What is Forgotten

If You Got It

For a long time I just stood their and stared at my shadow, still expecting it to come to life and stab me like it did the manticore. When nothing continued to happen for another ten minutes I decided that if it had saved me from the manticore, it probably wasn't going to kill me, not even bothering to mention that it appeared to be linked to me in some way.

With the worries about my shadow trying to murder me put on the back burner for now, I went to check over my body to see if the manticore had done any lasting damage. I stretched to the full ability of my body, and tried to find even a little clue that looked like I had gotten into a fight with the creature. To my surprise every place on my body looked fine, even my back were I slammed into the tree didn't have a mark on it. Somehow I doubted that this was normal.

While looking myself over I managed to get a somewhat good idea of what I looked like. Wanting to get a full picture of myself I stepped over to the small pool of water and took a good look at myself.

My first thought was that it was no wonder the creature had attacked me. My fur was a pure white color that covered all of my body except a small portion by my hooves that was a light grey color. My main and tail were both two toned. My main was light blue on the outer edges of it, but got darker as you went in, leaving the hair closest to my head a deep dark blue. With my tail the opposite was true, the outer edges of my tail started off as dark blue then slowly transitioned into a lighter blue the closer to my body it got. My tail also seemed to be a little on the short side and was a bit spiky. My main on the other hoof, was really fluffy and didn't have much order to it. Last were my eyes which were a really interesting shade of blue. In my own opinion I thought that I looked alright.

With my curiosity of what I looked like being sated, the next order of business was to figure out what exactly that shadow that protected me was. With so much about my life unknown to me, the things that I did know, I was going to make sure I knew as much as possible about them. My course decided I laid on the ground and tried to summon my shadow to me.

I figured that seeing as how the first time my shadow came to my defense I hadn't said a word so it stood to reason that my shadow was linked to me in a way that I shouldn't have to speak to summon it to me. As I sat and tried to fell for anything different, I slowly became aware of something that was and wasn't a part of me. It was almost like having another arm on my body, if that arm was placed somewhere outside my body but I still had control over it. Believing this to be the shadow that had saved me I willed it to do something, anything at all to prove that I had some measure of control over it.

Which promptly flew out the window when I saw spikes of varying sizes erupt from the ground around me in a five foot radius. Fearing the worst I checked to see if any of them had managed to pierce me, remembering quiet clearly what they had done to the manticore. My worry only turned to confusion as I could clearly see that three spikes had all managed to pierce me on some part of my body, the curiosity coming from the fact that I didn't even feel them their. I tried to move my leg that was stabbed through with a spike and found that it moved right through the spike like it wasn't even their. That was one thing that I could check off my list then, my own shadows wouldn't hurt me.

With a quick thought I dismissed the spikes that were surrounding me back to my shadow. Next I tried to see what else my shadow could transform into besides spikes. With my mind controlling it my shadow quickly jumped from shape to shape, creating shields, swords, and other weapons, to simple shapes and objects. I also discovered that if I willed it to be so that my shadows could create a solid platform that I could stand on. Upon trying to make all these things I discovered that it didn't really seem like my shadow had a limit to the amount it could stretch or pour out. It did slowly become harder to focus on all of the objects if I made to many though, giving me a small head ache.

Another idea popped into my head while manipulating my shadow, and it was to see if I could manipulate the shadows of the objects around me. Deciding to start small I tried to pull the shadow away from a small shrub and see how well I could use it. Turns out that I had control of all shadows because the shadow from the shrub was quick to jump to my side and form into a ball. While it was fast their was still a slight delay on how long it took the shadow to get to me. This proved that my own shadow would be my primary go to shadow, while others could be used to sneak attack or set traps up.

Before I could continue to experiment with the shadows around me a scream pierced the still air, sounding quite close and decidedly female in nature. I debated just letting it go and minding my own business, but for some reason that just didn't sit right with me. If I had the ability shouldn't I help were I could, also the person who screamed might know who I was or might have even been traveling with me. With my course decided I trotted off to try and locate the source of the scream, and prayed that I made it before anymore creatures did.

