The uncaged Wrath of Equis.

It was almost noon. Warwick had taken his time to explore and mentally map out the forest. He had nearly memorized the entire forest except for the city and a moderate perimeter around it.

He had taken notes of the points of intrest in the forest. Many caves and small burrows that could provide shelter when he needed it.

A few caves were inhabited by these large dragons or bears. While the dragons could prove to be worrisome, Warwick wasn't exactly fireproof, the bears were more of a nuisance than anything else. They were large slow creatures that were easy to fool, they could be used to his advantage. But for now he left both types of creatures alone.

The wooden wolves Warwick met were a bit of a hazard. They were sturdy creatures that could be found through out the entire forest and were very aggressive creatures that tried to use their number advantage to take it's pray down. But they lacked any real strength to be able to compete with Warwick. He had to give it to them, they were too fast for Warwick to be able to shake them off. So any confrontation was unavoidable and they were going to be a nuisance if Warwick decided that he would stay in this forest.

At the edge of the forest, near the mountains, there was a bit of a swamp where larger creatures lived. There were these very large
predatory reptiles with many small heads. When Warwick was cruising though this swamp he noticed that these creatures would strike swiftly with it's heads at it's prey. He noticed that the heads were dripping some saliva and upon further inspection he noticed that they had the potential to be venomous so caution was advised.

The weird thing was that quite a few of these reptiles could be found making their nests though out the forest which was strange. Large creatures like that were not adapted enough to live in a forest like this. What was making these large predators flee from their natural habitat? This would require more investigation.

Through the forest were two roads. These were well traveled by these weird small horse-like creatures, ponies? These were probably sentient and quite advanced because more often than not were they escorted by some military force. This was probably for protection against the larger predators that roamed the forest.

Their armor had a small resemblance to the Demacians of Runeterra. But they had these symbols of a sun on their armor. The guards who patrolled at night had symbols of the moon on their armor. Were these to honor their deities? It reminded Warwick of a few cults in Ionia.

These ponies had three different shapes or variants. One had a horn on their head, others had wings on their sides but these were a bit too small for flight or so Warwick thought, and others had none of the above but seemed stronger than the others. These ponies seemed pretty passive and were deemed not a threat.

The strangest thing was that parts of the forest were littered with parts of traps and carcasses of large creatures, herbivores or predators. Spike traps, death pits, tar traps, heavy iron nets, bear traps, you name it and it was probably there. Predators like the large cat or manticore he had faced fell to these traps as well as a few of the large reptiles. Their bodies were damaged a bit but no body parts were missing which was strange.

So these creatures were not hunted for food Warwick concluded, they were hunted for sport. Their carcasses were left nearly entirely intact. Someone or something was over-hunting quite aggressively and this forest was suffering because of it. This was also probably the cause for the creatures fleeing from their natural habitat.

Who or what would want to upset an entire ecosystem just for sport? It seemed like that the only creature that was spared were these wooden wolves. And that was probably because they were made of wood so the traps had little to lo effect on them.

Strange this were happening inside this forest. Creatures fleeing from an unknown threat, strange sentient ponies lived inside this forest, strange creatures, traps lying around. And that was only inside this forest. What else was waiting for Warwick outside of it?

His train of thought was lost as he heard some disturbance just a mile or so along one of the roads.

Warwick's curiosity got the better of him as he decided to check it out. With his mind made up he took of running.

While he was running he noticed that he was nearing the outskirts of the forest. Whatever that was happening, it was just entering the forest.

As he was nearing the disturbance ha was able to make out that the sounds were voices. It sounded like something was in distress.

The closer Warwick got the clearer the voices became. It sounded like some females in distress and some thugs giving trouble.

It appeared that the situation was going on in a small clearing along the road near the edge of the forest.

Warwick was nearly close enough to see the situation for himself. He decided to stick to the shadows and treetops for now as he would estimate what was going on.

As he crept closer he could finally see what was happening. A small bunch, probably a family, of three of these weird ponies were probably on their way to the city in the middle of this forest when they got stopped by a group, around seven, of the strangest creatures Warwick had ever seen.

They were mostly like a bird, an eagle even, but they had the backside of a large cat, probably a lion. With massive talons as front limbs, paws with claws as back limbs, a large raptor beak and massive wings Warwick was sure that these were top tier predators. They even seemed sentient with all the equipement they were carrying. They had ropes, wooden supports, digging tools, nets, iron spikes...

Upon further inspection the clearing was littered with these parts. Connecting two and two together, Warwick realized that these strange birds were the hunters responsible for the death and destruction throughout the forest. Why were they doing this?

Warwick was snapped out of his thoughts as he saw the birds move in on the ponies.

"You shouldn't have wandered into this forest little ponies," One of them said.

"I swear we didn't see anything. We just wanted to get to the capital," The female pony pleaded.

"Oh, we are going to make sure you didn't see anything and certainly that no word of this gets back to your little princesses," Another one of the birds said as he got closer to them with a knife in his talons.

"Stay back. I'm warning you!" The male pony said trying to protect his family by standing in front.

"Oh? What are you going to do about it tough guy?" The bird with the knife said as he pressed his knife against the stallion's cheek.

A moment of silence followed while everyone waited for a reaction. When none came the bird spoke again.

"Thought so. Ey Stone Sentinel? You gotta come see this amigo," He yelled to the other side of the clearing.

A large Minotaur not unlike Alistar came from behind the foliage.

"Stone this chump thought he could stand up to us," The bird said to his large friend.

