Martin: Chronicle Of A Hero

by CrypticMetaphor

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Random, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Main 6, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Human, Other, Princess Luna
Length: 37352

Martin was a regular 19 year old guy who always thought he had a bigger destiny, he was right.

Martin Fairbridges was trying to get by with a regular life, a job as a night manager at a corner store, trying to find BETTER work, and looking for his destiny. It's true, Martin had always had the sense that he was meant for something greater than where he was currently in his life, but he never could figure out what it was. One day he gets his chance via a strange occurrence after his shift which then lands him in the world of equestria. On a completely different world far from home, he must adapt to the change in the environment, and the changes happening to himself turning him into something far better than a human. Not only must he do this, but he must earn the trust of Equestria and all who reside within this mystical land but he must do so before it falls under the shadow of Phobos, an ancient evil that feeds upon and uses fear itself.

FRIENDS WILL BE MADE, ATTACHMENTS WILL BE FORGED, DARKNESS WILL RISE, A HERO IS BORN!

Published 2012-03-24 05:24:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-05-03 05:15:52 UTC

Prolouge: A Hallway & A Door

Prolouge: A Hallway & A Door

Martin had lost track of time again, when he checked the clock above the entrance to the Stop Shop, a convenience store which he unfortunately worked the night shift at as manager, it was already two hours past his shifts cut off. In some cases, employees of similar positions wouldn't mind this because they would have coworkers to crack jokes with, to keep things lively and tolerable, but Martin was the only person at the store to run it, clean it, and lock up afterwards. He let out a sigh as he turned off his I-Pod and pocketed it; he had been listening to it most of the night since business had been very slow, it was mostly to tune out the world so he could be alone with his thoughts, which worked for a time and a half before he went off into space. After sweeping up the storefront, he went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face so he wouldn't fall asleep on his feet, he looked in the mirror and examined himself, he had short dark auburn hair, and dark green eyes, his features were as youthful as could be for a nineteen year old, except for the black bags under his eyes for working two shifts in a row that week.

He also was lean, but barely any muscle, but girls still gave him those, "I'll totally date him" looks whenever he was in very public areas, and he was 6.2 in height, not a very imposing stature, but he could almost be as tall as his father if he grew a bit more. He pulled on his loose looking black pants and grey t-shirt, after taking off his uniform, tied up his black runners, and pulled on his black and white coat and started toward the door. As he passed an aisle something caught the corner of his eye, he turned his head and noticed something in the center of the floor, he was actually surprised he overlooked something. He walked over to it and picked it up, in his hand was a pin that should belong on a backpack, depicted on the pin was a white cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt on a cyan background, written in red below the mark in flashy lettering was, "Team Rainbow Dash".

Martin just shook his head as he pocketed the pin, he had no idea what it meant or who it belonged to but he wasn't going to let it sit in the middle of the floor and get yelled at by his boss for missing it. He then shut off the lights and locked the door as he began to walk his usual route home, as he walked in silence, he began to reflect on how he got where he was in his life. His high school years went by without consequence, looking for a job wasn't to difficult either, but all that time he always thought he had a higher calling, a destiny that the universe hadn't revealed to him yet, little did he know he wasn't far off the mark. Martin soon stopped at the mouth of an alley for a second, then started walking down it, he always cut through this alley to get home faster and knew all its features, except tonight he noticed something different. Near the center of the alley was an open door leading into a dimly lit hallway that seemed to not end.

Martin looked in and called out, "hello?, um, you left your door open". He thought it would be better to see if anyone was home, so he started walking in silence, literally, there was no sound when he entered the hallway it was almost like it sucked the sound out of the air. As he went deeper a strange smell drifted into the air, he couldn't quite place it, but it smelled familiar, before he could focus on it he smacked into an old fashioned wooden door, "ow, what the hell?", he examined the door closely and saw that the door should've belonged in an old fashioned castle, it was made out of some sort of wood and had an old fashioned brass knob. Martin instinctively took the knob in his hand, and a click was heard the second he touched it, what happened next could only be described as cosmic, every single crease on the door lit up with light which continued to glow brighter and brighter until Martin was blinded, he then felt himself falling and then hitting the ground hard.

As Martin lay on the ground, his mind was kicking into overdrive at what just transpired, even he knew doors can't to what that one had done. Then there was the fact that a random hallway that was never there before suddenly thrust into existence the same night he worked later than usual, a coincidence, or cosmic intervention? Martin couldn't wrap his head around the fact even if he tried, it was all way to confusing and unlikely. The way the door lit up was like that one Neo opened leading to the Architect in the second Matrix movie, it was just too weird. But the one thing he was trying to think of was this, how did the hallway appear, WHEN did it appear, what was that door and what did it do to him, but most importantly, who made them? Those thoughts aside, he had to focus on the current predicament like what happened to him, a few seconds ago he smelt a strange yet familiar scent and the smell of an alley, but now he was smelling clean air mixed with various other smells that were fresh grass and flowers, and some other ones he couldn't place. He soon opened his eyes, praying he could still see, his eyes still worked but all he could see was spots, almost like an army of paparazzi snapped their cameras in his face.

The spots slowly cleared as he surveyed his surroundings, it looked like he was in a clearing of a forest. He looked behind him and above, it was daylight, and it seemed he had been lying on a large patch of grass with the occasional flower; the flowers had been completely untouched from his landing, which surprised him since he felt the hard impact. Coming to this realization, he immediately stood and checked himself over, there was a bruise starting to develop on his shoulder from the landing and aside from some very minor joint pain he was fine. He settled on heading out of the forest, he did not intend to be Old Martin the creepy forest hermit, plus if there was some locals nearby he could ask for some help. After a good half hour of walking he crested a hill and notices two things, the first thing was the fact that there indeed was a town off in the distance and he was standing a few good feet away from what looked like a forest composed of apple trees, and two he could just barely make out a castle like are built near, or possibly in a mountain.

All these facts and ALL these other factors finally got to him in the form of him simply yelling four words, "HOLY FLYING CRAP BALLS!!!!"

Hello there my fellow writers and readers, this giant space is here for some reason, I have no clue why, so I apologize, also, get ready for Chapter One: Ponies that talk!?, when Martin makes first contact and freaks out accordingly, see you then".

Chapter 1: Ponies That Talk!?

For fifteen minutes Martin stood atop the hill staring with an expression which could only be described as a mixture of puzzlement, fear, uncertainty, and complete and utter confusion. He soon began to pace from side to side muttering to himself, “How the hell is this possible, did that door do this to me, no that can’t be right, this kind of stuff only happens in sci fi movies or horribly contrived works of fiction”, he then let out an anguished sigh and sat on the grass. He had to think of a way to contact someone for help, although judging by the circa of the buildings he could see, it didn’t look like they had electricity of any kind, with that in mind he didn’t even bother taking out his cellphone to see if he could even call out from where he was. Well the silver lining of this situation was that he was on a peaceful hilltop on a gorgeous day; even though he was still freaked out he was OUTSIDE even though he was inside a few minutes ago, the warmth of the sun bathed him in a warm peaceful blanket as he shut his eyes with a relaxed smile and laid down on the grass with his hands behind his head and slowly drifted off to sleep. But as Martin slumbered, he had no idea he wasn’t alone, or the fact he would be an unfortunate victim of three fillies who were prone to shenanigans on a daily basis.
*************************************************************************************

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been going through a brand new list of potential ways to get there cutie marks but as usual, there were no results. Currently they were hiding in the trees with black bandanas tied around their heads pouncing down on any unfortunate creature, who dared venture under said trees. Applebloom was barely holding on to the tree branch she was on and was currently hanging upside down on it, Scootaloo was leaning against the trunk of the tree across from Applebloom trying to steady herself on the branch she was on, Sweetie Bell was sitting down on the branch just above Scoots balancing with ease.

Applebloom yelled over in Scootaloo’s direction with her Texan accent, “Scoots, how long exactly are we gonna stay up in these trees fer?”, Scootaloo trembled slightly as she almost lost her balance, she then regained herself before replying, “As long as it takes, if we’re going to get our cutie marks in stealth we need to be patient, and I told you to address me by my codename Solid Scoot”. Sweetie Bell just sighed as a bored expression appeared on her face, “Appleblooms right Scootaloo we’ve been up here for hours and no one’s walked by, I say we chop this up for a failure and go to the next thing on our list”.

Scootaloo was about to give Sweetie Bell grief for not addressing her by her codename when Applebloom lost her grip and dropped on the ground, soon followed by Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell. All three groaned in unison as they all untied there bandanas and checked there flanks on instinct, nothing showed, they all walked out of the tree line ready to head back when they noticed something sleeping on the hill in front of them. All three yelped and hid behind a nearby tree, then Appleblooms head popped out first, followed by Sweetie Bells then Scootaloo’s, all their heads were stacked on top of each other when they peaked out.

Applebloom spoke first, “whatcha think it is?”, Scootaloo walked off from her friends and began to walk closer stopping a good foot from the thing, “it looks like some sort of monkey", soon all three were looking at the creature with intrigued looks, Sweetie Bell examined his face, “it looks happy for some reason, and that must be it mane, it pretty short though and such a weird mixture of colours, Rarity would faint at the sight of his clothes that’s for sure”.

Sweetie Bell noticed Scootaloo was poking the things leg with a stick, Applebloom ran over to her, “what the hay are you doin, you could make it mad by pokin it like that!”. Scootaloo rolled her eyes and dropped the stick she was holding, “fine then what do you think we should do?”, Applebloom thought hard for a second then perked up, “I’ll go get mah sis, she’ll know what to do”, she then ran down the hill toward the farmhouse leaving her friends with the creature.
*************************************************************************************

Martin had no clue how long he had been snoozing or when he started, all he remembered was shutting his eyes to relax for a second, then he felt something jabbing him in the leg, he paid it no mind when it stopped, but was curious what was doing it. He waited about a minute then slowly opened his eyes and sat up, and then he jumped slightly when he noticed what was before him, two fillies were staring at him with looks of fear/curiosity, one had eyes that were a grayish purple, a mane that was a shade of purple called fuchsia and her coat was a light brilliant gamboge, it also seemed to have wings. The other had sap green eyes a light gray coat, and a mane that was a grayish mulberry and had pale, light grayish rose portions to it, it also had a horn on its head.

Both he and the fillies stared at each other, and then Martin started laughing, if he looked back at the fillies he would’ve seen that their expressions had changed to annoyed and confused ones, he settled down and wiped a tear from his eye as he looked at them once more with a smile, “sorry, for a while now I’ve been questioning whether or not this is real or a dream, and I’ve finally come to the conclusion, thanks to both of you, that this is completely a dream”. Martin was still smiling as he pointed, “I mean come on a Pegasus and a Unicorn, my mind can come up with the weirdest things”, the Pegasus was red in the face, it opened it mouth but shut it quickly as it smirked, It picked up a stick and jabbed Martin in the leg and he stumbled back from it. Martin rubbed his leg slightly, “ow that….hurt”, Martin’s eyes widened when he came to the realization this was real, then he also noticed the fillies were rolling around laughing at him. He backed up more and bumped into something that made an “oof “sound, he slowly turned around and saw another filly accompanied by a pony. The filly had a red mane, a yellow coat and orange eyes; it also had a big pink bow on its head. The pony, which was currently giving him a look that was cautionary and skeptical immediately stepped up to him in a matter which made him slightly uneasy, it was orange and seemed to have freckles, it also had green eyes and a blond mane and tail which were seemingly tied up in a ponytail like fashion, it also wore a brown stetson and had three red apples on its flanks.