With Twilight Sparkle

No no no no no, things were all going wrong. How did things turn so bad so fast? One second she had been fine, searching for clues to the explosion with the guards, then that... thing had come out of nowhere. She could still remember seeing the look of fear and pain on the guard's face...

20 Minutes Ago

"Come on guys, were almost to the source of the explosion."

Twilight couldn't contain her excitement that was slowly building the closer they came to the epicenter of the explosion. She was sure that this would be a great discovery that would go down in the history books of Equestria, and she was the one who was discovering it!

One of the reasons for her excitement was because the closer they got to the epicenter the more she could sense that whatever did this was definitely not magic in nature. She could just barely make out some kind of energy that might have been similar to magic, but she would need to be closer and preform a more thorough scan of the area. She knew that whatever she found here would definitely change the future of Equestria.

The five guards that were given the important job of guarding her from the creatures of the Everfree were much more quiet and reserved then their bubbly counterpart. While not veterans of the guard these five were not slouches by any stretch of the imagination. Their dedication and discipline to the job showed as they consciously scanned the surrounding forest for any signs of a threat to the student of their beloved princess. Not a single one of them wanted to have to be the one to break the news to their ruler that her star pupil was killed on their watch. This thought made them keep their guard up and their spears close.

While it was true that they were in the Everfree forest, they were quiet close to the edge. While it was true that their were many dangerous creatures in the Everfree, they usually were closer to the deeper and more wild parts of the forest.

Twilight was of course oblivious to all this as she continued to daydream about what kind of energy she would find in the clearing and what it would mean to her people. Which was why when one of the guards tapped her shoulder to let her know they had arrived she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Excuse me miss Sparkle, but we've arrived at the clearing were you said you saw the explosion." said the leader of the guards, a hardy earth pony who took his job very seriously.

Twilight briefly had to wonder why all the guards were so formal with her, despite the fact that she tried to get them all to just call her twilight, not that they ever did.

"Alright then, well theirs not much to really do here except to just cast some scanning spells. I'll just need a couple minutes to set them up and then a few more to let them run their course and get all the information that I need. After that we can get out of here and right back to the castle."

The guard just nodded his head in her direction while subtly sending his squad a signal to spread out and secure the perimeter of the clearing were Twilight was going to be casting her spells. Right before he could leave to take his own position around the clearing her remembered that he had something that he was supposed to give the star student should something happen to him and his squad and she was alone. Reaching his hoof into his chest piece he pulled out a bright burning crystal and presented it to her.

"Should anything at all attack us or you get separated from us quickly smash this crystal, its counterpart is in Celestia's possession and will let her know that something has gone wrong. Which will bring her here as fast as she can." Noticing the look of fear that passed into her eyes at the mention of such an outcome he reassured her that this was of course a unlikely event and that they just wanted all of their bases covered.

Twilight kept all this in mind as she stowed the crystal into her saddlebags and trotted into the center of the clearing to begin the spells that would help her discover what had happened here. Setting up the spells was child's play for her and passed by in no time at all. What the spells were actually telling her was another matter all together, she could barely understand half of the reading she was getting and those that she could grasp were ridiculously long and overly complicated. Deciding that she should just let all the information store itself in the spell so she could look at it at a latter date, she turned her head to let the guards know she was done only to freeze as she realized that she was all alone.

Fear quickly spread throughout her entire being as she desperately tried to find even a glimpse of one of her stalwart sentinels. She knew she had been focused on her spell but surely one of the guards would have told her if they were leaving, meaning they were attacked and that whatever did it was fast and efficient enough to take out five trained guards without alerting her. All this passed through her brain in a mere moment as she took out the crystal and placed it one the ground getting ready to smash it to pieces, only to stop as she saw one of the guards crawl out from one of the bushes at the edge of the clearing.

