Black Knight

Flurry cried until she couldn't cry anymore, laying curled up into a ball shuddering. After moping around for another ten minutes, she forced herself to get up. It was not the desire to survive that forced her to move at that moment. No, after the trainwreck, Flurry felt as she didn't deserve to live. It wasn't fear of death or pain, for a young filly Flurry has had too many unfortunate incidents happen due to her power to bring disasters to leave her with a healthy sense of self preservation. No, it was not fear that forced her to stand up.

And, the reason I can leave you here without worrying about a lone child claiming that the great Queen Chrysalis still lives, is because there no way, a small, weak, pathetic runt like *you,** will be able to make it out of this forest alive!*

"I am going to get to Vanhoover before she does..." Flurry spat onto the same spot Chrysalis did. "And I am going to tattle tale SO HARD on that conceited sociopathic retarded ugly-"

Flurry froze when she heard a howl in the distance.

"Okay, okay, breathing exercises..." Flurry forced herself to breath in and out slowly, just how her mother taught her.

Once she calmed down, she tried flexing her wings, and hissed in pain. Something in her right wing was broken, she wasn't going to be flying unless it was an emergency. A few sparks came out of her horn, causing her to almost scream. She gently felt it with her hoof and found a crack near the base. That was bad, very, very bad.

"Okay, okay, okay..." Flurry tried to calm herself down. "You're more than a pair of wings and horn, you can do this, you can do this..."

Research, research research research and more research. When she visited Aunt Twilight, she hits the books with joy and the bookworm alicorn never questioned it. Getting lost in the Everfree once was all it took for Flurry to decide she would like a better understanding of the geographical layout of her country. She especially took notes on some of the more dangerous creatures in Equestria.

Large Spiders, Hydras, Chimeras, Astral Ursas, Cocktrices, and Parasprites lived in the forest surrounding the Galloping Gorge. Flurry took note of the time of day. It was dusk right now, which is actually a good thing. The forest around Galloping Gorge had many predators and beasts, but they were either strictly diurnal or nocturnal. Between dawn and dusk is when they retreated into their lairs to sleep and avoid each other. Meaning in an hour or so, she needed to be very cautious about running into Chimeras, which preferred to prowl the night for everything except the Cockatrice, both which kept a healthy distance from each other.

Flurry gulped, there was very little she could do against a cocktrice other than avoid eye contact and run. As for running into Chimeras... Flurry grabbed her broken knifed and gripped it tightly. She would simply have to hope for the best.

Something shiny caught her eye, and she saw the top of her broken blade. She wasn't sure if there was much she could do with it, but it didn't hurt to pocket it. Slipping back on her jacket, Flurry decided it was high time she started moving.

Heading towards Vanhoover was easy enough. Just trot towards the mountain line. Luckily, very few dangerous things lived in the mountain themselves, and unless for some stupid reason Flurry decided to climb over it instead of stick near the train line, she doubt she would run into a dragon. Instead of dreading the long journey, Flurry kept an eye out for bushes that had edible berries and tried to not take the most obviously trodden path. Walking along the traintracks might have seemed like a good idea, but any pony unfortunate enough to try that would soon learn that many beasts lived near the tracks despite the noise just for an easy meal. Flurry was determined not be one of them.

A pond. Flurry licked her dry lips, and gave the body of water a wide birth. Drinking from that is how both chimeras and hydras got ahold of you. She was certain there would be small streams of water here and there she could drink from as long as she kept her-

Flurry flinched as the roar she heard earlier sounded much closer. Whatever it was, it was heading in her direction. Flurry picked up the pace and veered slightly to the left. She glanced behind her to see if whatever it was caused any birds to fly away, it might give her an idea of how-

Flurry's heart caught in her throat as her head collided with a web.

"No." She whispered, and struggled.

Making sure to not touch the webs with her hooves, she stabbed her broken knife into the ground and tried tugging her head away as hard as she could. She couldn't free it.

"No, no no no!" She moaned.

She saw something climbing down the web out of the corner of her eye. Unable to turn her head she couldn't see what it was as it left her view, but she didn't need to see it to know that she was about to get bitten. Her heart started hammering in her chest.

"NO! NO!" Flurry screamed.

In her panic Flurry pushed her hooves against the web without thinking. Now having effectively the upper half of body stuck against the web, she couldn't even try to get a lucky shot with her knife.

"NO!!"

She let out a choked sob, too tired and dehydrated to cry. This is how it was going to end for her. It was going to bite her, paralyze her, wrap her up, and eat her later. Nopony would ever find her, she would never be able to apologize or say goodbye to parents. She tried to light her horn and flap her wings, only feel intense pain. It wasn't fair, it shouldn't have ended like this. Flurry openly cried out as let herself get lost in her anger, sadness, fear, pai-

A large black flame shot out of her horn, burning the web. Flurry and the spider both screamed.

Recoiling back, Flurry saw a spider at least ten times her size hissing, about to snap at her. Tapping into whatever that was, Flurry felt her whole body ache as she shot forth another black flame out of her horn and at the spider. Her vision filled with a hazy green as the creature recoiled back.

"More!" Flurry growled.

her body screamed for her to stop, but her mind begged for her to continued. Full of rage, Flurry bared her teeth at the creature as she applied more heat to her flames. All of the trauma, all the stress, all the sadness and guilt and anger she felt amplified the heat as she fed into it, causing the flames to grow stronger. Unable to keep it up any longer, Flurry collasped to the ground, panting. The spider was reduced to a charred husk.

Shakily, Flurry lifted her hoof and felt where the crack in her horn was. Instead, she felt a smooth surface sealing it shut, very similar to crystal.

"Ohhhhhhh shit..." Flurry whispered.

Forcing herself to get up, Flurry looked around her to try and find a safe place to sleep. She hoped-

Queen Chrysalis came catapulting through the treeline and crashed onto the ground near Flurry.

"Bears!" She yelled, spitting onto the ground next to her. "I am sick, of bears! I..."

Chrysalis stopped when she saw Flurry next to her. Before either could question the other, an Ursa Major came bursting through the treeline.

"That is suppose to be asleep right now," Flurry screamed at the changeling, "What did you do?!"

Chrysalis grabbed the alicorn and quickly flew up as the bear made a wide sweep at them with it's claws. She started making her way as fast as she could towards the mountains.

"Let go of me!" Flurry growled.

"Gladly," Chrysalis snarked.

Flurry screamed as she was dropped midair towards the ground. Adrenaline once more pumped through her veins as the Ursa Major's reached out to shred her to pieces mid-air. Thinking on her hooves, she quickly pulled out the broken top of her blade and tossed it as hard as she could at the Ursa. It screamed and recoiled as the blade pierced it's eye. Seeing it's maw open, she drawed out all her hatred towards chrysalis, channeled it to her horn, shot a blast into the Ursa mouth and out the backside of it's head. It fell to the ground, dead. Flurry crashed onto the ground.

Chrysalis stopped and turned around, landing near Flurry and staring at her in awe. The filly was covered in the blood of the knights who were assigned to protect her, Flurry's eyes glowed green, iris' red as her horn took on a sickly green glow. Slowly, the child pushed herself onto her hooves and limped towards Chrysalis.

"Round two," Flurry gave a gutteral growl before collapsing to ground, unconscious.