Martin just smiled at the pony, “wow, a pony that wears a cowboy hat, I gotta say, now I’ve seen everything”, Martin by now had accepted he was on another world thanks to the stick jab, and was trying to make light of the situation.

The pony beckoned for the fillies to get behind her then it spoke in a female Texan accented voice, “ya know I was gonna forgive ya for smacking in tah me, but just fer that comment, Im debating whether or not I should buck ya into that there tree or give ya a chance tah explain yourself”, Martin still smiled as he just looked at the pony, “you just talked didn’t you?”. The orange pony rolled it eyes at the remark, normally she would have treated the question with a straight answer, but spooking the CMC and smacking into her and not apologizing had irritated her a bit, “yeah, I spoke, been doin it since I was just a filly, everypony here can talk”. Martin just nodded, if his mind could make noises, and these ponies could hear them, they would have heard the sound of crashing metal and electric fizzing, he nodded once more, “ponies can talk”. He then did the most legitimate thing a man in his position could do, he inhaled deeply…..then fainted.

As Martin laid in a heap the CMC approached him, Applebloom looked at her sister, “Applejack, is he alright?”, AJ approached the downed Martin and sighed with a slight smile, “he just fainted like Rarity does, he’ll be fine”, even though Applejack didn’t know what the creature was she felt bad that she scared it, and decided she should at least help him out since he probably had nowhere to go, “Applebloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Bell, could yall help me bring him inside, the weather team is planning a shower in an hour”, soon AJ and the crusaders help him indoors just as the clouds were being positioned in the sky by other Pegasus ponies.

Chapter 2: AHHHHH!!!! or The Chapter Where Martin Screams His Head Off

Martin woke up after having the weirdest dream ever; he had dreamt that he had traveled to a world of talking ponies, unicorns, and pegasai that were oddly coloured through a mysterious door in a hallway that had strangely appeared in an alleyway he always travelled through after work. He just chuckled at how his mind fabricated all that out of nowhere; he just chopped it up for working later than usual, he hopped out of bed noticing sun coming in through the window, he also noticed he was still wearing his pants and shirt, but his shoes and coat were near the door. He just walked to the door, picked up his shoes and coat and walked out of the room, however if he had taken time to look around the room he would have noticed its walls and bed were very different from anything on earth. But since Martin was half awake and asleep he didn’t really take notice of his surroundings and walked through the hall then downstairs to the kitchen. As he walked in he noticed the kitchen already had four occupants, and one of them was cooking something delicious.

Martin spoke to the cook, “smells delicious, what’s cooking?”

The cook, who was a certain orange pony, noticed the extra guest and smiled slightly as the stranger, she thought it would be a bit rude referring to him as a the creature or thing, gave her what she interpreted as a compliment on her cooking skills. She placed a plate of pancakes in front of everyone present including the stranger, and sat down. AJ thought maybe it would be best to show the stranger some hospitality to make him feel more welcome. She raised a hoof toward the stranger, almost immediately he took her hoof and shook it.

“Well I gotta say, ya gotta good grip, names Applejack, sorry fer scaring ya yesterday”, she lowered her hoof after the shake, “that there is my brother Big Macintaosh, you’ve already met Applebloom, and that’s Granny Smith”.

Martin smiled politely as he addressed everyone present at the sound of their names, “nice to meet you all, I’m Martin Fairbridges and…” he suddenly snapped fully into reality.

He looked at the one known as Applejack with a blank expression, “I’m sorry but could you run that by me again”

Applejack could tell something was about to happen, but reluctantly spoke the fact she knew he wanted to hear, “I said sorry fer scaring ya yesterday, and before you ask, it was real not a dream”

Martin then spoke in a slightly relaxed yet tense tone, “that’s what I thought you said; now allow me to offer this up as a rebuttal”.

Martin then proceeded to pull on his coat and shoes, walk to the front door almost robotically and opened it; he stared out at the orchard before him then looked back at the concerned Applejack.

Applejack then spoke in a concerned tone, “you alright sugercube?”

Martin responded with the straightest answer he could give, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

He then ran out the door continuing to scream him in absolute fear and ran around in circles like a lunatic. Martin could usually be as rational as the next guy, but like any mortal, his mind could only take so much. The only thought in his mind at the moment was playing over and over in his mind, DOES NOT COMPUTE, DOES NOT COMPUTE, PANIC, PANIC, FLEE, RUN AWAY, AND SCREAM.

The Apple Family, minus Granny Smith, were all staring at what was transpiring before them, Applejack just continued to have a concerned look on her face as Martin continued to scream, Applebloom couldn’t help but giggle slightly at his display, Big Mac was just shaking his head. AJ knew many ponies had ways of coping with some situations in a practical sense, some however some had breakdowns which she and her friends had experienced in their lives, however never before had she seen a mental breakdown of this magnitude, and she was greatly worried for him.

Applejack took notice of Applebloom giggling, “Applebloom stop that, haven’t we taught ya to be polite to new ponies, and this of all things is no laughing matter”

Applebloom looked down, “sorry sis, is he gonna be alright?”

Applejack just gave a calming smile, “just give him a few minutes, he’ll stop after he gets it outta his system”.

TWO HOURS LATER

Martin was still screaming, but he was curled up in a ball rocking back and forth whimpering occasionally, when Applejack noticed he wasn’t going to stop she went to gather her friends to give her a hoof with calming him down. After filling them all in on events up to current they were all gathered a fair distance away from Martin to give him some room, Rainbow Dash had pieces of clouds lodged in her ears, out of everyone there Applejack didn’t come to her, she came to AJ. Rainbow had been sleeping on a cloud nearby when Martin started his screaming fit it took a good hour before she woke up in irritation and demanded what was going on. After getting an explanation she put her ear plugs in, but that only dampened the steadily rising noise
.

Rainbow Dash turned to Applejack and spoke in a very irritated voice, “can we just gag him or something I can’t get any sleep with him screaming like a maniac”

Twilight Sparkle just shook her head, “Rainbow that wouldn’t help matters it would only worsen them, we want him to know we don’t mean him any harm and that he has nothing to fear, not the opposite”.

Rarity was wearing ear muffs on her head as she addressed Twilight, “Twilight why don’t we let Fluttershy try talking to him, maybe she could soothe him into a relaxed state?”

Fluttershy however was hiding in bush behind them having no intention of moving, toward the screaming creature known as Martin, as the rest of them continued to fire off ideas, Martin had stopped screaming and rocking entirely for a second to look at the ponies, they stopped as well and looked at him, he then went back to rocking and whimpering.

Applejack than turned to them, “well at least he stopped screamin”

Rainbow Dash just groaned as she pulled out her earplugs, “Ok that’s it, time to do things my way”

Everypony present tried to stop her and object to her but Rainbow managed to get in front of Martin whose eyes looked at the cyan mare but continued to whimper.

Rainbow then straightened up, “Your names Martin right?”

Martin just continued to whimper as the cyan mare continued addressing him.

Rainbow just sighed, “I’ll take that as a yes, just to make it fair, names Rainbow Dash oh yeah and SNAP THE HAY OUT OF IT!!!”

Rainbow Dash then smacked Martin upside the head causing him to fall over, Marin then stood as the remaining ponies with Applejack approached he was rubbing the side of his face as he looked at the cyan mare.

He addressed Rainbow Dash with a grateful tone, “thanks I needed that”

Rainbow Dash had a smug expression on her face as her friends approached her; she then looked at Twilight as she dusted the hoof she used on Martin on her chest, “soooo, I guess my method worked huh?”

Twilight then approached Martin, “Hello Martin Fairgates, I am Twilight Sparkle, you’ve already met Rainbow Dash and Applejack’’, She then pointed to the rest of her friends in turn with their names, “that’s Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie pie”

Martin just stared at all of the ponies present, the one known as Twilight Sparkle was a unicorn with moderate violet eyes and a moderate sapphire blue mane with moderate violet and brilliant rose streaks which were also present in her tail, also her coat was a pale, light grayish mulberry, she also had a star like mark on her flanks. The one known as Rainbow Dash was a cyan in color with a rainbow colored mane and tail that was cut in an almost tomboyish pattern, and her eyes were red and the mark on her flanks was the same one that was on the pin he had in his pocket. Pinkie had blue eyes and was pink all over with three balloons on her flanks. Rarity’s eyes were azure, her main was an indigo color and styled in a very fashionable fashion, and her coat was white with three blue diamonds on her flanks. The one known as Fluttershy was a light yellow, and had a light pink mane, along with teal colored eyes and three butterflys on her flanks.

Martin nodded at all of them, “hello nice to meet all of you…….NOW LISTEN!!!”

Martin then spoke in a frantic tone, “I don’t belong here, I don’t know where the hell I am or how I got here so I need a little bit of an explanation here!”

All of them cringed in unison, except for Fluttershy who just eeped and hid behind Rarity who immediately spoke up, “now there is no need to yell darling, we can hear you just fine”.

Twilight nodded in agreement, “exactly, we understand you’re frightened and you do deserve an explanation, you’re in the land of Equestria in our home Ponyville”.

Twilight then explained everything about their land in detail, the native species, and the castle on the mountain and about the princesses, Martin just nodded with each comment signifying his understanding, when in truth he didn’t understand any of it. After Twilight finished, Martin sat down and tried to take all of it in, he wasn’t even on earth anymore, all of his family would be missing him and the same for him. Twilight then asked him where and how he came here and if he came here alone or if there were more of what he was
.

Martin looked up and began explaining, ``I come from a place called Earth which is sort of similar to Equestria, I found a hallway with a door in it which brought me here when I touched the knob, maybe it was magic or some sort of portal I don’t know but I’m the only one who came here and my species are known as homosapian, but we mostly go by human or human beings’’

Twilight was very intrigued about the door he described, “so your saying some sort of door appeared to you out of nowhere and sent you here when you touched the knob yet it was never there before, interesting”

Rainbow just scoffed, “Sounds like sour apples to me”

Martin then stood up and looked her dead in the eyes and spoke in an offended tone, “you calling me a liar skittle horse?”

Rainbow didn’t know why that name pissed her off, but it did, she then flew right into Martins face until they were nose to nose “I don’t know what that means, but you just angered the wrong pony”

Both were suddenly yanked apart by a purple aura which surprised the crap out of martin to the point of him falling on his back, he scrambled up and pointed at Twilight.

“What the hell was that?!”

Twilight just gave one word, “Magic”

Pinkie Pie then snorted two times before laughing at Martins reaction, Martin then began to freak out again about how magic was real.
*******************************************************************************************************************************************

As this transpired somewhere two people were watching the scene unfold via a sort of dimensional television, one wore a black cloak, the other wore a white.

The black one turned to the white, “you’re sure he is the one, surely there is another Sortitus”

The one in white known as Sortitus turned to the black one, “Aequivalere my old friend if I didn’t know any better one might say you lack faith in my judgement”

Aequivalere just sighed, “But look at him he is merely a boy, he can’t even handle a change of scenery well how can he even hope…”

Sortitus cut him off, “if he didn’t act the way he does he wouldn’t be human, plus he has the capability, he just needs to find it, I pray he does before it’s too late”

Aequivalere sighed once more, “but surely you have seen the outcome”

Sortitus shook his head, “unfortunately all I know is he must be there, but that’s all I’ve seen, now we just sit and watch how things play out”.

