks on her neck. “Where are we? And how did I get here?”

“Were in the magical land of talking candy colored ponies, A.K.A Equestria,” he said before he headed back to his supplies and grabbed a clean rag. “As for how you got here, I don’t know, I’ve been here for a month and a half and I still don’t know how I got here,”

As he spoke he soaked the rag in disinfectant and pressed it to the wound on her neck and wiped away the blood. The dragon stiffened, but Cyril could see her clenching her jaws. A bit of worry worked it’s way into his soul, she was still a dragon after all and if so was so inclined Cyril had no doubts she’d be able to kill him.

“I’ve never heard of this ‘Equestria’ before now.” She glanced around a bit and not finding what it was she was looking for said, “Where is the box you brought here for me?”

Cyril didn’t look up instead he pointed near the cave’s entrance. Focusing on her wound, Cyril grabbed the stitches and began to “sew” her wounds up. Even as he did this though, his mind wandered to the box she had wanted him to bring. It was a simple wooden box filled with coins that held an odd symbol on them. The coins were too big to be currency so what were they, and why did she want them? Was it some kind of dragon thing?

“I take it you weren’t always a dragon were you,” he said more as a statement rather than a question.

“No, I wasn’t. How did you know that?” The dragon reached over and pulled the case close to her with her left wing, her eyes flashing dangerously at Cyril. “Are you part of why I was sent here?”

Cyril laughed, not even bothering to look up at her face. “You seemed pretty off balance when you fought that dragon, now that could have been because of several reason, but the only one that makes sense to me, is that you weren’t used to your body,” he sounded confident in his assessment of the situation, his smug smirk all the indication anyone would need. “As for me being a part of you coming here…”he shook his head. “Do I look like I have the magic or skill required to rip someone from their universe? No I’m like you, I don’t belong here.”

Her eyes narrowed and a low growl worked its way from her throat. “Then you are some sort of Beast Boy ripoff.”

Cyril remained quiet for a moment as his hands stopped stitching her wounds. “No…” he whispered. “This was suppose to be a fun costume…” with that he continued to stitch her wounds, his hands working slower than before.

“And I was supposed to only get those coins as a prize.” She coughed and pulled her head up so Cyril could have better access to her wounds. “I had just won a RTS tournament and was just receiving the prize; a set of collector’s edition coins with each of the character’s marks on them.”

“Yea and I only wanted to have a fun time, then I fall through the ground and now I have to hide from ponies,” he said bitterly.

She smirked at Cyril and turned her head. “And here I thought dragons would be the toughest thing on the planet.”

Cyril gave her a deadpan look. “Try being strapped down onto a table and being stuck with a rubber needle.”

All the dragoness did was stare at Cyril for a few seconds before looking away. Conflict apparent in her eyes. Cyril ended the conversation there and instead stood up and inspected his work. It wasn’t perfect and it certainly wasn’t the stitch pattern they used in hospitals, but it would hold.

“Where else are you hurt,” he asked, not wanting to continue their conversation and instead opting for a serious tone.

She turned over onto her back, revealing the dozens of scratches on her chest and stomach. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m only doing this because I need my wounds tended to.”

Cyril didn’t respond, instead he opted for cleaning her wounds. Applying more disinfectant to the rag, Cyril gently wiped the wounds down, taking care not to press down to hard. Again he felt her tense up and he could hear her holding back sounds of pain, but he paid little attention to her and instead wanted to work in silence.

Grabbing the stitches, Cyril worked on her wounds. The silence allowed him to work quickly, and soon he found himself looking over the wounds on her chest and stomach. Again they weren’t as good as what a doctor could do, but they would hold.

“How do you feel?” he asked as he headed for the entrance of the cave and used the snow to wash the blood off his hands.

The dragoness flipped back onto her stomach and said, “Other than a need for a good bath, I’m fine.” She leaned over and pulled the green dragon’s body over, tearing a chunk out of it.

Cyril watched a bit in disgust, the show of cannibalism, as he only now just remembered the dead carcass of the dragon he had helped defeat. He had forgotten about the other dragon, but he remembered as the dragoness had gone to great lengths to drag it back to his cave. He had been unaware of what her intentions had been for the dead dragon, and now he wished he’d never known.

Without a word Cyril moved farther back into the cave, away from the dragoness, and regrettably away from the fire. It would be colder the farther he went, but he’d prefer not to watch her eat. The cold proved too much for his normal form, as such he chose the form of a wolf, before he circled a spot and laid down.

“So you don’t want some of this?” The dragoness asked.

Cyril lifted his head and stared at the dragoness before he eyed the dead dragon. He shook his head and closed his eyes hoping for rest.

“As much as I hate to admit it, this dragon is half yours. Are you saying I may have your share?” Cyril heard a wet tearing sound and a gulp.

