Mud and grit and the taste of blood filled my mouth as I was slammed forward into the stream bed.  The weight of the animal on my back forced me to the ground as pain rippled through me.  Hot agony tore through my back as the creature kicked and clawed at me, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it.  I fought, I thrashed, pushed and screamed but it only drove the thing on.  The pain in my shoulder where its vice like jaws gripped me was quickly turning into little more than a dull pain and numbness.  Even my eyes felt heavy while the sensations of the world drifted away.  One last thought floated through my mind before everything went numb.

"This isn't an honorable death..."

The Princess of the Night screamed over the forest, every stroke of her wings pushing her faster and harder through the air.  What was a dark forest to most was little more than a shadowy field of trees to enhanced eyesight.  Of all nights for this to happen, it had to be her time.  Anger and fear kept her in the air as the air became softer, more humid.  Luna's mind took in every detail of the terrain below, searching for something, anything.  

A rolling growl in the distance grabbed her attention, Tipping her left wing down, Luna turned toward the noise.  For a moment, it gave her hope that Hex was still on the run.  For a moment, she had hope.  Looking down at the stream below, the color seemed off, wrong in many ways.  A moment later, it dawned on her.  The cloying scent in the air brought back many memories, both old and recent.   The scent of blood was in the air.  Down she dove, the treetops whipped by her as she entered the darkened forest.  Just a few feet below her hooves, the stream gurgled innocently as blood mingled with the cool waters.  The stony ground was little more than a blur as Luna's wings punished the air with every beat.  Branches screamed by, little more than flickers of movement in the corners of her eyes.  Only one thing filled her vision as she rounded a bend, everything else forgotten.  

Hex lay on his face, half in the water half without.  Blood spattered everywhere around his body, only seeming to highlight the rents in his back.  In the dim moonlight, small shards of exposed bone glimmered under a bloody sheen surrounded by matted and destroyed fur.  

"...no..."

The world forgotten, her hooves touched the tainted earth with a soft squelch.  Every step was a mixture of fear and horror as she approached, hoping, just hoping that there was some breath left in Hex's body.  Glistening tears trailed down Luna's muzzle as she stood above her friend's body, horror and rage flowing freely as his blood once was.  Great gouges were torn in the silty earth where he had tried to claw away, but in the end the weight of the beast was too much.  Hex's face lay buried in the grit, his golden eyes staring endlessly into the abyss ahead.  Luna's mind wrapped around everything in front of her, every detail, Hex's legs gently swaying in the current, like some kind of sick marionette.  The buried part of her mind screamed and raged about the scene, only one thing acted like this, hunted with impunity like this.  Manticore.  Dragging animals they deemed prey down from behind, while using their stinger for animals they instinctively knew outmatched them.  The thought didn't come nearly fast enough, as a cracking twig in the brush just ahead was the only warning Luna had.  A moment later, she couldn't even scream as a barb tore into her side and fire erupted in her veins.

A moment later, she toppled to the earth next to her friend.  Luna's paralyzed body body not responding to commands, even if she was just wishing to close her eyes to avoid staring at Hex's gruesome corpse.  She could hear a massive creature stepping out of the brush, its steps making branches crack and bend.  Every breath filled her lungs with the scent of blood and fear, her fear as the manticore approached.  The scraping of claws against stone and squishing of earth told her exactly where it was behind her.  Deep in Luna's mind, she raged against the inability to move, the inability to save her friend, the inability to save everyone.  Soft panting echoed around the small clearing as warm breath passed over Luna's skin.  The beast was sniffing her neck, prodding her to make sure the poison took.  If she hand't been poisoned, Luna would be screaming in fear and rage as the manticore licked its nose as if preparing for a feast.  A strange set of words seemed to trickle into Luna's mind as she lay there, fearing for her short future.  Words that she had no idea of their meaning, yet seemed so familiar.

"Omnia mors aequat"

For a moment, Luna would have sworn there was a flicker of color in the glazed eyes that stared wordlessly at her.  Just a fragment of color, little more than a spark of crimson, coals of a bottomless fire.  Whatever she saw disappeared as the manticore nudged her with a paw, rolling the princess through blood and mud onto her back.  Her frozen eyes finally met the face of her captor and as expected, it was utterly without mercy or fear.  This was life, no more, no less.  Dark fur matched the similarly dark eyes as it stared down at her for a moment, licking it's muzzle.  A set of massive jaws filled Luna's vision as it leaned in, canines the size of knives drifted toward her exposed neck.  Mentally she prepared for the pain, tried to ignore what was to come, the stench of rotting meat the animal carried.  She wished she could close her eyes as the jaws began to close and the Princess screamed in her mind.  Fear, anger, hate, wrath, everything she was and would ever be, Luna poured into the black within her mind as the inevitable came.

Just before the massive teeth met her skin, the manticore was torn away from her and the stars met Luna's eyes again.  Unable to see what was going on, she just lay there and hoped.  Hoped the guards or her sister had somehow arrived just in time.  Hoped that her friends were coming.  Hoped it wasn't the end quite yet.  From her side, a sick groaning could be heard along with squishing of the earth.  Opposite sounds were coming from the other direction as roars of anger and pain came from the enraged manticore as it regained it's footing.  A jolt rolled Luna onto her side, face meeting the bloody earth as something stepped over her.  Something that brought to mind the deepest fears and terrors from her mind.  With jerky and wild movements, the body of Hex stepped toward the animal that had struck him down.  Every rent and tear in his body weeped a flickering and sickly crimson light.

With every step, small rings of crimson and black flame burst from the filthy ground as if feeding on the dripping energy from his torn corpse.  Luna did her best not to watch the macabre scene before her, but as with everything else her immobile eyes saw everything.  A rictus grin on his face, Hex strode toward the manticore that now seemed only to want to get away.  Despite it's predatory nature, the beast knew that some things you don't mess with.  Scrambling claws seemed unable to grip the earth under the manticore as it tried to escape.  Escape the creature that exuded so many things that brought terror to it's limited mind.  The flaming claws, the bottomless eyes, everything nature said was impossible as energies pulled it across the stream and packed earth toward the thing.

It only took a moment for the manticore to be pulled to the torn figure of hex, before the same crimson magic forced the beast to the ground.  Fear quickly exploded into absolute horror and terror as he simply touched the manticore and its cries stopped as Hex's energies burrowed into it's flesh.  Before her eyes, the manticore...withered.  Its very essence was pulled from within to feed the hunger of another.  Only a few heartbeats passed until the magic was little more than a trickle that stopped abruptly to reveal a fully restored and darkly grinning Hex.  With a sharp twist of his wrist, the wizened form of the predator exploded into little more than dust that settled quickly in the dim light.  Harsh coughing filled the area as Hex turned toward Luna, and it was then she realized he was laughing.

"My my...what have we here?  You aren't supposed to have entered the game just yet Luna.  I'll have to remedy that.  Oh, you can't talk because of the venom?  I'll fix that too, not that you'll remember my dear.  Neither will I for that matter."

In her mind, Luna screamed as Hex placed a finger on the tip of her horn and the world exploded into color.