Underworld: Equestria

Chapter 7: Razing Hell

“Well this is... unexpected,” Raze thought to himself as he lowered his wolf nose to the road, taking in as he inhaled both the sight, and scent, of what lay etched in the mud path in front of him.

It was the unmistakable mark of a horse hoof print that had caught his wandering attention, the first of its kind, and the only sign of civilisation he had come across since awakening in the strange forest.

How long he had been walking, somewhat aimlessly, through the seemingly sinister city of tree’s, the lycan wasn’t totally sure anymore, although he was certain he would be glad to get out of it above all else; the ancient trees themselves seemed to try and reach out and grab him, and every creature he had some far seen had looked downright evil, if he managed to see them at all, so all up he was pretty sure he didn’t want to be here.

He had somehow awoken some two days prior in a small clearing deep in the heart of the forest, wearing no clothing whatsoever, and strangely baring no marks from his prior fatal encounter with Viktor. At first Raze had thought he was perhaps dreaming, or even dead, but a quick test of biting himself had drawn blood, and hence ruled out either option as plausible.

Hence, for the next two days, Raze had trudged aimlessly through the forest, in lycan form, and in search of something that would perhaps explain the phenomenon, as of yet however he hadn’t found anyone, or anything, that was helpful in the slightest, or technically that was up until he had come across a crude path, and now when he had come across a hoof print.

“Perhaps I am not alone after all,” he mused, his wolf teeth spreading out in crude smile as his sharp eyes traced the muddy path through the trees, each few centimetres bearing the same small hoof print, as well as countless others of varying sizes.

Without another thought or word he headed off following the prints path, his nose guiding him while his ears stood up, constantly in search of any odd sound as he headed through the shallow darkness of the forest. In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure following the hoof prints of a, presumably, strange band of riders, was such a good idea, but if it meant he could get out of the forest he was all for the risk.

When the path at last came to an end, Raze found himself literally stuck on the spot, and unable to move, his mind trying to understand just what he was looking at.

Bathed in sunlight before him were a combination of wild rolling green meadows, and fields covered in a combination of lush grass and wildflowers; here and there elegant trees twisted and grew up towards a cloudless blue sky, and in the distance sat a range if mighty hills, and upon one a shining white castle.

The castle he could only just make out from the extreme distance, but even from far away he could see it was a truly magnificent structure to say the least; around a dozen white towers stood tall and reached for the skies, while the main structure sat on the edge of the mountain, suggesting to the lycan whoever ruled there took pride in showing themselves to be somewhat of a god.

“What is this place?” he whispered to himself, rising from all fours onto his hind legs to get a better view of the landscape. “Is this… heaven?”

If that statement was true, then he would be dead, which he was certain he wasn’t; either way, however, Raze knew he was certainly no longer in any land he had ever heard of.

Before he could try and think the site over more though, something else caught his attention, not something seen or heard, but something smelt with his sharp lycan nostrils; it was an odd scent, a strange but unmistakable combination of canine essence, mixed in with the smell of freshly cut wood and tree sap. Pondering the source, Raze looked down at the tracks he had been following for the last hour or so, and the moment he laid eyes on them, his blood went slightly cold.

The horse tracks and the path he had been following continued on under his now muddy black paws, beyond the trees, and across the rolling green fields and meadows he found himself at the foot of; what made him uneasy was the fact that they abruptly converged with a large set of tracks, tracks that resembled a smaller version of his own.

Returning to all fours, he inhaled and found that by his reckoning they were indeed canine, but it was also literally woody in scent which only managed to confuse him; In his mind he guessed the riders had for some reason been followed from the forest by a small pack of wolves, which must have meant there was a settlement nearby, that presumably offered meat of some kind, otherwise hungry wolves wouldn’t bother to go there.

“I wonder what the people of this land are like,” the lycan grinned to himself, taking a single look over his shoulder at the shadowy forest behind him, before charging off down the dirt road, the only urge in his mind being to discover the secrets of this strange new place.

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“What on earth?” he whispered to himself, peering out curiously from behind his tree at the strange sight that awaited him.

As Raze had approached the small town, he had sighted a strange building a little off the road to the east, that quietly sat against the edge of a thicket of trees; deciding it best to take a look before barging into the town centre, he had gone to investigate further.

