Underworld: Equestria

Chapter 4: A Demonstration of Force

“You’re scared aren’t you?” Lucian said suddenly, breaking Twilight’s chain of thought as she was reminded he was still present, and watching her. “Scared of me.”

Twilight bit her lip and looked silently across the room at him, the sight of those nightmarish blue eyes sending a shiver down her spine as she met their steely gaze. She hated to admit it, but she was scared, in fact she was terrified, he just had an unnatural aura about him, that she swore would make the bravest royal guards shake in their horseshoes.

On top of that, ponies were, but origin, a prey animal, and one of the predators they had feared since the beginning of time were wolves, no matter what form they came in.

“I… yes… I am.”

Lucian gave a chuckle and leaned back, raising his hands behind his head to act as a makeshift pillow against the bookcase, his blue eyes shifting from the nervous mare to the roof. Twilight, for her part, was both scared and a little annoyed, for the lycan seemed to be above all else amused at her fear.

“You have every right to be afraid of me for what I am Twilight, but just accept I will not hurt you; I have no reason too after all, and you are a friend of Luna’s,”

“I’m… glad to hear that,” Twilight said awkwardly with a smile, trying her best to disguise her still unwavering unease despite his kind words.

Before either of them said anything else, a chorus of loud knocks filled the room, and a moment later the library door was abruptly thrown opened; a small group of conversing ponies basically stampeded in soon after, causing Twilight, who was caught unawares, to take evasive action and hurriedly jump out of the way.

Lucian immediately recognized about half of them; one was Applejack, another was Rarity, and the last recognizable mare was Fluttershy. Beside them were another three ponies, and what Lucian guessed was the young dragon he'd seen briefly the night before; the first was a thickly built red stallion, wearing what looked to be a draft horse collar, one was a small sandy coloured filly with a red mane, and the last was a similarly small white unicorn. The dragon, as Lucian noted, had purple scales, bright green spikes, and strangely no wings to speak of.

As soon as they saw the lycan sitting across the room they all came to a sudden skidding stop, prompting an amused grin to spread across Lucian’s face.

“Well hello there,” he smiled warmly with open arms, running his crystal blue eyes over each of the presently stunned ponies and one small dragon. “I hope I’m not intruding on anything.”

“Actually, we all saw the guards leavin' and were coming to see ya, just to make sure ya'll were settling in alright,” Applejack chuckled, stepping forward with the tan filly and then red stallion beside her. “Lucian, I’d like ya to meet my siblings, my brother Big Macintosh…”

“Eeyup,” Has the red stallion’s single word reply, followed by a slight incline of his head.

“…and my little sister Applebloom,” she went on, pushing the small filly forward with her hoof in encouragement despite stubborn her resistance.

She clearly looked a little frightened of Lucian, and blatantly refused to meet his gaze... a reaction that now appeared natural for little girls of any race. Gently, Lucian reached forward and scratched the farm filly’s neck, immediately sending the formally timid creature into fits of cute giggling, the rather adorable scene causing everypony else to starting laughing along.

“H-hey! Stop it! T-that tickles!” She laughed.

“See, I’m not so bad now, am I?” Lucian grinned, removing his hand from the now hysterical filly.

Gently she came in close and put her front hooves on his leg, content to run her sort muzzle over every inch of him to satisfy her curiosity about the strange creature. Pretty soon she was joined by the white unicorn filly in her search for answers about the lycan; Lucian for his part simply folded his arms and closed his eyes as they had their fun, he, for one, didn’t mind curious children.

“Wow mister Lucian, I ain’t never seen anything like you before,” Applebloom giggled as she stepped back, Lucian’s eyes flicking open as the two removed themselves.

She then turned to the white unicorn filly beside her.

“This here’s Sweetie Belle, she’s one of my best friends,”

“Hi Lucian,” was the gigglish reply.

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Lucian said with a nod as he got to his feet, and then looked over at the small purple dragon, his thick frame towering over the two small fillies as well as everypony else even in his human form. “And who may I ask is your young scaly friend?”

“Oh, that’s my coltfriend Spi…”

That was when Lucian saw her eyes widen, and her cheeks go red... not to mention the small dragon start frantically looking for a place to hide, while Twilight and Applejack glared between the two of them. It seemed her tongue had betrayed her, and now an uneasy tension had begun building because of it, a tension Lucian couldn't help but grin at.

“Applebloom, I thought I told ya… you’re too young to be dating anypony,” Applejack scolded, glaring daggers at her younger sister.

“But Spike ain’t a pony AJ,” was the filly’s reply, backing up towards the towering dark haired lycan like she found him a source of protection. “Besides, Ash says it ain’t like we’re doing anything wrong.”

