Meet and... Greet?

Meet and... Greet?

...

'What happened?'

...

'The last thing I remember was saving Twilight from that hydra then a bright light...'

'Wait that wasn't just light, that was a controlled and focused amount of energy... something attacked us! I have to get up and find Twilight.'

Word would have been put to action but the second Shadow Buck tried to move his body he discovered a sad truth.

'What the heck... who tied me down, and why did they tie me down to a bed, also what happened to that giant patch of burnt fur from that attack? Either I was knocked out for a lot longer then I thought, I'm a quick healer, or whoever captured me healed me up.'

'Alright I need to calm down and figure out exactly what is going on before this mess gets any worse. The only two facts that I know at this point is that I was attacked and knocked unconscious, and some time between being knocked out and waking up someone brought me to this room, put me on the bed, and then tied me up. Until I can figure out the situation I think going low profile is my best bet... wonder if whoever took me has dealt with shadow users before?'

Deciding that now was the time to move and find out what was going on Shadow Buck concentrated on the shadows that he could feel all around him. While try to connect to the shadows he felt a piece of the darkness come to him easier then the rest and realized with a start that it was his sword, deciding to focus on it more at a later date he continued to focus. Once he felt his connection to the shadows strengthen he wrapped them around him and sunk into the bed and eventually the floor underneath it.

With concealment taken care of he finally looked at the room that he was being kept in and had to contain his surprise, either prisoners had some sweet housing arrangements, or he wasn't really a prisoner. The room, while spartan in its furnishings, was nicely kept and quite large. Debating with himself on whether he should stay hidden or show himself he figured that, for now, keeping out of sight was for the best. Besides you could always eavesdrop better when no one knew you were their.

While sneaking under the door, taking note of the two guards stationed outside of it, he made a short list of things to do while he was free, namely find Twilight, figure out exactly were he was, what the situation was, and who the heck blasted him like that... he wanted to return the favor.

---With Celestia---

Achoo.

'One of my little ponies must be talking about me.'

Giving her sneeze some idle thought allowed her mind to get off of her current problem that had come to her attention. That problem being a small white pony who apparently wielded shadows, yet for all intents and purposes wasn't using magic to do it. That being the tip of the iceberg, because not only could he wield shadows with no magic, he also had went and saved her star pupil Twilight. She in return had tried her level best to incinerate him with her magic, all in all it could have went a lot better if she hadn't acted so rashly. Then again Twilight's life had been in danger and her guard was nowhere to be found, of course she was going to be a little over-protective of her student, plus the pony had a bloody sword when she came into the clearing, how was she supposed to react!

Calming herself before she started going on a rant and melting her room... again, she breathed deeply and focused her thoughts.

'The strangest thing of all was that I put twenty percent of all my power into that attack, and not only did he manage to survive it, he also managed to cut the first attack in half with his sword!'

This was not normal for a pony or a sword for that matter, as her attack should have either melted the sword or shattered it to pieces when the attack connected. Also when they went to retrieve the, at the time anyway, body they could not find the sword anywhere. Another startling discovery was made when they found the pony alive, unconscious, but alive none the less.

Having talked to Twilight she teleported all three of them back to the castle at once, not only to have Twilight's leg taken care of but to try and help the pony that had saved her as well.

After making sure that her student was being tended to she took, 'Shadow Buck was what Twilight called him', to a side room in an out of the way part of the castle and after putting him into the bed summon some rope to keep him their, her past experience with a shadow wielder making her just the teeny bit precocious in her treatment of him. With that done she called on two guards to guard the door with strict instructions that nothing was to come in or go out of that room, but gave them instructions that if their guest woke up that they tell her immediately and try to explain thing to him. Hopefully a conflict could be avoided this way.

Sighing to herself at all that had happened Celestia decided that she would visit her student and make sure that she was doing alright, besides it's note like Shadow Buck would just get up and wonder off... right?

---Back With Shadow Buck---

'Seriously?! How big does a pony need a castle before they realize that it's too big? I haven't come across another soul for the last twenty minutes, if I don't find someone soon I'm just going to jump out a window and take my chances.'

Before Shadow could test his theory to survive a fall from extreme heights, he heard a sound come from around the next turn in the hallway. Speeding up his travel so as not to lose whatever made the sound he turned the corner to see two maids trying to set a huge portrait back on the wall.

"I swear to Celestia, you are so clumsy sometimes Squeaky Clean!"

"Me?! Your the one who tripped over her own two hooves and pushed me into the wall like that Swift Wind."

While the two maids continued to argue back and forth about whose fault it was Shadow Buck had his sights set on the cart that they were pushing. Judging by the smell coming off of it they were taking fresh food to someone, and if they were taking it to someone then they could at least lead him out of this part of the castle. His mind made up he quickly moved his shadow underneath the cart and joined with it's shadow to make sure he didn't make a wrong move and give away his hiding spot.

Once the painting was sufficiently back in place the two maids quickly moved back to the cart and started to wheel it through the castle's corridors. As they were pushing the cart Swift decided that she had to get one more shot at Squeaky before they got to where they were going.

"If we're late getting this meal to Twilight's room you know your getting the blame right?"

While Squeaky just mumbled something under his breath and continued to push the cart forward a smile materilized from the darkness underneath the cart before quickly disappearing from sight again.

'Perfect.'

---With Twilight---

'I really think I should get some sleep at some point or I'm going to mess up my entire sleeping pattern.'

