“What hit me, hmm?”
Deidara’s eyes snapped open, just in time for a massive headache to hit him like a train. Clenching his teeth, he attempted to remember how he got wherever he was. He looked around, but all he could barely see anything. Looking to his left, he saw the exit to a cave. Looking out it, he could see it was night time.
“This is odd. How could I have gotten here, hmm?”
Suddenly, the fight with Naruto and Kakashi came back to him. Deidara shot to his feet, and looked wildly around for either of the two. All he saw was a series of dripping stalactites. He looked behind him, but all he saw was a large wall. He stood on guard for several tense moments, before deciding that neither of his opponents were in the cave with him. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and sat down.
“Now, did Kakashi’s attack somehow hurl me here, hmm?” He asked aloud. He puzzled over the question, before realizing he didn’t have enough information to go off of. What did matter was getting more clay so he wasn’t helpless. He thought of possible places to gather some as he leaned back into the wall.
“You know, this walls pretty soft. I really lucked out in choices of caves, hmm?” His eyes shot open as what he said registered. “Wait, a soft wall, hmm?” He turned around, and was greeted with the muzzle of a three story, blue bear.
Suddenly, it’s eyes opened.
Deidara slowly got to his feet, and started backing away towards the cave’s exit. “Tsk. I don’t want to use my clay if I can help it, hmm?”
The bear got to its feet, and glared down at the tiny creature that had dared to disturb its rest. Mercy would not be forthcoming.
As soon as the beast lunged for Deidara, he jumped for the exit, clearing it just before the bear’s jaws slammed shut. Unperturbed by the speed of its new prey, the bear charged Deidara again.
As he leapt back yet again, Deidara snaked a hand into his clay pouch, his hand mouth devouring the last of his clay. As his hand mouth chewed, Deidara continued to dodge the wild swipes of the bear’s paws. He withdrew his hand from the pouch, and opened it. Sitting in his palm was a small clay sparrow.
“How’d you like to become art, hmm?”
The sparrow’s wings began to beat up and down, it took off and flew right to the bear. The bear seemed puzzled by the lifelike sculpture in front of it’s head. Suddenly it lunged forward to bite it.
“Katsu!”
As soon as Deidara said that, the sparrow exploded. The huge bear’s head was almost completely destroyed, and its remains were blown back twenty feet. Despite having no clay left, Deidara’s confident smirk returned.
“And so it is over, hmm? Of course, art can never last for more than a second.”
Before he could begin a monologue on art, the ground began to shudder. The shaking was so strong that Deidara almost lost his balance, before realizing he was hearing massive footsteps. The footsteps ceased, and still smirking, Deidara looked up. His was met with an earth-shattering roar. For above him, was a purple bear many times larger than the one he had just killed.
“Not good, hmm?”
As if to answer Deidara’s question, the purple monstrosity roared again, with a twinge of sadness in its voice. It disconsolately pawed at the broken body of the blue bear, before loosing another roar to the heavens. It stomped the ground, before turning back to Deidara.
“Not good at all, hmm?”
Celestia awoke to the sound of an ear splitting roar. She sat up in her bed, and desperately looked around for the source of the noise. When nothing in her room was amiss, she lay back down and sighed.
“Must have been a nightmare.”
She heard another roar, and was so startled she actually fell out of her bed. She then heard huge crashing noises in the distance. Celestia heard running hoofsteps in the hall outside of her room, so she was not startled when Luna barged into her room.
“Tia, what was that?”
Celestia got up to her hooves, and said, “I don’t know.” She glanced longingly at her bed before adding, “But I guess we’ll have to find out.”
Celestia and Luna exited her room, and began walking down the hall at a brisk pace. They exited the castle onto a balcony, and took off into the night sky.
Deidara was currently running for his life. He jumped to another branch, just as the one he had previously occupied was destroyed by a single swipe of the monstrosity’s claws. He had been chased for the better part of an hour; this exertion combined with his previous fights had left him exhausted.
“Yeah, you’re pretty angry, hmm? Are you angry that I killed your cub? Well now, too bad you can’t catch me, hmm?”
Even as he ran for his life, Deidara couldn’t stop taunting the giant bear. He wasn’t sure if it could understand him or not, but the taunts made him more confident. As he dodged yet another strike, he said, “If you can’t even touch me without my clay, then you’d be dead if I had it, hmm?”
He jumped again, but landed on a dead branch. As soon as his feet hit it, it collapsed. Deidara fell to the ground just as the monstrosity caught up. He shakily got to his feet; exhaustion was beginning to get the better of him. He jumped back into the trees a little slower.
A fair distance away, two alicorns were gliding through the air. They were heading for the source of the disturbance. They had been flying from Canterlot for nearly an hour and a half, and had entered the Everfree Forest a short while ago. From their distance, the giant bear was only just visible.
“Is… is that an Ursa Major?” Luna asked her older sister.
“There’s no doubt. But what’s it doing this close to the edge of the Everfree Forest?” Celestia questioned back as they both drew ever closer to the rampaging beast.
Luna didn’t answer, and the Alicorn sisters just concentrated on flying faster. It was getting closer to Ponyville, and they couldn’t let the Ursa Major reach it. They flew ever faster, until they were going as fast as they could.
Deidara was exhausted. He’d been running for nearly two hours. He’d stopped actively taunting the bear half an hour ago when it became clear that there was no way he could outrun it.
He stumbled on a tree branch, and fell to the ground again. He hit his head on a rock, and this time he didn’t get back up. Panting, he looked up at the monstrosity bearing down on him. His vision was fading. Suddenly, he laughed, “Ah-ha-ha-ha. You think a dumb bear can kill me, hmm? I freaking hate bears! You think you can kill an artist just like this? You can’t, hmm!”
The giant bear roared down at its child’s murderer. Deidara screamed in rage and defiance back at it. The bear raised its paw to end it.
“Art is a blast!” Deidara shouted.
The giant paw, his would-be executioner, was stopped by a blue, glowing barrier.
“A barrier jutsu, hmm?” Deidara wondered aloud.
He saw the monster take a step back, then roar again. He then saw streaks of bright light start hitting the bear.
“I’m being saved? By who, hmm?” Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be awake to greet his rescuers.