What is Forgotten

Discovering the Darkness

The first thought to cross my mind when I woke up was that it was a lot darker now then when I went to sleep. The very next thought in my brain was that my mouth felt like a cross between a desert and sandpaper. The need for water quickly made itself know shortly after the second though crossed my mind.

With nothing else to really keep me lying down and the small matter of actually having to find a drinkable source of water raised me from my sleeping position on the ground and to my hooves. Once up I made sure that the sword I found when I first woke up was still right next to me where I had left it when I fell asleep.

Another thing that caught my attention was that my body was no longer sore at all. I felt no pain or stiffness in any part of my body at all. I figured I must not have been as hurt as I first thought. That or I had slept for far longer then anticipated.

Looking at the sky through a break in the trees I could just make out the sight of the moon staring back down at me. For some reason this also had the effect of reassuring me and making me fell really tranquil. Breaking my sight from the moon I looked around the clearing to see if their was anything useful around that I could take with me. All around me was just trees and grass and small bushes, nothing that i couldn't possibly find in some other part of the forest when I went to look for water. I also noticed that even though it was night time and their didn't seem to be a great deal of light in my clearing I could still see everything around me perfectly clear. Even things outside of the clearing that should have been shadowed or in pitch blackness I could see just fine. All things considered i found this a really useful little perk as I wouldn't have to worry about setting the forest on fire to make a torch.

Taking another look at my sword a noticed it had a small strap that was attached to each end of the sheath, giving me a way to carry the thing around in a easier manner. Trying to pick it up in my hooves though brought another thought immediately into my mind. How was i going to wield this thing, and could i even use it without cutting myself to pieces? Picking it up in my hooves was slightly tricky but manageable. As for actually wield it in my hooves that was out of the question. The swords handle would only really fit one of my hooves on it and was really hard to hold either way.

While trying to figure this out I had an idea that might work. I fixed the strap to myself so the handle of the sword was right about at the start of my front leg on the left side of my body. This gave me an easy way to grab the sword in my mouth and unsheathe it. Practicing this a couple of time to make sure I had it down i noticed a couple of problems with wielding the sword this was, namely the fact that I had to move my head everything I wanted to swing my sword which would make keeping eyes on my target a little difficult. Leaving it as a problem that could be solved at a later date I set off to find some of the precious liquid gold know as water.

4 Hours Ago in Canterlot

We take a look into the halls of the castle to see one lavender colored pony rushing through the halls, her destination firmly set in her mind.

"I have to tell Princess Celestia about what I just saw" thought the mare as she ran down hall after hall, making her way slowly towards the thrown room where the princess would be residing.

"I mean something like that just has to have some kind of magical cause, theirs nothing that I know about that can make... whatever that was, naturally. although if it wasn't natural, then I should have been able to sense some of the residual magic from something that big, it doesn't make any sense!"

While she tried to work the problem out in her head she had finally made it to a set of doors that ran from floor to ceiling and had two guards on each side of the entrance. The guards recognized the young mare in front of them and lighting up their horns pulled the doors apart to grant her entrance. She walked into a grand throne room that on the right side had brilliant floor to ceiling windows that depicted great events that had happened in the history Equestria. It also had a luxurious rug that ran from the entrance of the room, right up onto the throne itself, where Princess Celestia sat in all her glory.

The princess was easily double the size of the lavender unicorn with not only a horn on her head but wings as well, denoting her status as an alicorn. Her furn and feathers were a pure white color with the only break from this being the sun shaped cutie mark on her flank. Another strange thing about her was that her mane and tail both had an unreal quality about them, looking more like energy then an actual form of hair, both of which floated around as if blown by some invisible breeze that only affected them.

"Dearest Twilight Sparkle, what has you in such a mood that you would run all the way here without sending me some form of advanced warning?" she asked in a voice that was more curious then it was admonishing, she did care greatly for her student, and she helped break up the tedious job of being princess and having to deal with all that that entailed.

The now named Twilight Sparkle took a moment to not only collect her thoughts but to catch her breath as well, it was a big castle after all.

