The Soul Reaver

        Fluttershy always looked after her animals with care. That has always been true. She treated them like her own children, anyone who had met her could see as such. But… she did not have the ability to defend them as she would want. She knew that she could not be there all the time. She hated it, but she knew there was nothing she could really do about it. She knew that Everfree forest had different rules than Ponyville, or Whitetail Wood.

        However… When Angel was trying to drag her out of her cottage to a small clearing in The Everfree Forest to see a… butchering of a manticore… something akin to anger welled in her. It didn’t help that it was the same manticore she had met in the Everfree forest when she and her friends battled Nightmare Moon.

        “Oh my Celestia…” She whimpered as she inspected the manticores wounds, “W-what did this to you…?” She knew it was dead. She asked herself, mostly. She paused when she saw a most curious wound at the neck.

        A sword cut. Right across the jugular.

        Somepony had done this. But… what about the opening in the manticores ribs? It looked like something had… eaten it. Maybe… was it one of the Wraiths? No… She had met a good number of them, and she could tell they don’t hunt. Except for Dean, but he was away.

        Who… who did this?

        At that moment, the roar of a bear pierced through her thoughts. She and Angel ran in the direction the roar came from, and was greeted with the sight of a… Human. In Black armor, ramming a silver sword through the bears neck, killing it instantly. The bear fell limply to the side, and the human slowly approached it. Something about this human was…. terrifying….

        The human paused, and in a raspy voice, whispered, “I smell your fear, pony… I suggest you leave.”

        Fluttershy couldn’t. She was too scared to even move.

        Run or die.

        Run or die.

        RUN OR DIE.

        Doing what her base instincts told her, she ran. She ran as hard as she could.

        That was no human… that was a monster given human form. And now it haunted the Everfree Forest.

        For the next few months, the cries of the animals that would die at his hand would keep her awake at night. Constantly reminding her of the terror that the forest now housed.

        Weeks have passed by since She had seen the monster in the forest. There have been less animals at her cottage recently, and she knew why. That monster was eating them. Every single one of her animal friends was getting eaten by him.

        But she was too scared.

        Too scared to confront it. Too scared to tell her friends, for fear of it finding them and doing the same to them.

        But… it talked. It told her to leave.

        It knew she was scared, that she couldn’t do anything to it.

        She needed to know what it was. Who it was.

        She has been in her cottage for a good time, Only leaving when she needed to and assure her friends that she was alright. She left her cottage, heading into the forest to search for the thing.

        The forest was… quiet. It was much more different than before, much more solemn, more empty. She wandered onto a trail, the same one she had taken when it had… eaten the bear.

        It hurt to really think about it. That she couldn’t do anything to save Barry, it really hurt her. But she had to press on. A loud boom erupted in the forest, almost like something toppling over.

        Could it have been him? She ran in the direction she heard the shockwave, and found herself in the same bog she and her friends had encountered the Hydra. And she found the Hydra. Dead. A gaping hole in its chest, where its heart used to be. A squelching of flesh could be heard on the other side of the Hydra.

        He was here.

        He was here, devouring on the flesh of the Hydra. She tried to calm her shaky breathing, but it did nothing to help. Shivering in fear, she slowly walked behind the cadavar, and was greeted with the same sight of the human. However, this time she got a much closer look of the humans face.

        His face was fair, a pale complexion with obsidian black hair hanging down to his neck. His green eyes looked at her with a cold, calculating expression. Underneath the black armor, he wore a green long-sleeve tunic and black wool pants. His black steel boots were polished, if only recently.

        “I told you to leave, pony.” His voice was just as cold as his expression.

        “I-I-I-”

        “Listen to yourself. Your fear has taken such a hold of you that you cannot even speak.” He spoke condenscendingly, but he also sounded… like he was sad.

        “W-who are you?” She asked, really wanting to get away. His presence was simply too overwhelming.

        The human paused, and was silent for a few moments. He then chuckled, “Who am I?” he looked at her with a cold smirk.

        “I… am Mordred Le Fey.”