Applejack watched as Lucian lowered a hand to her little sister’s shoulder, and then she stopped dead in her tracks as his shimmering blue eyes met her own advancing green ones. Twilight had told her multiple times the lycan’s eyes were somehow eerily captivating, but Applejack hadn’t really believed her.

Now, however, she had to admit there was something about them, something supernatural that sent a cold shiver down the spine of the element of honesty.

“You… uh… we’ll talk about this later, Applebloom,” the amber pony stuttered finally, taking an uneasy step back towards the cover of her big brother, who was given the circumstances rather unreactive.

“Anyway…” Twilight said with slight cough, nodding towards the young purple dragon who was looking truly unnerved. “This is my assistant, Spike, he lives here with me so you’ll see a lot of him around… if you want to send a letter to Princess Celestia… or Luna, then just ask him.”

“Yeah… uh… hi, Lucian,” the little dragon said somewhat awkwardly, stepping forward with his scaled arm extended in a welcoming gesture, one which Lucian gladly returned by shaking the dragons claw with a smile.

“You can relax, Spike, I do not bite,” Lucian chuckled playfully, giving the young dragon a fond scratch on the head with his free hand. “Well, much anyway.”

There were a few light chuckles through the room, although Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity glanced between each other, and looked a little less than sure that his statement was reassuring, considering they all knew what he was.

Once the laughter had died down, Rarity took a small step forward, running her keen gaze over the brown robe Lucian had been wearing since the night before with a look of utter disgust.

“Darling, with all due respect… the pure sight of that thing is an insult to both fashion, and to good taste in general. Before we go any further, would you mind going upstairs and changing, I am rather looking forward to seeing how my work compares to those of the royal seamstresses.”

“Well... if you insist,” Lucian replied with a nod, immediately heading for the stairs.

Before he even got close to them though, the door once again crashed open with a loud bang, prompting everypony in the room to let out a chorus of surprised shouts and the lycan himself immediately spin around.

Applejack, who was closest to the door, regained herself and angrily looked around first, expecting to see a sprawled and grinning Rainbow Dash, but instead found herself coming face to face with the panting pegasus, Thunderlane.

“Thunder, what in the name of Celestia…” She started with a snort, the pegasus however quickly put a hoof over her mouth to silence her.

“AJ… there’s… a… stallion…” He panted, shaking his head at last to regain himself. “…we had a bunch of stallions from Manehatten come into town this morning, and they weren't friendly… and now they’re looting all the market stalls in Ponyville, including yours.”

“But I got Caramel running the stall today,” Applejack started, her heart suddenly spiking with fear as she saw Thunderlane nod, everypony else in the room looking between each other nervously, while a low growl echoed from behind them all.

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m here,” he snorted angrily with a shake of his head. “Caramel tried to step in, so they gave him a kicking AJ, I sent a few other’s to find one of the dragons, but so far we've had no luck.”

Applejack quickly turned around to her big brother, and judging from the venom in his eyes, he was as ready as she was to kick some flank.

“Come on big broth…”

Before she could finish, a new fear overcame the farmpony, a fear that ignited just as a huge dark blur sailed over her and everypony else in the room, and then before she could even blink, disappeared out the door like a shadow escaping its owner.

With a quick glance over her shoulder, she and everypony else saw the room was now void of Lucian other than a torn brown robe, which meant that the black wolf-like blur had in fact been the enraged lycan.

Thunderlane now looked like he had just had a terrible nightmare, his eyes flashing rapidly between the doorway and the other ponies in the room.

“W-what was that… t-thing?” The pegasus stallion stuttered rapidly, literally shaking in his metal horse shoes as he spoke.

“Spike, you and the fillies stay here… we’ll explain on the way Thunder,” Twilight said hurriedly, taking the lead and galloping out of the library with her friends beside her, the unicorn, for the Manehattan stallions' sakes, silently hoping Lucian somehow got lost.

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Scootaloo nervously peered out from the alleyway she was hiding in, silently hoping, by both Celestia and Luna, that the stallions standing in the now abandoned market street didn’t see her.

Luckily, they were at that point going between the abandoned stalls on the far side of the market street, the former owners sitting and fearfully watching them from the safety of various nearby windows.

Biting her lip, and trying to hold her nerve, the orange filly refocused her gaze on her target, Applebloom’s wounded friend Caramel, who was laying beaten and unconscious beside the smashed up ‘Sweet Apple Acres’ stall, his buckskin body covered in countless bloody cuts and bruises the group kicked into him.

