Between Life and Death

“You bastard!” Twilight yelled as she started hitting Monochrome. “How could you do that!? How could you kill them in cold blood!?” she began crying. Monochrome slapped her and she fell onto the ground.

“If you touch me again I won’t hold back.” He growled at her then continued walking. She growled back at him, she got up and started running towards him but Clockwork held her back.

“I’ll kill you, you sick bastard!”

“Twilight stop!” Clockwork begged as he struggled in an attempt to hold her.

“Please, mom calm down!” Nyx begged as well.

“I’ll kill him!”

“Twilight that isn’t Monochrome, not anymore!” Twilight stopped. “It’s not him anymore.”

“What?”

“That’s one of his 2 lost forms, that one is obtained in a state of extreme concentrated anger, and he’ll remain like that until he accomplishes the goal he set.”

“What’s his goal?”

“He’s going to kill Pitch Black, and he’s not going to stop until he does, and if anyone tries to stop him, he kills them.”

“..How-how do you know this?”

“I’ve seen it before, once, before the war against the shadows, he was taking care of an orphan, one of those things killed her, and he went berserk.” Clockwork let her go and she stood there, hanging her head and crying. “Twilight-?” she turned around and hugged him, wanting comfort, and not wanting to upset her anymore he hugged her back.

“Will he ever go back to normal?”

“When Pitch Black is dead he will.” He let go of her and she whipped the rest of the tears off of her cheeks. “Monochrome, I think we should stop here for the night-!”

“We’ll stop when we’re dead-!”

“We stop here!” Twilight snapped at him, everyone went into shock, they’ve never seen her like this before.

“…Fine, we’ll stop for the night.” He walked over to them, he held his hand up and a fire started next to him. “The flames attracts the beasts, so be cautious.”

“Can’t you use a different fire then?” Applejack asked.

“Do you want me to rip off your head you ignorant hillbilly!?” Monochrome snapped at her, she quickly moved away from him and near Clockwork. “I’ll take watch, and if I’m gone, then I’d appreciate it if you all would not follow me.” Hours later when the sun went down everyone gathered around the black flames which somehow kept them warm and lit up a large area.

“29 bottles of beer on the wall, 29 bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around now you have-uh…what comes after 29?” Clockwork asked in his drunk state.

“In which direction?”   Twilight asked, she finally returned to her cheerful self.

“I think it was…wait no…I don’t know!” Clockwork shouted with joy. Everyone laughed with joy.

“Wow, you guys are hilarious.” Key Scales said with a happy sounding laugh.

“That my lady, is because I’m drunk…You have a really big rack you know?” Clockwork stated drunkenly. Key Scales looked over to him with a smile on her face, that out of nowhere she slapped him with enough force to knock him onto the ground.

“I’ve got years of training and a short, short fuse. Keep that in mind if you shoot off your mouth about me again.” She growled at him.

“Fine…bitch.” Clockwork murmured, she turned to him with an enraged look on her face and he began cowering in fear.

“So, I don’t think we ever properly met, what was your name again?” Twilight asked, attempting to prevent her from killing Clockwork.

“Oh, my name is Key Scales, but you can call me Scales if you want.” She replied with a smile, as if she forgot about Clockwork.

“It’s nice to meet you Scales, my name is Twilight, and these are my friends. This is Applejack, Fluttershy, my daughter Nyx, Agony, Red, and that man you were about to kill, he’s Clockwork.” Key Scales turned to him and noticed he went back to drinking his beer.

“Is he always this stupid?”

“Don’t know, but it shore seems like it.” Red chuckled.

“Hey, you-*hic*- watch your mouth you little brat-*hic*-I’m still older then you!”

“Physically yes, mentally, I out age you.”

“Yesh phsaminngr.” Clockwork started rambling In his drunk state.

“Ok…So who’s he?” Key Scales asked as she pointed to Monochrome.

“Oh, that little-*hic*-ittle ball of hate? That’s our “leader” Monochrome.” Clockwork leaned closer to Key Scales and started whispering to her. “He thinks that-*hic*-that he’s stronger than all of us.”

“ok…”she placed her hand on him and started pushing his face away. “You know I can’t wait for all this to be over, I might finally get a chance to spend time with my boyfriend again.”

“Really, is he anyone special?” Nyx asked.

“I wouldn’t say special, but he’s a really nice guy.”

“What’s his name?”

“Arrowhead.” Clockwork immediately spat out the beer he was drinking into the fire and began coughing, and the life in all the others vanished. “What?”

“Oh, it’s…it’s nothing.” Twilight replied with a nervous tone.

“No something happened, what is it?”

“It’s nothing-“

“Tell me!” everyone went from being nevus to being scared.

“We…knew, Arrowhead.”