Slipping between a combination of trees, park benches, flower beds, and even a stone well, he made his way over to it, keeping his eyes peeled for any potential threats that may have confronted him. Upon arrival, however, he had got a lot more than he had bargained for, and was at that point trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

Before him was a building that resembled a miniaturised, wooden American style church, which was painted a deep red-purple and white in colour, and flanked with large amounts of grass, a white picket fence, and a variety of children’s’ play equipment. All of that the lycan could to an extent accept, what he couldn’t make sense of, however, was that the children who presumably used the place... all seemed to have small horses, and not only had they apparently made way of brightly colouring their mane’s and tails, but also allowed them to roam freely and untethered outside.

“It’s no wonder there would be wolves around,” Raze smirked to himself as he eyed the small grazing herd, his huge black form still hidden by the shadows and his tree. “If I hadn’t made a meal of that vampire Sorren, then I’d be tempted to take one myself.”

He could readily see four small equines in total, three that by his reckoning looked to be perhaps young colts or fillies, and one that he guessed to be an older mare, all four of which were lazily lying in the grass and by the looks of things soaking up the sunlight.

It was a strange sight to say the least, but one that Raze couldn’t help but find oddly peaceful, like whatever this place was, it was one of serenity above all else, a vast contrast to the shadowy forest he had awoken in and recently left behind him.

“Perhaps I’m dreaming,” Raze thought himself, raising a black paw and biting into his hairy black foreleg, and a moment later feeling a ripple of pain shoot through it. “Ok… I'm not dreaming,”

Before he could do anything else, however, something that drifted to his ears made his head snap up, something which he was both glad to hear, but also unnerved the lycan.

The sound of laughter.

Quickly pulling himself further into the shadows, Raze scanned the entire area before him for the source of the sound, but no living creature or creatures revealed themselves to him and his eyes, other than the four horses he had been watching for the last few minutes.

Curiously he closed his eyes and raised his ears, straining to very edge of hearing in search of what he guessed was utterly impossible, and a figment of his imagination.

Before he could pinpoint his confusion though, his sharp sense of hearing picked up something else entirely, something that made him feel suddenly very uneasy.

He could hear the soft thump of footsteps, and sound of heavy breathing over the rustling of the leaves in the wind, but the amount of steps and the pattern, and volume of inhales and exhales suggested that there were multiple sources, and that they were somewhere very close by to him.

Raze hurriedly tore his dark eyes open, and with an echoing growl glanced around the shadows of the thicket of trees he was in, keen wolf eyes looking for any sign of movement or a potential threat.

His gut instinct was telling him that the sources were no doubt the wolf pack he whose tracks he had been following earlier; after all, they had led him straight to the town he now found himself at.

His head whirled between the nearby trees, and the four horses he had been watching; in part he guessed whoever owned them would thank him for protecting them from a pack of hungry wolves, but at the same time considering his own black wolf appearance, they could just as well misunderstand his intentions and turn on him.

“Perhaps, I’m just hearing things,” he thought with a growl and shake of his black furred head.

His thoughts of stupidity were abruptly cut off, not this time by laughter, however, but the sound of a high pitched scream that filled his ears. In a heartbeat he glanced up to see a group of light brown wolves, stalking hungrily from the trees, and heading straight towards the four horses, just as he had imagined seconds prior, the three younger ones instinctively cowering behind the mare as they were forced backward, toward the corner of no escape that was the nearby white picket fence of all places.

Deep inside, Raze something abruptly snapped, that thing being the mental chain that kept his inner bloodthirsty fury in check; Lucian had always said that despite their werewolf heritage, they weren’t savage beasts or wild animals, but even he couldn’t deny there was an inbuilt urge to kill buried deep inside every lycan he commanded.

Forcefully pushing all doubts about his appearance from his mind, Raze charged from the trees like a massive black furred juggernaut from hell, covering the some thirty meter distance and slamming into the first wolf, and ripping it to pieces before any of the others could even blink.

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Rarity could do nothing but stand dead still, with a strange combination of fear and awe pulsing through her, the white unicorn not entirely sure what seeing in front of her was actually real.

