Boy or Beast

by AstralFlame

Chapter 3: Mistakes are made

Cyril stretched himself out as he slowly began to wake up. The green shapeshifter had trained his internal clock to wake him an hour before the sun rose. Picking himself up off of the ground Cyril looked around his den. The den itself was nothing more than a hole in the ground, it couldn’t qualify as a home since it lacked any of the necessities required to live in properly, but Cyril had at least managed to make himself a bed.

Wiping a leaf from his face Cyril saw the banner from yesterday, the blue cube was still wrapped inside untouched. Cyril had decided that calling another being to him would be a bad idea. Cyril knew literally nothing about the cube and didn’t feel like calling the wrath of the universe on himself. Pushing the cube from his mind Cyril headed for the entrance of his den.

Once outside Cyril quickly took care of his business before he washed himself in a nearby stream. He did the same with his cloths, though without soap he could only hope to scrub the stench the fabric, before hanging them on the highest limb of the highest tree he could find.

Cyril gave himself a once over before sighing, he didn’t like being an animal for extended periods, but with his clothes in the wash he had no choice. Transforming into a hawk Cyril made his way towards Ponyville. Cyril was starving and didn’t have the time or the patience today to go hunting.

00000

Ponyville’s streets were still dark but the light of the sun slowly began to creep over the horizon. It would be another hour or two before the first resident of Ponyville woke up at least the first one that Cyril had to worry about. When Cyril had first mastered his abilities, a feat he still felt unsure that had transpired, he had scouted Ponyville for a week. Always as an animal and always out of sight.

During that week he had found that the only residents who tended to be awake at this hour was the apple family, and the animal caretaker, Fluttershy, neither of which bothered to come into Ponyville at such an early hour. In short, for the next hour or so, Cyril would be free to scavenge and eat what food he could, though never the fool, Cyril always chose to be a small animal such as a raccoon or a ferret.

Where a pony to be awake now, all they’d hear was the rattling of trash cans, were they to look outside they’d see nothing more than a raccoon nose deep in their garbage can. Cyril was of course not happy with where his meal was coming from. The thought of eating garbage had originally repulsed him, but the combined efforts of starvation and a lack of hunting knowledge had forced him to take drastic measures.

Over time Cyril had begun to see the benefits of scavenging trash cans, it was an added bonus that most of what the ponies had thrown away was edible. Because of his ability to transform, Cyril had found that his stomach was able to hold the most repulsive looking of food.

Cyril moved on headed this time for the building that appeared to be made from candy and sweets. It wasn’t often that Cyril traveled near sugarcube corner, his fear of the pink monstrosity was cause enough to keep him at bay, though sometimes he found that his hunger could not be sated by the measly hay he found in most trashcans. Sometimes his pallet demanded that he sink his teeth into something sweet. Today was one of those days.

Approaching the bakery as slowly as he could while staying unseen, Cyril made his way to the trash cans near the side of the building. There were three of them that had been placed in a triangle formation. Gently pushing one of the cans aside Cyril found that a plate had been set in the space in the middle of the three cans. On the plate were several cupcakes and muffins in a neat stack. The hair on Cyril’s back bristled as his instincts told him to run.

Pushing the instinct aside, Cyril began to eat. He wasn’t sure how she knew, but whenever Cyril scavenged for food in Ponyville he would always find a plate with sweets nearby sugarcube corner. Pinkie had developed a trademark of setting the cans in a triangle to hide the sweets, and it was always on the nights Cyril decided to eat from the cans at Sugarcube corner. While the thought that Pinkie Pie was setting up a trap to capture him, made Cyril’s skin crawl, he wasn’t going to turn down food.

Finishing the sweets Cyril found a small card nearby, the word ‘enjoy’ clearly scribbled across it. Shuddering yet again, the young shape changer quickly moved on. The sun was starting to rise now, it’s golden rays slowly creeping towards him. Moving to the shadows, Cyril transformed before taking flight and heading towards Sweet apple acres.

Cyril hadn’t forgotten that Twilight and Fluttershy were still headed for the Everfree today to try and find him, and he was prepared to make hold up their trip as much as possible, but he needed to camouflage himself first. It wouldn’t do well to have Twilight see a green hawk as it would only peak her curiosity.

