My Little Pony: Friendship has a Dark Side.

All Raiden saw was a world of eternal blackness. He was confused, and a bit freaked out. He wanted to know where he was. He then saw images fly buy him. He saw himself, standing above a bunch of destroyed robots, in front of his comrads, lying in pools of blood. Some had missing limbs, but the most hurtful was the head of a green fox, one that he almost called a friend, right next to his foot.

He saw himself, standing across from King Solidius Armstrong. He saw them fighting, and he saw that he was no match for Armstrong. He saw himself being stabbed by Armstrong, then he teleported away, a look of shame on his face. The images stopped, and then he saw the seven Chaos Emeralds surrounding him before splitting away and flying in different directions. Raiden felt like he remembered this all happening. Then, suddenly, he saw a giant red lightning bolt and heard the loud boom of a thunderclap.

Raiden jolted awake.

He felt hazy. He remembered the images he saw. "A dream" he said. "It was all a dream." He tried to tilt his head away from the sun in his eyes.

He heard voices. He could barely make out what anyone was saying, but he heard somethings about "it" being awake. He assumed he was being referred to. He also heard something like "Get away from it...!" He couldn't make out what the name being said. But there was one voice he could hear clearly. It said "Are you okay?" It was a female voice. The voice was friendly, and it sounded concerned, almost in a motherly sense. Raiden turned his head toward the sound of the voice.

"Yeah," he said. Yeah, I think I -" he cut himself off at the sight of the one who delivered the voice: It was a horse... no, wait. It was too small to even be a horse. The term "pony" would be more accurate. But it definitely wasn't a normal pony. This one was lavender colored with purple iris's. Its mane was a dark blue color with dark purple and pink streaks, and its tail was the same scheme of colors. It had a mark on it's flank, looking like a big purple star surrounded by many other stars. Lastly, it had a horn on its head, signifying it as a unicorn. Yes, a unicorn. As in the kind that you would hear about in a kids fairy tail that your mom read to you.

It looked...pretty. And not in the attractive female figure kind of way. Just...pretty.

The unicorn's expression of worry now mixed with confusion. "Is...something wrong?" she asked.

"Hell yeah, something's wrong: I'm in the presence of a talking purple unicorn!" Raiden wanted to say, but he thought better of it, so all that came out was "Um...*gulp* uh...". Raiden started to notice that his strength was draining fast, and realized the limit of energy he had. He first used his reserves to look around, and boy, was what he saw a treat.

Everyone around him was a pony. And everyone around him was a very colorful pony, with some mark on his/her flank, each mark different from the last in some way or another. Some were unicorns, like this purple one, but others had wings - pegasi, he noted - and some had neither wings nor horns, but were just normal ponies. But they weren't the only things that were colorful: this whole place was vibrant with shades of color. From what he could tell, he was in a small village. A small and - surprise - colorful village. This whole place was odd. It felt too friendly. Too...happy.

"Um...well okay, I'm certainly not in Armstrong's castle anymore", Raiden thought. But if that's the case, then where is this? I know I used Chaos Control, but I've been around the world, and this place is definitely not familiar." Raiden looked back at the lavender unicorn next to her. "Miss, I have no idea who you are, but I need you to tell me something: tell me where -"

Raiden was cut off by a sharp pain in his chest as he tried to rise up. for a moment, he clutched his chest, then he looked down at it. As he did, he remembered getting stabbed by that bastard Armstrong, because there was a big, gaping hole going through him.

Raiden looked at it for a second of painful terror before looking at the unicorn again. Her look of concern evolved into full on horrified panic.

"Heh", he chuckled. "I guess I'm not so okay after all..."

That was all he managed to say before going into a coughing fit, then falling into unconsciousness.

The quilled creature fell back down, the hole in his chest now visible, and suddenly the crowd exploded in a fit of non-stop talking.

Twilight was extremely worried for the creature. She had seen some pretty crazy stuff in her adventures, but this creature had a giant, bloody, gaping hole in his chest. She had never seen anything like that before. She knew nature could be cruel to ponies, but this was just downright brutal. She knew she had to help it in some way or another. Whatever this creature was, or WHOever it was, she had to take responsibility for its well being.

At least for now.

Twilight turned around and called out "Rainbow Dash, come down here!" The cyan Pegasus hovered towards her friend. Rainbow Dash was obviously a bit freaked out by the very presence of the odd creature. "Rainbow, I know how fast you can fly. You need to get this creature to a hospital and fast." Twilight realized she was panicking.

"What!?" Rainbow Dash replied, a bit shocked. "But Twilight, we don't know anything about it. How are we even supposed to know if it's trustworthy?"

There was a bit of a flare in Twilight's eyes. "I don't care! Not one little bit! Would you leave it here to die like this? Would you!?"

That one hit home. Rainbow Dash thought about if she were to see something dying in the forest. She would definitely want to save it. She immediately felt guilty for even beginning to think to leave it here. "You're right, Twilight" she said. "We need to save it." Rainbow Dash immediately picked it up and flew to a hospital.

Twilight smiled. She knew she could count on Rainbow Dash. Whatever that was, something in her told her that it could be trusted. Even if it couldn't, there was no way she could leave it there. That was against her nature. Now she could rest easy knowing that it would be okay.

Twilight walked home, thinking of the creature that had came from a red lightning bolt the whole way back.

Rainbow Dash had already gotten the creature to a hospital bed, ten seconds flat. As she flew away from the hospital, she wondered about where the creature had come from. It came from a red lightning bolt, but that was impossible. She was head weather pony, and she didn't see any clouds get kicked. And of course, no lightning bolts were red.

So where did it come from? And what was it, for that matter?

Rainbow Dash could only wonder as she flew off to continue her duties. But all the while, she couldn't shake the strange creature from her mind.