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Welcome to Re-Equestria Art Online!2,664 words
A Battle to Remember2,933 words
A Little Something for A Little Spike1,890 words
Wait, What?2,130 words
No Going Back2,704 words
And So It Begins3,045 words
Into The Woods1,739 words
Into The Dark1,592 words
Down, Only Down1,293 words
Thorn In Your Paw2,466 words

Thorn In Your Paw

The trees loom over us as we walk, the sounds of the Everfree Forest as ominous as ever.

“Hey, you don’t find it weird that we haven’t encountered even one timberwolf? Before, this place was chock-full of them!” Pinkie exclaims to me.

“Well, I guess you’re right, but I think it’s because we activated the tickets, or something like that. If anything, I’m glad they’re not here to distract us.” I chatter, keeping my eyes open for any surprises.

I hear a ruffle in the leaves. I turn my head to the sound, and something catches my eye. “Pinkie, come over here. I think I see something.” I whisper to her and we shuffle over to a bush. I hear Pinkie gasp.

“What is it?” I ask her worriedly.

“Can’t you see it? It’s a giant paw print!” She says in awe.

“No, sorry, the leaves block my view and I don’t recognize the plant, it might be poisonous…” I explain.

“Well, it might just be nothing. We should go back and join the group.” Pinkie exclaims and starts bouncing back in her enthusiastic manner. I follow her, still a bit suspicious.

We walk in peace for a few minutes, covering a decent distance. It worries me that nothing interrupts us, like a nagging thought at the back of my head.

I taste hair in my mouth, and I stumble back, sputtering. I realize I had bumped into the pony in front of me. Bleh.

“Hey, Pinkie, you know why we stopped all of the sudden?” I ask her as I try to look over the ponies’ heads and identify the hold up.

I see pinkie jumping way high beside me. “Well, there’s a big looming scary shadow in front of the ponies. Pretty sure they’re real shocked right about now.” Pinkie says skeptically.

My eyes go wide.

I grab Pinkie and drag her into the shrub with me, and we slowly make our way to the front of the group. I feel my mane tugged back by the force of the wind and I cover my ears from the sound of the deafening roar.

We rush behind a tree for cover, and I peak past the trunk to get a good look at what made the horrible sound.

A horrid creature towered over the ponies up front, now recovering from their cowering positions on the ground. It slightly resembles a lion, yellow shaggy fur with a rough red mane, but I know that isn’t just some regular lion. I can feel it.

Then I see it.

Its ears, though hidden in its mangy mane, were twice as long and spike up at the tips. As I squint, I see the bat-like wings pressed to its sides. I see the its giant scorpion tail swinging back and forth behind it. I recognize this creature, I do not quite remember, but I do.

A manticore, but not quite.

Its fur looks drained and pale compared to what I remember of a Manticore, and the mane and scorpion tail are a bloody crimson instead of a fiery red. What really captures my attention though, are its eyes.

Black as coal, yet blue as a moonless night. Emotionless, yet crazy with the wild madness only the Everfree could harbor. Yet darker. The manticore bears its teeth at us, letting out a war cry so loud it shook the trees.

“Hey, Twilight? Would you mind stopping your day dreaming and get back to the life and death situation that’s about to occur?” Pinkie Pie asks and pokes my shoulder, a hint in her voice.

“Yes, yes, sorry about that. Wait, looks like they’re saying something important.” I tell her and turn to the pony group.

“Okay, everyone, split into two groups, one on each side of the manticore! Our group will attack from in front, distracting it so that your groups can advance and corner it from behind. Don’t exert too much energy. Be careful around its tail, we are not sure if it is poisonous or not. Keep it on the ground!” One of the ponies from the lead group shouts as his teammates jump into action.

Pinkie and I merge into the left side of the ponies, steadily running through the trees to corner the foul creature. I see the group in charge engaging the manticore, quick to jump out of paw's reach after landing a swift blow. I ready my hoof claws, but I don’t think a sword would be suitable for this occasion. It would be quite hard to maneuver quickly with its weight.