The reason for her stopping was soon made evident as the guard crawled into the light of the clearing, showing just how mangled his body truly was. It was a true wonder that he even managed to get into the clearing at all seeing as how from were she was standing she could see clearly that at least three of his legs were broken in multiple places. Add unto that the numerous cuts and abrasions on his chest and body that were still leaking blood profusely and it was amazing that the guard was even conscious still. When the guard saw Twilight just standing their he did the only sensible thing that he could do in his condition...

"Break the crystal and run miss Sparkle, run for your life!"

Sadly his warning wasn't heeded, as the next moment a huge clawed foot descended onto the poor wounded pony ending his life.

Twilight's brain slowly caught up to what she was seeing as she realized she was all alone in the Everfree, with no guards and some giant creature coming to kill her. She did the most natural thing that she could think of... scream. She screamed as hard and loud as she could, unintentionally taking a step back and crushing the crystal beneath her hoof. Sadly her scream only drew the beast the rest of the way into the clearing and focused its undivided attention upon her.

The beast was huge, easily clearing the tops of the trees that surrounding the clearing. Its four heads all looking eagerly at the pony that was soon to become its next meal. It had only two legs coming off of its body and a tail. The creature had no arms and was a dull brown color, the only exception to this being its underbelly which was a dark yellow.

Twilight could only stare in horror at the creature before her. Reading about hydras and being this close to a the real thing were two completely different matters entirely. From what she could remember of them they were on the slow side but were resilient to magic.

While trying to figure out what to do the hydra had other plans and was quickly bringing one of its heads down to eat the otherwise preoccupied pony.

Twilight fortunately saw the head coming at the last moment and had just enough time to throw up a hastily thought up shield to stop the beast. Sadly it crumpled like wet tissue paper when the hydras head finally collided with it, the backlash leaving her with the worst headache she ever had.

The hydra though shook off the annoyance and decided that if its meal wasn't going to be easy it would just have to soften it up. Which led to one of its four heads to whip towards the purple unicorn much like a club sending her flying into a tree at the edge of the clearing.

If she thought her head hurt before twilight was happy to say that that was nothing compared to what she felt now. When she felt the hydras head smash into her she had felt like she had a boulder thrown into her. Then the blow had carried her backwards into the tree were her head had the pleasure of meeting hard unyielding wood. Needless to say the white lights that exploded behind her close eyelids did nothing to distract her from the pain. To top it all off, when she had hit the tree one of her back legs had been at the wrong angle and was now horribly broken from what she could feel, add in all the small cuts that she had and you had on messed up pony.

The hydra on the other hand caught the scent of blood and knew that its meal was weak. It sent one more of its heads down to finally eat its meal.

Twilight saw the head descending towards her and closed her eyes and made peace with the world. She knew that she couldn't focus on her magic and she was in no condition to run away. Tears welled up from her eyes as she thought of all she had yet to do and everyone that she would leave behind. She didn't want to die but what could she do, she prayed that someone, anyone would save her.

As the head of the hydra got closer and closer to its soon to be meal it completely ignored everything that was happening around it. If it was paying more attention it might have seen how the shadows around the clearing slowly moved, breaking their boundaries and shapes in ways that were by no means natural. If it had been paying attention to this it might have had time to avoid the sudden guillotine of shadows that rose from the ground to neatly chop off its head.

The roar and pain and anger from the beast made Twilight quit her quite acceptance of the situation and look around at what was taking the beast so long to eat her, only to stare at the severed head directly to her side and the pony that had apparently cause said injury standing in front of her.

"Hey, you alright miss?"

Twilight vaguely heard herself mutter something about her leg being broken, still not comprehending what was going on around her. Her weary brain managed to briefly relay the message that she was in shock. Maybe she was really dead and imagining the white stallion with the blue hair in front of her.