Sighing, Cyril lifted his head and returned to his normal form and moved back towards the fire. He sat across from the dragoness and eyed her. “I’m not really into eating anything that talks,”

The dragoness shrugs and takes another bite from the corpse. “More fo’ me thn. I guessh not ev’ryone played VRs where you had to-” she swallows her mouthful “had to kill other players in order to survive.”

“Well this isn’t a VR, whatever that is. I only eat animals and whatever food I can find,” Cyril shook his head and avoided looking at the dragon as she ate. He wasn’t sure his stomach could handle it.

For a few minutes Cyril didn’t hear anything else from the dragoness. “Yeah, I know. The pain I feel reminds me of that fact every second.” The dragoness shuffled some and when he looked over at her, he saw that she had put her head under her left wing.

Cyril hesitated for a second, he just wanted to sleep and let her heal so he could be leave, but he recognized her tone of voice. He heard it every time he spoke about being in Equestria. “You have a family back home?”

Her tone changed to one of distaste as she said, “Only my dad and he’s busy with the company. All I have back there are games and VRs.”

“Sorry to hear that. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got people I miss too,” he replied, before laying down and facing away from the fire. “By the way... I’m Cyril.”

The dragoness lifted her wing just enough so that she could see Cyril. “.... Angelus Martin, but you will call me Ms. Martin.” She let her wing fall back down and sighed. “You’re wrong if you think I have anyone I miss back there.”

Cyril gave no indication that he heard her, instead he was focused on trying to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t long ago that he lost his home, and now he wasn’t alone. He wondered if they were the only two, or if more people were suffering like they were. Angelus didn’t seem like a someone he could express his feelings to, and that was fine by him, but he at least took some comfort in knowing he wasn’t alone.

Chapter 11: Stubborn dragons and painful memories

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 12: Uncertain Goodbye's

“You know you’re going to end up hurting yourself again, and your stitches have only just healed,” Cyril said as he looked up from the fire to scold Angelus like a child.

She glared at him, hoping to tell him how foolish he was with only that. “I won’t. I’ve told you before that Angelus could modify her body to suit her surroundings,” she said as she lifted herself up on her hind legs. “Besides, these legs are fully grown and stronger than you.”

Six days ago Cyril and Angelus had noticed two lumps grown from Angelus’s side. Angelus had supplemented that she had wished for four legs instead of to. Cyril had admittedly began to worry, the sight of two lumps growing from her side, thankfully Angelus had put his fears to rest and assured him that it was natural for her character to change.

“How much practice do you have with those legs?” He asked as he eyed the new additions with a bit of skepticism.

Angelu gave him a half-hearted glare. “That’s why I’m testing them. After your little freak out when they first appeared, I thought it would be best to wait until they were fully formed before standing on them.”

Cyril shook his head in embarrassment, his green cheeks lighting red for a moment. “Hey in my defense I’ve never seen someone grow new limbs without being exposed to radiation,” he replied before clearing his throat and straightening a bit. “So you sure you want to leave tomorrow?”

Angelus lowered herself to where my new forelegs bent when they touched the ground, getting used to the muscles as she supported herself on her wings still. “If I didn’t need to learn how to use these legs, I’d leave today. These mountains are too cold and too sparsely populated to support a dragon for more than passing through to better places.”

He nodded his head as he turned back to the fire. She watched as a frown worked it’s way on his face, like he was disappointed that she was leaving. Angelus frowned herself before shaking her head as she tried to clear her thoughts. Cyril however sat and stared into the fire a bit. He was sad to see her go. Having spent so much time alone and fending for himself, had left him feeling lonely. While Angelus’s attitude was rude and brash, Cyril couldn’t deny that he didn’t want to be alone again.

“Yeah I guess that makes sense. Just remember, the ponies here are a little jumpy so try not to intentionally scare them otherwise you might find them chasing after you,” he offered.

Angelu rolled her eyes and sat her weight fully onto her forelegs. “What is it with you and avoiding ponies? It’s like you want to live as an animal.”

He chuckled lightly, the irony of her statement had not been lost on him. Ever since he had arrived in Equestria he had only ever lived to survive, he never sought out fun things or to try and make friends here. When he wasn’t hunting he was sleeping, when he wasn’t sleeping he was hunting, and when he was doing neither, he had been patrolling his territory to keep other animals out.

“It’s nothing like that, though living like an animal here isn’t the same as living like an animal back home. I’m avoiding the ponies because I don’t want them to come after me.” he paused for a moment as he collected his thoughts. “There’s a race here called changelings. They’re nasty little shapeshifters who drain the love of ponies. Now look at me, a shapeshifter who eats meat, a practice I’m sure is frowned upon by a society of mostly herbivores, back home what’s the first assumption people would make about the two of us?”

“I’m sure as long as we kept the meat eating out of sight, and our attitudes in check, we’ll be able to gain their trust some.” She stamped the ground with each leg before testing to see if she could stand on them separately.

“Well it might also have something to do with the fact that I’ve already been a lab specimen…” He commented not bothering to look at her this time.