Chapter 3: A Welcoming Party For Martin

After several more hours of the ethics and a VERY long explanation on magic and about how it’s present in Equestria and is a major driving force in some key aspects of life there, Martin had finally calmed down enough to stand and talk to without him flipping out. Martin was now being shown around Ponyville, everything going smoothly until Martin noticed everypony in Ponyville was giving him looks, except for a green unicorn that was jumping up and down in place in excitement a few blocks down after he past her. At the end of the tour Martin had been shown everything, even Cloudsdale which he immediately called “epic”, Rainbow Dash asked him what the term meant, when Martin told her, she nodded in respect for the human for his good taste. After a while of walking Martins stomach growled and he blushed slightly, Pinkie Pie immediately perked up and bounced over to him, but stopped half way and gasped as if she forgot something, she then spoke very fast at all of them.

“Sorry Marty gotta go I would love nothing more than to stay and help all of you help him to settle in to Ponyville but I got places to go and Ponies to see, come to Sugarcube corner in five minutes and bring you best party faces for Marty’s surprise party, oh shoot I just spoiled the surprise, Marty could you please please pleaaaaase act surprised please?”

Martin could barely understand the cotton candy colored mare mostly because she was talking a mile a minute but picked up most of it and managed to respond.

“Uh sure?”

Pinkie immediately gave a smile that would put the joker to shame and bolted down the street toward Sugarcube Corner leaving her friends and Martin standing there, Martin spoke first.

“OOOkay, what was that about exactly?”

Eveypony just smiled, Applejack gave him a playful nudge in the side

“Pinkie has a bit of a tradition round here, and trust us yer gonna love it”

Martin chuckled nervously as they all decided to stop by a diner nearby for some food, Martin declined after he had fished around in his pockets and found a Twix, it wasn’t much in the way of food but it would have to do until he found something else to eat. As the rest of his pony companions ate and talked he sat nearby and pulled out his I-pod which was still fully charged, he popped in both earbuds and surfed through his library till he found one of his favorite songs, Princes of The Universe by Queen he then clicked play and leaned back. As the music played he unintentionally began to softly sing the lyrics in perfect tune.

“Here we are, born to be kings, were the Princes of the Universe…”

He carried on until the end of the song not noticing he had gathered an audience consisting of Twilight and friends, after he finished he looked straight up into the face of Rainbow Dash making a face at him, he immediately jumped away from his seat, then straightened up as he noticed Rainbow laughing at the joke she pulled. He pointed at her and was about flip out on her for scaring him half to death even though she knew he wasn’t used to this world yet when Rarity approached him with a question.

“Martin, might I ask what the name of that tune you were singing, it didn’t really sound something of my taste but I must say your voice, though quiet as it was, pervade it very well…I mean for a male of course”

Martin didn’t know whether or not to take that as a compliment or an insult of some form, but he just shrugged it off and took the middle ground.

“Well it’s actually from a band on my world by the name of Queen and the songs called Princes of The Universe, and I really don’t like singing in public that much, its freaking embarrassing.”

Rarity just gave him an encouraging look, “but darling, you have a gift, you should be proud to be able to sing that well, I mean I know a few colts who are dreadfully tone deaf, but that’s not important right now, you need to embrace your talent and share it not hide it”

Martin stashed his I-Pod and walked next to the mares as they made their way toward Sugarcube corner, he let Rarity’s comment swim around in his head as they approached and finally responded.

“It’s not that I dislike it I just don’t sing well in public, the only thing I can do well in public is play an electric guitar so well that I could be mistaken for being part of a band, but that’s about it…..”

Pinkie Pie was listening near the door and heard one last thing before running back into the darkness.

“….get me an electric guitar an amp, and a microphone complete with a stand then I would probably do it”.

The minute the door opened, confetti shot out of it and Martin was pulled in by Pinkie Pie as everyone inside yelled surprise in unison, Martin smiled at everypony present. He couldn’t believe that all these ponies he had met a few hours ago and the ones who were giving him weird looks had all threw a party for him and attended no less, his smile faded, Pinkie noticed this almost immediately.

“awww, Marty why aren’t you smiling anymore? Were you not surprised enough, I knew I shouldn’t have told you it was a surprise party but I thought if I didn’t tell you it was a party at all you wouldn’t come and you would think we weren’t friends and you would be sad and I couldn’t have that happen after all how would you not meet all these new friends?”

Martin’s face took on a surprised expression, after Pinkie put a plate of cake in his hand and stood beside her friends
.

“Wait a minute, you six consider me a friend? I just met all of you a few hours ago and now you’re throwing me a party, I don’t understand”

Applejack spoke first,

“Well we aren’t considering yall a frightenin creature and kicking ya out of ponyville, that just wouldn’t be civil of us”

Twilight nodded in agreement with her friend,

“Exactly, plus we know it wouldn’t be right to just leave you all by yourself in a world you know nothing about”

Fluttershy finally spoke in a soft voice,

“Plus you don’t seem dangerous at all; you seem rather nice and just need someponies company”

Martin just smiled at all of them as they smiled back, he couldn’t believe how accepting all of them were of him to them he was just someone alone in a strange world in need of a friend. He actually shed a manly tear as he stared at them, he then quickly wiped it away put down the cake and flexed his arms
.

“I mean, I’m manly”

The six ponies just laughed as his coat was taken away and draped over the back of a nearby chair, he soon partied well into the night, during the festivities he had noticed Rarity and Pinkie chatting privately and stopping when they noticed him glancing their way, he knew shenanigans were afoot, but he couldn’t guess what they were. But he found out when Pinkie carted in something draped in a blue sheet and called everypony to quiet down, Rarity was standing beside her and spoke after everypony present quieted.

“Well it’s time for tonight’s entertainment, as you all very well know, we have a new being in Ponyville, Martin Fairgates, and he is a very skilled musician and singer and said he would play for us all, Martin would you be so kind as to come over here please”

Everypony looked at a smiling Martin who gave a half wave; he really hated being put on the spot like this but he walked reluctantly up to both Rarity, after RD gave him a bit of a nudge in the direction. He was nervous but that vanished when he spoke with a smug voice

“Actually Rarity, my exact words was if you got me the things I requested and I don’t see..”

He was cut off when Pinkie removed the sheet revealing a microphone complete with a stand, and a stool for him to sit on with an electric guitar hooked up to an amp, Rarity levitated the gawking Martin onto the stool and put the guitar in his hand with a victorious smile. Martin turned and looked at Rarity and spoke in an annoyed voice

“You are evil”

Rarity just bounced a curl of her mane and flashed him an innocent smile,

“A lady is never evil; she is sophisticated and always gets what’s asked for in the end, even if they must push”

Martin just sighed in defeat as he looked at every eye that was on him at that moment, he was beginning to panic and shake slightly, he was going to screw up and make a fool of himself. But he noticed the six giving him encouraging gestures, Pinkie was even waving a foam finger around, he stopped trembling and straightened up an spoke into the microphone,

“Hello everypony my names Martin Fairgates and I’m going to play my second most favorite song for you, it’s by a band from my world known as Kansas, I hope you like it”

He then tuned the guitar, tested the mic, turned on the amp and took a deep breath then he began,

“Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

No!

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
The center lights around your vanity
But surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry, don't you cry no moooooooooore!!!
OH NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

As the song finished everypony was silent, Martin didn’t understand he had played every solo and chord perfectly, he even sang it in tune and in perfect harmony, Kanas would have been proud if they were present. He was about to apologise until the entire place erupted in cheers, the six ran over and began to congratulate him on his spectacular performance, Rainbow Dash kept saying if he knew any more songs that could top that, but he refused to do anymore songs cause he was beat, after a while of compromising and discussion, Martin settled with going back to AJ’s for the night until they figured out where the rest of his nights would be spent, Twilight also informed Martin that Princess Celestia sent her a letter stating that she wanted to meet Martin tomorrow afternoon, Rarity also expressed the desire to make him some new clothes tomorrow before the meeting. Martin agreed to both of these, the second was done with great reluctance, but he still said yes. After the party ended Martin thanked everypony at the party for their company and bid them all good night, soon he and Applejack were on their way back to the farm ready to get a good night’s rest, but as Martin walked through the gate of the farm, he realized he had gotten though the day and these six ponies were his friends and he felt great, things were starting to look up for him.

Chapter 4: Meeting Royalty

Martin slept well the previous night, as well as anyone could in a world populated by talking technicolored ponies, but aside from that he barely stirred the entire night, the only time he did was when he got up to get a drink of water. Soon the sun rose and a rooster was heard announcing the new morning, this caused Martin to fall out of his bed in fright but he quickly regained himself and pulled on his clothing from the other day and walked out of the room straight into Applejack. Both stumbled backwards and dropped right on their backs, AJ’s hat landing askew on Martins head, Martin immediately got up and gave her a hand,

“Sorry about that AJ, didn’t see you there”
Applejack took his hand and stood up, she then noticed her hat on the head of Martin and chuckled,

“I got a say, I didn’t take ya fer a hat person”
Martin felt the hat and straightened it as he winked at her,

“I’m not, but I make this look good”

Applejack just rolled her eyes as Martin put the Stetson back on its owners head; she adjusted it then playfully punched him in the side,

“Cmon now cowboy, you gotta eat up, ya have a meetin with the princess today remember?’’

Martin scooted down the stairs and was met with a surprising sight; his I-Pod was laying on the ground blasting at full volume as Applebloom was bobbing her head in tune with Back in Black’s lyrics. He walked up to her and turned it off and stashed it in his pocket with a word of protest being heard from the disappointed Applebloom, Martin then spoke in a calm voice,

“Applebloom did you take this from my coat?”
The yellow filly shook her head,

“I found it on the ground just now, I’m sorry that I used it without asking’’

Applejack then proceeded into the kitchen as she saw that Martin had resolved the issue without need of her assistance, although she knew if Martin was going to be at Rarity’s for most of the morning getting clothes made for him she and her friends would have to give him company so he wouldn’t go crazy at all the revisions and changes Rarity would most likely put him through.

30 minutes later

After Martin and AJ finished their breakfast they went about gathering, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Twilight along with Spike, to which Martin expressed a slight hesitance to travelling with, but his suspicions were laid to rest when Spike told him he was still a baby. Once everypony was gathered, they headed toward Carousel Boutique for Martin’s imminent clothing session, the ponies knew the way Rarity worked plus since Martin was a different species and was a blank slate when it came to earth fashion, Rarity was going to have a field day with him. Martin approached the door only for Rarity to open it and yank him in with her magic; everypony was about to go in when Sweetie Bell intercepted them backed up by the other CMC sporting sunglasses, Scootaloo spoke in an official tone at everypony present,

“Sorry, no one else is allowed beyond this point until Miss Rarity has said otherwise”

Applejack approached her sister and the rest of the crusaders,

“Applebloom, you and yer friends stop this right now; ah don’t care what Rarity has told you, I’M tellin you to let us through”

Applebloom shook her head with great reluctance, she knew she was going get it fierce when she got home. Pretty soon they began to hear noises of protest coming from within these went on for a long time until it was a few minutes before the meeting. Soon Rarity trotted out of her Boutique and dismissed the CMC, she then dramatically gestured to the door,

“Introducing Martin Fairgates, complete with a much more fashionable look curtsey of moi”

Martin walked into the light and allowed the six to look at his new clothes; he now wore a dress shirt that was a dark shade of red that complemented his hair very well, it had black trim and a black tie. He also had on black dress pants and matching dress shoes, he just smiled as he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly,

“Rarity are you sure this isn’t a little much, I mean I’m just meeting the Princess for a casual chat”

Rarity just focused on him for a second then nodded,

“You’re absolutely right, I forgot the tie pin excuse me”

She then trotted back inside, when she did Martin turned to Rainbow Dash,

“How fast can you get me to the library?”