“Really? What happened to him, where’d he go?”

“He…he’s dead.”

“Your jo-…No, you’re not joking, I can see it in your face.”

“We’re sorry.” Key Scales face went emotionless, she held on to the blue pendant on the necklace she was wearing.

“Did he die an honorable death?”

“Yeah,” Nyx answered. “He sacrificed himself to save all of us.”

“He died with more honor than any soldier I fought along with during all this.” Red added.

“Well, that’s good to know.” She looked up at them and was smiling, it seemed like she was completely untroubled by what she had heard.

“Alright lights out.” Monochrome interrupted.

“But it’s only midnight.” Clockwork whined.

“Does it look like I give a shit you drunk dumb ass?! Light’s out!” he flapped his flaming wings on the gust from them put out the fire, but the light from the fire coating his body was still lighting up the area, it acted like a nightlight for all of them. An hour later, everyone was sound asleep, except for Key Scales. She lied down in the grass; tears were running down her face as she held onto her pendent, she spoke to herself, asking for another chance, that way she could be there for him. The next morning as they walked along a Key Scales started tripping and eventually fell face first into the grass.

“Scales? Are you ok?” Twilight asked as she looked back, Key Scales got up and whipped the grass off of her. “Scales-?”

“Huh, oh, I’m fine don’t worry.” She yawned loudly.

“Are you sure?” Twilight looked at her, her eyes were red, and it looked like she’d fall over again any second. “Did you get enough sleep?”

“Yeah, of course.” She replied while yawning.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t there?”

“How can you tell?”

“…Lucky guess.” She answered back with irritation both in her voice and on her face. Key Scales looked at her with nervousness then looked away.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about him.”

“Him?...Oh, Listen, it’s ok, I bet where ever he is, he’s thinking about you and wishing he could be here with you-“

“If you’re trying to make me feel better it isn’t working.” She interrupted as she whipped a tear off her face.

“Oh, sorry. But if you keep thinking about him it’s not going to help, you need to let him move on, for his sake and yours.” Key Scales began smiling.

“Your right, I need to forget about him.” Twilight started smiling with her.

“Hey!” Monochrome yelled, the two of them turned around to see him and the others waiting patiently. “If you two are done with your little moment, I’d like to get to where I’m goin before I die of old age.”

“Seriously, what’s your problem?!” Key Strokes asked sarcastically.

“You, and her, stopping for no bucking reason, now get moving-“

“You know, I don’t have to listen to you-!”

“If you want to keep all your limbs attached to you then you will!” Monochrome yelled at her, she growled at him. “Now all of you get moving.” Monochrome walked off and the other followed him. AS the wandered through the brush of the forest they eventually wandered into an ambush, infected surrounded them from all sides, everyone drew their weapons, except Monochrome, he stood there with a blank expression, waiting for them to attack. When the first infected leaped at them , Key Scales immediately drew one of the two swords she had and slashed at it with a blinding speed, she slashed at its eyes, knocked it to the ground and cut its head off. When she sheathed her sword the other infected attacked, Monochrome teleported everyone out of harm’s way and put himself in the center of the attack.

“Monochrome!” Twilight yelled out, when she tried to help his there was a sudden burst of light and heat, when they opened there eyes all the infected were gone, and instead, there were multiple piles of ash. “Monochrome?”

“Did I tell any of you to stop? No! Now keep moving!” he yelled at them, the didn’t hesitate and kept moving, An hour later they arrived at a hill surrounded by trees, when they reached the top of the hill Twilight looked around and saw nothing but the forest surrounding them.

“Monochrome…what are we doing here?”

“Shut up and keep look out!” Monochrome snapped at her. She groaned and turned back around and continued looking into the vast ocean of trees. While the others were looking away Monochrome waved his hand in front of him and a ring of fire appeared on the top of the hill, it had strange markings within it and two shapes that looked like rectangles. “Ok, you can all look now.” When they turned around they saw the ring of burnt grass, Twilight was about to ask him what he was doing, but when she saw that he was staring at her angrily, she decided not to say anything, he turned back around and raised his hand into the air. “By the lights that shine on us from above, from the ground we tread, by order of a being of that which is holy, I order that gate of hell, to unlock thy self and revealed thy passage to the underworld to I and my followers!” at out of nowhere, there was a creaking sound and something else that sounded like hundreds of locks all unlocking themselves at once, when the noises died down, the two rectangular shapes started rising out of the ground and opened like they were a door. As they moved there were sounds of screaming and fire. “All of you, go, now!” Monochrome told them as he pointed to the gaping hole that has just been formed, no one attempted to argue, they just walked into the hole, and after Monochrome entered it, the gates sealed behind them and the screams and sounds of fire disappeared from the outside world.