Angelu snorted in amusement. “So you were poked and prodded while you were in a cage. I’ve played a VR or two where that happens. Always escaped in the most bloody and gore-filled way I could find.”

He sighed in mild frustration, she was getting on his nerves and he suspected that she knew exactly what she was doing and was loving it.“Firstly I wasn’t in a VR. Sure I wanted to bite that mare, but I didn’t want to seriously hurt her, second her teacher, the most powerful creature in this world was standing right there.”

She glared back a Cyril. “I wasn’t saying you had been in a VR, I was trying to relate to you by saying I had been in the same situation, yet reacted differently.”

“Ah I see,” He said before standing up and stretching. “So how are those new legs then? They giving you any trouble?” he changed the subject hoping to avoid any more unpleasantries.

There was a yelp of surprise quickly followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.. “Not until you asked.”

“oh...well then this is awkward…” Cyril replied going quiet.

“Ya think?” She muttered as she stood up again. Her forelegs shook a little before she sighed and laid down. “So your powers are just like Beast Boy’s?” she growled mild frustraion in her voice.

Cyril turned in surprise, she’d never once really bothered to get to know him, and he couldn’t help but be a little happy about it. he quickly pushed his surprise down however and thought about it.

“Uh, yeah pretty much. I mean I can change into any animal I’ve seen in real life or in books, and I can heal faster than a normal human. I’ve got increased strength and reflexes and a better sense of smell but...that’s about all.”

“So basically exactly like Beast Boy.”She pulled her right foreleg up and rested it on her chin. “Can you change into creatures such as unicorns or gryphons?”

Again surprise worked it’s way on his face. “What you mean like the one’s that live here?”

“Yeah. It’ll be even better if you could turn into a dragon.” She said as she turned to look at the cave entrance, after which she quickly turned back to face Cyril, but he couldn’t help but feel as if she had been trying to avoid looking at him.

Shaking his head to focus he thought about what she was asking. Never once had he actually thought about trying to turn into a pony or a gryphon for that matter. He could Angelus smiling from the corner of his eyes though, she seemed to be enjoying his stupidity. “I’ve, actually never tried it no,”Cyril facepalmed as her smiling turned into a full blown grin “That could have made things so much easier.”

“So you’re a bit too slow to realize that without someone helping you to think about it?”Angelus chuckled and shook her head in amusement. “Maybe you should just stick to being an animal.”

“Hey I…!” he began before he cut himself off and sat back down, a sad frown spreading on his face. It was true, Cyril had never really lived in Equestria. Sure he slept and ate and took up residence in the Everfree, but he never really lived. he used his powers only when the need would arise. he never used them for fun or to relax or even to see what it felt like to be an animal.

“I don’t use my powers except to hunt, fight or get away from danger. I’ve never used them for anything other than surviving.” he whispered out.

I rolled my eyes and gave him my best ‘friendly’ smile. “That’s the difference, then. I’m thinking up ways to use my fire and scales to try to get accepted into pony society, while you - not having been brought up to think long term - are trying to not ‘become corrupted’ by your powers.”

“I’m not trying to prevent being ‘corrupted’, I’m trying to prevent being dissected in someone’s lab.”

“Well how will they know if you look and act just like a pony, or a gryphon, or even a minotaur?”

“Well with a pony it would be harder for them to notice,” he admitted, “But as a gryphon or a minotaur, it would be easy to spot me. Green fur isn’t usually an inherited color of either species.”

Angelus paused for a moment as she thought about something that she hadn't thought of before. “Can you change genders?”

“....”

“...”

The silence that ensued from that single question alone was thick in the air, that even the crunch of the quietest mouse would be heard. Cyril stared at Angelus mild horror on his face, as she stared back curiosity the only emotion he could see..

“...I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” Cyril finally said as he broke the silence, his cheeks burning bright red in embarrassment.

Angelus snorted in derision. “It’d make you easier to be around if you could. Plus it would make it even harder for those two mares... what were their names? Floyd and Gayness?”

“Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.” he deadpanned. “In what incarnation of the character Beast boy was he ever able to change his gender? This is Beast boy not Gender bender!” he yelled his cheeks still burning bright red.

Angelus shrugged “I guess the producers never thought to bring it up except for one episode.”

Shaking his head to dislodge the unsettling mental images his mind had crafted he turned to Angelus a deep frown on his face “Your future’s messed up cartoons aside, no I highly doubt I can change genders, and if it were possible I would never change into a female. It’s just too weird.” Sighing, he brushed his hair out of his face as he took a breath to calm his nerves. “Now about transforming into a pony, that I can try.”

Closing his eyes, Cyril sat crossed legged and began to sift through his mind as he tried to find the instincts that would come with the form of a unicorn. Concentrating on slowing his breathing he began his search with the Equine species.

“So this is all that’s going to happen? You’re going to stand there with your eyes closed?” Angelus’s voice broke through his concentration as her words wormed their way into his mind.

