The History of Crimson Shadow and the Origins of the Past

A couple more years go by and my life is struck with repeated catastrophe. Discord, the Lord of Chaos, came waltzing into Canterlot, much like he did my old home. This was when all my repressed memories come flooding back like a ton of bricks slapping me in the face all at once. And if you do not know how heavy that is....it hurts...a lot! Accompanying those memories came my old state of madness. In this state again, I was locked in my room and kept guarded. Starswirl even put a spell around it so only He, Luna, Celestia and Blacktail could enter.

Celestia and Luna both tried confronting this monster, but they both lost and were forced to flee from Canterlot along with me, Starswirl and Blacktail. The closest spot to Canterlot that we could use as a safe haven were the ruins of the old Shadow Pony kingdom in the Shadow Realm. Seeing no other real option, they all agreed. This was where Luna was able to snap me out of my madness once again. After this, our bond grew ever more powerful and closer. With my madness lifted, the five of us all went to the public library and started to do some research into something that could possibly help boost our powers and give us an edge in our future fight against Discord. As I said earlier, the Shadow Pony race was synonymous for making powerful enchanted items.

We unfortunately found nothing in the library, so we searched the rest of the city. No such luck. It was so hard to look upon the destroyed homes. This used to be a grand kingdom. And now it is in ruins. I began to cry. My home....my friends...my family....all gone, never to return. To this day I still miss everypony. Blacktail finally suggested that we try looking in the royal chambers; the place where my parents were killed. It was a tough decision for me to go there, but I had to face my dark past eventually, and overcome it. We all proceeded to the royal chambers and found a bunch of books, all useless. We almost gave up hope, that is...until I slumped against a bookshelf and suddenly a latch broke, opening a secret room that I fell into, down a long stair case (Not as fun as you'd think just so ya know). Apparently this special passage could only be opened with the presence of a shadow pony. Such as myself.

Once inside this room, I saw that it was filled with thousands of untouched books, some centuries old, that covered hundreds of feet of walls. I called to the group and they all came in after me. We all started looking through as many as we could. Each of us taking a section. Celestia took Armors. Luna, Amulets. Starswirl, Weapons. And Blacktail and I took the biggest section: Experimental Enchantments. We must have spent hours searching through all the books.

Almost giving up hope once again, Blacktail suddenly shouts out to us, saying he may have found something. We all go over to him and he starts reading a passage he found about something the book called the Elements of Harmony. It was the most powerful enchanted item to date that ever existed. But there was a catch. They were never found. The book stated that many years ago the 6 original founders of Equestria had to bond together to defeat an evil force, which I assume now was Shadowbane, though I still do not know fully. To defeat this evil they had to sacrifice their bodies to become these Elements themselves. And finally were able to defeat this evil. For a time at least.

Blacktail read on that the Elements were found after the evil was banished from the land. They were said to be scattered across the lands to be discovered when they were needed. The main issue was that only the shadow pony race knew where they were. This must have been why Discord attacked my race without warning. If he knew we had the Elements, then he must have wanted to try and destroy them himself so they could not be used against him. These Elements better be worth the heartache I went through. But, the problem was their location was not written down. How were we to find these so-called Elements of Harmony when they have not been seen in hundreds of years.

Dead end after dead end. This was starting to get ridiculous. I was getting angry. When this happened, the books started to bounce like there was an earthquake. I did not know at the time that it was my dark spirit feeding off that anger. As I became more angered, the room quaked even more. It scared the rest as they had never seen this side of me. Suddenly at the back of the chamber, the wall broke down, revealing an anti-chamber. In the middle of it were the Elements. None of us could believe it. The shadow ponies had them the whole time. But upon discovery only five elements were there. And the book said there was supposed to be six. Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness, and a sixth. Though the book did not say what that final Element was. I guess even the shadow ponies did not know how to find it.

Upon examining the Elements closely, they began to glow brightly. So bright in fact that they blinded me more than the others for some reason. The light was even intense enough to hurt me. I did not know why at the time, but it was because of Shadowbane, the dark spirit that resided within me. And the simple fact was that as I said before: my species was said to be born and descended from Shadowbane himself. And seeing how the Elements were made of all things light and good, I can see how they were my weakness.

After the bright glow dissipated, the elements each surrounded the sisters, But something odd happened. The sixth element was created from the imprinting process. To this day I am still unsure of what the heck happened that day. There is a lot that eludes me. Probably because my memories have slowly deteriorated away over the last thousand years. Sorry. I seem to be trailing off again.

Anyways, The sisters did not know exactly what to do. Blacktail read on that the Elements imprint on the ones who most show the attributes they belonged to. Researching more into it we discovered that the Elements of Honesty, Loyalty, and Laughter had imprinted on Luna and the Elements of Generosity, Kindness, and that mysterious sixth Element went to Celestia. Trying to wrap my head around this made me dizzy.

The sisters then tried magic that they could not do before. Just some basic but impossible spells, like making flowers grow on the cave walls and even creating some items in the books that were not created yet, mainly armors and amulets. They worked! The Elements actually worked! Though to be honest, I hated that I could not do anything with them. See, The Elements have somewhat of a mind of their own and they only imprint on those with purest of hearts. And again, being that my heart was good but my spirit was evil, the Elements never imprinted on me nor allowed me to use them. It stank, but I lived with this fact.

Celestia and Luna, once getting the hang of this new power, teleported all five of us back to Canterlot, only to find it in chaotic shambles. The things we saw there were just (Shudders). Do not get me wrong, they were not...horrible looking, necessarily, just....really, really strange. The kinds of things one wishes they could unsee. Using all their concentration and the help of the Elements, the two sisters put everything back to normal, to the best they could do, and they called out to Discord for one final battle. Discord, being the cocky thing he was, went to battle against them without even noticing that they had these new enchantments.

The battle that ensued lasted for what seemed like hours, but the Elements gave the sisters a slight edge over him. Finally, with exhaustion seeping over him, Discord made a mistake and the sisters caught him in a blast of magical energy that turned him to stone. We contemplated what we could do with him and I suggested we use his en-stoned body as a statue in the royal garden for all to see and seal his shame forever more. The sisters found this to be a fitting punishment for him and did just that.