A shadow of his former self

“She found us… She already knows where I took us… Its only a matter of time until she finds us again.” I whispered to Kindle as she lied on top of me. I had transported myself, Kindle, and Vine to the old castle of the celestial sisters and now me and Kindle were curled up in Celestia’s old bed, which was somehow still clean.

“You did what you could, love. I expect no less from you.”

“Hay Kindle…”

“Hmmm?”

“Remember when we first met?” I asked her with a small smile.

“You were seventeen. I had just turned eighteen.” She replied, nuzzling my neck.

“I was all alone… You were too… And you just stayed there with me, no reason whatsoever. No pity, no sorrow, no nothing but comfort.”

“I liked you.”

I smiled. “There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind.” I leaned over and kissed Kindle, holding a hand against her cheek and closing my eyes.

I felt her tongue lick across my lips, asking permission to enter, something I was more than happy to give. I parted my lips, allowing the wonderful tongue that I grew to love enter my maw and dance against my own.

The kiss didn’t last long. I broke away, worry obviously showing on my face. “Kindle… Did I make the right move?”

“Of course you did, Eclipse. Why? What is wrong?” The zebra asked with a concerned look on her face.

“They’ll kill you to get to me. I know they always would, but now… with Shade… I don’t know what to do… I feel so helpless. We were lucky this time, but…” I stopped when Kindle placed a finger on my lips.

“Shhhh… You do not need to worry yourself sick over things that have yet to happen. I will not allow it.”

I felt a tear come to my eye. “But… What if I can’t protect you?” I squeezed the mare against me. “I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”

“Shhh. I know. But, as I said, do not worry until it is time for you to act.” She replied in her comforting voice, before leaning in to give me a quick kiss. “Must I do something to make you forget about your worries?” Kindle asked with a mischievous smile as she slowly licked her lips.

I smirked at that. “Am I allowed to say yes?”

“What do you think?” She asked, before leaning in to drag a slow lick up my neck, making me shiver.

“Are you serious!? She found him!?” A rainbow maned pegasus stallion demanded. He was shorter than the other ponies that stood around him, but was buffer with a strong voice. His coat was nearly pure white, only covered in black scuff marks from his neglect of cleaning it. He wore a worn leather jacket and a pair of ripped jean shorts. His purple eyes stared at the pony who had told him the news.

“I-it’s what I heard, Spectrum Dash. S-she was going on and on about it, about how badly she wanted to hurt him for m-making a f-fool out of her.” A smoke gray pegasus mare whispered, brushing her orange mane out of her eyes. She seemed to be the shy one of the group. She wore a simple orange t-shirt and a pair of stretchy pants that hugged her legs tightly.

“Timid, darling, Shade is always ranting about Eclipse. It’s what she does.” A light pink unicorn mare said, crossing her arms. Her blue mane was tied back, but curled around the ends. She wore a somewhat stylish black blouse with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of short shorts that showed part of her diamond cutie mark. “I can’t, for the life of me, imagine what would make this time different.”

“W-w-w-well…” Timid stuttered, her orange eyes looking to the floor. “M-maybe because this time she l-left and then came back covered in bruises. W-what if she found him and he hurt her?”

“She has a point, Diamond Stud.” A silver earth pony stallion spoke up. His mane and tail were frizzy and unkept, like Spectrum’s, but was longer and a dirty blond color. He wore a red flannel button up tee and a pair of faded blue jeans, an equally faded stetson on his head. He gazed at his friends with intense emerald green eyes. “Ah think she got her ass kicked by that colt. Ain’t no catchin’ Eclipse any time soon.”

“T-thanks, Autumn Gold.” Timid said to the farm pony. She blushed slightly.

“What does it matter if he gets away? It only makes this worse…” The voice of a dark purple mare said. She was sitting in a corner of the room/prison with her knees hugged against her chest. Her black mane and tail were near perfectly straight and poured down her back almost like a liquid. She wore a black mini skirt and a black zip-up hoodie that was just a size too big for her small form.

“Oh, come off it, Pumice Pie.” Spectrum called over to the depressed-looking mare. “Every minute Eclipse is free, racks up another cool point. Let’s see… Six years… Carry the two… That makes him almost as cool as my mom!”