“I’m trying to find the right instincts so I can see if I can transform into a unicorn. Not every transformation is instantaneous, I have to use a form multiply times in order to use it at will.” he replied, his eyes still closed and his tone sounding a bit harsh.

There was the sound of air being expelled from a small space quickly followed by the subtle shaking of the ground as Angelus laid on the ground to watch him.

Starting again, Cyril began with Equines and slowly sifted through the many different species and breeds of horse, pony donkey and so on. It took a while, but eventually he found what he was looking for. In his mind's eye he could picture the form of an Equestrian native unicorn stallion, Something in his mind quickly took to the image and he could slowly feel his body transforming. His hands slowly began to melt together as they formed the keratin hooves. His feel went through a similar process. His arms and legs extended as his bones slowly shifted, his muscles moving to allow the unnatural movement that came with shapeshifting.

Various other body parts began to shift and Cyril couldn’t help but feel a mild twinge of discomfort as his head neck, and back all shifted. Finally Cyril felt something pushing through the skin of his forehead. As his new horn grew, he felt another twinge of pain but it quickly passed. Opening his eyes Cyril began to examine himself before he gave a whinny of annoyance and stomped one of his hooves before turning in a tight circle to try and examine himself. His nostrils gave a puff of steam as more neighing and whinneys escaped him.

“Heh, guess you found the wrong ones. You’re supposed to be half that tall and be able to talk.” Angelus snarked causing Cyril to turn to her and glare.

She was right though, Cyril looked more like an earth horse with a horn sticking from his forehead. Were he to walk into a town of ponies they would not recognize what he was and thus would more than likely run screaming claiming him some mutant.

Giving Angelus another snort of annoyance he closed his eyes to try and focus again. This transformation took just as long as the last. Having managed to shrink his size, he now looked like a gryphon, though his features looked to realistic and his fur/feathers were still green. Opening his mouth he gave a hawks screech before he quickly closed it and looked down at himself. Another screech, this time in anger, left his beak as he stomped his taloned forelegs on the ground.

Angelus smirked yet again. “Guess you can’t talk while you’re transformed.”

Again he closed his eyes in concentration, and just as before it took much too long, but when he started to transform his body shrank at an alarming rate, before his body was engulfed in green flames.Angelus watched as the fire died down, and standing where Cyril had been was a green bird whose feathers seemed to radiate with heat. The bird gave a screech and flapped it’s wings a few times lifting itself into the air.It’s feathers moved in a way that made the bird appear as if it were on fire before it quickly landed and shook it’s whole body as if dislodging something from between its feathers.

“Well look at that, a green Phoenix. You have any copper in you?”

Cyril quickly returned to normal as he glared at Angelus and mumbled about the magic of Equestria messing with his transformations.

“You aren’t going to try a dragon next?” Angelus asked somewhat excited to see what he would look like.

Cyril shook his head as he turned to Angelus his frown still firmly planted on his face. “Don’t need to. One of the incarnations of Beast boy allowed him to transform into mythical creatures. Already I’ve turned into a unicorn, a gryphon and a Phoenix.” he sighed lying back on the cold ground. “I think my powers only let me transform into non-sapient animals, trying to blend in with the ponies isn’t going to happen.”

“You haven’t tried a dragon yet, though. There’s a chance you’ll still be able to talk.”

“Not likely but I can always give it a shot, after all I know just about as much as you do about my powers.” he replied as he closed his eyes again.

Searching through his instincts again he began to make a mental barrier as he separated normal animals away from the mythical creatures. Animals were placed in mental cages and labeled to make searching for what he wanted easier. Doing this now with his new forms Cyril began to search trying to dig up the instincts of a dragon. It wasn’t easy though because he didn’t know what it was he was looking for.

He sat for a few minutes longer than was normal before he found what he was looking for. Already he could feel the changes coming on. It started with his hands and feet, as it had always done, before slowly traveling up his body. His hands and feet shifted slightly as claws grew from his digits. His head elongated sharp canines forming in his mouth and horns pushing from atop his head. From his backside a tail was already starting to push its way away from his body and the twinge of pain in his back assured him of two nubs slowly growing into large wings. Then Cyril felt cracks going along his skin. Sections of his skin pulled up and slightly inward making layers of skin that overlapped slightly, before the skin quickly hardened and began scales.

Looking down at himself again to take in his new form, he opened his mouth to say something only for a small roar to take place of his words. Angelus stared at him as her mind slowly worked a small detail out.

“.... You’re shorter than me,” she said with a bit of amusement.

Cyril quickly looked down at himself and back at her noting that he was indeed smaller than her. Opening his mouth he let out another roar, this one of anger, as he tried to defend himself.

“Seems like you can’t talk as a dragon either. I do like how strong you look, though.”

Cyril quickly tilted his head as he processed her words before his cheeks were tinted red in embarrassment and quickly turned to leave the cave to cool the burning sensation that accompanied his blush.

