Chapters Author's Note
So yeah first story and all that jazz and hope everyone likes it. I'll just say now that grammar isn't my greatest strength but my writing should at least be passable. Not much to say on the first chapter so I'm just going to jump right in. Updates will hopefully come once a week but might be a little spotty.
The End?
Prelude: The End?
Power, love, hate, greed, faith, obedience... the list could go on forever and include everything and nothing, all of them trying to answer the one question that to this day there is still no answer for.
Why is their war?
People fight for anything that they chose to believe in that makes them right, or powerful, or just. As long as two or more groups can have different opinions and have the energy or ability to make war then the potential shall always be there.
Not to say that the same potential for peace and prosperity isn't there as well, but more often than not it deteriorates into conflict.
Why is it that no matter how hard I tried war followed me? No matter how far I ran, or how hard I would try to hide, or how many promises I made to stay out of it I would always be doomed to fight for some “noble” cause or goal.
I’m tired of all that war has taken from me. There is no glory or honor in war. The only thing it leaves you with is regrets and a target on the back of your head for those that can’t let it go. It is an unrelenting and unending conflict that will always plague the lands and its people. To this I say no more.
I played my part in so many wars and deaths that I've had enough. I tried to always downplay my strengths, without making myself look like some weak little target. It still didn't stop people from trying to recruit me to their cause. Some causes I believed in others were for personal reason, all of them I wish would have never been started.
Finally, though I have given up hope of people ever seeing eye to eye. It is with this realization at the forefront of my thoughts that drive me to my next actions. I will end war once and for all even if I must sacrifice myself and everything around me to do it. After all for a man that has nothing left to lose death seems like release.
With these thoughts coursing through my mind I begin to draw in every ounce of my power to my core. I will show everyone why it is always me that is the deciding factor in every war that has been fought. I will show them their folly of their wars and conflicts.
Their beginning to sense my power and how much of it I’m gathering. Some are accepting of it, others are in sheer disbelief of the power being generated. Still others have given up fighting each other and now desperately try to rush me to try and stop the inevitable, too little too late for them though.
With my final moments of peace I wish desperately that thing could have been different or at the very least people would learn from their mistakes and live in peace and harmony. As they close in from all around to try and stop me I feel the energy reach that final peak. I beg forgiveness from any deity that may yet watch over me and release every iota of power at my disposal in a massive planetary size explosion. With my final conscious moments I felt like something was pulling me to it, with little else to do I let it take me as the darkness rushes to claim me in its merciful embrace, and I knew no more.
Author's Note
Also because i forgot to do this last chapter "i don't own anything except for my OC".
Where? How? Who?
Where? How? Who?
Pain... so much that it overwhelms the senses and blots out all else. their was no end and no release. I wondered if this is what it was like to die. With nothing else to do I let the pain take over and let the darkness take me.
Once again I came awake to the feeling of pain, although not as intense as it once was. I could feel something going on around me. It felt like the ground was slowly covering me up, that or I was merging with the ground. Once again it became to much and I graceful left the world of conciseness.
The next time a awoke it was to be for good as the pain had mostly left me, save for a few... scratches, that and everything was sore! it felt like had just run three tri-athlons back to back, but it was bearable.
Well first things first was to get off the ground and find out exactly were I was. Still feeling a little shaky from whatever had happened to me i tried to stand up, only for my face to once again meet with the ground as my lower body got tangled together in a mess of... hooves?
Was that right? Did I always have hooves? As a matter of fact how did I end up on the ground unconscious in the first place? Actually what was I doing before I ended up unconscious in this forest anyway? When I try to remember all i get if colorful flashes and a massive head ache for my troubles.
Fighting down the raising panic I calmed myself and ran things through my head. My new agenda was to just lie here and figure out how my body actually works and see if i can actually remember anything at all of how i got here, where here even was, and finally... who am i exactly?
Meanwhile in Canterlot...
.
We find one lavender unicorn staring slack-jawed at the massive explosion that had detonated right above the creepy Everfree Forrest. One second their was peaceful blue sky and then, with no warning or reason, a huge sphere of darkness appeared and detonated with the sound of the explosion being powerful enough to actually reach the castle. Even more amazing was the fact that nothing seemed to be damaged or on fire or anything at all. In fact if you had been staring anywhere else then the exact spot the explosion took place you would have missed it and wondered what exactly the sound was.