Rainbow then hoisted Martin off the ground with surprising ease and where they were was just a puff of smoke. Rainbow deposited him on the ground when they came to a complete stop in front of the library, a smile of victory appeared on his face, only for it to vanish when Twilight appeared with everypony else and Rarity pinned his tie in place with a gold pin. Martin was about to object when he was blinded by a flash of light, standing before him were two mares, both had a horn on their heads and a pair of wings, he knew the white one that had a good foot on him in height was Celestia thanks to Twilight’s explanation, she also had a flowing mane and tail and gold adorned her in the form of slippers and a crown she also had a cutie mark in the form of a sun. Beside her was a mare known as Luna, once more thanks to Twilights explanation, that actually came close to being exactly the same height as him, she was blue with a darker blue flowing mane and tail that practically looked like the night sky, she wore the same style of clothes that Celestia wore except black, she also had a cutie mark in the form of a crescent moon on a black sky, he looked at both and bowed.
Celestia placed a hoof on his shoulder,

“Rise Martin Fairgates”

Martin stood up and looked both mares in the eyes; he then spoke in a joking tone,

“hehe, if I knew I was meeting two princesses I would have gone with a full suit complete with jewels and my hair combed back”

Luna giggled as did her sister, soon they stopped and Celestia addressed Martin with a calm tone,

“I assume you know why we have come before you this day Martin?”

Martin actually looked a bit confused at the question; behind him Twilight shuffled a little uncomfortably,

“Yeah, Twilight said you wanted to meet with me, she never really said the specifics of what we were to discuss, was I supposed to know something”

He looked back at Twilight who had shrunk back slightly with a bit of a blush on her face; everypony then looked at her with confused and concerned expressions. Martin then spoke in a steadily fearful tone,

“Twilight, what didn’t you tell me?”

Celestia then sighed as she took a step toward him,

“It seems my student has failed to inform you of the specifics of my visit, which makes this explanation all the more difficult”

Martin’s fearful look was replaced with a hurt and annoyed one as Twilight explained herself,

“Funny thing, I might have omitted a few things about the princesses visit”

Martin then looked at both of the royal mares; Celestia then spoke in the same calm tone,

“What my pupil as failed to mention is that me and my sister have come here to take you to Canterlot for questioning on the grounds of your arrival and true purpose in coming here, I am deeply sorry, but we will have to keep you in confinement on the grounds of you being a potential threat until you have been proven otherwise”

Martins expression changed entirely to a look of absolute betrayal which he showed to the ashamed Twilight, he then looked at the ground as he spoke softly,

“Could I at least have a second to decompress all of this, if you permit me I’ll go willingly”

Martin then walked behind the six ponies and sighed,

“You know, I had a really good time with all of you which makes it really hard for me to do this”

Martin then took off running away from all of the surprised ponies toward Ponyville, his real objective was the forest he saw a long while back during his tour. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the princesses would be chasing him immediately after they regained themselves. As he past each shocked pony he was barely breaking a sweat, which was very weird for him, this curiosity ended immediately when Luna appeared in front of him,

“Do not resist, come with me this instant!”

Martin sharply turned around and bolted into a nearby alley yelling over his shoulder,

“Not in this lifetime!”

Martin was nearing the end of town, when all of a sudden both princesses appeared ten feet in front of him, there was a wall of buildings behind them and the magic using goddess like ponies were blocking his path, he was trapped. He heard someone yell his name behind him, he turned his head and noticed the six approaching at running speed, and Rainbow was at the head of them. Just as he was about to reach the princesses, he even noticed their horns beginning to glow, he never remembered why he did it maybe instinct, but he jumped and what happened next surprised every single pony there. When he jumped he soared clear over the heads of the princesses over the buildings and landed a mile out of ponyville, which surprised the hell out of him.

“HOLY SHIT!!!”

He then ran into the forest on instinct and stopped near a boulder to catch his breath, only for him to sharply inhale when the princesses appeared looking a bit annoyed. He was about to shoot a comment about why they wouldn’t give up when he noticed a large shadow behind them,

“Celestia, Luna look out behind you!”

All of a sudden there was a yellow glow emanating from a pair of reptilian eyes and both princesses dropped petrified in the same stances they had been in when they looked, then the creature slithered into view. It was a snake as thick as a sewer pipe with venom green scales and a red frill on its head, it was also as long as a semi-trailer, Martin had a feeling what it was because he wasn’t the only one who had read the Chamber of Secrets. He backed into the boulder and instinctively grabbed a hard tree root next to his right hand, he was scared as all hell, but that vanished when he noticed the serpent focusing on the petrified ponies. It was slowly opening it mouth ready to swallow them both whole, Martin knew he would be imprisoned one way or another even if he saved them, but he still had to do the right thing. He then yelled in the serpent’s direction as he grasped the root hard causing the beast to immediately focus on and lunge at him,

“Hey scaly, EAT THIS!!!”

Unbeknownst to Martin the root had grown through the boulder and had become sort of attached, and Twilight had teleported herself and her friends to watch the following occurance transpire, Martin swung at the serpents head and with no strain or resistance yanked the boulder via the root out of the ground and smashed it to bits against the things head. The creature lay with a concaved half of its face bleeding green blood profusely when he realised what he had just accomplished, he dropped the root and looked at the destroyed boulder and then at his hands,

“Did I just rip a boulder out of the ground with my bare hands?”

He looked up at Twilight and friends, who were gawking at the feat he had just preformed; he then took on a serious expression as he addressed the six,

“Let’s get the princesses back to the library, we need to talk Twilight”

Chapter 5: Explanations & A Test

Chapter 5: Explanations & A Test

After the hoopla in The Everfree Forest Martin and the six tried to figure out a system in which to carry the petrified princesses, although Martin had to keep bringing the ponies’ attention back to the situation at hand because they all kept looking at the downed Basilisk then back at him with looks of shock and awe. After a while they all settled on Applejack bringing in a wagon from the farm, after she ran off to grab it everypony looked right at Martin who rolled his eyes and raised his hands in the air dramatically,

“Ok ok ok, I get it I killed a giant serpent with my bare hands and ran away from the princesses who were bent on arresting me, could we just focus please?”

Rainbow Dash then landed in front of him and spoke in a sarcastic tone,

“Oh yeah sure we’ll focus on everything else except the fact that you killed a Basilisk with a boulder which even Applejack can’t lift!
”
Martin was about to retort when AJ showed up with the wagon, Twilight and Rarity then lowered the princesses gently into the back of the wagon, soon they were heading down the trail leading toward Ponyville in absolute silence. After a long while they arrived at Twilight’s library Martin hopped down and walked to the libraries doors, Twilight told the rest of them to wait outside while she and Martin talked the situation out, there were objections to this which Twilight put a stop to immediately and both she and Martin entered.

Martin turned to face her after she shut the door,

“Now I’m going to try to be as calm as I can but you’ll excuse the fact If I yell because I’m a little pissed off that you withheld something like my possible imprisonment from me, what were you thinking?!”

Twilight looked away for a second then back at Martin,

“I am really sorry Martin; it’s just that I had the wellbeing of Equestria on my mind at the time when I sent the letter”
Martin just shook his head in disbelief of what he just heard,

“I understand you feel you have to keep everyone safe but LOOK AT ME, I’m not a threat to Equestria, why in the hell did you tell the princess I was, I mean come on you know I’m not a bad guy and you still betrayed me?!”

It was Twilight’s turn to shake her head,

“But that’s the thing, I did just meet you plus I don’t know how you are deep down also you had enhanced speed, strength, and jumping and never told us, that sounds suspicious to me”

Martin then snapped at her as a retort,

“HUMANS CAN’T DO WHAT I DID!!!”

Twilight cringed in surprise, which caused Martin to calm down; he then spoke in an ashamed tone at scaring the purple mare,

“Sorry, but it’s true, normal humans can’t do what I did to that thing back in the forest, also when exactly did you send a note to the princess telling her about me?”

Twilight nodded to signify her acceptance of the apology,

“Well that’s the thing it really wasn’t about you at first, the day you said you arrived I felt a disturbance in the natural magic force”

Martin stifled a laugh as he sat down to listen, Twilight did the same, and she also opened the door to allow the girls in before she continued,

“As I was saying, the disturbance felt like a large sound ripple like when Dash does her sonic-rainboom, I immediately reported it to the princess as a powerful anomaly, but when we found you I assumed you must have caused it so I sent my findings to her”

Martin then finished for her,

“And she assumed the worst, and all of this happened all because of a false assumption”

Twilight nodded with a slightly embarrassed blush, Martin gave a half smile to this and patted her on the head,

“Meh, accidents happen to the best of us”

Rainbow cut him off by clearing her throat,

“Don’t mean to interrupt, but what about the princesses”

Twilight jumped out of her chair and ran out the door, a few seconds later she returned with Celestia and Luna behind her recovered from their ordeal they both approached Martin with ominously calm faces, and Celestia then raised her hoof sharply and brought it down toward Martin who had closed his eyes. But when he opened them both Luna and Celestia were laughing, Celestia then winked at him before saying,

“Gotcha”

Martin had a look of utter confusion on his face when Luna spoke,

“My sister and I heard your whole conversation, we both agreed we might have-“

Martin finished for her,
“Shot first and asked questions later?”

Luna nodded with an ashamed smile, Celestia stepped forward and addressed him in a more casual tone, one Martin actually didn’t expect her to use for royalty let alone a sense of humor,

“Martin Fairgates allow me to apologise for misjudging your character, by defending me and my sister in our time of weakness you have my thanks and respect”

Martin bowed slightly,

“Anytime Princess, I couldn’t let that yellow eyed freak have you for dinner that wouldn’t be civil of me as a guest in your kingdom, got to set an example for the rest of my species after all”

The Princess smiled at that, but it then turned to a look of intrigue,

“I am curious how you preformed the feats you did, just by looking at you when we arrived I side with you on the fact that these abilities you possess are not common among your species therefore I am putting my faithful student in charge of the following duties”

Twilight turned to spike who took out a piece of paper and had a quill at the ready,

“The first duty is to help Martin in terms of acquiring loggings for the foreseeable future or until I can figure out how Martin came to be here and reverse the process, the second duty is to discover the origins around Martin’s newly acquired abilities and what they are, and the final duty is a simple one, help Martin to gain the trust of ponies of Ponyville so he is accepted much more easily here”

Everyone present nodded in unison,

“One more thing Twilight Sparkle”

Twilight perked up at hearing her mentor speak her name,

“Yes Princess?”

Celestia smiled,

“Send me updates on Martins condition if it changes”

Then in a flash both Princesses vanished, no one spoke for twenty seconds until Martin nodded and pointed where the Princesses stood before and turned to face Spike and the six,

“I got to hand it to the Princess; she knows how to make an entrance and exit”

Everypony and Dragon smiled at that remark, and then Twilight approached him,

“Alright let’s start with the business at hand; we need to figure out the origins of your abilities”

Martin sighed as he looked at his hands even he wanted to know how he became a freaking superman, but he had his doubts,

“How are you even sure I can still use them, maybe it was a onetime deal”

When he finished Rainbow flew around behind him and kicked a stool right at his head, Martin saw it out of the corner of his eye and whipped around in a flash and caught it in mid-flight which caused everypony to gasp, Martins eyes just widened as he put it down,

“OOOOkay, maybe I was wrong, Rainbow how did you figure out I would catch it”

Rainbow just shrugged as she hovered past him,

“I didn’t”

Four Minutes Later

Martin was seated in a chair with several electrodes hooked up to him; he was now wearing a red t-shirt with intricate white equestrian lines on its back, he was also wearing his sneakers which had been repaired and restored, he also wore black jeans. The reason was because Rarity refused for him to get his dress clothes dirty while undergoing the testing he would be submitted to that day. Martin went to tug at one of the electrodes but Twilight slapped his hand away from it, he was still surprised that Equestria had scientific technology he looked at Twilight with a concerned expression,

“Um Twi, are you sure this is safe?”