Only a few moments ago she had found herself enjoying a casual day of watching the CMC, then scared out of her coat and backed up against a fence by a pack of six snarling hungry Timberwolves, and now witnessing said pack of Timberwolves being torn to wooden shreds by a lycan, who she was sure wasn’t Lucian.

Hence, all she did was stand perfectly still while the lycan dismantled the closest three Timberwolves one by one in rapid succession; the first was caught totally unaware, and found its head crushed between the lycan’s paws and the grassy earth, the second likewise didn’t have time to react before a black furred fist went through its wooden stomach and emerged out the other side, and the third only managed to turn slightly before being picked up by the tail, and slammed into the ground like a carpet being beat-dusted.

All of this took place right in front of Rarity and the fillies eyes in a matter of seconds, so fast she swore she only managed to breathe once before the first three Timberwolves were nothing but piles of scattered splinters.

Upon realizing that half their pack was dead, the other three backed off some, regrouping a good eight meters away from the massive snarling black lycan, who strangely, as Rarity noted, took his place directly between the girls and herself, and the remaining Timberwolves.

Despite the seriousness of the situation the white mare couldn’t help but marvel at the structure of her unusual rescuer; she swore the amount of muscle on the lycan would have been even more than the monstrous brute minotaur, Iron Will, a single one his thickly haired shoulders alone, she guessed, would have weighed roughly as much as Big Macintosh, if not more.

“Who is th…”

Before she could finish her thought, the lycan spread its jaws, and roared like a dragon whose tail had been stepped on, but unlike a dragons roar, this one truly scared her. She could tell from experience most dragon roars were simply to frighten, or scare away something that was annoying them, the lycan’s roar however literally spoke in a beastly and feral way something along the lines of ‘I’m about snap off all your limbs, tear you open, rip every organ out of your bleeding carcass, and then I will kill you,’.

Two of the wolves backed off even further at the guttural sound, the largest of the remaining Timberwolves, however, snarled, and taking no notice of the threatening display, darted forward at its meaty pony quarry regardless, and before it ever got close to her or the girls, the lycan went to work on it.

Just as the wooden wolf jumped forward the lycan fell to one knee and slammed a hairy paw into the creatures exposed throat, not enough to kill, but enough to dissipate all forward moving momentum in a single blow. Then the four ponies all watched in horror as the lycan stood up and raised the stunned creature so they were eye level, a mighty black paw locked like a vice around the struggling, snarling and snapping wolf’s wind pipe, if Timberwolves even had a wind pipe that is.

And then taking a firm hold jaw below the wolf’s jawline the lycan’s muscles bulged slightly, and a moment later literally tore the wolfs head off like he barely even attached.

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Raze wasn’t exactly sure what these creatures were made of other then wood, after all, that last time he checked, animals carved or made from wood weren’t supposed to be alive, all he knew was that the easiest way to make sure just about anything was dead, was to separate the head from the body.

For a moment he fought against the unknown force that held the strange creature together before his immense strength overcame it, the snarling wooden monster’s head finally tearing off under the effort of his thick black paws with a final yelp, both halves of the creature falling into various sized pieces of kindling as life abruptly left it.

“Easier than I thought,” he smirked mentally to himself as he eyed the last two wolves, both of whom were now nervously backing off under his nightmarish gaze, and staring timidly at is dagger like black claws.

With a final deep throated roar, Raze sent them both running with their wooden tails between their legs, frightened forms disappearing into the trees just as fast as their wooden paws could carry them.

It was then, at last, he allowed himself to return to his human form, turned around, and looked down at the cluster of equines he had for the last few minutes been protecting... who had for some reason not moved a single muscle the entire time he had been dealing with the wolves.

Slowly he folded his thick arms and allowed his hollow black eyes ran over each one individually a moment, and only then did the pure fact of what he was seeing hit him like a mental sledgehammer.

The mare standing right in front of him was no normal mare, but an alabaster white... unicorn... of all things, one which to Raze’s utter amazement literally had a white lance-like horn protruding from her forehead, just as the old tales had described them. He also saw for the first time she had a three diamond mark etched into her flank, and what looked to be some kind of saddle blanket draped over her back, one which roughly matched the deep purple colour of her mane and tail.