Another strange thing that caught her attention was that while the explosion could possibly have been created by another unicorn practicing some kind of magic, she felt no residual traces of magic from the explosion. It could have been that the magic was to far away for her to feel the residual effects, but with something that large and that loud their should have been some kind of magical feedback.
With all these thoughts running through her mind, she knew one thing for certain and that was that the princess needed to be informed of this if she hadn't already been. Although given how fast the whole event had happened a firsthand account of what she saw and felt... or not felt, would probably do wonders in helping everypony figure out what exactly the strange explosion was. With her goal and destination in mind she rushed out of her room as fast as her four hooves could carry her to find the princess and inform her of what had happened.
Back in the Everfree...
So with the time it took to calm myself down and try to puzzle out what was going on i had come to realize a couple of core truths about the entire situation. The first core truth was that I was some kind of equine creature, based on the small size I would hazard a guess at pony. the second core truth was that any knowledge of what I was doing before going unconscious was currently out of my grasp. The third core truth was that i had no idea where i was, what my name was and... Growl , I was hungry.
Another fact that I wasn't entirely sure about, but was going to assume it was right was that I owned a sword. After I had calmed down a little and focused on what was going on around me I noticed a pitch black sword in a scabbard lying right next to me. I figured it was close enough to me and that no one else had taken it that it must have been mine.
Growl...
As if to remind me of its wants my stomach sent a particular loud growl to me telling me to find some food. which brought me to another thing that was bothering me, "what do I eat"! Looking around as if the answer would fall from the heaven at my feet all i saw were trees and grass of the forest. looking at it logically i was some kind of horse or pony and to the best of my knowledge they did eat grass and flowers and stuff like that.
Growl...
I was begging to wonder if I would survive using my sword to stab my stomach to show it who was boss around here.
Growl...
Then my logical side kicked in and I had to shake my head at my stupidity. You don't survive getting stabbed in the stomach without immediate medical attention.
Growl!!!
Figuring I should appease my angry organ I slowly walked over to some of the grass at the base of a tree. Hoping that i was right and nothing was wrong with the grass I reached my mouth down and comped up a few bites to see how it tasted. Low and behold it didn't taste horrible, kind of a little bland though but it filled my stomach so I ate my fill until i felt content.
With my stomach content and satisfied I slumped to the ground against the tree. Despite trying to remain positive, the truth was I was in some kind of trouble and a little scared at the fact that I couldn't remember anything about who I was before I came too. Another thing that dawned on me now that my stomach wasn't the main point of my focus was how sore and tired I was. Figuring that were I was was as good as any place around me I made myself more comfortable. Right before I could start to let sleep claim me I made sure my sword was by my side. If this sword was mine, I wanted to keep a hold of the one thing that must have been mine before I woke up in this clearing. With everything being new to me and not having anything at all, it was nice to have something to call mine.
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
"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."
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.
Information and Offers
The food arrived fairly quickly considering that one order had already been brought up to young twilight's room already. The cart was brought up to the room and delivered without any fuss, although the maids did notice that the room did seem to be a lot more tense then the last time they brought food to the room. The maids did briefly wonder who the third pony was and why he was in the room with the princess and student, but decided that it wasn't really any of their business, not that this would stop the rumors of the young student having a coltfriend from spreading around the castle like wildfire.
Meanwhile three different sets of thoughts were going around and around, each trying to figure out were things stood and how everything would play out.
'If she wanted me dead then she probably would have attacked me already, that or she doesn't want Twilight caught in the crossfire that might happen. Then why did she offer to have more food brought up if she was just going to attack me? Also, she's the princess of this castle so she would probably be justified in any attack she does make. One thing is certain is that Twilight wasn't captured against her will or anything like that, it might be better if i just hightail it out of here. For now I guess I'll just have to play it by ear and see what happens.'
These were the thoughts of one white and blue pony as he sat on a chair that the princess was nice enough to conjure into the room for him while he munched on the daisy sandwich that the maids had brought in on the second cart. While he wasn't anywhere close to starving, it would be a lie to say he wasn't the littlest bit hungry. Trying to get all his thoughts and plans together while he ate, he kept his eyes on the white princess in front of him, occasionally turning his head in Twilight's direction and gauging her reaction to what was happening.