When Cyril spotted the first apple tree, he quickly dive bombed into it, using the leaves as a natural cover, before he peaked out. He swiveled his head from left to right, trying to catch sight of any members of the Apple family. Spotting none he quickly moved to the next tree and the next until he had reached the center of the property, where he found a cozy home and a bright stereotypical red barn.

Looking towards the barn Cyril saw a large window high above the barn doors. Cyril praised his good luck that the window was open. Cyril quickly took flight and flew into the window before he perched himself on one of the rafters. The barn was empty and the door seemed to be closed. Falling from the rafters, Cyril quickly transformed into a human and began to search for paint.

During his search Cyril found a lasso. The boy thought nothing of it until a thought struck him. Turning to the lasso an idea began to form in his head. Cyril was never one for mischief, but considering who was trying to find him, he thought it best to cover his bases. Transforming into a rat Cyril quickly scurried up a barrel and began to gnaw at the rope just below the knot. The shape shifter stopped before he chewed all the way through, and stepped back to look at his work.

Transforming into a human again, he continued his search for paint, shivering as the morning air washed over his naked form. Cyril cursed himself for wearing his clothes, but he hated to run around smelling like a dead animal. Soon after Cyril found the buckets of paint in the back of the barn. Quickly prying the lid off he looked inside to find red paint. Shaking his head he moved on to the next bucket. Cyril went through three more buckets before he found a color he liked.

Transforming into a hawk, Cyril dipped a feather in paint before drawing it out and inspecting it. When the extra paint fell away, his feathers were a dark dull brown color. Cyril smiled before he dipped his feather in again and slowly began to cover himself with the paint. The process seemed to take forever and Cyril wasn’t sure he got all of himself, but for the most part if he were flying fast enough, no one would see green .

Once done with his “face paint” Cyril flew out of the barn and headed for the friendship Castle. Getting there was easy, and Cyril did a few open passes, flying just slow enough for one of the ponies to spot him. When none seemed to be freaked out by the sight of him, he nodded to himself before making his way to the friendship castle. he passed a few of the windows, looking inside to if any occupied the rooms. Finally finding a window that was opened, Cyril flew inside.

Cyril gave the room a once over and discovered he had flown inside of what appeared to be an unused study. The desk and empty bookshelves as well as the thick layer of dust was a clear indication that no one had used this room ever. Returning to his human form Cyril moved to crack the door open. He shivered as his bare feet moved over the cold crystalline floor. Peeking out of the cracked door Cyril found the hallway to be empty. Returning to his bird form, he flew out of the study and kept close to the ceiling in case someone where to see him.

It didn’t take long for Cyril to find Twilight. She was in what appeared to be a large library, the various bookshelves and working tables littered the center of the room. Cyril found Twilight who was currently sifting through a saddle bag. The conversation Twilight had with Fluttershy came to Cyril's mind. Knowing Twilight or at least how the show portrayed her, Cyril had a hunch that she had tried to take notes on what she remembered from her encounter, no doubt it had been the first thing she had done once returning to her castle.

Landing on a nearby bookshelf, Cyril watched the lavender mare carefully, though his eyes constantly returned to the saddles. Instinct told him to flee the castle now, but he needed to get to those bags. Cyril wasn’t a fool, Twilight already knew about his existence. He wouldn’t be able to change that fact, but he wanted to keep her from learning more about him. Getting to those bags, and finding those notes was only the first step in maintaining as much secrecy about himself as was currently possible.

Twilight didn’t seem to move very far from her bag. Twilight had her nose deep in a scroll so her attention was more focused on that than anything else, it was lucky for him because if she were to look up now, she’d spot him. Despite Twilight being distracted, Cyril refrained from moving too quickly or making any sound. Her vision may have been focused on the scroll, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hear him.

Cyril began to think of several ways to get the mare to leave the room, but he quickly pushed several of those ideas out of his head. Turning into a T-Rex and roaring would not help him in the slightest and transforming into a mouse to try and scare her seemed too cliche, a spider would certainly be a step up from a mouse but he didn’t think a spider would work an better than a mouse. There was always the large anaconda approach, but Cyril thought that if he scared her to much, she might blast a hole through him, and being dead was not something he wanted to experience anytime soon.