Twilight tweaked a dial causing a hum to be heard from the machine which caused Martin to tense up, Twilight just sighed,

“Relax, I already told you it’s safe, I made some modifications to it so it can read your genetic composition and send me back readings of any and all abnormalities done to it and not cause any bodily harm to you”

Martin and everypony present stared at her blankly, Pinkie however spoke before Twilight wearing a lab coat and black rimmed doctor glasses,

“She means it will find out how you got your abilities by looking through your DNA and isolating the cause”

Everypony including Martin looked at Pinkie with completely surprised expressions, Fluttershy spoke to Pinkie in a surprised tone,

“Pinkie how did you know that?”

Pinkie just smiled,

“Duh, I went to science school silly filly, Auntie Pinkie Pie has a knowledge of anything and everything that has flashy lights”

Fluttershy then said under her breath,

“I’m still a year older than you”

Twilight then flipped a switch on the machine and it started the process,

“See, I told you perfectly safe”
Rarity pointed as yelps were heard from the chair,

“Um, Twilight dear I wouldn’t say that”

Twilight looked over and saw Martin getting occasional jolts of electricity like someone was poking him with a joy buzzer she then began tapping buttons rapidly while firing out apologies. After the machine finished Martin yanked of the electrodes and stood up as Fluttershy brought him a glass of water, he took it while saying a quick thanks and downed it as a printout was seen popping out of the machine, Twilight took it and read it. Her eyes widened in utter fascination and concern as she looked at Martin,

“Well I found the reason why you have your abilities, and it’s a doozey”

Pinkie Pie then spoke up slightly,

“Hey that’s my line!”

Twilight ignored her and continued,

“Martin, you say you come from a world without magic right?”

Martin slowly nodded then Twilight continued,

“Well I’ll try to explain it as best I can; you see we have lived in a world of magic all our lives and are accustomed to it, you on the other hand are the opposite, you see magic is present throughout Equestria in the form of fading echo’s”

Martin raised an eyebrow

“Echo’s”

Twilight nodded,

“Yes, echo’s are magic residue that lingers invisibly in the world after spells are used it’s so the left over energy can disperse into the world safely without any catastrophic occurrence’s caused by magic build up, however the more powerful the spell the bigger the echo and the longer it takes to disperse, with me so far"

Everypony and Martin nodded in unison Martin however expressed a bit of confusion,

“What do echo’s have to do with me and the abilities?”

Twilight sighed again at having the question asked, Rainbow however had fallen asleep standing up,

“I’m getting to that, since the princesses raise and lower the sun and moon respectively using a very powerful spell leaving the largest echo’s of all, so it takes much longer for their echo’s to disperse into the world. Now here’s where it gets difficult, since you’re a species that comes from a planet that is completely devoid of magic and have been thrust into an environment that has it in abundance your having side effects of your spontaneous relocation”

Martin’s eyes just widened,

“What do you mean side effects? “

Twilight continued with an intrigued tone while looking at the read out,

“Well it’s the most fascinating thing; your cells are reacting to the sudden presence of magic, somehow the echo’s are dispersing into the world and into your cells, your cells are absorbing, distributing the magic and changing rapidly because of the energies which are present in the echo’s”

Martin gasped,

“OH GOD DOES THAT MEAN IM GOING TO TURN INTO A UNICORN?!”

Twilight just rolled her eyes and spoke flat out,

“No, it means the magic energies are transforming you, warping your cellular structure almost like a form of hyper evolution, what makes it even more interesting is that your still absorbing magic into yourself and that your cells are changing even now”

Martin nodded in understanding,

“So the abilities I have now are just the beginning, what else am I going to get, bigger question is what do I even have right now?”

Pinkie Pie spoke up,

“What if you get the ability to shoot beams from eyes or fingers *gasp*, or the ability to make things explode by thinking about it or or-“

Twilight put a hoof over her mouth,
“Well scientists discover via testing and discovery, so let’s find out, RAINBOW WAKE UP!!”

Rainbow woke up immediately,

“Yeah?”

Twilight grinned slightly,

“How do you feel about giving Martin a crash course in finding out about what abilities he has tomorrow?”

Rainbow Dash smiled almost evilly,

“You can count on me Twilight”

She saluted as Pinkie bounced up to Martin and handed him the amp and guitar from the party,

“It’s a successful test present, hope you like it”

Martin smiled then turned to come face to face with RD,

“So Marty you ready for Boot Camp Dash, or are ya going to chicken out”

Martin put on a challenging smile,

“Bring.It.On”

Meanwhile somewhere in Equestria, a churning black mist that had not taken on its physical form in eons and in constant darkness twitched, it knew its time was coming, but not yet.

Chapter 6: Boot Camp Dash

The sun crested the top of the Apple Family household shedding warming light throughout the orchard and beyond, it would be a truly fantastic morning if it wasn’t for a loud banging coming from the front door of the same household. Rainbow Dash had been very eager to put on her drill sergeant hat along with her loud coach whistle she wore during any form of training involving her being in charge, plus as an added bonus she got to mess with Martin the entire day without consequence since it was in the name of science. Therefore the second a sliver of sunlight appeared through her window she bolted over to Sweet Apple Acers to drag Martins butt out of bed, she was ready and pumped for the rigorous training regime she would give Martin, plus she wanted to see what he was capable of. However the real reason was because deep down she was jealous of the fact that Martin, a stranger to her home had in a way stolen her thunder by beating the Basilisk with his bare hands and with abilities he didn’t even know he had which irked her slightly more, this thought caused her knock slightly harder which stopped when the annoyed face of Applejack looking as she always did, fully awake and presentable as was her way.

Applejack continued to give Rainbow an annoyed look, “If ya knocked any louder Dash, I reckon you might have knocked all the apples off the trees before ah could even buck em”.

Rainbow just rolled her eyes and waved off the comment, “Yeah yeah yeah, is Martin awake we need to get started on his training”.

AJ shook her head and looked behind her at the stairs, “Ah haven’t seen head or tail of him this morning, Applebloom went in to wake him up and he was nowhere in sight”.

Rainbow threw her hat down in frustration, “I KNEW he would chicken out, I got up early for nothing”.

AJ put Dash’s hat back on her head with a determined smile, “Ah can tell ya this Dash, if he’s thinkin of skipping outta this he’s got a nother thing comin, he’s gotta be hidin round here somwhere”.

As both Applejack and Rainbow Dash ran around the entire orchard looking for Martin, he was laughing atop the barn with his amp balancing behind him and his guitar lying across his lap. Martin actually had been looking forward to his training session with Rainbow, Twilight warned him though that Dash took being in charge of something very seriously and that she may go a little overboard. Martin had taken this to heart and decided to mess with her that morning before the session, he knew Dash had a good sense of humour from the fact that she messed with him since he got there, since he had a few days of hanging out with the six, he had actually accepted the fact that he was in a land of talking ponies and was starting to act more open to the idea and was also opening up more. His thoughts were interrupted when AJ and RD stopped in front of the barn and began to come up with possible theories of where he was. Martin then stood up turned on the amp to full volume and started playing the guitar solo Inferno made famous by the movie The Crow, it was the first one he learned on the electric guitar and one of his most favorites.

The second the first cord was struck, it scared the hell out of both ponies causing them to look up at the smiling face of Martin Fairgates. Applejack’s surprised expression was replaced with a look of amused annoyance; Rainbow however flew up to Martin and gave him a cold and serious look.

Rainbow then gave him a playful slug in the arm as a grin appeared, “nice one Martin, didn’t know you liked pulling pranks, I have a whole new respect for you”.

Martin then smirked at her, “what can I say, I’m cool like that”.

He then looked beside where he and Rainbow were and noticed the ladder he used was lying on the ground, “Um, could you please help me get down?”

10 Minutes Later

Rainbow was pacing in front of Martin as he stood at attention wearing the same pants and shirt he wore during the test the day before, the rest of the six were standing a few good feet away from them ready to watch the proceedings, Pinkie even had some popcorn in a bowl and was sharing it with Fluttershy, Twilight was looking at a clipboard with the names of the abilities Martin had displayed, and ones she thought he might have.

Rainbow then stomped her hoof on the ground causing Martin to flinch slightly, “Alright rookie, you’re here for one reason and one reason only, because miss egghead asked me to give you a crash course in your abilities, and being the awesomely cool Pegasus I am, I have accepted, there are three rules in Boot Camp Dash-”

Martin couldn’t help but stifle a laugh as he spoke in a serious tone, “rookie doesn’t sound good to me, SIR!, I prefer to go by Private Joker and I’ll call you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, SIR!”

Everyone looked very confused, especially Dash, Martin just sighed, “Fullmetal Jacket, it was a joke”

Rainbow immediately flew right into his face, “FIRST RULE: No joking during training, SECOND: No back talk, and THIRDLY: Never question my orders got that!”

Martin then realized he could have just made a big mistake in doing this, Twilight then yelled causing both him and Dash to look at her, “Alright you two to lets commence the first test”

“ENHANCED STRENGTH, GO!!!”

Martin just stared at the giant boulder that was in the middle of the field they were using for his training, “you want ME to lift THAT?”

Dash just said two words in response, “Rule Three”

Martin sighed as he approached the boulder, his dad always told him to lift with his knees never his back, so he did just that. Everypony gasped as he lifted it with ease above his head with both heads then hurled it half way across the field. Martin just smiled as he looked at his hands, Twilight checked pass next to enhanced strength. Rainbow shook her look of surprise off of her face; she then made a move it along gesture.

“ENHANCED JUMPING, GO!!!”

Rainbow just smiled as Pinkie stepped beside Martin, “There is no way he’ll be able to top Pinkie in jumping, super powered or not, he can’t be perfect”, Rainbow then pushed the thought away as she made a gesture to begin, Pinkie immediately jumped a whopping thirty feet in the air. She landed and smiled at Martin, who jumped forty feet in the air in a single bound, Rainbow gritted her teeth slightly as she gave Twilight the signal for the next test.

“ENHANCED REFLEXES, GO!!’’

Rarity was levitating thirty rocks in front of her as she nervously pawed the ground and spoke to Martin in a nervous tone, “now darling you don’t necessarily have to go through with this, I throw quite hard you know and I don’t want to damage your clothes”.

Martin just nodded as he loosened himself up, when he did he looked a bit closer at Rarity and the weirdest thought weaseled its way into his head, “she looks pretty cute when she’s in this lighting”. His eyes widened as he shook his head slightly, Rarity then smiled and turned to leave, only to have Rainbow speak up suddenly, “Martin how could you say that Rarity’s mane looks tacky”. If the world had a soundtrack, a heavy metal chord would have been struck the second Rarity stopped walking, everypony else knew Dash was lying but if anyone insulted Rarity’s look, she reacted on impulse. She the whipped around with a growl and flung all thirty…which Martin dodged with lightning fast and precise movements until one got him straight in the head after Twilight checked pass. Rarity immediately snapped out of it and ran over with the rest of her friends to see if she hurt Martin really badly.