'This pony certainly is a strange one, that's for sure. The good news is that I don't detect any of Sombra's magic on him or anything evil about him at all. The only thing that I can detect is curiosity and a slight amount of caution when ever he looks at me, and considering he most likely knows that I'm the one who attacked him in the forest it understandable that he would be cautious. I do find it strange though how not only does it look like he never took a hit from me at all, but also the fact that his mind is so well shielded from me. I believe that even if I were to use all my power I would not be able to get past the barriers and they might act more... violent, instead of simply pushing me out. Either way it seems that a new and strange piece has been put on the board, the only question being how it will effect the game.'
While Celestia truly did care for her subjects and did her best to steer them in the right direction, instead of outright lording over them, she did have one or two plans that she had been sitting on that she would be upset if they were completely derailed due to a random pony appearing out of nowhere. On the other hand this same pony had saved all those plan by saving young Twilight's life from that hydra. In fact, it seemed Twilight was quite enraptured by the new guest. The proverbial light bulb went off in Celestia's head as she began to think up a plan to not only keep Twilight safe from harm until she could well and truly protect herself, but to possible make an ally out of the strange shadow wielding pony. With her idea slowly taking form in her head Celestia looked over at her favorite student to see what her reaction to this situation was. She smirked to herself when she saw that her student was still staring at the white pony, Celestia could almost hear the gears in her students head turning as she tried to figure out the strange new pony.
'I still can't believe that Shadow Buck can do all those things that he does, and he does it all without using any type of magic that I know of. This could be a great opportunity for me to study an entirely new type of magic! This could be the greatest magical discovery since the time of Starswirl the Bearded. Maybe he could teach me whatever type of magic he's using, after all, the best way to study a new type of magic would be to learn it.'
"Shadow Buck, I just wanted to properly thank you for saving my life back in the forest. If it wasn't for you I probably wouldn't be here right now."
Twilight's sudden apology brought both of the other ponies attention away from their silent musings and back to the real world. One of the ponies feeling nothing but pride in her student, the other feeling slight embarrassment at the attention now put on him.
"It really wasn't anything Twilight. I just happened to be close by and did what anyone with the power to help would have done."
Celestia was watching all this play out, having a good idea of were it was going, and couldn't help but cheer that Twilight was making it easier and easier for her to broach the subject that she so wanted to talk to this strange pony about. If it all worked out the way she thought it was going to then she could not only have a possible new friend for Twilight but also something else as well.
"That's not true at all though! Anyone else would have run away from a hydra, and no one would blame them. You ran right at it though with no other thoughts then helping me out. Also other's might not have been able to help as much as you did as hydras have a very high level of resistance to magic."
Twilight nervously swallowed as she was getting closer to the question that she really wanted to ask him, but was afraid that he would turn her down or worse not be able to at all.
"Which bring me to what I really wanted to ask you since you saved me from that hydra. Would you please teach me whatever type of magic it is that you use?"
Shock was the most prevalent emotion going through the other two ponies at the end of Twilight's question. One brought on by the fact that her student might learn anything close to dark magic, the other by the fact that anyone would actually want to be taught by him.
Shadow Buck took a moment to gather his thoughts as he pondered how to answer the young mares question. While it was true he felt some kind of connection to this mare and the thought of teaching other felt right to him, he had to consider all the fact. The truth of the matter was that he didn't know his power well enough to even begin to teach others in its use, heck he himself still barely understood it. Another point to consider was that he didn't know anything about himself either, namely whether he was a good or bad pony and if he had people after him who would then target others that he taught. Looking at Twilight's face though and how hopeful she was that he would say yes he thought long and hard about what he would say.
"While I'm flattered that you would want to be taught by me Twilight, I think that at this time at would be... unwise for me to teach you..." at this the young mares happy expression turned to sadness as she was upset that she not only wouldn't get to learn a new magic but also that she wouldn't be able to thank her savior by learning his ability. "but, when I regain my memories or have a much better understanding of how my powers work myself, I promise you that the choice to learn from me will still be open to you."
While it wasn't exactly what she wanted Twilight was happy it wasn't an outright no and could happily wait for the chance to learn a new magic.
Feeling that now was the best time to act, Celestia decided that now would be a great time to make her offer to the Shadow Buck and see what happened.
"Seeing as how you don't remember anything about yourself and don't have anywhere to really go at the moment, might I make a suggestion and an offer to you Shadow Buck?"
