//------------------------------//
// Wakey Wakey 
// Story: Warped Paths 
// by Morikain 
//------------------------------//

With the large Shadow beast out for the count, I had turned to joking around with Tragornis. After a small amount of banter, I heard a shout from behind me.

“SARIKASIN!” Moriak yelled.

I whipped my head towards where I had noticed my friend/savior had tread, and saw his body crumple to the ground. One of those weird as hell pincers, slick with blood, slid from Sari’s body. I stared at the body. Thoughts went through my mind, many thoughts of varied intensities but the one the resounded was….

'A bitch is going to die'

I tore my eyes away from Sari’s dead body, keeping in mind that what I needed to do needs to be accomplished within 8 minutes, and looked towards the vile beast that had slain my friend. It looked towards me, and I could barely tell that it had a ‘eat shit’ grin. Staring at the Shadow beast, I feel the rage start tinting my sight to red. I look towards Tragornis, and see that he has already raised his bow from Ro knows where, and then to my other side, only to see Moriak still staring at Sarikasin’s corpse.

I sigh, knowing that if this…this ‘thing’ isn’t removed, then all on this planet is forfeit, and to lose this fight would be worse than that one incident that caused Sari to turn into a female troll for a week. I still hear the ringing of explosions on some days. 

“If we don’t make it, I do want to say…” I turn to Tragornis, a frown appearing across my snout, “You still owe me for all that Ro besotted crap I got for your house.”

“Yea, yea love you too,” Trag said back to me. I looked back towards the Shadow beast, and a small smile crosses my face, my sight goes redder.

“You. Are. So. Fucking. Dead.” At that I charge at the beast. I hear a lions roar, and my speed increases. As I get half way towards the monster, I stab my sword forward, while lunging, and fly towards the beast. Upon contact the beast stumbles back, and I am upon his chest with a fury, my shield forgotten behind me, as I open up slashes from my claws. I hear noise from behind but don’t pay any heed to it as I focus on trying to dig into this vile beast. 

“YOU WILL BURN IN RO’S FORSAKEN BALLSACK, SHADOW-!” I shout but then got knocked off by a pincer. As I fly to the side of the room, I hear a large explosion and a VERY bright light blinds me, and I hear the Shadow beast bellow in pain. When I land, I hear some shouted commands, most coming from Celestia, and a large battle cry from what must have been close to 60 some individuals. What my eyes treated me was to see a large amount of Royal Guard, most of which looked to be mages, charging the beast. The Unicorn guards fired large volleys of spells that smashed upon the Shadow beast, leaving little bits here and there scorched, while the Pegasus looked to using themselves as weapons, slashing at the abominations face, legs, or arms with their wings. The regular ponies, for what they were, just stayed in front of the magi, their spears and shields (for how they wield them I’ll never get) ready to push the Shadow away, in case it got close. I noticed in that line that Moriak stood next to the guards; doing little dances here and there… Must be trying to inspire but I still say that looking fearsome is better for morale than skipping about like a small whelping. Behind them, with the magi, stood Tragornis, launching various colored arrows, and occasionally mouthing something, towards the abomination that had yet to be slain. 

Getting up, and wincing a little bit, I looked towards where Sari’s body had lain and noticed that some of the regular guards were dragging his body back towards the defensive line. Having that little bit of good news I looked towards the Shadow beast, just in time to get a small spray of blood across my face, looking towards which unlucky soul who had bit the dust and immediately got me infuriated. A mare had gotten stabbed and was being, and dragged towards the beasts’ maw. With a great roar, I charged forward, ignoring my wounds. The beast stopped, looked towards my location, and received an angry Sarnak to the face. I guess that he either killed, or released the poor guard, but now I had to deal with a stumbling Shadow beast that was now clearly intent on getting me off of its face. I started clawing at the creatures eyes, trying to go for the fastest way to incapacitate, and spotted something that made me almost shout in joy. It was the opening that had been opened earlier in the head, and it was still oozing lifeblood. I started to claw towards it, and felt my tail clip one of the pincers that had tried remove my presence from his face. 

‘I wonder if he’ll pop like a firework. ’ I think to myself, getting to the entrance of the wound. I take my claws and start working into the beasts skull. As I get in I am immediately assaulted by the smell of death, blood, and hatred made manifest. Getting into the skull, I looked to the hole and notice it is starting to close up.  ‘Heh, this will be more poppy than smashing all those apples with that war hammer I found.’ As the wound gets close to half way, I prepare myself for probably the stupidest thing I have possibly done… besides doing all of those running off cliff incidents… or trying to have a party with the Qeynosian guards… or the Freeport guards. Back to the matter, I looked back to the hole and noticed that it was about to close. I stabled myself, zoning into a state of calm. I opened my mouth and immediately tasted everything in this creatures head, and the taste was indescribable (and will remain so forever). I put off the sensation that what I had eaten was coming back up, and centered my power all into my claws. They started to glow golden, and a faint sensation of weight became present in both. I put my hands together and took a large breath, taking in the pollutants into my body. I opened my eyes and looked towards the now coalesced golden hammer in front of me. Raising the hammer I high I prepared to

“DUBSTEP!” I shouted with all my might, and swung the hammer down in front of me. The resulting burst could only be described as what those damnable gnomes made, called ‘Party poppers’ which worked more like a bomb than anything else. The sudden assault of light disoriented me but the dead Shadow Brute made everything better. As the body started to fall, I tumbled forward, only to feel a pair of hooves grab my arms on both sides. As we landed the sudden shaking of the large monsters body hitting the ground staggered some of the guards on the ground but other than a few small clouds of dust fell from the ceiling. I looked over to Sari’s body, noting that the ponies that were looking over him, plus Celestia, had a sorrow filled gaze, and as I walked over, Celestia looked up to me and motioned for me to follow but I ignored her. I reached into a pouch I had on behind me, hidden in a special fault in the armor I had on, and I pulled out a crystal feather, tinged blue and opaque. As I stopped walking and knelt down, all eyes were on me.

“Sari, I just wanted to say…” I adorned a sad face, to placate all in attendance. Silence drew on for a few moments. Then my face burst into a crazy grin, lifting the feather as if a dagger, and stabbed Sari’s chest. “WAKEY WAKEY!” As I looked at the crystal feather, I noticed that it started getting clearer, and lost its blue hue. “Knew I was in time,” A smug smile appeared on my face. Then I felt a weight smash into the back of my skull and I was out.