"Well you just lay down their and try not to move it, I'll take care of mister ugly over their." the stallion said as he smiled down at the injured mare in front of him. He didn't know why but protecting this mare felt right to him for some reason. If he had the power to help he wasn't going to let people get hurt if he could help it. His determination set he turned to face the giant before him that was just now getting over the shock of losing one of its heads.

Taking a closer look at the severed head he noticed something that he hadn't noticed when he was fighting the manticore, their was no blood leaking from the head at all. Either none of these creatures had any blood in their body or something else was going on. For right now it was a problem for another time as the creature set its sights on him and got ready to attack the new interloper.

The hydra brought all three heads to bear deciding that it would crush the new pony with all of its heads. Only for all the heads to come to a stop as they impacted on a wall of darkness, which then proceeded to run along the length of their necks turning into a kind of collar that held all of the heads together.

As the white pony got closer to the creature the head desperately began to thrash around in its bindings desperate to get free and attack the strange pony. After a particularly violent thrash the left most head managed to get free and quickly descended upon the white pony, who stumbled when the head had broken free from the darkness binding it.

Sadly for the head this wasn't enough time to get to the pony before he recovered and saw the head descending towards him. Reacting on instinct alone the white pony quickly draw his blade from his sheathe and side stepped the attacking head, while simultaneously slashing threw the neck as hard and fast as he could. The hydra was now down to two heads and was beginning to regret its choice of staying in the clearing.

While the hydra was once again roaring in pain the white stallion took no notice as once he cut the second head off he became soaked in blood that sprayed from the head and the neck. He took a look at the blood stained blade and briefly thought on why when he cut the first head off their was no blood but when the second was cut off he was covered in the stuff. He shook the thought away as he set his sights on the creature which still hadn't recovered from the lost of its second head.

He thought on whether he should leave the creature go or finish it off. the last timed he had killed it had been in self defense and he hadn't really had a choice in the matter. Looking back at the creature he made up his mind to put it outs of its miser, it would be cruel of him to let it go, only to slowly bleed out and be in constant pain. He began gathering all the darkness of the clearing around him deciding to try and kill it as quick as possible.

The shadows of the clearing slowly left their spots from around the clearing and condensed into a tightly packed ball that hovered at the eye level of the white pony.

"I'm sorry for this but the moment you stayed to attack me your fate was decided. I wish you peace in the afterlife." His piece said the ball flew faster then the eye could see right into the chest of the creature. The strange thing was it seemingly melted into its chest doing no more damage to the creature. The white stallion apparently satisfied turned around to begin helping the lavender colored unicorn.

The hydra having recovered from the shock and pain of the detachment of its second head only saw the white pony turn its back to it and decided that this was probably the best time to attack, as both of its remaining heads sped towards the unsuspecting stallion.

Twilight saw this and knew she should tell her savior about the impending threat that was getting closer and closer to his unprotected flank.

"Look out behind you!" were the only words heard through the clearing as the heads were only feet away now.

Right when Twilight was sure her savior was going to become the newest hydra snack, the heads just stopped all movement. If Twilight looked shocked it was nothing compared to the look on the faces of the last of the hydras heads, confusion was their along with that looked like fear.

"You might not want to watch this next part." said the white stallion as he knelt down to examine the wounds on the unicorn mare.

Twilight was about to ask him what he meant when it became all to apparent what he was talking about, as spikes erupted from all along the body of the hydra. While some were bigger then other it was obvious that the spikes all pierced the hydra from the inside out, completely ignoring its toughened skin. What was a little strange to her though was the lack blood that should have been leaking from all the places that the hydra had been pierced. As she watched the spike slowly retracted from the body of the hydra, all of them condensing into a familiar ball of shadows outside of the hydra's body. The ball then slowly melded into the shadow of the pony currently inspecting her wounds.

