After puking her guts out, Rainbow just stood there, quivering as she looked at her own vomit. Her mind had dropped dead, and it failed to send her body any new signals. So, she sat shaking for a solid five minutes. While her movement had stalled, her thoughts raced. And at that moment, if her mind was a pegasus, it would have just pulled off a Rainboom.

She had just killed somepony. Yes, she had been defending herself from him. And of course, she had been in fights before. But, those had always just ended in one of the participants having a few bruises, maybe a cut or two, but nothing that couldn't be fixed in a few days if not hours. But, now.....

What have I done? This thought kept replaying over and over in her head. She knew of course. She had, despite it not being intentionally, killed another pony. The faint sound of leaking blood and the horrible stench was proof of this. But, actually dealing with it; well...

Finally able to snap herself out of the trance she had put herself in, she turned around, looking for a way to distract herself. The medkit in her bag, for the knife wound on her wing; perfect! Squinting in her right eye so she didn't have to look at the corpse, she walked over to the bags.

The stallion had cut off the strap underneath the bags, the one that would keep it on her while in flight. She would either have to fly slow of fix it, both of which she wasn't ready for. One step at a time, Dash. One step at a time.

She reopened the flap of the bag, rummaging through it for the medkit. She found it near the bottom and pulled it out, then opening the box itself. Inside, she found a few rudimentary items. Bandages, disinfectant, a needle and thread (which she found rather grim), a couple of pills, and a bit of twine. She turned to examine the wound on her wing.

It was a rather shallow cut, only skimming the skin beneath the feathers. Despite this, she had hurt her wings enough to know if it would get worse. And here, it most definitely would. A small amount of blood had leaked out of the cut, turning dry and crusty around the wound. She knew that if she put more strain on it, at best it would bleed a little more and hurt like Tartarus. And she didn't want to think about what would happen if there was a worst-case scenario. Needless to say, she kind of needed to patch it up.

Before she could even get started, she heard more rustling in the bushes. She jerked as fast as she could to face this potential threat, and felt herself pale at the sight of what came out. It was more creatures dressed in similar armor to the one she had killed. all armed with a variety of weapons from knives like the first pony had to one having a massive mace. Yes, creatures; there were two more ponies out of the eight present. However, the rest were all creatures she had never seen before.

Of the other six, another four were these strange cat-like creatures. Despite its noticeable feline features, these creatures were far from Rarity's cat. They were large, easily as large as Big Mac, and almost just as muscular. They had no fur; instead, their bodies, at least from what she could see, were covered in hard, bony plates with spikes protruding out. What wasn't covered by these plates were a dark grey leathery skin. They had sharp yellow eyes and long, curved fangs.

One of the remaining two creatures was also one she had seen before, or at least something familiar. It resembled a griffin for the most part: the head of an eagle with the body and tail of a lion. However, while griffins had the forelegs similar to that of a bird's talons, these creatures were still that of a lion, as well as having no wings.

The final one was easily the most pony-like, but was still rather different. It had some similar body structure to an earth pony; hooves, leg structure, and a general snout shape. However, that was more or less where the similarities ended. It has a rather small, bushy tail, and slit yellow eyes. It's most noticing feature, however, was a pair of massive, curved horns extending from its head, forming a shape from the side that was almost like a circle.

One of the grey cat things said, still in the weird language as the earth pony, "Et occidit Shank. Sinit heac cunnem!" They then began to run toward her. Rainbow was in no condition to fly, so she ran.

She had ran fast before. She had tied AJ for the running of the leaves. Even if she had come in last, she had still run pretty fast for the first part. However, there were a few factors. One, while the running was on smooth, level ground, the road was uphill. Second, she wasn't wounded during the running. Both of those were big factors, yet not the biggest. That honor went to the fact that, while it was a race, she was just running to see who would win. She wasn't running away from the ponies, or other creatures in this case, who were trying to kill her.

It didn't help that they had a bit of a head start. They were right behind her, swinging their weapons. The only good thing was that most of them had to slow down a little or take time to recover after each swing. She had gained a bit of a lead, and began to feel a little bit better when she felt a sharp whistling noise zip by her head. She saw a hard, shaped metal dart hit a tree in front of her, and imbed itself in deep. This caused her to pick up speed even more, but even this wasn't enough to get enough distance between her and them, now that they revealed they had projectiles.

In desperation, she began to flap her wings, hoping to get airborne. She knew this wasn't healthy or even safe, but she had little choice in the matter. Better to deal with an issue later than to die now. Despite the pain in her wing, she was eventually able to get off the ground. From here, though her wings protested heavily and forcefully, she was able to put quite a bit of distance between them and her.

Up ahead, she saw the leveling out path reveal something. The closer she got, the more she was able to make out. It was a large wall made of logs, sharpened into spikes at the top. A few towers dotted the wall, along with a larger one in the center, just off from the main road. Below that tower was a large gate, also made out of wood with what appeared to be metal reinforcements.

She didn't know what it was. An outpost, a town, a set of ruins. But, from the smoke coming from it and the figures of what she could assume were guards walking along the walls, it was inhabited. Maybe they would help her. Maybe she could get some answers as to where she was. Maybe she could-

*Smack* A large impact struck against the back of her head. The force sent her forward a little, but threw off her coordination. Her wings beat out of sync, and she angled toward the ground. With a yelp of alarm and terror, she impacted the hard-packed dirt of the road. She tumbled head over hooves as she bounced off the ground, before skidding to a halt so hard, she ground a hole in the ground.

The impact left her head spinning and ears ringing. She felt a light liquid feeling on the back of her head, even as she lifted it out of the dirt. Ahead, she heard a loud creaking, along with yelling and stamping of feet on the ground. Behind her, she heard the same yelling and stomping. Darkness washed up over her, and she couldn't tell which one was closer. For better or worse, fate would be taking its course of who would decide hers.

For those wondering, the races listed in this chapter besides Earth Ponies are as follows:

Caragor
Demigryph
Bighorn Sheep