Angelus stood outside the cave her wings spread wide in anticipation as the day she would finally leave had come, however her flight was delayed slightly as Cyril stood a ways away as he talked about thermal winds.

“...for the most part you can just use them to glide over long distances, which comes in handy since flapping your wings endlessly wears you out pretty quickly, they also have an added bonus of lifting you higher, but that only really happens if it’s a stronger thermal wind coming from some source like a volcano or a geyser,” He droned on as he started walking around the small snowed in valley.

Angelus watched him with a glower of disapproval even going so far as to blow a cloud of smoke in his direction. Coughing, Cyril waved his hand infront of his face to disperse the cloud. A giggle escaped Angelus’s lips as his nose was covered in black soot

Glaring back up at Angelus Cyril spoke his tone showing how unamused.“Look, I’m trying to help you. The first time I flew I got distracted and nearly crashed headfirst into a tree.” he said as he grabbed some snow to wash his face with.

“And I know everything you’re telling me,”She replied. “I’ll learn nothing new from you when it comes to flying.”

Grunting in annoyance, he threw his hands up. “So sorry, I was only trying to be helpful.” he said as he walked well out of Angelus’s wingspan.“So you’re going to leave today then? Any clue where you’re going or what you’ll do?” he asked calmly.

“Yes, I am.”she replied stretching her wings a bit. “Like I said yesterday, these mountains are too cold and too sparsely populated by animals to support a dragon. A better place would be a forest or some plains.”

He nodded for a second thinking about something for a moment before he snapped his fingers. “Just some friendly advice, if you head southeast, there’s a big city called Baltimare, right next to it, is a forest. As far as I know, there aren’t any dangerous animals that could get the jump on you.”

“Hah, as if something smaller than me could hurt me.” she sniffed in disdain. “I think I’ll head southwest, though.”

“There’s a place out there called Los Pegasus, I think Vanhoover is also in that general direction,” he said aloud more to himself than to anyone else.

“So where are you going to head?” Angelu asked.

He paused for a minute. “I hadn’t really thought about it, before you showed up I was planning on heading to the Crystal Empire just a ways west of here, but I’m not planning to make my home there. It’s still cold and they’ve got a princess living there.”

Angelus scoffed and rolled her eyes “Really? Even more princesses? Why are there no kings or queens that I’ve heard of?”

“Because females outnumber males five to one plus as far as I know the four princesses are all alicorns so they’re pretty much immortal. Who better to run an entire country than the one who’s watched it grow through it’s good and bad spots?” Cyril said as his tone changed to one very similar to that of a scholar.

“If that’s the case why not call themselves queens?”

“I don’t know, maybe they can’t be Queens until they get married or something” he replied before he stopped to think about something. “Although Cadence is married to Shining Armor and she still has the title princess…”

Sighing Angelus shook her head, “I don’t get this world’s politics. Anyways, I might as well get going.”

Cyril nodded, sorrow flashing across his face but a moment before he quickly hide it. Taking a deep breath Cyril gave Angelus a forced smile before transforming into a hawk and taking off west, leaving Angelus to stand at the mouth of the cave alone

He flew for half an hour before he was finally sure he was far enough away from Angelus that she wouldn’t see him. Landing quickly his form reverted to his human state as his hands clutched at his chest. The pain had slowly started to bloom throughout his when he had left Angelus behind. a Part of him had wanted to stay and see her off, mostly to make sure she would be fine, but that part of him that couldn’t watch her go, couldn’t bear to be left alone again had forced him to leave without saying a true goodbye.

It wasn’t any sort of affection towards the girl turned dragon, but a deep desire to have company, and as it had been with the ponies, Cyril was afraid. Afraid that if he had stayed and they did travel together, that they’d grow attached, become friends even, and then she’d leave him in search of her own glory. That fear was to much for him, he wouldn’t allow that to be his life, he couldn’t let that be his life.

The pain never left his chest, not really, but as he kneeled their allowing the events to replay in his mind, the throat slowly numbed itself and with heavy limbs, Cyril managed to pick himself up and walk forward towards his destination, his powers allowing him some ability to weather the mildly cold snow around him, he would change and fly to his destination soon, but for now he needed time to think and allow himself to collect his thoughts.

Author's Note

So for those of you who decided to pay attention to my authors notes, and if it wasn't fairly obvious from the way the chapter ended, this was the last chapter Moon_fire and me decided to work on together, whether or not we work on another chapter together is completely in the wind.

Next chapter, after weeks of having taken care of the dragoness Angelus, Cyril will find himself in The Crystal Empire. Our here will see sights of love and maybe he'll get to meet the princess of love? probably not, I haven't decided so this next chapter is going to be a surprise even for me.

Also I've done a lot of research into the Beast boy character and never once have I ever come across the idea that Beast boy could change genders. I'm only adding this because I feel like I'm going to get a private message from someone asking to write a chapter on that. That being said I'd like to know what you guys want to see. After the Crystal Empire, where should our hero go?