Even with staying up most of the night and a small bit of the day afterward Twilight was far from sleepy. Her mind was racing trying to figure out everything that had happened in the past couple of hours and make sense of it. She thought everything would have been fine after the Hydra was dispatched, but no sooner had it been taken care of then her savior was blasted by her very own teacher who had appeared suddenly and unexpectedly from no where.

'Well not completely unexpectedly.' Twilight thought to herself as she remembered that briefly before he was blasted Shadow had thought he heard something.

That was something else that was bugging her to no end as well. She sensed exactly how much energy had been in those attacks. While she knew it wasn't her mentor's full power, she knew that practically no pony alive except maybe herself would be capable of firing off an attack of that magnitude, never mind the fact that their was two of them and she hardly seemed winded when she came into the clearing.

The strange part was that even with all that power put against him Shadow Buck had managed to easily cut the attack in half and divert it away. He also managed to take the second hit completely defenseless and wasn't killed from it.

As question upon question we're piled up onto each other and her hair started to fray a bit she heard somepony knocking on her door.

"Twilight are you up? It's me Celestia."

"I'm up Princess Celestia, please come in."

As the princess made her way into the room and over, Twilight's mood visibly brightened at the alicorn's approach, both for the fact that she was glad to see her mentor and that some of her question might now be answered.

"How are you feeling Twilight? The doctors told me that your rear leg was an easy fix and that their were no complications. Also I figured that you might be hungry to I had the kitchen send up some food to your room."

"Thank you princess, and the food does sound like a great idea, I'm so hungry I could eat a manticore."

Both princess and student shared a laugh at the joke relaxed more in the cozy room they were in.

"About everything that has happened Twilight... I want to apologize to you for what happened. If I had come with you or sent more guards then maybe---"

"No no no, princess it's not your fault at all, if anyone is to blame its me for getting so wrapped up in the anomaly that I wasn't even aware of what was going on around me, and because of that those five guards..."

Seeing that her student was close to tears her mentor draped a wing over her small form and gave her a soft nuzzle which was quickly returned.

"Shh, it's okay Twilight, while they will be missed guards all know the risk of what becoming a guard entails, further more all guards do their best to protect the civilians of Equestria, which you still are. I believe that they would take solace in the fact that you managed to make it to safety."

knock knock

"Ah, the food that I called on must be hear, come Twilight lets eat and talk of happier thing."

While Twilight was glad for the distraction she still had questions that she wanted answered, but they could at least wait until she had a full stomach right?

Celestia on the other hand had other thoughts going through her mind. While the two maids wheeled the cart in Celestia carefully and covertly inspected it to search for anything out of place on it, while also casting a couple of detection spells just to be safe.

"We hope everything is to your liking Princess Celestia and Twilight."

Celestia snapped out of her inspection of the cart to briefly share words with the two maids.

"I'm sure everything will be fine just like it always is, thank you Squeaky and Swift for bringing us the food."

Just as the maids left and Twilight was about to pounce on the food Celestia held her hoof out in a gesture for her to wait. Curious as to what was going on Twilight sat back down on the bed and waited for whatever it was Celestia was going to do.

"I know your their you can come out now."

Twilight was wondering what exactly was going through her mentor's head when she heard her talk to a seemingly empty room. Just as she was about to question her mentor she felt a huge build up in magic, coming from her mentors horn! Before she could do anything her mentor let loose a blinding flash of light that, even though she was looking right at it did nothing at all to Twilight's eyes. Seeing her students questioning gaze Celestia Deciding to explain while keeping her eyes on the cart, the only thing in the room that now had a shadow.

"That was a concentrated blast of light magic meant to briefly get rid of all natural shadows in a room for a period of three minutes. Now do you see anything in this room that looks a bit out of place?"

Twilight did indeed take a look around the room and noticed that everything in the room no longer had a shadow, except the cart of food which actually seemed to be squirming around now that all attention was focused on it.

"Um... princess why does the food cart still have a shadow underneath it?"

"I believe that is because the pony from the forest is currently hiding in it. Speaking of which..."

At this Celestia turn her attention fully on the cart and the shadow that was now definitely squirming around.

"Hiding at this point is kind of redundant, and I would rather not pull you from the shadows, I heard it is a rather annoying feeling. I promise that as long as you make no threatening actions that I will not cause you any harm."

While grateful about what she suspected the pony in front of her had done for Twilight, Celestia was still keeping a couple of trigger spells ready in case anything were to happen.

Twilight on the other hand was a little behind her mentor and was slowly putting all the pieces together in her head before they finally all snapped together.

"Wait do you mean that that shadow is really---"

Before she could finish her sentence though the shadow moved out from the bottom of the cart before slowly taking a more pony like shape. As the shadow more closely took the shape of a pony , her savior from the forest slowly raised up from within the swirling mass of shadows, looking for all the world like a young colt with his hoof caught in the cookie jar.

"Um... Hi?"

"Shadow Buck?"

"I guess I'll order more food then?"

Author's Note

So very sorry about not updating this story. First it was no time because of work, then their was just a general sense of laziness and I didn't want to do anything. Now though I believe that I got a handle on both and i should be updating more frequently now. Also if anyone is interested in helping me fix up some of the mistakes i'm sure are in my story that would be awesome. Anyway hope you enjoyed the chapter and hopefully more will be on the way soon. also if your wondering about all the marks in the story I went with ' as meaning their thinking in their head while " means their talking out loud. let me know if this works out or not or if you guys know of a better way. I'm all ears for some feedback, good and bad.