In The Darkness, There Is Always Light

by Twilight Ninja

Rating: teen
Tags: Tragedy, Princess Celestia, Alternate Universe, Human, Main 6, Princess Luna, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Romance
Length: 1935

War destroys everything, but could friendship and love overcome it?

The war between the ponies and humans has taken it's toll on every pony and human alike, but none suffer more than Kevin. Having lost many things that he holds dear, can he really find a way to end this pointless conflict, or will all be lost?

Published 2012-03-04 13:24:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-03-08 05:10:05 UTC

Chapter 1

Darkness. That ‘s all that I am aware of. Darkness. I feel like I’m floating, I can’t see anything, and I can’t feel anything. My mind isn’t thinking of anything, it is perfectly calm and serene where I am, and warm too. I float here for what seems like days, or maybe minutes, when suddenly, a bright light appears in front of me. It’s radiance beckons to me. Come, I will not hurt you, It seems to say to me. I drift toward it, eager for what awaits me in this comforting light. I get closer and closer, and as I do, I can almost hear voices calling me from the light.

“Kevin,” they say, as I get closer. “Kevin, please.” That’s weird; it doesn’t seem to be coming from just the light, in fact, it sound like it’s coming from everywhere. I also notice that the light seems to shrink, as I get closer to it.

“Kevin,” the voices say again, this time much louder than before, deafening, even. I try to cover my ears with my hands, but I realize I don’t even have a body.

“KEVIN, PLEASE, WAKE UP!” the voice shouts, as my very being seems to rip apart. The light grows to a small speck and disappears in front of me. I feel as if I’m being pulled back. But I don’t want to go back; I want to go to the comforting glow of the light again.

I want to go back, I think to myself, as I’m being pulled. The darkness seems to distort and waver the more I’m being pulled, and finally, it seems to implode on itself. A bright light fills my senses, but it’s not comforting, like before. Instead, it is harsh and burns into my vision. I’m also aware that I have a physical body now. I try to move.

The first wave of pain hits me like a freight train, it’s unbearable and agonizing. It feels like every nerve in my body is on fire. I know only pain for what seems like days, but I know it to be merely minutes. Eventually, the pain subsides and I feel only a dull throbbing in my head and soreness in my joints. I’m aware that my eyes are closed, and I try to open them. It’s hard to do this seemingly simple task, but I manage, and I’m greeted with the face of a beautiful mare looking at me, eyes red from tears.

“Kevin, you’re alive?” the woman says incredulously.

I try to speak, it takes a while, but I eventually manage to say, “Who are you, where am I?”

The woman looks at me with a shocked look on her face. “Kevin, don’t you remember, it’s me Twilight. You’re at the hospital because of the last battle with the humans.”

The memories of the last few weeks come rushing back. “Oh sweet Celestia, how long have I been here?” I ask Twilight.

She sighs, and gives me a sad look. “You’ve been comatose for about four days Kevin. You were in critical condition, and quite frankly, nopony thought you were going to make it,” she said. She gave me a small smile. “But I’m very happy that we were wrong.”

I, however, was feeling anything but happy. Instead, I felt a deep pit of sadness form in my heart. Tentatively, I ask the question that’s on my mind. “Did… did we win the battle at Coltsburg?”

Twilight gave me a sad sigh and looked at me with tears shining in her beautiful eyes. “No, we didn’t. We lost,” she says to me.

I feel the world crashing down on me. I close my eyes and try to collect my thoughts in the jumbled mess that is my mind. “How many dead?” I ask, dreading the answer.

She looked at me with a look of utter defeat. “ About five hundred or so dead, with many, many more injured,” she says to me.

It takes time for what she says to sink in, but when it does, the realization makes me gasp aloud. “Five… five hundred! But that makes it the worst battle in the war so far!” I exclaimed in in shock.

She sighed dejectedly, “It does doesn’t it?” she said. Twilight walked over to the window and opened the curtains. “Look outside, isn’t the day beautiful? We should be playing outside with our families and friends, not fighting some pointless war,” said Twilight with a sad look on her face. A single tear rolled down her cheek, the only flaw of her otherwise flawless face.

“Twi…” I said, unable to say anything else, and not knowing anything else to say.

She looked at me with a new hardness in her eyes. “Kevin, do you remember the day? The day this all started?” she asked me abruptly.

I’m not prepared for this question, so it takes me a while to form a response.

Eventually, when I collect my thoughts, I look up at Twilight and say, “Yes, I do.”

She nodded and said, “So do I, I remember it was just like this one. With the sun shining its brightest and not a cloud in a sky.”