Rarity immediately began to apologize, “OH CELESTIA!! I’m so sorry I just reacted without thinking and-“, everypony than gasped twice as they saw no wound on Martins head, the skin however where the rock struck was reddened slightly, he looked up and patted her on the head in the same manner as when he accepted Twilights apology, except the only difference was that Rarity blushed slightly. Twilight then wrote down Enhanced Durability which she checked of immediately, Dash then herded them away as they continued the testing.

The tests continued well into the afternoon, after the ones Martin passed, the rest were failures. At Pinkies request they tried to see if he could shoot beams from his eyes or hands, which ended with him getting into a staring contest with the same rock he hurled across the training field, after getting a migraine from concentrating too hard on said rock to see if he could make it explode with his mind Rainbow gave the signal for the final test to commence.

Rainbow then approached Martin, “Alright, you did good rookie, but good isn’t better so to test the final theory of if you have enhanced speed you will, pause for dramatic effect, be racing me around the training field”.

Martin did a double take as Dash removed her whistle and hat, he hadn’t been there long but he knew Dash was the fastest flyer in this world, at least that is what Applejack told him and the thing was, he believed her. He took his position at the starting line which was where the rock was, he looked at Dash’s face and shook his head, the only reason she saved this for last was so she could boost her ego. Martin may not be a super genius but he had seen the way Dash’s looks and mannerisms had changed after he first used his abilities, she most likely felt her reputation was being threatened and she was also jealous with a capital J.

As he took his position, Dash gave him cocky look, “Ya know, just to make it fair I won’t even fly, just to go easy on you”.

Martin just grinned as Twilight yelled go, as expected Dash was ahead already and Martin was barely catching up. He then began to focus on the goal at hand and began to give it his all as Rainbow shot a raspberry over her shoulder at him. Unbeknownst to either of them, Martin was steadily beginning to pick up speed, he wasn’t even feeling strained or tired, he felt the exact same way he had when he ran from the princesses except it was much different. Dash was almost to the rock when something zipped past her causing a bit of a wind current, she blinked in absolute astonishment as she stared at the not even exhausted Martin. That was pretty much the last straw for her, she stomped right up to him and shoved her face into his with a frustrated.

Rainbow tried to form words, but she was to mad and all that came out was, “You…beat….how…RRRGGRGGHH!!!”, she then flew off at breakneck speeds back toward her home, completely forgetting her hat and whistle. Twilight just told him it was nothing and she would get over it soon and be back to her old self. She then said that since the tests were finished they decided to go their separate ways, Twilight had to re-shelve an entire room, Fluttershy had to move a whole family of badgers to new dens, Pinkie had to run Sugarcube Corner for the afternoon as well as watch the cake’s children, Rarity had to design a completely new fashion line, and Applejack had to finish up the work Big Mac was covering for since she came for the testing. Martin just said he would be walking around to kill some time, to which Pinkie said was impossible since time is invisible and why he would do such a thing.

After everypony left Martin was walking around the training area and placed the whistle near the hat in case Rainbow came back for it, he also picked up the hat and smiled slightly, he decided to put that pin he found to good use. He fished around the pockets of his coat which he had donned after everypony had left; he pulled out the team rainbow dash pin and pinned right on her hat. He then heard the familiar sounds of flying and walked away after she retrieved her belongings. Martin then walked toward Ponyville, with a smile. Then a thought occurred to him, what if they missed something during the test, what if he did have an ability they didn’t find out about, Martin then had a theory most super heroes use mental concentration to turn their powers on and off, maybe his abide by the same principle.

Martin held his hand out and began to subconsciously focus on it, he began to will whatever hidden ability he had to activate via his hand. He then shut his eyes in deeper concentration, when he did it felt like everything from the hand down to his elbow was in rippling cool water, he immediately opened his eyes and saw that the area from the hand to the elbow had completely vanished. He smiled in utter exhilaration, he kept his eyes open this time and focused entirely on himself, he felt the ripple feeling and witnessed something extraordinary. A ripple of air that looks liquid in appearance appears from the center of his torso, the edges glowing a magical light blue and ripples outwards over nothing else but his body tracing going along the surface of his body perfectly until Martin Fairgates vanishes completely. The cool thing for Martin was that this whole sequence only took a second meaning he could do this and be gone before a person or pony could even blink.

Then Martin realized he had no idea how to turn it off, a disembodied voice than spoke two simple words, “Ooooooooh Crap” .

Chapter 7: Invisibility, Pros & Cons

Martin was panicking since he turned himself invisible, he was outside of Ponyville and the only other ponies who knew this were the six. He knew he could turn it off if he figured out how, but at the moment he couldn’t think straight on the matter so he would have to go with seeking help from the only pony he knew who could help him, Twilight Sparkle. He immediately set off at a brisk pace towards Twilight’s home, on his way down Ponyville’s main street he stood for second to look around at all the ponies running errands of their own. He smiled as he saw all of them making small talk to the occasional kiosk owner or chatting with acquaintances and or friends, his smile slowly vanished as he remembered how almost all these ponies still gave him reluctant glances and would only talk to him unless he initiated a conversation, he would have to do what the princess said and earn their trust. While Martin stood in silence a mint colored unicorn smacked into his side causing both her and Martin to stumble in surprise, her eyes were wide with shock after slamming into nothing but thin air.

Martin looked right at her and spoke in an annoyed tone, “Hey watch it will you”, the mint colored unicorn immediately yelped in surprise and bolted away.

Martin rolled his eyes at how his successful interaction went and continued toward the library avoiding bystanders and objects that could alert some unwary pony to his location. Soon he arrived at the library and quietly opened the door as he snuck in and shut it behind him. He immediately saw Twilight levitating every book from a section of the library all around her in separate rings as she shelved each one with barely a look listing off each title as she did so. Martin was about to say something when a book hit him square in the face, to which he cursed a bit louder than intended causing Twilight to jump in surprise.

Twilight was immediately levitating books defensively along with a very nasty looking paper weight when she spoke, “Alright whoever is there had better come out, I may be well read but that doesn’t mean I can’t defend myself”

Martin immediately concluded coming back at a later time and opened the door… and was met with a barrage of books and the paper weight nailing his left leg as he leaped out dodging an encyclopedia and proceeded to scramble to the safety of a nearby alley. After regaining his second wind, Martin noticed it was starting to get late, he must have been panicking so much he must have lost track of time, and the projectile literature didn’t help much either. Martin soon was back at the farm and managed to slip upstairs without the Apple Family noticing his entry, but when he went upstairs he let them know he would skip dinner because he ate while he was out and went to bed immediately upon entering his bed.

When the light of the morning arrived Martin sighed in grief, he was still invisible, and he got out of bed and noticed something amiss. There were no sounds of the anypony walking around, yet he smelled breakfast. When he wandered downstairs he noticed a plate of apple pancakes with syrup atop of them and a note beside it.
He immediately picked it up, “Dear Martin, sorry we weren’t here to greet you this morning me and Big Mac have to ship out our latest harvest to a few clients via train, we will be gone the entire day so don’t worry none. Applejack PS: Granny will be in town for most of the day and Fluttershy’s watching Applebloom".

Martin nodded and put the note down and ate up, he immediately went out, having no need to change his clothes since they too became invisible for some reason. Soon he was walking around town when he noticed Pinkie Pie hanging some laundry out to dry, one of the articles being a white bed sheet flew out of the basket and landed on him.

Pinkie immediately walked over and laughed, “Marty, why are you wearing a sheet on your head Nightmare Night is a month from now, ooh ohh are you going to be a ghost, if so you should ask Rarity to make you a really good costume you’ll be a-“

The wind blew off the sheet and Pinkie stared wide eyed at where Martin was, “oooooooh your good, also”, she then screamed in fear and ran inside shutting the door before Martin could object.

Martin soon realized he couldn’t catch a break and started walking in a random direction with a sigh. After a while he found himself in the park along with Twilight and Rarity who were talking with each other in the park on a nearby blanket laid out on the ground. Rarity was wearing a sun hat, whereas Twilight was currently levitating food out of a basket she had brought. When Martin got closer he began to pick up bits of a conversation that was focused on the previous day’s events.

Rarity sounded a bit shocked at what Twilight said about a phantom of some form infiltrating her library, “and you say you actually hit the ghastly thing?”

Twilight nodded, “it was the strangest thing, in my studies it’s said that objects never hit anything of ghostly origin, they pass right through”

Rarity nodded and began to nibble on the sandwich she was eating as Martin took a seat a foot from both of them and listened as Twilight smiled at Rarity, “the bright side is I hit the thing, but probably not as hard as you hit Martin yesterday”

Rarity just shook her head dismissively at the comment, “I assure you it was not on purpose, Martin was merely a victim of circumstance brought on by Rainbow Dash’s comment concerning my style that’s all”

Twilight then tilted her head slightly, “then I guess you blushing was also something contributing to the circumstance?”

Rarity choked slightly and put the sandwich down, she then quickly regained her composure, “I was merely reacting to the sudden contact, nothing more”

Twilight shook her head with a smirk, “Rarity, we are both friends here if you have something to say just say it, I won’t say a word”

Rarity just fixed her with a straight look to which Twilight rolled her eyes, “I know I blew keeping a secret last time, but I’ve had some time to practice”

Rarity sighed as she looked from side to side, “THIS does not leave the park” Twilight nodded and leaned in close, as did Martin just as Rarity was about to speak, Martin sneezed and instinctively super jumped away…into a tree nearby causing looks of confusion from both unicorns.

After they left along with Rarity’s secret, Martin clambered down from the tree and dusted himself off, he was really curious about what Rarity was going to say, but if it was something she only wanted Twilight to know for now he could wait. He was soon walking along a high hill to clear his head so he could think of how he could turn visible again when a mixture of things happened at once. Firstly he felt something plow into him which caused him and the object to roll down the hill at a fast pace until stopping, secondly he heard an extremly faint “voom” sound that was only head for a millisecond and looked at his now visible form, and thirdly he looked up into the face of an utterly surprised, and blushing Rainbow Dash.

Martin blinked a few times before speaking, “sooo, I can turn invisible now, neat huh?”

Rainbow just answered with a surprised tone, “yeah….cool”

Both her and Martin immediately took notice of how the situation was getting more awkward by the minute, Martin spoke before her, “you can get off me now”.

Rainbow got off and stood up straight, the blush slowly vanishing both her and Martin stood in silence. Martin gestured to walk in the direction of where Twilight and Rarity went and soon both were walking side by side until they reached the Boutique, before entering Rainbow turned to Martin and was about to say something only to stop when Rarity opened the door.

Martin walked inside and noticed Fluttershy, Pinkie, Spike and the CMC were all looked at him and Rainbow as he entered. Martin informed Twilight of his new ability of which she immediately asked for a demonstration of. Martin raised his right hand and it vanished with the same ripple effect that appeared when he turned his entire self-invisible.

Spike, Pinkie, Rainbow, and the CMC said the same thing, “THAT IS SO COOL!!”

Twilight and Fluttershy gasped in astonishment, and Rarity…..fainted.

