Monster

by BlackWing

An "Original" Plot

Davis stood in the middle of the clearing, his trench coat, previously covered in bullet holes, now had fresh slashes through it, making it all ripped at the bottom and on the sleeves. It was stained with blood, all his own, (Since wood doesn't bleed) and had now taken on a redder hue compared to it's previous midnight black. Looking around he saw the mangled corpses of the wooden wolves, and decided that he could use some firewood. He would have been more confused at seeing trees in the shape of wolves, if he hadn't already lost the capability to be surprised. After what he had been through, nothing could possibly catch him off guard anymore. All was good for Davis. He had escaped an impossible to escape trap, he had gotten to let out some of his pent up frustration, and now he had a nice fire going. His survival training from numerous camping trips, as well as spending several months in the woods served him well. He heard water nearby, and decided he would clean himself up and try for some fish.

After Twilight had Spike send her letter, she and Lyra went around Ponyville making sure everypony was alright, and trying to wake Rosebud up. She kept saying, "Oh the horror." After she had made sure that nopony had gone missing, and taking note of the damage to the town, which was fortunately minimal, Lyra went home to Bon Bon, who was more than eager for an explanation as to what the hay that was. Taking a page from Twilight, she used as much technical jargon as possible, and ended up avoiding having to explain that she was trying to snag a human all together.

The rest of the week was uneventful, and Twilight went about her normal routine with her friends, working on the unnamed but apparently important research she had to do. Lyra was a little upset that she couldn't get a human into Equestria, but it was probably for the best, considering what humans were supposed to be.

Lyra would have to settle for talking with the human from her dreams, if she could get a hold of him again. To her surprise, she could not. She saw a few seconds of him making a fire, before he immediately blocked her out again. He seemed a bit more relaxed now, so he must have escaped whatever had been chasing him again, although he did have blood on his now torn clothes. The thought that he had been in a fight was a bit worrying, and maybe it really was best that she had failed to bring him to her world. The forest he was in seemed different however. It was more familiar than the one he was in before.

Davis spent some time taking in his surroundings while heading towards the sound of water. While the clearing didn't have a single cloud above it, the forest itself seemed to have dark clouds hanging over it permanently. The canopy was also extremely thick. It was almost as if the forest was designed with the entire purpose of keeping light from reaching inside it, and as such there were not many underbrush plants.

The few areas that did allow light to reach to forest floor were teeming with plant life, almost none of which Davis recognized. Being a rather outdoorsy person to begin with, he had knowledge of almost all forest plants and animals, and 90% of these were unfamiliar. Then again, he had encountered trees that looked and acted like wolves, so finding a couple of plants that were unknown was totally reasonable. He saw some glowing blue ones that he immediately felt a foreboding about. The entire area around them looked like a video game with the bloom turned up way too high. They were giving off some kind of haze, and Davis thought it would probably be a good idea to NOT go inhaling glowing blue flower gas. He may or may not be being chased, he was in completely unfamiliar terrain, and he was most likely going crazy. The last thing he needed was to get high off some unknown plant.

Continuing towards the river, Davis saw a dead tree, and crouched down to inspect it, after all, it may have some edible mushrooms on it, which would be a nice change to his current diet of 2 fish and 3 blackberries a day. Maybe he could make a stew? Right, He didn't bring a pot with him for cooking. He normally just balanced his fish on two sticks above a fire. Davis face-palmed. What he saw was not mushrooms, but a small flower that he recognized as nightshade. Now, nightshade is poisonous, but only if it enters the body, which means either eating it, having it get in the bloodstream through wounds, or if you literally BATHE in the flower petals. Even then, it wouldn't even make you sick unless you got a high dosage. This little flower was different. As soon as Davis touched it he felt the life drain from him. He immediately began absorbing all the energy he could, and pulled his hand away.

"FUCK! That thing almost killed me!" He vomited. Apparently the nightshade plant in this place was so deadly, that even a touch gives enough poison to kill. Trying to pass his illness onto something else, he noticed that he could not, and he kept vomiting.

"Well, I can pass injuries onto other things, as well as the effects of a poison, but I can't move the poison itself, that's still in my body. I guess I know why the tree is dead now though." He said, as he stopped vomiting. As he walked, trying to give the effects of this toxin to the plant life around him, the multitude of plants began to falter from the effects. A certain yellow pegasus, spying from a hidden spot, was horrified. This was some cloaked creature that stood taller than any pony, it's face obscured by a hood, it's clothing in shambles and covered with blood, 2 wicked blades at it's legs, and a path of wilting plants in it's wake. Davis looked like death incarnate. She backed away slowly, not making a sound, and ran off towards her cottage.

Davis didn't notice that he was being watched. He had highly tuned senses from having been on the run for such a long time, but the thing watching him had had much more practice staying hidden. Having finally recovered from his ordeal, Davis was still thinking about that damn plant.

"It can kill with a single touch. If not for my powers letting me ride out it's effects, I would have been dead the moment I touched it. And because of that, everything around me is dead or dying. It's just like hatred. One touched by hatred then passes it on to others, trying to relieve themselves of it, and so on and so forth." Davis was starting to realize the nature of things. He knew of greed, and how it would drive men to madness. Now he knew of hatred, and how dangerous it really was. Thinking back to the wolves, he realized that while they were a threat to him, that didn't warrant that kind of wanton brutality.

"Since I must be in a new world, given what's surrounding me, I think I need a new name. This will be my new life. I'm going to leave my past behind me. I almost lost myself, and I may be a monster, but I will not be filled with hate or greed. I'll call myself Nightshade, as a reminder to myself that hate is a poison, and to never touch that damned plant."

The reborn "Nightshade" decided to stop fooling around and get some food. While he was getting a bit sick of fish, after emptying his stomach four times he was willing to eat anything short of dirt, and went about his business.

Fluttershy was about to tell her friends about this mysterious animal, that killed all that drew near, when she her Twilight yelling for her. Apparently she and her friends had been summoned to Canterlot to deal with the chaos that had been going on around town, something about some creature named "Discord" escaping.

The original reason she was in the forest was to find Zecora, hoping that one of her potions would cure the animals of their suddenly long legs, but that had been forgotten at seeing the strange entity. She wanted to tell her friends what she had seen, but with her shy nature, she just kept silent and helped to deal with the more pressing matters at hoof. By the time they had reached the capitol, she had all but forgotten about the forest monster, and chalked it up to being some poor creature that had been twisted by the spirit of chaos, and that it would be back to normal as soon as she and her friends had saved the world.

After a few days, Nightshade's expertly trained hearing picked up a commotion, and with some effort he climbed the tallest tree he could find. Looking around, he saw some castle ruins. "Okay, so this place was civilized at some point, but what about now?" Looking in the opposite direction, of in the distance he saw a village of some kind, buildings with thatched roofs, floating upside down?

"You know what?" Nightshade said to himself. "For the sake of my sanity, I don't even want to know."

Dropping to the forest floor, he found that the wolves were back, and in greater number. Apparently these forest guardians did not take kindly to this new creature in their home, and were upset that so many of them had fallen before.

"Just because I'm not going to be living in hatred, doesn't mean I won't kill if I have too. You guys have come looking for a fight, and judging by your numbers, you're not backing off." Needing some more practice, and some more wood if he wanted to make some kind of shelter, he thought he was rather lucky. As the wolves charged, a great boom was heard. A rainbow appeared in the sky, making a dome over what would have been the city, and exploded into white light. Having resolved to not investigate it, he charged the wolves, not giving them time to recover their bearings and coordinate a proper attack.

"Sorry, nothing personal." He said.