I looked down solemnly, and take the chance to look at my broken form. My legs were wrapped in a cast and my entire chest was covered in thick linen bandages. An IV was also connected to my heavily bandaged arm. Unable to stand the sight of my pitiful condition any longer, I looked up at Twilight.

“Twi, I… I’m so sorry,” I said to her sadly.
“For what? You saved many lives at Coltsburg, and the families are all very grateful.”

I sighed and said, “No Twilight, I meant I’m sorry for worrying you. I should have listened to you, I should have been more cautious, that way, I wouldn’t have ended up like this.” I motioned towards my broken body.

She gave me a smile and said, “Kevin, you don’t need to apologize for that, you did the right thing, and I’m glad for that. Oh, and besides, the doctors say that you’ll make a full recovery.”

I smiled and felt a little bit happier. “Thanks, Twi,” I say to her.

She walks towards me and gives me a long embrace, then lets go. “I got to go, Kevin, see you tomorrow,” and with that she plants a kiss on my forehead and walks out, leaving me to myself.

With no one else to talk to, I completely submerge myself in my thoughts. I think about many things, but I eventually settle on the Battle of Coltsburg. I think back to those awful days, watching good men and ponies die for a “good cause”. I lie back in my bed and close my eyes, thinking about the first day of that to that awful battle. The sound of gunfire and explosions come back as I start to relive the memories of a few weeks ago.

Chapter 2: Background Info

Alright, before I continue on into what happened at the battle of Coltsburg, I’m going to tell you about the origins of the Human and Pony War. You see, it all started when the ponies revealed themselves to the humans, in the hope that humans and ponies could coexist together in peace and harmony.

Needless to say, that was a false hope indeed.

Mere days after the ponies revealed themselves, the humans became greedy, and demanded that the ponies hand over their land over to them. The humans wanted the land for many reasons, one of which was that the land was extremely fertile and there was absolutely no pollution. However, there was one strong reason that the humans wanted Equestria.

Magic.

Magic was a perfect power source. It let out no pollution, was extremely powerful, and it could be controlled very precisely. Not to mention all the ways it could be harnessed for warfare.

To convince Celestia and Luna to let humans onto their land, the humans created an experiment called Project Harbinger. This experiment basically allowed, through the use of both magic and genetics, humans to be able to take the form of ponies. However, this practice was still in its early stages, and the risk of danger was high, so only a few select people were chosen.

I was one of them.

You see, back when I was a human, I was labeled as a genius. I had graduated from MIT at 18 and became a prominent figure in the field of biochemistry. So, because of reasons unknown to me, I was chosen as one of the few to take part in Project Harbinger.

Project Harbinger was deemed as a way to let the ponies know that they could live with the humans. It was a sort of way to show that there were no hard feelings between the two species, and that the humans would do no harm against the ponies.

Project Harbinger was a failure.

Actually, no. Let me rephrase that.

There was no Project Harbinger. It was all a ruse so that one human could get close enough to Princess Celestia to make an assassination attempt. We were going to kill a ruler who was gracious enough to let us live with her people.

Good god, it was so close too.

Luckily, the assassination attempt failed. The humans underestimated the sheer power of Celestia’s magic; the bullets didn’t do any harm to her whatsoever.

What the bullets did do is escalate the tension between the ponies and the humans sky-high. War was inevitable at that point, and so started the first battles between the humans and the ponies.

And us, the subjects of Project Harbinger, were stuck in the middle. We had to choose a side, of course, and most of the subjects chose to side with the humans.

I chose to fight on the side of the ponies.

You see, when I became a pony, I was put in the town of Ponyville. There I experienced the true kind nature if the ponies, and that was where I had first met Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy, the Elements of Harmony. They welcomed me and made me feel as if I belonged, human or not, and frankly, I felt more at home in Ponyville than I had ever felt on Earth.

I couldn’t bear to fight them, so I joined the war on the side of the ponies.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only human who sided with the ponies. In fact, numerous humans joined the side of the ponies, and they called themselves the Crusaders. They worked as double agents and provided intel of the humans.

The Crusaders were good at providing intel, but I turned out to be the most useful. I gave them info about human anatomy, human psychology, the weapons of the humans, and many more things.

I also started working with the ponies of how we could develop magic into powerful weaponry. I designed custom weapons to be used by unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies.

But I also worked tirelessly to try and find a way to put a stop to this war.

Oh, and before I forget, you’re probably wondering what type of pony I became.

I actually became a unicorn, however, my horn is basically useless, as I can’t use any magic, probably because I was a human to begin with.

Okay, I gave you enough background info of this war and myself, so now I can continue to the Battle of Coltsburg.