Cyril was left with two options, both of which didn’t involve scaring the mare outright. one involved the form of a large bat, while the other involved the form of a Lyrebird. Cyril leaned towards the use of the bat form, mostly because he wanted to shatter the window directly behind Twilight so that he could escape easily if he needed to, but ultimately he decided on using the lyrebird.

As quietly as he could, Cyril flew out the only door in the entire room, before he positioned himself a ways down from said door. Making sure Spike wasn’t coming from the other direction, Cyril transformed into a lyrebird. Taking a few seconds to get himself situated Cyril quickly called out, still in the form of a lyre bird.

“Twilight!” he called, spike’s voice coming instead of a bird call. The ingenuity of the lyre bird was it’s ability to mimic any sound, even that someone’s voice.

“Spike?” Twilight called back confused

“Twilight help!” he called again.

There was the sound of hooves scraping across crystal before the door to the library quickly threw itself open. Cyril nearly got caught as the frantic mare rushed past him, her ears trying to pinpoint where sound of distress had come from. Twilight called Spike’s name as she turned down a hall and galloped off. Cyril wasted no time, as he returned to his human form and dashed into the library.

Spotting the bags on the table, Cyril rushed towards them before upending the bag, spilling the contents onto the table. Cyril gave a small yelp as an inkwell clattered onto the table before the stopper came loose and spilled all over the the table. Some of the ink had hit his chest and face as well. Wiping the ink away, Cyril went to work on trying to find Twilight’s notes. It wasn’t hard to find the notes, out of all of the books that Twilight had stuffed into her bags, the notes had been the only one without a title, a quick scan through the first paragraph told him that he had found the right one.

Before Cyril could read through more of the notes though he heard two people talking as the approached the library. Cyril cursed as he recognized one of them as Twilight. Cyril gave the room a once over and noted with frustration that the ink had spilled onto the floor and more precisely around his feet. Looking back and forth between the door and the puddle of ink Cyril made a decision.

00000

Twilight raced through the halls as she called out for spike. Fear overtook her as she remembered the sound of terror in Spike's voice. She pushed herself to run faster to try and find Spike as fast as she could. It wasn’t until she came running down the steps that led to the entrance of the castle that she stopped dead in her tracks.

Standing in the foyer was Spike and Fluttershy. Both mare and dragon looked at Twilight with confusion and worry on their faces. Twilight immediately turned to look at Spike. The baby dragon seemed fine, he didn’t appear to be hurt, and besides the mild worry on his face, he didn’t seem to be scared. Nevertheless Twilight ran towards the baby dragon before assaulting him with a wall of questions.

“Are you alright, why did you yell is something wrong?” was all either Spike or Fluttershy could catch.

“What? I didn’t yell,” Spike said as he looked towards Fluttershy, the Pegasus seemed more scared than Spike.

“What? No I heard you, you screamed for help,” Twilight insisted. Spike only shook his head.

“I’ve been standing here with Fluttershy for the past ten minutes,” Turning towards the Pegasus, she gave a small eep as she hid behind her mane before clearing her throat.

“Um, well Spike’s right, we have been standing here for awhile and I’m pretty sure he didn’t scream for help,” Twilight gave the two a confused look.

The thought that Spike was playing a prank on her, crossed Twilight's mind, however Fluttershy would never help anypony with a prank, especially if the prank was on one of her friends. No something else was up. The possibility that Twilight might have heard nothing was another thought that passed through her head, but that didn’t make much sense. If she was hearing things it would have been less clear. The voice she heard sounded like it was just outside the door.

“Are you alright Twilight?” Spike asked.

Twilight shook her head to clear it of thoughts. “Yea I”m fine, I probably didn’t get enough sleep last night,” She replied. Memories of last night came flooding back as she had looked through countless books that would explain the wolf she had seen.

“Twilight are you sure you’re alright?” Fluttershy asked as she moved closer to inspect her friend.

“Yeah I’m fine,” she said waving a hoof dismissively. “Let me go get my bags then we can leave,” she said moving back up the stairs. Fluttershy followed close behind just to be sure.

“So this wolf that you want to find,” Fluttershy started gaining Twilight's attention. “Is there anything else you’d be able to tell me about it,” Twilight shook her head in dismay.