"They ain't worth my time. I'm going to continue on the traps and if you are done playing around, you should continue as well. I would still like to catch something today," The Minotaur said as he walked back where he came from.

"Okay Stone, whatever you say. That leaves us with a bit of a problem. How do we dispose of you without you three blabbing against one of your princesses?" The bird guy said.

"Please just let us leave and you won't have any trouble," The stallion pleaded.

"I really want to," the bird guy mocked, "But I can't take that risk. So do we keep you as captives or do we dispose of you some other way? What do you think boys?" The bird guy said to his crew.

"We are itching for some sport boss," One of the back birds said while the others loudly agreed.

"Well, I have to give what the crowd wants," the lead bird said while they were all closing in on these ponies.

It was time for Warwick to act. He jumped out of the tree he was in and landed with a bit of a thud. Immediately the birds turned around and faced him.

"It looks like sport arrived a little early to the show boys," The lead bird announced while gesturing at Warwick, "Heck this one might be worth a lot of point for the hunting game. What is it even? Some sort of wolf?"

"I could ask the same thing about you," Warwick growled at them.

"Oh, it can talk. Those would be some nice bonus points, don't you think Stone?" The lead bird yelled at the Minotaur.

The Minotaur in question walked into view with a grin, "Now that is something worth my time, too bad the traps aren't done yet."

The Minotaur looked at the lead bird. "I want a shot at this one," He said. The bird looked bewildered.

"Alone," The Minotaur enforced.

"Alright," The bird hesitantly complied, "But if you are in trouble, don't expect any help from us."

"Like this is going to take long. I'm twice the size of this thing," Stone said quite confidant.

"Alright," Warwick growled, "A monster's inside you."

"Damn straight there is," The Minotaur replied.

"I'll tear it out."

"Bring it on you mutt," The Minotaur bellowed as he charged.

Stone tried to overpower Warwick with brute force alone as he tried to connect some heavy punches. But the transmuted wolf was swift enough to dodge these, even tho a few got very close to hit.

The Minotaur even tried to grapple and wrestle with Warwick, but any attempt to do so was met with some fangs and claws as deterrent.

Suddenly Stone was able to connect a single punch through sheer luck. It was a heavy blow and Warwick felt it through his entire body as he skidded back a few feet.

The punch connected with his chest and he had some trouble breathing.

"How did you like that?" The cow started to mock him.

"This pain is nothing," Warwick murmured.

"What was that? You have to speak up. Or is one hit enough to stop you already?" Stone asked thinking he had already won.

"You'll choke on your screams," Warwick roared as he leaped at the Minotaur. His claw extended and pierced the cow's chest as he bit into the shoulder of Stone. Stone flailed wildly around trying to tear off and punch the wolf. Warwick applied more and more pressure to his bite when suddenly a loud crunch was heard.

Stone's shoulder blade shattered into bits under the power of Warwick's bite. The Minotaur was able to throw the attacker off of him. But this didn't give him any time to rest. In a matter of moments had Warwick already closed the distance and sliced open his abdomen. Next up he bit down on the next of the cow. Until with a quick twist he broke the neck of Stone Sentinel.

With this fight over and blood flowing freely from the body, Warwick turned his attention back to the birds.

They had grabbed the ponies and held them at knife-point.

"So you were probably thinking of saving these, right?" The main bird said.

"No living thing just messes with the triple alliance of camels, minotaurs and gryphons and gets away with it. We will hunt you until the end of your days," He said trying to be intimidating.

"Not if not even your screams will escape from here!" Warwick growled trying to move closer.

"Now now. You wouldn't want anything to happen to these poor ponies now would you?" The lead bird said mockingly while pressing the knife closer to the stallion's throat.

Warwick was at a stalemate. He wanted to tear apart these poor excuses for living beings, but his morality wanted to keep these ponies safe.

"What do you want?" Warwick asked while taking a small step forward.

"Not to close now," The lead gryphon said while cutting the stallion's neck. A tiny stream of blood came down along his neck.

BLOOD

This together with all the emotions Warwick felt was enough to let the pneumatics in his body pump the unknown green liquid into his body and turn it orange. He knelt down on all fours as he felt his sanity slip from his grasp.

The gryphons were enthralled by this. The ponies took advantage of this, pushed them to the side and hid behind a rock at the edge of the clearing.

Warwick saw this and screamed at them with the last bit of his sanity, "Run, faster!"

For now he could aim his madness at these gryphons, but they were not the ones bleeding, were they? For the beast would not stop until it's hunger was satisfied.

So the ponies took of running down the road towards the city and the palace.

Warwick took of and jumped on the nearest gryphon. Within seconds the bird was decapitated and had it's wings torn off. all that was left was a twitching body that didn't expect the attack.

"Claws... Hungry!" Warwick growled as he leaped to the next target. Shock left the gryphons as they tried to fight back, but Warwick was to fast. When the second gryphon was stabbed to death and had it's heart cut out, panic started to cloud their thoughts of victory.

When the third gryphon got sliced in half and they were showered with his blood, they all abandoned the idea of fighting all together and tried to flee.

The fourth one tried to fly out of the clearing, but Warwick simply jumped up and stabbed him in the head. When he landed, he saw that the remaining three fled into the forest. But in this kind of forest they couldn't fly fast and so Warwick easily caught up to the fifth one.

He jumped to the side and pushed the gryphon head first into a tree. Dazed and badly wounded, the poor gryphon never saw the final blow as Warwick tore him in half with his jaws.

Two more to go. The lead gryphon and a smaller accomplice were still on the run.

And they followed the ponies towards the city.