“Everyone, now!” Cotton cries, and we jump onto the manticore, dealing swift blow after swift blow. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the manticore’s health bar dwindling to zero. We jump away from the manticore as it slumps onto the ground, but before it could burst into black sparkles, it gives a deafening cry. Well, so much for saving my ears.

Then I hear them howl back.
The manticore sinks into the earth, and bursts into black sparkles, but is soon replaced by a group of manticores.

“Quick! Split into groups and try to surround them! Don’t get separated and holler if you need help! We can do this!” Cotton yells to us.

Pinkie Pie nods to the nearest manticore and I nod back. We slink towards it, careful to stay in the brush so that it wouldn’t see us. With the element of surprise on my side, I slice the manticore’s tail off with a swift move and quickly back away behind the tree.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I jump back out from behind the tree. The beast howls in pain, turning to me with anger in its eyes. I swipe my sword at its leg and then the back one. I didn’t notice before, but the beasts in this world don’t seem to bleed. Weird.

Caught off guard, I barely saw it coming when the manticore jumped at me. Quickly regaining my composure I jump away in the wee seconds I had before the manticore could squash me. Sadly, though it did not squish me, it ripped off most of my tail that got tangled in its claws. I bit my lip as I saw my health bar go down a pinch. Nothing too serious, at least not yet.

I quickly remind myself that I’m in danger of being ripped apart, and lock eyes with the manticore. Okay, what’s the best thing to do in this situation? I see the other ponies start to attack it as well, giving me some time to think.

Attacking the beast blindly isn’t very efficient, but if we could immobilize it…

“Hey, guys, try to take off its legs! If we can do that, it won’t be able to move around!” I say to the ponies around me and jump at the manticore’s back legs. I swing the sword and slice at the leg. I get a good cut, but it seals itself before I could fully chop it off. I need to cut deeper. I hop backwards as the manticore swipes its claw at me, but it quickly twists back as Pinkie kicks its leg out from under it, causing the wild animal to slip and fall. Grasping at the opportunity, I slice at its other leg with full force, successfully severing it. The limb immediately explodes in sparkles, and the manticore roars with anger. I grin as I realize that we have a slight advantage now.

Before I realize what’s happening, I’m flung into the air, my my back hoof feeling like it was just yanked out of its socket. I wince with the pain, and frozen with shock, I plummet back down into the ground. I start flailing my hooves in panic.

“Help!” I manage to squeak.

“Twi!” I hear Pinkie yell.
Oomph!

I land on a bush, which is obviously better than on the bare ground, but I still feel terribly winded. Luckily, it doesn’t feel like any ribs have been cracked, but I feel all the scratches on my face and hooves, and from the looks of my red health bar, I’m injured quite badly.

This is the perfect opportunity to try out my healing spell!

In my mind I picture the red flame of my health bar slowly - wait no, I don’t have time for slow, this needs to be quick - , quickly turning orange, to yellow, and to green. I feel my horn pulse with the power, though not as powerful as when I was an alicorn, it was still magic. I quickly look at my health bar, and see that it has gone from a fifth to about a third of the health bar, now orange. It was slowly trickling back. I feel kind of dizzy, but there’s no time for that. I need to get myself out of this bush.

I climb out and quickly look around and see a bright pink coat in the midst of ponies. I dash in that direction, and notice that know there were two manticores fighting back to back against the rest of the equines. One of them had their back leg chopped off, so I’m guessing that one’s ours. I steal a glance at the rest of the forest and see that two of the manticores have been taken out. That gives me hope.

I charge at the manticore, and finding an opening, I shoot my dagger at its face, aiming for the eye.

Bulls-eye! The dagger hits straight and true! Kind of. It hit the other eye, but that’s not something I need to worry about. I feel butterflies flying in my stomach, thinking of what I’ve just done.