By her reckoning, there were only a few meters between him and her alleyway, and hence all she had to do was grab him, and pull him out of there; Caramel of all ponies was quite light for a fully grown stallion, meaning that although she couldn’t lift him, he wasn’t that hard for her to drag over a short distance.

It was a crazy idea above all else, especially given she was on her own, but Applebloom’s family had always been nice to her, and hence the filly felt it her responsibly to try.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself, taking another glance at the small rowdy group as she made her move. “Rainbow Dash would be able to.”

Her first, and only, point of cover was Daisy’s smashed up flower cart, which now lay with its contents scattered in a floral semi-circle around it, half of the former elegant flower bunches trodden and squashed on the road. Scootaloo quickly and quietly scurried forward and ducked behind the remains, a few drops of sweat running down her face as she leant into the safety of the upturned wooden cart.

So far, so good.

Caramel was now only a couple of meters away, so close she could hear his breathing.

Just as she readied to make her move, however, she froze as her ears pricked up; she could hear both the groups’ hoof beats and rowdy voices, both of which were getting louder, which in turn meant they were coming her way. Silently she retreated into the cover of the flower stand, biting down hard on her hoof to try and control herself as she heard the group coming ever closer.

“Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” She thought hurriedly, closing her eyes tightly as the sound of hooves came ever closer, so loud now she swore the gang was walking right up to her hiding place.

“What do we do with him?” she heard a voice laugh, the hoarse accent that was mixed in making her guess he was from either Canterlot or Manehatten.

She heard the entire group let out a chorus of snorts, and a moment later she whimpered as the wood of her hiding place creaked loudly, giving her the impression somepony was either leaning, or even standing on it.

“That dumb farmer… I reckon just leave him boys,” said another voice. “Maybe he’ll learn his les…”

The stallion’s voice suddenly trailed off, which both confused both Scootaloo, and apparently his comrades.

The frightened filly did nothing more than listen, and ready to try and escape for a moment... but then, among the loud sounds of their breathing and the creaking of wood, she heard something else...

...a rhythm of thundering footsteps that were far too loud to be that of a pony.

“You guys hear somet-” one of the stallions started, sounding to Scootaloo’s surprise a little unnerved.

Before he could finish, something cut him off.

That something was a titanic roar that was so loud and deep, Scootaloo swore the very ground beneath her hooves shook; it wasn't a roar that belonged to a dragon, but something even should could tell was far darker, that much she could tell for certain.

A moment later, there was a loud scream followed by a sickly crack of breaking timber.

Finally losing her nerve, the filly sprinted out blindly from her cart and headed back for the cover of her alleyway.

Before she even got close she slammed into something and fell back on her rump, something she realized that was thick, hard, and furry.

In absolute terror she covered her eyes and began trembling wildly, silently believing that it was one of the stallions standing before her, and ready to punish her just like Caramel.

When no brutal kicking met her body, she slowly lowered her hooves from her eyes.

Only then to have them widen in equal or worse terror, as she looked up into the hollow black eyes of a towering creature.

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Lucian used the scent of blood as his guide, following the smell in the wind as he bolted through the narrow streets of Ponyville, his mind half lost in a blood-hunger fuelled rage. Admittedly, he knew everypony would become fearful of him if he killed somepony, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t teach the perpetrators a brutal lesson.

To anger a lycan was to sign for certain, painful, and bloody retribution.

Lucian noted that the streets were completely empty as he ran, which probably meant the gang had scared everypony indoors with their antics; frankly, Lucian didn’t know how many he was up against, and silently growled at himself for not giving the panting pegasus stallion time to tell, but it didn’t really matter in the end, as long as he dealt with the group quickly.

His keen nose guided him true as usual; shooting down a dusty alley way he saw a cluster of stallions standing at the opposite end, completely oblivious to the fact they had a lycan charging towards them from the shadows. For a single second he thought about maybe just roaring and scaring them away, but then he heard a lime green pegasus stallion crack a joke about the unconscious form of Applejack’s cousin.

That sympathetic second was over quickly.

Giving out a hellish roar, he used up his momentum and jumped.

For anyone who had ever seen a lycan jump, the sight was usually considered a violation of the laws of physics, mainly because using the massive strength in their back legs, the average lycan could easily clear six or seven meters.

Just as swiftly as he had jumped Lucian landed with a slam right on target, half a meter away from the nearest stallion, a dark blue pony with a white mane and two quills crossed over a scroll for a ‘cutie mark’ as Luna had called them.

The stallion had around a tenth of a second to realize what was going on before Lucian had his paw around him, his mighty black furred hand completely encircling the stallion’s neck as the lycan lifted him, kicking wildly, from the ground.