At this declaration the Princess had the undivided attention of both other occupants of the room. While Shadow had the idea to try and regain his memories he truly had no idea of how to go about doing that. Add in the fact that he was getting an offer from the princess of this land and he thought it would be a good idea to at least hear her out.
"Since you don't remember anything at all to give you a point in the right direction how would it sound if you were to be employed by the castle to guard young Twilight here from harm while also having access to out records and archives in the hopes that you might find some information about yourself? This would not only give you access to information that yo couldn't get anywhere else, but it would also allow you to spend time with Twilight and perhaps either regain your memory on your own or be close by in the case you feel up to the task of teaching her your power."
Both other occupants of the room were surprised at the offer that was being put out on the table.
Twilight was surprised that her mentor would assign her a guard like this, but considering what had happened with the hydra she shouldn't be to surprised by this fact. Plus it would be better to have someone who had saved her life and she felt somewhat comfortable around, rather then some stranger she had never met before. It would also let her do more research on how the white pony was able to use his powers.
Shadow Buck was shocked and confused at the offer being presented to him. While it was true that he really had nothing to his name, save for his sword, and that working for the castle would indeed give him access to things that he normally wouldn't be able to get his hooves on he was curios as to why the princess would allow almost a complete stranger to watch over her student rather then some of the guards that she had around. Before answering her he needed to ask some questions first and figure out exactly what it was he would be doing and for how long.
"Assuming that I did take this job I have a couple of question about it and the duties that I would be to preform before I make any decision at all."
"Of course, please ask away and I will answer to the best of my ability."
"Alright then my first couple of question are easy enough, namely what exactly would my job be and how long would you like me to guard her for?"
"Your job would simply entail keeping a close eye of Twilight and making sure that she stays safe. As for how long, either until you think that she can completely protect herself, or if you ever feel like you don't want to guard her anymore. The decision is completely up to you."
"Alright then that seems easy enough and it sounds fair to me. Another question is how would you want me to guard her? Would you like me to always be around and in view, or would you like me to preform it in more of a shadow role?"
"I'm not quite sure what you mean by that."
"It's simple really. Due to my powers I could simply hide in either the shadows around Twilight or in her actual shadow. Would you want me to guard her this way or would you rather I be in plain sight for all to see and know that she is protected?"
"I believe that will be left up to your discretion and what you feel the situation will best call for."
"Then my final question is simple really, and it's not for you." At this he turned to face Twilight who had been quite all this time. "Twilight do you even want me to guard you?"
Twilight quickly thought on whether or not she truly wanted to be guarded. While weighing all the pros and cons of having a guard in her head she also thought on if she wanted Shadow Buck specifically to guard her. She came to her conclusion rather quickly.
"I think it would be fine Shadow Buck. The princess is right, with me being her student someone could try to get to her be coming after me, and while I'm confident in my magic abilities, if they take that away I would be in a lot of trouble. I would love to have you as my guard. Plus if your guarding me then I can get the chance to see your powers i action and maybe help you figure out how they work."
With her piece said all eyes in the room turned towards Shadow Buck to see if he would accept or not.
"Well if that's the case then Princess Celestia, you have yourself a guard. My only stipulations are that I can leave whenever I want, and that I have a month before I official begin to guard Twilight."
"Of course you can leave at anytime you want, I just ask that you give me notice so that I can assign another guard to Twilight. As for your other stipulation, why exactly do you need a month before you start to guard her?"
"Their are two reason as to why I need to have a month before I can start to properly guard her, not saying I won't keep my eye on her in the mean time, but for the majority of the month I need to read up on a bunch of things that don't quiet come to mind. Things such as the geography and creatures that are around us, not to mention history and other stuff that I don't remember."
"If that's the case then how did you know what a hydra was, or what a unicorn or alicorn is?"
"That's because I get these little brief flashes of information when I see new things like that. The information just sort of pops into my head. I would rather not have to really on something like that though and just want to know more about things that I would have to protect Twilight from or should already know about."
"That makes sense I guess but what was your second reason, you said that you had two of them."
At this Shadow Buck put on the biggest smilethat either of the other pony had ever seen and replied with one simply word.
"Training."
Author's Note
As always I would love to get some feedback on how I did, you know let me know what you liked and didn't like. Let me know if I missed anything or stuff like that. Until next week guys and gals. Also next chapter will have a bunch more action then this chapter. just needed to explain a bunch of stuff this chapter.
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!