Details
*Thoughts*
~Mental speaking~
"Normal speaking"
~"Mental and normal speaking"~
Songs
... (Radio static)...

A shockwave from an explosion knocked me off the ground suddenly.
As I was thrown through the air with debris from the blast, I was temporarily blinded. Unable to see where I was going to land, all I could do was pray to God that I would not fly off the side of the cliff.

In less than a second I felt my body impact against the ground.
My uniform and the flesh of my back were ripped open as I rolled across the rocky surface.
My rolling came to a sudden stop when I crashed into a bolder. The explosion had already knocked the air out of my lungs. The sudden impact against the large stone knocked me out.

I don't know how long I was unconscious. The first thing I felt was the numbness across my whole body and loud ringing in my ears.
I held my head as I opened my eyes and found myself lying on my side with my back against the bolder that had stopped me from tumbling off the cliff.

After catching my breath I examined my surroundings, trying to locate my battle buddy. I did not have to search long as I found him lying face down near the cliffs edge, with a leg and chunk of his abdomen missing.
The bodies of our enemies littered the area around the both of us. Most of them were missing limbs. Many of them were missing much more.

Before I could even throw up whatever was left in my stomach, I screamed as pain shot up through my back and legs.
Looking down, I saw shrapnel lodged into my legs and blood everywhere. The pain was unbearable. I still don't know how I stayed conscious, but despite the pain, I rolled myself onto my stomach and slowly, painfully, pulled myself over to my friend's body.
My breath was labored and heavy as pain and fatigue plagued my body.

When I neared him, I heard the partly destroyed radio on his back come to life and heard my CO's voice on the other side.
..."Do you read?... I say again: Do you read?... How copy over?"

As I came side by side with Brian's corpse, I continued a little past him and pulled my self up to the edge of the cliff.

..."Are you clear?"
..."I say again: Are you clear?"

Ignoring him, I looked down the cliff overlooking the Japanese POW camp, Fukuoka.
My gaze shifted to the airfield a quarter of a mile away from the camp. Scanning the airstrip, I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the three Showa/Nakajima carrying the POWs take off.

I must have been unconscious long past the rendezvous time for pickup. But it didn't matter to me. They were safe now and that was all that mattered.

I watched as the hijacked Japanese aircraft gained altitude and turned east towards friendly airspace. Then something else up there caught my attention.
I looked up and saw a few miles above them, what looked like a lone American B-29 super flying fortress, heading towards the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

The radio came to life again and I heard my CO speak in a slightly lower voice.
..."Talion, the bombs on its way. Are you clear?"

I turned away from the cliff and rolled onto my back. Grunting in pain as I turned to face the sky.
Still breathing heavily, I reached down and grabbed the phone piece and slowly brought it to my head. I closed my eyes and with a shaky voice finally answered.

"We're clear."

I opened my eyes and stared up at the stone roof over me. Sleep still tugging at my mind.
After letting the rest of my body wake up, I turned my head to the side towards one of the windows of the old tower I was staying in.
The sun had not yet rise as it was still dark out.

*Old habits.* I thought to myself.

It has been a very long time since I have slept. Let alone dreamed.
I have only been in this strange land for a few days and yet this place is affecting me in strange ways.
I can't even remember the last time I've slept.
I've nearly forgotten how good it felt to rest like that. But I had forgotten about the kind of nightmares I get that stopped me from sleeping in the first place.

Out of all the horrific memories I have of every war I ever fought in, my mind always seems to go back to that day. August 9th, 1945.
But I couldn't think about any of that. Not now. Not again.

Despite my body's protests, I lifted myself into a sitting position on the bed. The bed, if you could call it that, was little more than an old torn up bed frame I had piled dead leaves on.
The forest floor was covered by the decaying plant matter. It must have been some time during autumn.

After getting my bearings, I pulled myself off the bed. Doing a few quick stretches in the process, then went to get my effects.
After putting my clothes on, I glanced over to a nearby large cracked mirror leaning against the wall, to check my appearance.