Chapter 13: Sleep keeps a mare sane

Twilight’s friends were worried about her. While the Princess of friendship still took care of her regular duties, her free time was spent obsessing over the mysterious figure who had saved them from Starlight’s brainwashing. She had watched as he transformed into an animal and flew off, and while her rational mind told her that magic had to be involved with his shapeshifting abilities, her preliminary tests on what had most assuredly been him as both the fox and the wolf, proved that not an ounce of magic was within him.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were the most concerned about her. They’re run in with Angelus proved to be an interesting matter. The dragoness had revealed much to them, perhaps too much. Not only did they now have the name of their savior, but they knew he walked among the dragons. A feat that proved nearly fatal for others.

Matters were not helped any as the news of Starlights escape had quickly spread, now ponies were coming forth claiming to have seen the mare however it all proved to be false reports, half the ponies accused of being Starlight looked nothing like her, and one was a Stallion. Between Twilight’s efforts to find and imprison Starlight, and trying to find out exactly what made Cyril tick with the limited Research materials she had, the mare was running herself ragged.

Rainbow Dash had decided not to come forward to tell Twilight what she knew about Cyril. Both her and Pinkie had agreed that it would be best to leave Twilight out of the loop, since she was close to mad scientist levels. Already her mane was in a constant state of frazzl, and the bags under her eyes told the story of how late she would stay up. Being good friends, they thought it best to let her wear herself out and finally crash.

Their thinking proved flawed as Twilight had only increased in her desperation to learn more. It was now, that Rainbow and Pinkie walked to the castle that they came up with a plan to force the mare to rest. Stopping the tallest spire just over the hill Rainbow Dash zoomed over to the door unsurprised to find Pinkie already knocking at the door.

Rainbow Dash landed in front of the door, waiting for the door to open. She didn’t have to wait long as the door quickly swung in on it’s hinges. A ragged and looking and sleep deprived...Spike? Rainbow Dash sighed as Pinkie Pie gasped. It was much worse than they had initially thought. Normally when Twilight got worked up, Spike was known to lose a few hours of sleep, but this? The young dragon looked like he was the dead standing.

His eyes drooped, bags as big as any adult’s under his eyes, his eyes burned from the sudden light and a claw went up to block the sun out. His spines drooped over the side of his head, and he had a grimace of pain on his face. Looking up at the two mares, he groaned.

“What!” he snapped at the two of them, his lack of sleep obviously making him ornery.

Pinkie pie only shook her head, her mane paling a bit as some of the curls uncurled themselves giving her a semi-straight mane. “We’re looking for Twilight Spike,” Pinkie Pie mumbled out depressed.

Sighing the Drake lifted a claw to his face and groaned out an apology. “She’s...Just check the study,” he said as he stepped aside to let them walk inside.

Rainbow gave the drake a concerned look, watching as he closed the door. Quickly turning to face the stairs she didn’t notice as he passed out and landed on the crystal floor, before curling up into a ball. Ascending the stairs, the two mares moved quickly and with barely restrained worry, towards Twilight’s study.

Throwing the doors opened, the two expected to find the room in a mess. They were not disappointed. Book were stacked high up to the ceiling, while others seemed to have fallen and lay in a scattered pile around the room, Papers with various notes were scattered and stuck to various surfaces. Ink had been spilled in several spots. Coffee and uneaten food stood stacked on a table, as flies buzzed around, the smell of stale sweat and air as well as the overpowering hint of rotting food lingered in the air, nearly making the two mares gag in disgust.

Finally against the wall was a large blackboard with various papers that neither Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie could make heads or tails. Various red string went from one end of the black board to another as it seemed to connect papers together. Standing in front of the board, having not turned around to greet her friends, was Twilight.

The princess was an even bigger mess than the rest of the room. Her mane and coat were so frazzled they they seemed to be falling out. Coffee and food stained the front of her coat, and she began to reek of the foul stench of stale air and unwashed mare. Her face however was the tip of the trainwreck. her eyes had deep bags that it looked like she’d gone three days without sleep, her eyes had begun to sink into her skull. Her breath reeked as she had neglected her oral hygiene.

“Twilight!” Both mares shouted in shock as they rushed towards their friend, concern clearly evident in their voices as they tried to drag the mare away from the blackboard.

Looking at her friends in confusion, Twilight pushed her mane aside to look between them. “Rainbow Dash? Pinkie Pie? What are you girls doing here?” She asked her voice giving away how tired she was.

Both mares shied back as from a distance Twilight looked terrible, but now that she was right in front of them, it was clear just how bad the situation was. Her eyes were bloodshot and they had developed a twitch that didn’t look too good. Food stuck to her teeth and her breath was horrendous, her coat was matted with a thick layer of dirt and sweat, her mane appeared to be falling out as several strands fell before their eyes.

Rainbow Dash was the first to speak up. “We’re worried about you Twilight,” She said her tone sounding angry yet also somehow caring.