The stallion’s friends still seemed to be mentally registering the sight stage at that point; Lucian though was done looking at the scrawny blue stallion, and with all his might hurled him at the nearest wall, which just so happened to belong to a building which resembled a giant gingerbread house.

The stallion let out a final scream as he was hurled through the air, and then there was a loud wooden crack his body ploughed through said wall, and left only a gaping hole behind.

In triumph and rage Lucian roared again at the remaining stallions, his brain now becoming overwhelmed with a combination of adrenaline, anger, and a hunger for blood.

It was then, as he took a heavy step forward, that he felt something smack into his leg, and hurriedly he looked down.

Seeing to his amazement a bright orange filly looking up at him, wide eyed and with her jaw open.

Something hard slammed into the side of the lycan’s face, causing him to yelp in pain as a ripple of agony swept through the side of his skull; the pain luckily lasted only a moment before he was ready again, and with a snarl his huge claw swung out like a furry mace, and swatted a pegasus from the air, the perpetrator of his pain rapidly sailing a good seven meters before becoming buried in the ruins of cart.

With a deathly snarl, Lucian took another step forward and readied his claws and fangs like a set of swords, the lycan now standing his ground between the frightened orange filly and the downed pony, and the five remaining stallions.

Two of them, a dark grey and a lemon yellow, were unicorns, and both by the looks of things had their horns lowered and glowing.

With all his strength, Lucian grabbed up the half broken flower cart that had been lying beside him, and hurled the wreckage at the group, his aim directed at the unicorns in particular.

The two remaining pegasi just managed to get out to the way, the two unicorns and pale blue earth pony though weren’t so lucky. The flying wreckage collected them up like a car striking soon-to-be road kill, before landing with a crash a few meters back, launching shards of wood and various flowers high into the air.

The two pegasi made the mistake of looking back at their dazed comrades, and before they even had a chance to return their gaze, Lucian jumped forward and caught them in his claws, wrapping his paws around the base of their throats before raising his arms high into the air.

Without so much as a pause, he hurled the two equines at the ground directly in front of him, his massive arms putting in about half of his true superhuman might behind them; the two unlucky ponies threw up clouds of dust as they hit the ground like a pair of furred meteors.

Before they had the slightest chance to move, Lucian pinned them both, a paw on each one’s chest, and his fangs and monstrous eyes bearing down on them.

It was as if death itself had come.

“D-don't eat me!” the lime green one from earlier screamed, the snarling lycan’s drawn fangs and death glaring eyes falling on him.

A sudden overwhelming hunger drove into Lucian’s mind, so strong he found himself involuntarily lowering his teeth to the stallion’s soft exposed throat.

“LUCIAN! STOP!”

The lycan’s head snapped up as he heard a familiar voice, and then, as he finally noticed Twilight and her friends galloping towards him, he grudgingly fought his instincts and managed to remove himself, taking a few steps backward before returning to his human form.

Neither pegasi stallion moved in the slightest, their legs frozen with their tails between them.

Soon the group of ponies from the library skidded to a stop before him and the dazed pegasi stallions, looking between him, and the now mostly unconscious pair of flyers; true to his personal promise, none of them were dead, simply majorly injured without being in a life threatening condition.

“What’d ya do to ‘em?” Applejack asked seriously, looking between the dazed pegasi and the three ponies that were scattered around the flower cart’s remains. “Please for the sake of Celestia tell me ya didn’t kill any of ‘em?”

“I only taught them a lesson,” The bearded lycan replied with a shrug of his thick shoulders, barely even caring that he was once again standing stark naked in front of everypony. “If you’re wondering, your friend is behind me, and the last two are either in the remains of that carrot stand, or in that building,”

The small group of ponies looked over at the gaping at the hole in Sugercube Corner, seemingly horrified that Lucian had actually thrown somepony through a solid wooden wall.

“How did you… you know what, I’m not even going to ask,” Twilight muttered loudly, waving a hoof to dismiss her own part-question. “So much for no need to fear you.”

“I would never hurt any of you,” Lucian replied bluntly, shaking his locks of black hair from his eyes. “But what do you expect me to do when there’s someone terrorizing your town? Politely tell them to stop?”

The small group of ponies looked between each other and shrugged, seeming to, for the time being, accept Lucian had only done what he had for Ponyville’s good.

Sensing that he was, for the time being anyway, forgiven, Lucian turned and went to examine Caramel's injuries.

Before he got the chance though, or even near Caramel for that matter, a pair of huge shadows crossed over the sun; a moment later, something scales and red slashed downwards, and hastily coiled around him like a chain.