While the manticore scrabbles at the peice of metal in its eye, I make use of the opening and slash at its other back leg, and slice straight through it, rendering the beast unable to stand. I quickly dash back out of clawing distance, but the other manticore manages to claw at my side. My health bar had manage to crawl back to halfway through, and now decreases back to a third and a half. I grit my teeth, pain searing through my skin. I did not in fact account for the other manticore. I was foolish to get that close. Why, Twilight, why didn’t you think of that before-hoof? Ugh!

Now unable to move around, the ponies split into two groups, one group swerving around the fight and distract the second manticore and one charging at the first manticore while it is partly blinded and unable to move.

Just like that, the first manticore bursts into black sparkles. Only two more manticores. We can do it.

I quickly back up behind a tree and check my inventory for a healing gem. They work a lot better than that healing spell I tried. I currently had another healing gem activated, but it was wearing out, so I switch out the two gems. I close my inventory and check my health bar, now a bit over halfway, a green-tinted orange.

I stumble out from behind the tree, my tiredness catching up with me. Apparently I can also run out of breath in this world. Slightly unbalanced, I trudge back towards the second manticore and groan as it spreads its wings, about to take off.

“No! We can’t let it take flight, it will have the advantage if it takes the air. We have to stop it!” I shout as I gallop straight for the manticore, sword facing forward. The manticore starts flapping its wings, and I see the ponies around me attacking it. I jump and stab its right wing with my sword, and shred it with my hoof-claws. It strikes a blow to my front hoof, throwing my to the side.

I groan with pain and see my health bar trickle away till it’s a down to a third and a half. I took less damage this time because I switched my healing gem, and I get back up. The manticore stops flapping its wings, and I see that there’s a decent amount of damage to its left wing. We have sufficiently grounded the manticore. I turn around to see that the group with the second manticore did not have the same luck, as their manticore was hovering in mid-air, and they had sent some pegasi to try to strike down its wings. I don’t think they’ll have much luck unless they try to strike the inside of the wing, since the outside is covered by a layer of scales.

I throw a dagger at the grounded manticore, but this time the manticore swats it away before it could reach its face, but it in turn has its paw cut against it. Pinkie pie takes the chance to slice off its back leg, and two other ponies take down its right back leg. Darts fly into the manticore’s eye, and I silently thank whoever shot them, and taking advantage of the moment I jump at the manticore, and with as much force as I can muster, I slice off its head. The manticore collapses into black sparkles.

“One left! Let’s go!” I hear a voice and presume it’s Cotton Cloud.

I look over to the flying manticore and see the pegasi trying to fight it in the air and the grounded ponies firing spells and missiles at the manticore. I go to pick up the daggers I had thrown at the other manticores. This had gone better than I would have thought, not counting the excruciating pain I felt. Yep, just great.

I walk over as the manticore turns to black sparkles, easily overwhelmed by our giant group of equines.

We all regroup at a small clearing in the forest.

“All right! We have defeated the manticores! We are getting ever closer to our target, and it’s all thanks to you ponies. Now, we are slightly off-course at the moment, but that’s not to worry about, as Grey is re-coordinating the path as we speak. Everypony has fought well so far, and I hope we all still have our gems and spells ready to use for any upcoming attacks,” Cotton congratulates us.

“Twilight!” Pinkie whispers as she comes to stand next to me.

“Hey Pinkie!” I whisper back, smiling. I’m glad she’s all right.

“Right. So, sadly, our arrival will be delayed by a few minutes or so, but our path is more or less the same. Let’s get to it! You will be our lead group this time.” Grey says and points to two groups of ponies in the front.

“Kay, let’s go!” Pinkie says, we trudge on in the moonlit darkness, and in the corner of my eye, a dark purple wisp slinks by.

Author's Note:

I finally uploaded another chapter

It's true, I've been having trouble with the action scene (if you can even call it that) , but nevertheless, I tried my hardest today to finish what I had started. I mean, I don't want this going on hiatus, now that would be tragic!