Unable to control his curiosity, he took a quick look around to make sure he was alone, and then promptly but gently lowered a mighty black hand and tapped the end of the strange white spike lightly, resulting in the lycan becoming certain he wasn’t imagining things. In return the unicorn did nothing more than stand perfectly still, and watch him oddly, giving him a look of odd confusion.

“Um… can I help you there?”

For a single second, Raze though he would jump out of his fur when he heard it, a female voice that had at last buried all his former doubt, and confirmed what he had initially thought impossible, either that or he was insane.

Nervously he took a step back and traded confused looks with the unicorn, his eyes just about as wide as they could humanly possibly be.

“You can… speak English?” he muttered in his deep, bass toned voice, his nervous words half question and half statement. “You are… a talking horse, yes?”

“Pony, technically,” was the unicorn’s ‘matter of fact’ reply, what he guessed to be a smile on her face, and a hoof rising to her lip in what the lycan perceived to be a slight blush. “Oh, do relax darling, I don’t bite, allow me to introduce myself… I am Rarity, and this is my little sister Sweetie Belle, and her friends Applebloom and Scootaloo… and you are?”

At her words the three smaller ponies crept out from behind her, looking far from brave which was, considering what he was and what had just happened, quite understandable.

For his part Raze, who was usually a very confident and composed lycan, was totally and utterly speechless, his jaw hanging freely as his mind tried to process the fact he was not only staring at a female unicorn, but having a conversation with her as well. There was now one thing he was certain of above all else, he was no longer in the world of humans, lycans, and vampires.

“Uh… Raze,” he replied, shaking his head to dismiss his confusion before returning his eyes to Rarity.

“Raise?” she asked oddly with a slight tilt of her head, the three small fillies, as their names suggested, joining in the action as they watched him curiously. “As in to raise a foal?”

The lycan was far too confused to feel insulted by the statement; hence in reply he simply shook his head.

“Ah… no… as in to raze something standing to the ground.”

Rarity seemed a little taken aback by his statement, as Raze saw, and made no effort to hide it, the fillies however were all looking at him wide eyed like he was something of a legend, something which for the first time in the conversation brought a smile to his face.

Before they could say anything, however, Rarity noted something that made her cheeks sting red, something that made her feel like an absolute foal for not seeing earlier.

“Ah… girls,” she said as she turned to the three young fillies, who were gathered behind her, an obvious fake smile on her alabaster white face. “Would you mind… turning around for a moment please?”

The three starred at her oddly for a moment, and then after shrugging to each other, complied with the strange request and turned their tails to him.

In his confusion Raze glanced down at Rarity, who to say the least looked rather concerned, and at last following her directional pointing hoof realized exactly what she was concerned about; being a lycan meant you were used to seeing your comrades naked, and hence it was never an issue; unfortunately, over time, it meant you also forget when decency was necessary. Before he could do anything Rarity tossed him her purple saddle blanket, the lycan gladly accepting the generous gift.

“Forgive me,” he grinned, using it to shield himself from further view. “I fear I am new around here…”

Rarity waved a hoof in dismissal of his mistake.

“Quite alright Raze, I can assure you, especially considering what you have done for us,” she smiled, her cheeks still a touch like embers. “Although I must ask… you wouldn’t happen to be any relation to a lycan named Lucian wou…”

Raze’s eyes flared open again when he heard Lucian’s name, so much so that Rarity stopped her sentence halfway through in surprise at his unexpected reaction, and took a step back, accidently bumping into her unawares little sister in the process who yelped in annoyance.

“RAR…”

“RAZE!”

Before Sweetie Belle could finish, or anypony could say anything else, their heads all snapped around, and true to the sound of the voice, a blue jean wearing Lucian was marching over from the main centre of Ponyville, a wild grin on his black lock framed face and his arms open in an inviting friendly embrace.

Beside him, as Raze noted, was a rather shocked looking amber pony, and a massive black creature he took to be a dragon of all things.

Neither, however, he cared about, and instead his entire attention was solely on his old friend Lucian.

For a moment the black lycan could once again do nothing but stand and stare, his mind processing the facts of what he was seeing, once it did though, the only thing he felt was an overwhelming sense of joy, knowing that at least he wasn’t the only lycan in this strange world.

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Notes:

The timberwolf attack is an important event just so you all know, the reasons behind it however will have to wait until the next chapter.