“Wha…” he started, his mouth shutting in an instant as he came face to face with a set of enraged, red dragon eyes, realizing at last he was uncomfortably trapped in the beast’s tail.

“And just who are you?” The dragon snarled deeply as it landed with an almighty thud, its red body taking up the entire width of the street, while a black scaled beast, and a couple pegasi, did the same just behind Twilight and her friends.

Lucian struggled and pulled as best he could, but only gained an angry snarl and a tightening grip for his efforts.

Before he had a chance to explain himself though, Fluttershy, of all possible ponies, left Twilight's side, flew up beside him, and gently spoke to the massive creature.

“It’s ok Titan, he’s our friend, and he only wanted to protect Caramel,” she said gently, running her hoof over the red scaled dragon’s cheek as his blood-thirsty expression softened. “You can put him down now.”

Slowly and gingerly, the dragon lowered its tail to the ground before releasing the lycan, the two of them stepping apart as Fluttershy went about whispering something in the dragon's ear.

The few other pegasi, who had apparently fetched the dragon’s, then quickly departed with Caramel and Scootaloo, apparently content to take the still unconscious stallion and frightened filly to Ponyville hospital while the lycan-dragon introductions went on without them.

“Tch, well, you're definitely something alright, Lucian,” was the dragon’s somewhat humorous reply to the lycan’s confusion, Lucian quietly guessing Twilight and her friends had told just about the entire world of him. “Sorry about all that, name's Titan, and that's Ash,” he nodded to his black companion.

“You must be friends of Thane's then?” Lucian asked as he glanced back at the night black dragon behind him, a little surprised at how different the way Titan and Thane spoke.

“You could say that,” Ash replied with a deep toned chuckled, lowering his head a little so he was eye level with Lucian. “Thane's an old friend of ours, although personally I think he's a little immature for his age.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just 'cause Rainbow’s a bad influence on him,” Applejack put in, nuzzling the black dragon’s face fondly before looking back over at the awaiting lycan. “Dragons and ponies usually don’t have a lot to do with each other, Lucian, but these three have been around here so long... well, their kinda part of the family now.”

Looking between Ash and Titan, Lucian couldn’t help but wonder how exactly three apparently adult dragons had come to live in Ponyville... though he guessed that was another story for another time.

“So you three actually live around here with the ponies?” Lucian asked as he turned and faced Titan again, amazed the massive red dragon could actually fit in the narrow pony street.

“Eh, we try to at least,” Titan replied with a smile, looking down at Fluttershy fondly, who was standing beside his claw. "Heh, as hard as it is to believe, we've actually only really been here a few months now, but we try our best to fit in; I help Fluttershy care for her animals, Thane helps the weather team out... when he's not lazing around, anyway... and Ash works with Big Macintosh in his forge.”

“You have a forge?” Lucian asked sharply, realizing only when everypony jumped in surprise and he heard his own echo how loud he had been. “Uh… forgive me, but I was wondering if there’d be any possibility of me using it, I am a skilled blacksmith.”

“You saved Caramel and gave those stallions what's for, Lucian, so she’s all yours, whenever you want,” Big Macintosh chuckled with a shake of his head, the words prompting a smile to spread across the aged lycan’s face. “I barely use it anymore anyway… she’s out at the farm though, which is a about a mile from Ponyville.”

The lycan just shook his black locks. “Distances do not matter to me,” Lucian said with a smile.

His smile however faded a little when he felt a terrible pain run through him, a pain not caused by a weapon or strike of any kind, but rather by his now tearing and unbearable hunger; after all the combat he needed to feed, and the lingering scent of Caramel’s blood was only fuelling his urge.

“Forgive me,” He said calmly as everypony and dragon flinched, and then hurried forward, looks of concern on their faces. “But I must be alone for a while, and I beg you all please do not follow me, for your own safety.”

Without another word, Lucian shifted into a wolf, and bolted forth from the street.

In just under a minute he had disappeared into the shadows of the Everfree forest, leaving a cluster of confused ponies and dragons in his wake.

“What was that all about?” Rarity asked dryly as she looked over at Twilight.

The purple unicorn suddenly winced as a terrible fear welled up inside her, and, at last, she made the rather obvious connection between the lycan’s wolf-form, his sharp teeth, and his need to be alone.

“You DON’T want to know,” was the short and hurried reply, saying nothing else, and instead heading back towards her library, leaving her confused friends to ponder her words.

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Notes:

For those of you who haven’t read my other work, Titan and Fluttershy are only good friends (Titan’s almost like a big brother to her)

For those of you who have, I’m going to build on Ash a little during this fic, because during ‘My Red Eyed Friend’ I feel I neglected him as a main character, so he'll be around a bit.