With the threat the hydra represented being dead Twilight brought all of her attention to bear upon the strange pony that had saved her. A stray thought crossed her mind as she watched him, even though she had been right next to him she hadn't sensed
a single drop of magic from him when he was fighting the hydra. Granted this wasn't that strange as he was an earth pony and didn't have a horn to use for magic, but it didn't help explain what she had just witnessed happen in front of her. She realized she had spaced out and tuned back in to see what was being asked of her.

"I'm sorry, what did you say again." she asked.

"I said that most of your injuries are superficial, the exception being that broken back leg. Also with the way you were spacing out their you could possibly have a concussion. Do you know were the nearest hospital I could take you to is?"

Twilight ran a small scan with magic to see if she could find anything that he might have missed when checking her over. While doing this she contemplated were the nearest hospital was in relation to their current position. The only one that crossed her mind was the hospital in the small town they had passed on their way into the forest.

As this thought crossed her mind her mood took a dive as she remembered the five guards that had accompanied her to the clearing, four of which she was sure the creature had eaten with the fifth being... she wearily turned to look at the hole in the ground the creature had made when it first came into the clearing. She was broken out of her musings as the white stallion in front of her tapped her horn to get her attention, maybe she did have a concussion after all.

"Hey you spacing out like that is really starting to worry me. Do you have a name I can call you?"

"I... yes my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I think the nearest hospital is in the town near the edge of this forest. What about you, do you have a name sir?"

"Um... I'm sure that I do, its just that at this moment in time that information is currently unavailable to me. I kind of woke up in this clearing with no idea of who I was or how I got here. I wondered off to get a drink when I came to and came back when i heard a scream, which I'm assuming was you."

Twilight just stared at the pony before her in confusion as she thought of reasons a complete stranger, who didn't even know who he was, had come to help someone just because they heard a scream. Putting the thoughts to the back of her mind she tried to think of something that she could call the stallion in front of her. Recalling the way he somehow manipulated shadows she came up with what she believed to be an appropriate name for him.

"Well seeing as how I need to be able to call you something, how about the name Shadow Buck?"

He thought it over for a bit, until he decided that until he remembered his old name he needed something to call himself and that this particular name suited him just fine.

"Ya, that will work just fine, now how about we get you to that hospital then Twilight. If you can point me in the right direction I can carry you their." the newly named Shadow Buck said.

Starting to become of the pain in her leg Twilight thought that this was a great idea.

"That sounds great to me, and thank you for all that you did for me. If it wasn't for you i would have died in that clearing. From the bottom of my heart thank you so much."

Trying to hide the blush that adorned his cheeks at the heartfelt thanks Shadow Buck was quick to respond to the young mares thanks.

"Well it was the right thing to do, I mean who wouldn't help a pretty mare like you if they were in trouble."

Shadow Buck turned his head as he thought he had heard something from deeper in the forest, missing the megaton blush that now stained Twilight's cheeks at the compliment he had unknowingly paid her. "He thinks I'm pretty?" were the thoughts rushing through her head at the moment. Shadow picked his sword up from its resting place in the ground next to him slipping the item in his mouth, turning to ask Twilight a question.

"Hey did you hear anything?" he managed to ask, while somehow managing to speak perfectly with the obstruction in his mouth.

"I didn't hear anything, why, did you?" Twilight asked, afraid another monster was going to attack and finish the job the hydra had started.

"I could have sworn I--" was as far as Shadow Buck got as he rapidly turned his head to the left, slicing an incoming energy beam directly in half causing it to split perfectly around him.

"Ha! Is that all you go--" sadly he didn't notice the second beam of energy until it impacted against his side, roughly throwing him clear across the clearing and through a couple trees, finally coming to a stop a couple hundred yards away from the clearing he had been in, the trench he had dug also helping to show were he had come from.

He thought he briefly heard someone shout something like stop before noticing that something smelt really good, like cooked meat of some kind. He found the source when he looked his side over and saw the huge patch of darkened and burnt fur that was slowly burning away from the ugly red bubbling patch of skin underneath it. He was able to roughly sum up the situation in two word before his consciousness slipped away from him again.

"Buck me."