Everypony turned and gave the rainbow maned stallion a bemused look.

He threw up his hands. “What?”

“Dash, why don’t ya just pipe down a moment… and ah ain’t askin’.” Autumn said, patting her friend on the shoulder. “Sides, Pumice might be just as right as Timid. Eclipse may be diggin’ a hole too deep ta climb out of.”

“Darlings, please. This is the element of magic we’re talking about, Twilight’s own son. There has to be a way he can end this.” Diamond cut in.

“Yeah… by turning himself in. He’ll save that zebra he protects if he does that. Shade would just kill her to get to Eclipse.” Pumice added. “I like the idea of everypony living. Death is too sad… I’m too fucking depressed as it is…”

“Pumice! Language!” Diamond cried at the depressed mare.

“Get off my ass and let me sulk! Or I swear to Luna, I’ll cut every one of you!” Pumice screamed, whipping around to glare daggers at the fashion mare.

Everypony in the room took a step back, their expressions ones of shock.

“Whoa, honey bun. No need for that attitude.” Autumn said in a comforting voice. “We didn’t mean ta rub ya wrong, but ya aren’t really givin’ much ta work with. Ye’re too depressed all the time.”

“Yeah, Pumice. You used to be the life of the party. What happened to you?” Spectrum asked.

“When you realise how pointless it is to fight Shade, is when you see just how truly fucked we are in the world. She already took over. She killed Celestia right in front of Eclipse. Luna is her personal slave. We’re doomed to be corrupted. Eclipse is only making it harder on all of us.”

“So… You’re just giving up?”

“Why not? She’ll kill just as much if I fought back as she does now.”

“You’re crazy!” Timid screamed.

“You just now noticed?” Pumice shot right back, making the shy mare flinch.

“Pumice… No...” Spectrum whispered.

I was suddenly woken by a loud bangign on a door. I jolted upright, fur standing on end. Then there was a fearful voice screaming on the other side of the door. I couldn’t make it out yet, but it seemed urgent. I opened my eyes and took a look around me, at first not recognizing it, but then the memories flooded my fuzzy mind, reminding me of where I was and why I was there.

The voice was suddenly recognized as Vine Root’s. “She found us! She found us! Wake the hell up! She found us!”

I scrambled out of the bed and ran for my weapon, only then did I notice that Kindle wasn’t in the bed. I looked around, still not finding her. “Kindle!?”

A panel in the floor burt open, making me jump. I spun around, expecting to see Canterlot guards, only to see Kindle climbing through a secret passage, carrying our weapons and a few other things. “Sorry, I found this soon after you passed out. Now what is wrong?”

“It’s Shade!” I cried, grabbing the mare by her shoulders.

Vine pounded on the door again. “Ether let me in or come out! I can’t take them myself!”

I ran over to the thick wooden doors and opened one. Vine immediately bolted inside the room, nearly knocking me over.

“T-they’re in the courtyard. T-they saw me.” She stuttered out. “I-I did my best to lock the main door, but they’ll be inside any minute… Especially with Shimmering Shade with them.”

“Shade came with them again!?” Kindle exclaimed. “Forget what I told you last night. We should have worried about it.”

“It’s a little late for that! They were pounding on the door when I ran to get you! They could be inside by now!”

Vine was visually freaking out, but I couldn’t do anything to keep her calm, because I was too busy trying to think of an escape route. “Hay! We need to get the hell out of here before they find us. Any bright ideas?”

“None. Can’t you just teleport us again?” Vine asked.

I shook my head. “Doing it the first time with all of us was reckless, a second time might kill me.”

“I’m gonna die! She’s gonna kill me!” Vine cried, yanking on her own hair.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I reared my hand back to strike the mare, but Kindle beat me to it… but with much more force than I would have used. The sharp sound of bone on bone was heard before the sound of an ass meeting the floor. I flinched at my lover’s violence.

“Shut up and grab a weapon!” Kindle ordered.

The fallen mare rubbed her cheek where she had been struck, mumbling curses under her breath as she stood back up and picked up a bow and quiver from the pile of items Kindle had brought, as well as a short sword.

“Eclipse, you had better arm yourself. I will not be losing you today.” The zebracorn growled.

I flinched and quickly threw on my armor and picked up my scythe. “You scare me when you’re like this, Kindle.”

