The armada of birds—ravens, it seemed—covered the forest floor like a blanket, filling up an entire section of the mulchy road with both their dark colour and their incessant, shrill squawking. Unlike most birds, these ravens did not seem to be afraid of ponies. Maybe it was their numbers—maybe it was their sheer ferocity—but either way, the space that Kevin took up was no exception in their occupation of the area.

"Get off!" he cried out, batting away a few of the inky black birds that were swarming around his small body. A few had even tried landing on his head; although this wasn't a particularly good idea due to the threat of the colt's hooves flying all about in search of birds to whack away, the birds had an advantage in speed and managed to avoid Kevin's hooves. To his chagrin, just as soon as one had flown off of him, another flew up to take its place. These birds were downright insufferable.

Resigned to his fate, Kevin attempted to stumble forwards through the murk. Just a few steps forward, however, revealed that this was a mistake; the birds started squawking louder at the motion and, if it was even at all possible, flocked even closer to the small pony. He was practically drowning in the sea of avian limbs; they enveloped his body. He could feel the tiny claws on their feet scratching at his flesh beneath his coat; it was all Kevin could do to not yelp out in pain. He writhed.

It was then, as he felt like the ravens had overtaken him completely, that he spied something out of the ordinary on one of the wingèd beasts. Right there, smack in the middle of the forehead of perhaps what was the biggest, darkest, shiniest raven was a little gold star. Like, one of the stickers you'd get from your preschool teacher if you did a good job. That kind of gold star. This monster of a bird, this hulking behemoth, loomed over him. It kept its distance—it never once came anywhere near hoof's reach—but it stood motionless, staring straight into his eyes. As the rest of the undulating mass of small bodies shifted around in endless rhythms and patterns, it stuck out like a sore hoof.

"You..." Kevin murmured, narrowing his eyes. "You're behind all this, aren't you?"

The raven just stared back at Kevin, its beady black eyes unmoving in their death stare. The sun glinted off of the little star sticker.

"Answer me, dammit!" Kevin shouted hoarsely. He thrusted a foreleg upwards as he said this and the combination of the loud noise and his physical violent outburst sent all of the birds that had been on top of him flying. They still encircled his body, shifting around ever so slightly, but they had slowed. Finally, he had reprieve from their scratching. The fresh pain of the small wounds, however, still lingered.

For a moment, the star-wearing raven did nothing. It just stared back. Then, in a terrifying gesture, it opened its beak. The facial protrusion lay open.

"Kay, you silly filly," it squeaked in a high-pitched voice. "This is the end of the line. You're going down, kid. It was dumb to bring your friend to the Kindred planet. Now you'll never see her again."

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" The colt leapt up out of his empty bird-free circle of the mulch and he soared forward in the direction of the raven. However, before he could land, the bird began to flap its wings to lift itself out of his reach. Its wings when spread out were even larger than Kevin had thought, looking as if they could wrap around his entire torso and crush his little pony bones. He gulped.

As he landed on his hooves, the birds moved out of his way to create another gap in the feathery darkness. When he spun around to face that leader of the ravens, the one with the gold star on its forehead, Kevin noticed that the birds had shifted to fill up the gap where he stood just a few seconds ago. It was odd how they behaved; they seemed to be more like a liquid than animals.

"You're going to have to try harder than that, Kay. It's like you don't even care!" The raven giggled merrily. "You always did have a tendency to go easy on me."

"Shut up!" Kevin shouted. He ran forward through the sea of birds and jumped with as much strength as he could muster, crouching down and propelling his lithe frame upwards into the air. He reached forward with a hoof, swatting at... where the raven had been only seconds ago. But it was too fast for him—he could nearly feel the tips of its feathers but it already was several yards away.

"Oho, now you decide to put some effort into it! Well, two can play at that game." If the bird had had an opaque eyelid, Kevin was sure it would have winked. "My feathery brethren! Attack!"

Kevin's eyes were wide in surprise as dozens of the ravens rose up slowly from the ranks of their fellows. He watched, frozen in horror, as they aligned into a V-like formation. And then, before he could get the brains together to jump out of the way, the squadron swooped forward in attack, claws bared and beaks ready to rip flesh.

His heart pounding, Kevin finally got his act together and started to dodge as the nose of the V was about to hit him. He was a little too late—a claw grazed the side of his muzzle, scratching another shallow cut into his body—but he escaped any major harm. That was the least of his worries, though; the flying V formation that he had dodged was already beginning to circle around and back in his direction.

But this time Kevin was ready. Alert on his hooves, the colt jumped up as the first bird was within range. He swiftly made short work of the avian; the impact of his hooves with its small body sent the raven in a tailspin towards the sea of birds below. He grinned.

"Who's next?!"