"Princess Celestia, I ran all the way here because of what I saw happen over the Everfree Forest. Their seemed to be a giant ball of darkness that hung in the air for maybe a second or so before exploding before my very eyes! The strange thing is that nothing seemed to be damaged by the explosion, and the outward force of it managed to push the air all the way to my balcony on the castle. Also even though it seemed to be very powerful, I didn't catch a single trace of residual magic from it at all. I was wondering if you knew what it was or if I could go investigate what it was?"

The princess took her time in answering her student thinking deeply about what she had been told and what it could possibly mean. The first thought to her mind was that Sombra might have gotten free and tried to attack, but the lack of damage, the location, and the lack of residual magic pointed to something else altogether. While she would love to go investigate she had to deal with not only her normal meetings and such, but a special meeting that would most likely make its way into the wee hours of the night. Also, judging by how fast this had all happened and disappeared so quickly, leaving it till tomorrow might mean nothing was left at all or that someone else could go find whatever it was.

Another fact that was bothering her about this was that Twilight her self wanted to investigate this as well it seemed. While she did have plans for her student that would eventually place her in dangerous situations, she wasn't sure if she wanted to start her off with something that involved the Everfree Forest. Things in the Everfree tended to get rather... violent.

Thinking all this over she figured that at some point she was going to have to let her student face dangerous situation and she might as well start her on a relatively easy task such as looking for whatever caused this "explosion" in the forest. Plus she could send a few guards with her as well so she wouldn't be alone in that place.

"While I do not know what caused this explosion that you talked about Twilight, I think your suggestion to investigate is a good idea. I would like you to go to the Everfree Forest and try to figure out who or what caused this explosion and after that to report back to me on what you have found. Also because of the nature of the Everfree, I would like for you to take five of my most trusted guards with you to search for the cause of this explosion. Please be careful out in that forest Twilight, it is a strange and dangerous place."

Twilight couldn't believe what she was hearing, she was going to lead a group on an expedition to figure out what the mysterious explosion was. It was just like one of her Daring Do books that she loved to read, this was going to be the greatest adventure ever!

"I promise to exercise extreme caution while exploring the forest, and to figure out what caused the explosion" she said, as a grin threaten to split her face. She couldn't wait to get started with her search, she could use a grid pattern to help organize and categorize everything that she would end up finding in the forest. Then when she found out what caused the explosion, she could come back and show Celestia how well she did and prove how good of a student she was! This was the greatest day ever, nothing could possibly go wrong. Right?

Back in the Everfree Forest

Finding a stream in the forest was barely even a challenge at all. What was difficult was following it to where it originated from so that way I could avoid getting some kind of disease from the animals of the forest that must have bathed in the water at one point or another. I had been following this stream for the past ten minutes and it didn't seem like I was any closer to the origins of it. All of the freaking plants and other crap in my way wasn't helping me either. Although with how thirsty I was and no other streams in sight I figured this was my best bet.

A good thing about following this stream though was that it gave me time to think and organize what I wanted to and needed to do. After the water the first thought on that list was to get the heck out of this forest, it was just plain creepy. The next step was to find some kind of civilization and see if I could find someone who knew me before I forgot everything. Everything else and after was to be taken in stride and work with it.

I cut my musings short as I heard a beautiful sound that might as well have been an angle choir, water that was bubbling up from the ground. While I had been thinking things through in my head I had managed to follow the stream right to its source. With reckless abandon I ran right to the bubbling spring and greedily gulped as much water as my mouth would allow. While drinking the water i noticed that what little sound was in the forest had completely stopped now. That stuck me as odd because the only time that really happened was when a predator was-

SMASH

What I assumed to be some kind of stinger barely missed me as I dodged to the left of the incoming attack. Quickly turning myself to face my attacker I got a good look at what was attacking me.

My first though was lion but that wasn't quite right, it had the body of a lion but with the addition of wings on its back and a scorpion tail that was slightly raised behind it, having pulled it from the ground I guessed. Its fur was a golden yellow color which it shared with the color of its furn on the backs of its wings, the tail and insides of the wings were a deep dark red in color. Its ears were also more bat like then lion standing on top of its head and coming to sharp points. I looked up into its face to see the sharp fangs in its mouth, along with the anger in its scowl, probably at the fact that the first attack missed. All this pointed to me dealing with one type of creature... manticore.