“Yeah you’ve been stuck up here for a week and you don’t look to good,” Pinkie added, her voice taking on a nasally quality as a hoof moved to hold her nose.

Twilight shook her head, her friends were overreacting. She hadn’t been in the study that long, if she had to hazard a guess, she’d say it had only been a day maybe not even. “I appreciate your concern girls, but I’m fine,” she replied trying to sound cheery, but it just came out tired.

“No you’re not egghead,” Rainbow replied her tone flat and unamused. “You look like shit Twilight,”

Pinkie Pie gasped at Rainbow Dash’s bluntness. The prismatic mare had no tack. “Dashy!” she yelled, her voice ever cheery, but with a slight undertone of disapproval.

“Pinkie Pie look at her, her mane’s falling out, her breath reeks, and she looks like she just got done fighting a pack of timberwolves,” Rainbow replied nearly yelling.

“I’m right here you know…” Twilight tried to say her words slurring a bit as her legs started wobbling, threatening to give out.

Pinkie Pie looked back at Twilight and nodded. “Dashie may be blunt, but she’s right, Twilight. You don’t look to good. Come on we're going to help you get a shower and then we're going to make sure you get some sleep,” she said her tone stern before it returned to its usual cheer and a wide smile.

Twilight wanted to argue, wanted to tell her friends they were being silly, and that she was fine and could still work. She never got to say any of these things, for no sooner had she opened her mouth to speak did her body finally decide that it had had enough. Her legs buckled and she fell to the ground in a heap. Pinkie Pie was the first to her side, checking to make she she hadn’t hurt herself before lifting the mare to her back. Turning to Rainbow Dash, they two of them shared a look and headed for Twilight's room. The shower could wait until she had woken up, for now. She needed her sleep.

00000

Several hours had past since Twilight had fainted due to her lack of sleep. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie had stayed after having set Twilight, and later spike into their beds for their much needed rest. The two mares had decided it was best to do some cleaning while the resident Princess was asleep. Scraping and washing the dishes was just one of the many things they had done to make the castle, or rather the single room in the castle, look more presentable, though they had agreed it was best to leave the notes and blackboard alone.

The prospect of an angry Twilight was not a fun idea to either of the mares, however they did ensure that when she awoke everything would be as it was, only cleaner. Pinkie Pie seemed to have an unnaturally uncanny ability to clean even the papers and blackboard without damaging or erasing any of the information held on either of the items, Rainbow Dash simply dismissed it as Pinkie Pie. In fact as the prismatic mare watched the impossible fluff of pink that was Pinkie Pie, she had to note, with just a hint of jealousy and awe, as the mare seemed to move exceptionally fast, despite the lack of wings.

It wasn’t until the next day that the two mares had come back to check up on their friend. Pushing the door open they walked inside. “Twilight?” Rainbow called as she walked up the stairs towards Twilight's room. Hopefully she had enough common sense to sleep in, she more than anyone desperately needed it. Heading first to her room Rainbow and Pinkie Pie found the bed empty, Spike’s bed was also empty. Sighing, both mares quickly headed for the study where they had found Twilight. Slamming the door open, they readied themselves to chew their friend out, only to stop as the looked at the room in awe. The papers that had lain scattered on the tables was neatly organized, Several large stacks sat nearly on the table. A quick look however showed a lack of the purple mare.

Turning to look at each other confused, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, tried to figure out what had happened and where Twilight could be. “Rainbow Dash? Pinkie Pie?” A voice suddenly called out confused from behind them.

Turning they spotted spike wearing a pink apron with a heart in the middle. “Hey Spike!” Pinkie Pie said waving at the young Drake. “You’re look much better, not as tired and certainly not as cranky as yesterday.” She added her smile spreading.

“Hey where’s Twilight?” Rainbow quickly asked, her missing presence was a little unnerving. The way she had acted over the past few days only increased Rainbow’s worry, when Twilight had her mind set on something, she could be lose her common sense and do things that might not be to good for her health. Staying up several days in a row without sleep, was a good example.

“In the kitchen eating breakfast, Where you guys the one who got her to get some sleep?”

“Yep! Well actually she fainted and we carried her to her bed, and you.” giggle snort. “It was actually kind of cute to watch you sleep, you were mumbling in your sleep about gems and Rarity and you mentioned something about an Ice cream hill. Is that a real place, because if it is you have to take me some time, because I love ice cream, then again so does everypony else, I mean what pony doesn’t like ice cream…”Pinkie Pie began to ramble, causing Spike to ignore her and turn to Rainbow Dash.

“Thanks guys, Twilight was starting to scare me, and I was losing a lot of sleep as well,” he said before he remembered something. “And...sorry for uh....yelling at you guys yesterday.” he smiled sheepishly, looking ashamed.