What stared back at me was a six foot five, tall man, who looked to be in his mid thirties with light tanned skin, a medium sized beard, black medium length hair and gray eyes.
A few scars ran across my face. One of them over my right eye and across the same cheek.

I wore thick black ankle length leather boots and black jeans. A light gray longsleave shirt under a dark gray button up vest. Over all of these was a long black trench coat, with silver trimmings and a high neck collar.

Finding everything in order, I walked over to a large window and examined the landscape before me.

A large lush dark forest that went on for miles.
I could see just a hint of light from the sun's rays over the eastern horizon underneath the clouds. It would be a few hours before the sun comes up and disappeared behind them again.
It would probably rain later today, but I had a mission. This land was uncharted territory for me and I needed to find out more about this new world.

Turning away from the window, I made my way towards the exit and grabbed my staff on the way out.
It was a simple hard oak wood hiking staff I had made when I woke up in this strange land, because it would seem I will be doing a lot of traveling off road here.

Making my way down the stairs of this crumbling castle, I arrived at a long hallway that went two ways. Taking the path on the right, my steps echoed in the long empty hall.
Soon I passed what seemed to be an old kitchen and banquet hall. The latter of which still had its old rotting wood tables and chairs.

Continuing down the hall past many corridors, I arrived in what was once a throne room. But instead of one throne, this room had two. One with a sun, the other with a moon. Though this whole castle was in ruin and falling apart, the two royal seats looked barely touched by time.

I stopped and stared at the two thrones for a few minutes, wondering who may have ruled here and how long ago.

I had arrived in this world at night. How I got here is still a mystery to me. When I woke up in this castle, I had first believed that I was still on earth. It wasn't till I had tried to use the star constellations I was familiar with that I learned I wasn't on earth anymore.

My first day here I searched the entire castle in hopes of finding anything that might tell me where I am and how I got here. But my search had turned up with nothing to explain my presence in this unfamiliar land.
So now I would need to find out more about this place the old fashioned way.
Exploring.

The second day of my stay here was a little more reveling. I made a large sweep around the castle searching for any signs of people or animal activity in the area.

As I suspected, there was no signs of human activity or any other living being. The plant growth around the ruins was evident of that.
But the animals I had found were bizarre beyond reason.
I had encountered what seemed to be wolves, whose outer skin and fur seemed to be made out of wood.
But much like wolves back home, It wasn't hard for me to drive them away. I did learn from them a little more about this forest. Like the different types of predators and prey they encountered.

What I had learned from those wolves had shocked me. Through their minds I saw many types of animals I was familiar with, but also many more I had never seen before.

Creatures and animals from myths, legends and nightmares infest the forest surrounding the castle. Yet none of which ever set foot near or into.
But despite these revelations, I still needed to find out where I was and what kind of civilization existed here.

Leaving the castle, I ventured out into the Everfree forest for the third time, northward.
The clouds in the north were large and dark, preventing me from seeing the tops of the mountains. Signs of a storm. Still, I pressed on.
I had no fear of the weather. Nor the forest and its inhabitants.

The forest, I noticed, was unlike any others I have seen. The very air itself seemed to be filled with illusion, as if this forest was enchanted. But I cared little for whatever made this forest so strange.
To the common eyes, this forest could easily deceive them. But not mine. I saw through the lies of this forest as I made my way through it.

After over two hours of walking, I came upon claw marks across some of the old towering trees. Looking down I realized that I was standing in a large claw/paw depression in the dirt.
Leaning down I traced the claw/paw print.

*Manticore*. I thought standing back up.
*Just what I'm looking for.*

I was close to their den.
I followed the memories of the wood wolves and continued into manticore territory.

I did not have to wait long to catch the attention of these powerful predators. Already I could feel their presence behind the brush all around me as I entered their borders.