I felt stupid for not checking my surroundings before taking a drink. This was a tactic of animal predators to wait at a water source for something stupid or thirsty enough to either ignore its presence or take the risk, and i walked into with arms wide open. Grumbling about my current predicament I looked at what the main threats would be, namely the claws, its mouth, and its tail. It had two things which were completely close range with the tail giving it slightly more reach.

Before starting anything though I wanted to see if now that its surprise attack had failed if it would let me go for easier prey. I tried to slowly back away from it, but for ever step back I took, it took one step forward so I stopped and continued to stare it down.

Realizing that this was probably going to get ugly really quick I decided that now would probably be a good time to draw my sword, hoping that seeing a weapon would make the creature give up and go away. While keeping on eye on the manticore I reached my head to the side and grabbed the handle in my mouth and pulled the blade free. Being armed made me feel just a little bit better at maybe surviving this encounter.

Which lasted for all of two seconds when the beasts tail came in lightning quick to try and end the fight before it even began. I managed to block the strike with the flat of my blade but the amount of force from the strike forced my to let the blade fly from my mouth to impact a tree behind me and stay their.

Not even pausing in its attack the beast pulled its tail back and closed the distance between us quicker then I would have liked. Not only did it have more weapons then me the thing was fast as well, great.

I dodged under the first paw swipe and turned around to dodge the second giving me the perfect chance to buck the thing in the chest. The results surprised me in the best way possible. I expected to maybe wind the thing at the least, maybe break a rib if i got lucky. What I didn't expect was for its body to sail away from me and impact the tree across from me wit enough force to break the tree.

The problem with this though was that it didn't kill the manticore, it just pissed it off and gave it a personal reason to kill me now. Also now that it had seen what I could do to it it would avoid getting close and would just try to stab me to death with its tail, which it then proceeded to do with great gusto.

The next couple of seconds were spent constantly backing up and dodging the strikes of the tail which were slowly coming closer and closer to hitting home. Trying to formulate some kind of plan to get in close I never saw the rock that caught my back leg and caused the next tail strike to bat me into a tree with enough force to dent it. The blow left me dazed for a couple seconds which the beast used to get in close and pin me to the ground with its huge paw.

I looked up to see its tail already in position to come down and stab me right through the skull, ending my life. This thought, more then anything else angered me to no end. I thought about how unfair it was that I had lost all my memories only to be killed in short order by some beast in some backwoods forest. As my anger continued to grow the air around the two of us became heavy and oppressive. The manticore looked uncomfortable and decided to end it before something could happen it instincts screaming at it to kill the pony underneath it quickly. Sadly it wasn't quick enough.

As its tail came down to end my life my anger reached a fever pitch and the tail was stopped inches from my face. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, me or the beast. What looked like shadows made solid had come in between me and the tailed and stopped it in its tracks. My face could only convey shock, same emotion as the beast, until its expression turned to one of pain and it let out a terrible howl of pain.

Looking at the manticore I could see that whatever this shadow thing was it wasn't just a defensive measure as I stared at the six foot long spike that had pierced right through the middle of its back, right in between the wings, likely severing the spinal cord and killing it as soon as the shadow came out.

All I could do was stare as the shadow did just that and let the beast drop to the ground, dead. I made peace with the world as the shadow came closer and closer to me sure that I was next on its list, only to feel confusion as it passed right by me to the sword in the tree and pull it right out like the tree was made of paper. Okay, the creepy shadow thing wanted to kill me with my own sword, that was messed up on so many different levels.

My surprise continued to raise as when the shadow got close enough to finally kill me all it did was sheathe the sword in its scabbard. I was really wondering what exactly was going on when the shadow get really close to me and began to slowly shrink down until it was the size and shape of a small dog before rubbing up against my leg. deciding that i should do or say something to my savior I gently put my hoof on its head and pet it. The shadow, apparently pleased that I acknowledged it began to shrink some more and disappear to where ever it had come from. The only problem was that it shrank and disappeared into my own shadow!