“I have some notes that I got based on what I observed yesterday. It’s not much and there's nothing in them that I haven’t already told you,” Twilight replied. She could see the door to the library up ahead. “The only clue I have to find him, is where I saw him last,”

Fluttershy nodded in agreement. Twilight had said she saw the wolf with blood on it’s face, if the blood was fresh, Twilight could have stumbled upon it’s hunting grounds. Twilight and Fluttershy made it to the library fairly quickly, and without hesitation Twilight used her magic to open the door wide. Both mares froze as they walked into the room.

A growl rang out in library as the wolf the two mares had been discussing stood on the table, Twilight’s bag was torn to shreds. Ink and paper littered the room. The wolf was covered in ink and what looked like brown paint. The paint and ink did nothing to hide the green in it’s fur. Between its jaws, the wolf held a plain book. It, like much of the contents from Twilight’s bag, was covered in Ink. The wolf lowered itself in a defensive stance and growled again.

In an instant it bolted in the opposite direction, leaving both mares startled. Running for the window the wolf jumped. The glass shattered as the wolf fell to the ground. Both mares rushed towards the window and looked out but were ultimately confused as the wolf had vanished.

Stepping back from the window Twilight began to have a mental break down. “How did it get in here!” She nearly shouted as she paced back and forth.

“Um, Twilight it had something in it’s mouth,” Fluttershy said as she placed a hoof on the princess, trying to get her to focus.

“A book! Which book though!” she asked no one in particular. In an instant Twilight began to look over the items that had been in her bag. Most of them were covered in ink and had the imprint of a wolf’s paw She took a quick log of the books that she had and which were left.

“What did it take?” Fluttershy asked as she noted the look of surprise and fear on Twilight's face.

“My notes,” she whispered quietly.

Author's Note:

So it's finally out, chapter three. I want to thank everyone for their patience. I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise about making this chapter a crossover, but Flutters is shy is having some IRL problems, and I couldn't keep waiting.

I want to apologize if near the end it feels like it's rushed, that's because it is. I have wanted to get this chapter out so bad, that when I got close to the end I could help it I'm sorry.

Comments

[Cauchemar]

Well then. Congrats on making purplesmarts life harder. I'd advise you to run though before she razes the forest to the ground looking for her book.

[The A I]

and now they know there is more to the "wolf"
more please!

[Lycanthromancer]

Now I'm left wondering what the purpose of the brown paint was, since it's now pretty much moot.

Also, you might want to look up the differences between "peek," "peak," and "pique," as well as "its" and "it's."

[Frosty the Batty]

This fic actually raised my heart rate, i approve.

[Dinokid11]

Good chapters can't wait for more and will twilight find beast boy

[AstralFlame]

6628845
I don't like giving away spoilers however I think I can make an exception just this once. The paint was applied to his body as camo, but it was applied while he was in the form of a hawk. When he transformed into a wolf the surface area greatly increased making the paint virtually pointless. Cyril's original objective was not be seen as anything other than a wolf. The paint served it's purpose.

also yea I'm sorry but like I said I wanted update this story so bad that I kind of let my vocabulary slip a bit.

[Royal7]

Is "the beast"from the episode the beast within going to apear[youtube=www.youtube.Com/watchv=37bDyR9Cmy8] IE the transformation

[AstralFlame]

6633984
are you a mind reader!

[Royal7]

Mind reader no some one who was disappointed it didn't apear in the show more than twice YES it was possible the strongest BB ever got even the T Rex transformation would lose because of the his blinding speed

[Twinleo]

Not bad! Keep it going!
Am I the only one that did not know that he was beast boy until the middle of the first chapter?

[Hoppa_21]

I'm wondering why he is so bend on keeping his existence a secret. He wants to go home, so why not try and get help? He obviously can't do it alone.

On a side note, can't he transform in a pony and walk around Ponyville anonymous, if he wants him being an alien to be a secret and at the same time to research a way to get back on his own?

[Cheshirek4t]

7003904
Well this may vary from people to people
To be honest if i were in his place i would do it just by the fun of seing twilight having a mental breakdown (muahahahahaha😈) or by the excitement of tricking anyone who tried to hunt me down

[Ziper Ace]

My question is why not turn into a Bat Pony or any other intelligent race to live in ponyvill