Chapter 8: Sparking Emotions

Somewhere outside of Equestria’s borders a large crack opened in the earth arousing suspicion from a passerby who had stopped to rest after a long days run. The colt slowly approached the crack as a black smoke like energy began to emanate from within; the smoke soon took on a rough humanoid shape before solidifying. The entity that had been dormant had finally regained itself partially, it looked down at itself and noticed it was indeed human in shape but to the colt he had no features, just glowing white eyes and it was completely black and its skin looked exactly like oil. The entity fixed its eyes on the colt that in turn jumped in surprise. Then in a flash the entity planted its cold hand over the colts mouth and lifted the defenseless victim off the ground, soon black liquid like energy slithered from the entity’s hand and into the colts eyes effectively blackening them to the point of there being no sheen of light within them, then the entity let go of the colt leaving the poor pony writhing on the ground swinging widly at invisible foes while screaming in absolute terror. The entity then sharply inhaled and walked off toward the darker aspects of the path leading toward griffin territory, the entity knew it would need more strength for what was to come.
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Four days had passed since Martin revealed his new ability to Twilight and the gang and so far things were going well. He and Dash had become pretty good friends in terms of competitiveness and pulling pranks or just hanging out, Applejack decided until he found a place of his own place he could live with her and the family, but he would have to pay for his stay by helping out around the farm, which he agreed to. Rarity had taken an interest in human fashion and had been requesting some one on one time on occasion to discuss the various designs and how they impacted culture in general, or to just chat. Martin was even starting to get involved with everyday life, be it averting a potential danger like catching a falling billboard, or just helping out like he sometimes did with Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie. All of these deeds and more were starting to put him on good terms with everypony in Ponyville; some even approached him to start conversations out of pure interest or to just be friendly. He met so many new faces and was able to put names to them, one was the mint coloured unicorn that always acted so strangely around him that went by the name of Lyra Heartstrings, she was nice but weird. But things got weird one faithful day when Twilight called Martin to her library, for some time she had been tutoring him on how to control his invisibility and so far he was making great progress so he assumed it was another lesson since Spike didn’t really elaborate on what she wanted.

When Martin arrived, Twilight was busy looking over some scrolls on a table and beside them were two stones, one was rose red and the other was sky blue, both looked like they fit together but both halves were separated for some reason. When he reached out to touch them his hand was smacked away immediately by Twilight.

She looked right at him with a smile, “sorry, but these aren’t to be touched just yet”, Martin was still rubbing his hand while she spoke and eyeing the stone with curiosity.

Martin just pointed, “So are those what you called me here for”

Twilight nodded then took on a serious expression, “They are called Roserio Stones and they are among many of the most potent magic catalysts in existence, there mostly used for spells that affect the mentality and or emotions of creatures”

Martin raised an eyebrow at that comment, “so what’s your point?”

Twilight rolled her eyes, “the point is the fact that I have found a way to give you complete control over your abilities and maybe even unlock some new ones that are dormant at the moment”

Martin’s expression turned to one of fascination, “What makes you say that?”

Twilight levitated the stones in front of her, ‘It’s my hypothesis that your abilities are linked in some ways to your emotions which in turn a linked to your brain, I realized this when you showed me your cloaking ability and how it worked almost like a reflex”, Martin nodded as she continued, “so I did some research into this possibility and uncovered these stones, so I asked Rarity is if she could find them and soon she did”

Twilight then levitated the stones into Martin’s hands, as he took hold of them he cast a skeptical look toward the unicorn, “so you’re sure this will work?”

Twilight nodded, “I am positive, just unite the stones as a whole and watch the magic happen”, she then chuckled at her own pun.

Martin rolled his eyes as he raised the stones before him, he was about to combine them when he thought of something, he then cleared his throat as he spoke in a clear and powerful voice, “KLAATU BARADA NIKTO!!”, then he smacked the stones together releasing a shock wave of red and blue throughout Ponyville and well into the sky.

When the dust settled so to speak, the stones were dust and Twilights mane was sticking up on an angle, Martin dusted himself off as he looked at the stunned Twilight, ``well I can see your, preoccupied so I’ll let you know if anything happened, I got some things to do”.

Martin waved goodbye as Twilight groaned at the dust that used to be the powerful stones, and began cleaning up while muttering, “I don’t get it, the scrolls said nothing about the stones breaking after use…unless….”, her eyes widened in absolute fear as she rushed to a book entitled, “Geoarcanius: Manual Of Magic Stones”.

Twilight rushed to the door after she found what she was looking for and looked for Martin on the street but he was nowhere in sight, “Oh Celestia I hope I find him soon before they do, because if those were the stones the book said they were, Martin could be in for big trouble”

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Martin really didn’t want to leave so fast, but he did have a few errands to run and wanted to get them done so he could have the rest of the day to test out the possibilities that the stones bestowed. As he walked, Martin had a strange sense that someone was following him but when he looked behind him he saw nothing but busy ponies going about their business, he sighed as he turned around….to come eye to eye with Rainbow Dash. Martin yelled out in surprise as he jumped away on instinct but relaxed when he saw who it was.

Martin just raised an eyebrow at Dash, “A little close for comfort don’t you think were you following me just now?”

Rainbow Dash landed trotted up to Martin, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I was in the neighborhood, noticed you were walking with that cute swagger of yours and thought I would pop by to say hi”

Martin smiled at her, “Oh, well that was nice of you and-“, he stopped in mid-sentence, “I’m sorry, did you just say I have a CUTE swagger?”

Rainbow got a LITTLE closer as she spoke in a tone that made Martin feel very uneasy, “uh huh, and the fact that you have all these ability’s makes you hot, like, 20% hotter”, by now she was in Martin’s personal space and hovering at eye level, usually he wouldn’t mind because that was the way she was, but now he knew something was wrong with her.

Rainbow then spoke with a half lidded expression, “Hey Marty, whatta ya say we go back to the training field for a private training session?”, the second that was said, Martin’s brain put together all the signals and said one rational sentence…….EVACUATE, FOR THE LOVE OF SANITY, RUN AWAY MAN!!!!

Martin coughed then nervously smiled, “Yeaaah, have fun with that”, he then went invisible and ran down the street leaving an annoyed and somewhat crazy Rainbow Dash alone.

Rainbow then calmed down and yelled out in determination, “you’re playing hard to get, well no pony escapes from Rainbow Dash, I WILL FIND YOU!!”, she then flew off in the opposite direction.

Martin uncloaked as he leaned against the side of a building panting slightly from the scare he was submitted to just then, what was the matter with her and why was she acting like a lunatic.

Martin sighed, “at least things can’t get any more crazy” he then looked up…and saw Rarity looking down at him dreamily from the second floor window of her boutique, “I hate it when I’m wrong”

Chapter 9: Generous Honesty

Twilight was running from home to home trying to find any trace of Martin with Spike in tow. For a long while Twilight had been debating on how to approach the situation when she figured out what fate would befall Martin after using the stones and she settled on tracking him down and undoing the mess she unwittingly caused with great protest from Spike who really didn’t want to go along.

After several minutes of silence Spike spoke up somewhat confused, “why is finding Martin so important right now Twilight, you kind of just grabbed me and rushed out the door”

Twilight turned her attention to Spike after she slowed herself from running, “Sorry Spike, I just didn’t have the time to say anything”, she immediately re-increased her pace, “When I gave the stones to Martin I thought they were the Roserio stones when in fact they were the ROSArio Stones”

Spike just looked at her blankly to whom Twilight sighed, “Ok stay with me here Spike; the stones Martin used are very dangerous in terms of using them in a public area like Ponyville, the reason for this is because the magic emitted does amplify emotions but not in the controlled way I wanted”, Spike nodded in understanding, “the Rosario Stones are known for amplifying one key emotion, the emotion of Desire toward the user”

Spike looked a bit concerned, “does that mean every pony will be after him?”

Twilight shook her head, “no, the stones only amplify the opposite gender of the user and ONLY if the pony harbours the emotion towards the individual be it major or minor, and I think there are probably only three ponies in Ponyville I believe have succumbed to it, but it gets worse”

Spike just shivered, “how could it be worse”

Twilight took on a grim expression, “the affected ponies will stop at nothing to appease the enhanced desire, and even going as far as to fighting off others they deem a threat, even ponies that are their friends, I just hope we find him soon”

Spike was worried but hid it behind a dismissing wave, “come on Twilight, Martin can lift an entire farm house wall without breaking a sweat, how bad could it be?”

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Martin gave an irritated groan as he looked across the candle lit table at Rarity who was dressed in a very fancy dining gown and was staring dreamily at Martin with her chin resting on her front hooves. Martin was not expecting Rarity of all ponies to snatch him off the street and tie him to a chair of which he was sitting in at that very moment, and with enchanted rope no less. He began to struggle in futility which only caused Rarity to let out a sigh that matched her look, Martin would have called for help at that point, if Rarity hadn’t used a spell to literally turn his voice off when he was tied down.

Martin made a gesture with his hand which caused Rarity to smile and perk up, her horn glowed for a second and Martin spoke with a kind smile, “Rarity, I would be able to greatly enjoy this divine get together more if you untied me, please?”

Rarity gave a slight laugh in response, “Oh Darling, you know what happened the last time I did that, we can’t have you running away on me again can we?”

Martin looked down and sighed in defeat but jolted slightly when he heard a chair being moved, he looked up and noticed Rarity sauntering over to Martin with the same smile that Dash had. She then hopped on his lap and stared half lidded into Martin’s eyes, Martin leaned his head away slightly as Rarity tried to get hers closer.

Rarity then leaned toward his ear and whispered in a soft yet slightly seductive voice, “Why don’t we retire to my studio so we can.…”, she then looked at him once more as she ran her left front hoof along the left side of Martin’s face causing him to tremble slightly, “….have a little fun as it were”

Martin’s right eye twitched as she hopped off his lap and looked him up and down while biting her lower lip, she then began to magically drag the chair toward the stairs. Martin prayed to whatever god was listening for some divine intervention, which soon came in the form of the Boutiques doors being kicked opened. Martin was then lassoed and yanked across the room into a nearby wall breaking the chair and causing the ropes to fall from him, he looked up into the smiling face of Applejack.

He stood up and began thanking her, “thank you so much for saving me from her you have no idea….”, he stopped when he saw Rarity gritting her teeth in anger, Applejack then stood defiantly before her in an act to shield Martin.
Applejack then looked at Martin, “Martin, quickly head on back to the farm, ah’ll handle Rarity”

Martin then booked it as fast as he could in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres, however back at the boutique Rarity was staring at Applejack with absolute anger, she then spoke in an annoyed tone, “Applejack, would you be a dear and step aside please, I was TRYING to have a nice get together with my sweet Martin before you so rudely interrupted, so as a friend I’m asking you to remove your uncouth self from my sight so I can get some alone time with Marty”

Applejack just shook her head as she cracked her rope in defiance, “sorry Rar, ah aint movin, and if anypony is going to get some alone time with Martin, it’s me”
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Twilight was getting extremely flustered; she had passed Rainbow Dash who was acting like an aerial sentry looking for her target which Twilight could only assume was Martin. As she continued to run through the streets she came across a destroyed Carousel Boutique…well the destruction was inside of the royal looking building. Twilight saw Rarity in a destroyed dining dress with her mane dishevelled and she was currently biting at the ropes that bound her, most likely forgetting she could use magic. Twilight was about to say something when Rarity yelled out in anger and levitated some scissors a little too fast over to herself as Twilight quickly shut the door. She then walked over to a nearby bench and sat down exhausted, all she could think about was where Martin could possibly be, she was actually close to giving up the search until a shadow was cast over her.

A friendly sounding male voice was heard, “Is there something troubling you, young mare?”