Taking a brief look around, I noticed the lack of sound and stopped.
There was a single Manticore hidden in the brush a few dozen feet ahead of me.
The beast had probably intended to surprise attack me. But unfortunately for it and its kin, you cannot hide your spirit. Not from me, as I stared right at it.

The manticore seeing it has lost the element of surprise, slowly stepped out of the bushes, growling.
As the beast came out of its cover, it noticed my lack of fear and started to circle me, low to the ground. Putting my staff away on my back, I started to circle the manticore too.

From what I learned from the wood wolves, in doing this, you are challenging the manticore, one on one.
It's other kin seeing me do this, also came out and surrounded us. But did not attack me. Despite being out numbered, I still showed no fear.

The manticore inside the circle was studying me. As I was also studying it.
It looked like a giant grizzly bear sized lion, with bat like wings and a scorpion tail.
This was my first encounter with the wild animal of ancient Greek myth, but I have seen far too many real horrors to be scared of this thing.
While I was internally shocked at seeing such an unnatural creature in front of me, I was really more fascinated than scared or concerned.

Finished with my examination of the manticore, I stopped moving and it pounced towards me, swinging its right claw at me, as I had expected.

In a single instant I took a step to my right, uppercuted its wrist with my left arm and drove a heavy right hook into its now unprotected chest.
The manticore, still carrying the momentum of its leap, crashed and tumbled across the ground to my left, slightly stunned by the blow I delivered to its chest.

The other manticores ceased all movement and sound after they witnessed one of their kin get knocked to the side like a rag doll, but my opponent quickly got back up and turned towards me again. It's face now displaying burning rage, but I still held my ground.

It started to approach me, slowly speeding up until it leaped at me again. This time with both claws.
I smiled, reaching up with both hands and grabbed its claws. This move visibly shocked it.

As I skid backwards, still holding onto the manticore, I turned my upper body and threw it at a nearby tree. Once again using its momentum against it.
As the manticore struggled to get back up and tried to shake itself out of its daze, I walked towards it.

Seeing me coming, the manticore attempted to swing at me with its left claw.
Not even stopping, I punched it's claw away with my left arm, knocking it off balance. The manticore then reared its head back preparing an attempt to bite me, but before it brought its head down, I grabbed it with my right hand and my whole body became like a shadow as my eyes started glowing brightly with blue flames.
The manticore froze and it's eyes burst into blue fire as I forced my will into its mind.

It would seem I was in luck, as I learned that manticores have a slightly greater intelligence than the other animals of this forest. This meant more information.
But it was still just an animal. It would not be able to help me discover where I was, but it might be able to show me beings that could.

Moving past its surface thoughts, I quickly delve into its memories in search of any civilized race's it might have encountered.
It only took a few seconds as the manticore showed me a race of beings who looked like anthromorphic horses or ponies.

I was internally shocked at first, but could not afford to think about it right now.
So, putting my new found information temporarily to the back of my mind, I spoke into the manticores mind.

~I will leave. You will let me go.~

The manticore did not respond or do anything as I let go of its head. It's eyes still glowing, the manticore just stood still, not even moving a muscle.
I turned around to face the other manticores and found them a little closer but seemed too scared to attack me.

I stepped forward and some of them backed away but a few held their ground.
I stopped, as some of them stood in my path.

~"Out of my way."~ My voice echoing in their heads as well.

The manticores instantly lowered their heads and backed away from me with their tails between their legs.
My path no longer obstructed, I left the manticores lair.

As I left, the manticore I fought returned back to normal. But greatly terrified of what just happened.
None of the manticores followed me afterward.

I had sought out the manticores because, as a predator, the chances of them having encountered intelligent life is greater than that of prey animals who would have run from such people.
But now I knew what kind of people existed here and I knew where.

The wind started to pickup and the clouds to the north seemed to have turned into a storm.
Soon the sun passed behind the thunderhead as I made my way north.

Author's Note

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
If anyone is curious, Yes, this story is currently taking place before Nightmare Moons return. We will get to where the prologue left off in a few chapters or so.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below.
See you in the next chapter.