“Good.”

“That’s not a exactly a good thing.”

“Eclipse…” She flashed me a scary glare that nearly made me want to hide behind Vine. “Be silent.”

My ears drooped. “Yes ma’am…”

“Wow… You’re that scared of Kindle?”

I nodded. “When she’s like this… Yes…”

“Now get out of here! It is not safe to stay in one place. Split up and cover other parts of the castle. We must use these confusing corridors to our advantage. Set off as many traps as you can to stop or stall them. Just make sure to not get caught in any of them… Oh, and if you die, Eclipse, I will kill you in the afterlife.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How does that even work?”

“Just go!”

“OK, OK!” I sighed and quickly exited the royal bed chambers and sprinted down the corridor, quickly getting disoriented by the amount of walkways. I wasn’t the only one, though.

“How the hell are we supposed to find our way through this?” A male voice asked, his strong tone echoing off the walls.

“Do I look like a map to you?” Another one asked.

“No. You look more like a useless spotter to me.”

“Hay! Just because I let that weight drop on you that one time doesn’t mean I’ll always do it!”

“I don’t like taking chances. It’s pushing it that I’m looking for a powerful unicorn AND working with you while doing it.”

Any other day, I would have sat and listened to the whole conversation. It was kinda funny and I’ve heard some ponies say some pretty dirty things while eavesdropping, all of them funny enough to make me have to leave so I could laugh my ass off. Today wasn’t one of those days.

“Let’s see…” I approached the hall I heard their voices from and summoned a simple spell that formed a thick wall of solid air in the entrance. I also made a trap spell about twelve foot behind the existing wall that would be set to make another wall of air to trap them. “That should work nicely.”

I was so glad I was wearing my helmet, because right as I was stepping back from my work, I felt a blunt object smack into my head. Sure, I saw a star or two, but I was ok for the most part.

“Well… That didn’t work…” A voice said from behind me.

“You hit the wrong spot.” I said, before spinning around and taking the guard’s hooves out from under him with the crook of my scythe blade, knocking him on his face. I then swung the butt end around and took out the other guy by striking his throat.

The stallion made a choking sound and collapsed to the floor next to his buddy.

“You can’t just walk up on my like that. I’m not very easy to knock out.” With that, I trapped them both in a ball of shadows and stuck the ball to the ceiling.

While making my way towards the front of the castle, I took out at least twelve more guards, killed a little more than half of them before I made it to the thick wooden doors of the castle’s main entrance. There, waiting for me, were six twilight guards and Shimmering Shade, but what really shocked me was the fact that, trapped in a sphere of black magic, both Kindle and Vine floated unconscious.

I gasped at the sight. “Let them go!”

Shade laughed. “How can I put this without hurting your feelings?” She made a sarcastic gesture like she was thinking for a moment. “Oh, yeah. No!”

Her tone made me grip the shaft of my scythe tighter, gritting my teeth in anger.

“You’ve ran from me long enough, you little bastard. Now, if you ever want to see your bitch again, you’ll do what I say, when I say it. You’ll take the gift of power that I give you and you’ll take my place as the new element of curses, along with your dear colthood friends.” The nightmare listed off. “If you so much as take a single step away from me, I’ll snap the enchantress’ neck first to set an example. If you resist me, I’ll kill them both.”

I gave a low growl, my body tensing for a fight. “You’ll kill them anyway.”

Shade simply shrugged. “I may. I may not. Depends on how you behave, but with how I was made a fool out of on our last encounter… I dunno…” She brought the sphere closer and reached inside to brush her hand across Kindle’s face.

That made me snap. Not even caring what spell I had summoned, I shot a beam of magic at Shade. Unfortunately it turned out to only be a flash spell, but it was better than nothing.

The alicorn shielded her eyes from the flash, stumbling back a few steps, her shock allowing me to sprint towards her. I lifted my scythe and swung it at her head, only… I was too slow.

Shade had recovered in the time it took me to reach her, giving her enough time to block my blade with her wrist cuff, making a bright spark as my blade bounced off the purple metal. The vibration from the impact was enough to knock it out of my hands.

Stunned and disarmed, I didn’t even have time to react to what hit me next, let alone see it. And suddenly… ‘Ooooh… Pretty stars...’