Rainbow Dash only smiled and ruffled his spines. “No need to apologize big guy, I can get pretty cranky when I’m tired to.” Spike smiled appreciatively at that before clearing his throat loud enough to break Pinkie out of her ramble.

“So I take it you came to check up on Twilight to make sure she doesn’t go overboard again?” They both nodded causing Spike to smile at that, before turning and waving them to follow him.

Leading them down the stairs and into a side hallway, all three came to rest in an incredibly large kitchen. Several burners rested on the top of the oven, a large fridge sat in the corner as cabinets lined the walls. In the center of the room is a countertop. Sitting at the countertop, looking slightly tired was Twilight. There were still bags under her eyes, and her mane was still a mess. It looked as if Twilight had only just recently woken up, and hadn’t yet taken a shower.

“Spike who was it?” Twilight started to say, before she looked up from her plate of pancakes. Spotting Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie she stopped. “Oh hello girls,”

“Hey Twilight, you’re looking better. You didn’t get up in the middle of the night and start working again did you?” Rainbow asked as she eyed her friend suspiciously.

She laughed as she shook her head. “No, I slept through the whole night.” Letting out a loud yawn she fixes her gaze on her two friends. “I take it you two put me in bed last night?”

“Yep! We came in looking for you because you were obsessed and when we found you, you were all ‘uhhh’ and we were like, ‘gasp’ and Spike was all, ‘ahhhh!’ and then you passed out,” looking at Pinkie Pie, Twilight had to blink a few times before she shook her head and smiled at her friends.

“Well I wanted to thank you for that. If you guys hadn’t come along when you did, I might still be working,” she said smiling.

“You’re welcome, so egghead, you’ve been working since we got back from Griffionstone that we didn’t get to tell you about it.” Rainbow Dash said instantly getting Twilight to perk up at that. “Before that though, you look like you could use a shower.” Rainbow added, getting Twilight to grimace as she finally smelled herself and nodded in agreement.

Getting up Twilight excused herself before heading for the bathroom. The kitchen remained quite for all but five seconds before Spike spoke up from behind them. “You guys want something to eat? I’ve got plenty of pancake batter left?”

At the thought of food, both mares nodded their heads, Pinkie more so than Rainbow. Smiling Spike quickly got to work on making more pancakes.

“So Spike did you get enough rest last night?” Pinkie asked as she took a seat near the table. The concern was clear on her face despite her large happy smile.

“Yeah I did, thanks by the way, if you hadn’t come along we’d still be up working tirelessly.” He said giving both mares an appreciative smile. “I honestly don’t know why Twilight’s so worried about that guy anyways, he saved you and the other girls right?” he asked getting Rainbow and Pinkie to look at him funny.

“What do you mean?” Pinkie Pie asked confused.

“Well they guy can turn into animals right, and he fooled you guys into thinking he was eaten. Twilight has it in her head that this guy, whoever he is, might be up to something bad,” Spike replies as he flips a pancake over. “or at least that’s what she was going on about near the end before she fainted.”

Before anyone could say anything, the kitchen door opened, revealing Twilight who looked relaxed, A towel was currently wrapped around her mane and the bags under her eyes were less prominent.and the stench of stale sweat and body odor was no longer present. A smile had worked it’s way onto her face, as she looked happier than she had before she left.

“That was a quick shower,” Spike said as he eyed Twilight suspiciously. “You sure you used soap?” he joked.

“Yes Spike,” She replied shooting him a playful glare. “Unlike you I don’t play in the water,” Laughing she turned to look at Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, just as Spike sat a plate full of pancakes in front of each mare. “So I take it you guys came to make sure Spike and me were alright?”

“Yeah and Spike just told us something that I think you need to explain,” Rainbow Dash spoke first, her tone was somewhat angry, and confused. “How can you think Cyril might be up to something bad? He saved all of us and he saved that town!”

“Yeah Twilight, I mean he may have be kind of strange, and sure he hangs out with a dragon but you can be strange sometimes to and you’ve got Spike.” Pinkie Pie added just getting a strange look from both Twilight and Spike.

“Um...girls, who’s Cyril?” Twilight asked, catching both mares off guard. Pinkie Pie was the first to recover however.

“The green guy who can change into animals.” She said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Right, and you just decided to give him a name?” Twilight asked still confused.

“Nope his dragon friend told us his name.”

“His dragon friend, and when did you meet this Dragon?”

“On our way to Gryphonstone.” Pinkie Pie smiled brightly.

Twilight’s eye began to twitch as she stared at the pink mare who seemed clueless to Twilight's minor episode. “Tell me everything that happened on your trip to Gryphonstone.” She demanded as a quill and piece of paper appeared.

Author's Note

So originally this chapter was going to be longer, because wanted to do a scene of Cyril walking through the frozen tundra on his way to the Crystal Empire, but I could not for the life of me find a decent way to write the scene. I had already gotten the chapter done and reread over it before i realized that it was just rambling and not even good rambling, as such I decided to scrap the second part and leave this with Twilight's little freak out.