Twilight didn’t bother looking up and Spike was already passed out beside her, “I’m trying to find a friend of mine so I can save him from three of my friends who have gone completely love crazy for him and no matter what I do, I can’t find him”

The voice spoke in a reassuring tone, “do not give up hope, I can tell you are a strong and intelligent pony who cares for her friends and all others, you will find him, you just need to think as your friends think”

Twilight looked to the side with a thoughtful expression, “Rainbow is brash and wouldn’t mind doing things to Martin in public, and Rarity is more refined and sophisticated and wouldn’t do anything unless it was within the privacy of her own home”, then a look of happiness and realization appeared, “But Applejack would try something unexpected and yet it would have a slight hint of decency, meaning she would have to wait till the family was away and if memory serves, the apples are in town at the moment so she would take Martin back to Sweet Apple Acres!!”

Twilight immediately hopped off the bench and grabbed a now very awake and startled baby dragon and put him on her back before turning around, “thank you very mu-“, her eyes widened in shock as she saw no one on the bench, before she could question what happened Spike tapped her slightly and pointed in the direction of the farm

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Martin was currently taking refuge in the barn from the slightly crazed Applejack, she was trying to bust down the doors with her bucking, but thanks to Martin’s enhanced strength it was having no effect. The relived breath he was about to take got stuck in his throat when he looked up and saw Rainbow hovering near the roof having slipped through a window near the top of the barn.

Rainbow then yelled triumphantly, “HA, I TOLD YOU I WOULD FIND YOU!!!”

She then flew at him with a loud “YAAAAA!!!”, Martin thought quickly and leapt from the ground onto a rafter above him. What happened next was amazingly random, without any resistance AJ kicked the doors open…only to have Rainbow plow straight into her causing both ponies to roll into a nearby tree causing all the apples to fall and bury them. Martin turned around and came face to face with Rarity, who was dressed like an urban ninja, her mane was tied into pig tails, she had one black stripe on both of her cheeks and was also wearing her wrecked dress in a sort of hooded kung fu robe style.

Rarity then tackled Martin to the ground and levitated the same rope that was used to tie her up from behind her, “I am the ninja of love, and I shall make this a day you will never forget”

All of a sudden AJ and Dash burst forth and snorted in anger as they saw Rarity on top of Martin, Dash spoke first, “Hey, get off of him, he’s mine!!!”

Applejack shoved her slightly, “Ah don’t know what yer talkin bout, and he’s MINE!”

Rarity then snapped at both of them as she stepped forward off of Martin who immediately scrambled to a safe distance, “Back off interlopers, if I can’t have Marty, nopony can!”, she then pulled out another length of rope except this one was had sowing needles threaded through it, she then proceeded to speak three words in a tone of finality every time she cracked her weapon against the ground, “I.HATH.SPOKEN!”

Rainbow then advanced but backed up slightly when the whip weapon hit the ground where she was about to step, “well then you best get you pretentious flank over here, because I’m about to kick it into the great white NORTH!!!”

And then they fought, Rarity having the upper hand because of her weapon, but that was taken and tossed away and the scrap went right into the old fashioned way of fighting, Martin was starting to freak out now that he saw they had the intention of killing each other, but a small side of him was flattered that three girls were fighting over him, which he ignored immediately. He jumped when he felt a hoof on his back; he turned and saw Twilight who he immediately bombarded with questions to which she instead of answering them just explained everything.

Martin then yelled frantically, “How do we make them stop!!!”

Twilight just raised a hoof, “I know a spell that will fix this, give me a second”

Twilight’s horn then began to glow extremely bright as she shut her eyes in complete concentration, she then shot a beam of pure power at the three scraping mare’s. After about three seconds all three of them stopped fighting and looked at each other, all of them were covered in thin lightly bleeding cuts, scrapes, scuffs, and Applejack had a nasty Indian burn on her right front leg. All three immediately collapsed, Martin just looked at Twilight who just nodded as they went to retrieve them.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************

One hospital visit later, they were all gathered in AJ’s farm all three mares covered in bandages from head to hoof where the injuries were the most severe, all three looked at Martin who was sitting across from them.

Martin just spoke flat out, “I know you girls said and did some things you had no control over, Twilight told me the stones I used amplified the desire you three held towards me and I myself am very surprised you three hold me in a place so close to you hearts, but at the same time, im happy for that”

All three mares smiled at that, Rainbow spoke immediately, “so does that mean we can date?”

AJ and Rarity just looked at her with a “Seriously” expression, Rainbow raised her hooves, “hehehe, just kidding”

Martin laughed at that but spoke in a serious tone, “Listen, I’m just saying this now because we are all thinking it, it would have never worked”, all three immediately took on saddened expressions, “but I care for all of you greatly, hell if all three of you were on my world as humans I would gratefully give each of you a chance, AJ your strong, honest, and a hard worker trust me when I say I love that about you”, AJ smiled at that as she looked up, “Rarity, I mean come on, on my world you would have guys lining up just to breath the same air as you, and I would have to wade through them just to say hi, so don’t think that I would ignore you either”, Rarity bounced her mane with a smile, “And Rainbow Dash, need I say more?”, Rainbow beat her chest slightly at that.

Martin walked up to all three them, “The three of you, no, all of you are my friends and I treasure that deeply, I will never let anything hurt you girls, nothing”

Rainbow smiled at the sentiment, “same here dude”, she chuckled slightly, “and it would be weird if you dated any of us, I mean species gap much?”

Rarity laughed, “Indeed, although I must say you would make one attractive colt darling”

AJ nodded, “if that were the case Rarity, Ah would have to fight fer first dibs”

All of them shared a good laugh at that, and soon when they all walked out of the barn to find the rest of their friends, there bond was never stronger. However, watching once more from their dimensional “television”, Sortitus nodded in respect at the human’s ingenuity, Aequivalere however was deeply troubled.

Sortitus took notice, '‘Something troubles you?”

Aequivalere merely nodded and spoke in a cold tone, “Yes, and you should be as well, Phobos is unleashed and he continues to grow stronger and-“

Sortitus just shook his head, “the boy will stop him”

Aequivalere finally lost his patience, “THE BOY THIS THE BOY THAT, THE MORTAL CAN NOT AND WILL NOT BE READY FOR HIM, HE SHALL FAIL WHY CAN YOU NOT SEE THIS!!!”

Sortitus spoke in a calm tone, “look Aequivalere, even now the mortal grows stronger, he as friends that will stick by him, he is gaining understanding of himself and others, he will be the champion I know him to be”

Aequivalere just raised his arms in frustration, “Understanding and friendship will not save them from Phobos’ wrath”

Sortitus just smiled under his hood, “My friend you are always so cynical, understanding and especially friendship will help him in the final battle”

Aequivalere just stared, “how?”

Sortitus returned his look, “To understand oneself is to know ones limits and strengths and to have such a powerful bond to people or a place gives them something worth fighting for”

Chapter 10: Nothing To Fear...

This chapter and the next one take place at different times; Chapter eleven will be focusing on what Phobos did in griffin territory before these events. Can’t say any more, Spoilers

*

Celestia smiled as she continued to read the latest letter sent to her by her faithful student depicting the latest update concerning how Martin was settling in. She closed the letter and was getting ready to reply when there was a knock on her chamber door which she immediately opened with her magic to reveal a guard captain.

The Captain was given permission to speak, “Your highness there is an urgent matter which needs your attention”

Celestia stood, “what is the situation captain?”

The Captain then took on a worried expression, “Lord Highwind has sent an urgent message from The Griffin Kingdom”

Celestia took on a serious expression, “Do you have the message captain”

The Captain shook his head, “No I’m afraid not, the messenger-“

The guard was then shoved aside by a talon, “MOVE IT, important messenger coming through!”

An all too familiar griffin appeared in the doorway looking very haggard, “I’m here to deliver a message to the pony Princess”

Celestia recognized her as Gilda, ex-friend of Rainbow Dash, “Speak Gilda Griffin”

Gilda looked up to reveal her entire right eye was blackened to the point of having no light reflecting in it, some black was even tainting the left corner of her left eye, “Lord Highwind told me to… tell you….”, she then passed out from exhaustion.

Celestia then looked up to see the captain rubbing his side; he noticed the unconscious Griffin and was about to speak when Luna walked up and saw the spectacle before her, “Sister, what happened?”

Celestia looked at her sister, “Luna I need you to find Twilight and her friends and bring them here, it is of the upmost importance that they be here for the message that Lord Highwind has given to this Griffin”

Luna nodded and teleported away immediately, the captain then called for other guards who then took Gilda away to give her time to recover. Celestia looked out of her window at the horizon with a grim expression, she knew a storm was coming and she would have to prepare accordingly.

*

Martin was sitting in the park with his amp and guitar along with Rainbow who was sitting behind him on a drum set (Martin was surprised as the rest of the ponies when she revealed she could play the drums like a pro), Twilight and the gang were in front of them both along with a small crowd of ponies who were intrigued by the display. At Pinkie’s request, Martin had agreed to play a sort of miniature concert in the park for them but not before saying he couldn’t without a drum player. Of course Dash had spoken up immediately on this matter not wanting him to weasel his way out of it, but he then said he needed a bass player, to which Pinkie replied to by holding a bass guitar to his amp. Martin just sighed not bothering to question it. At the moment he was playing Through the Fire and Flames with no lyrics, Rainbow and Pinkie were keeping up with amazing timing and speed, soon they finished and were treated with applause.

Martin, Pinkie and Dash sat down with the rest of the six and began exchanging small talk, Fluttershy produced a picnic bag and began handing out food, Martin just started eating a sandwich when AJ asked a question he was not expecting, “Martin just outta curiosity, do ya have any friends back home ya miss?”

Martin choked slightly at the question but spoke after he swallowed, “Well, I have a few that I haven’t spoken to in a year do too various reasons beyond my control, but I would have to say I miss one dude because we’ve been friends since we were kids”

Fluttershy then tilted her head slightly, “what’s his name…if you don’t mind me asking”

Martin just smiled, “I don’t mind, his name is Alan Benjamin Washington, and we were the best of friends”

Rarity nodded knowingly, “So you were, as the expression goes, like two peas in a pod?”

Martin nodded, “yep we were, we always were mistaken for brothers sometimes all the way from childhood to graduation, and it’s a shame he had to move away to another city because of his job”

Twilight gave a sympathetic look, “Have you spoken since?”

Martin took another bite of his sandwich before speaking, “Yeah we do, he calls on occasion and he visits when he gets vacation time, we sometimes hang out or catch an action movie just for the hell of it”

At the word movie confused expressions appeared on the mares faces, Pinkie spoke for the rest of them, “What’s a movie Marty?”

Martin then spent several minutes explaining different forms of media entertainment, even explaining that they also held plays and opera’s on his world. When he finished everypony expressed great interest in seeing a movie if they ever could trael to Martin’s world.

Martin just chuckled, “sure, if all of you manage to come to my world sometime, I promise ill show you a movie and other wonders of my world”

He had said wonders with a tad bit of sarcasm, but before any more questions could be asked there was a flash before them and Princess Luna appeared. She then addressed Twilight Sparkle, “Twilight Sparkle, my sister has requested thy presence along with your friends at Canterlot post haste”

Twilight was about to ask why but never got the chance, because all present were mass teleported away leaving several stunned ponies. Soon they all appeared in the Canterlot throne room with two individuals before them, Celestia being one and a griffin with an eye patch over its right eye. Rainbow immediately stared with a completely surprised expression at the griffon; Martin looked at the griffin then at Dash trying to distinguish what there connection was.

Dash narrowed her eyes, “Hi Gilda, like the new look it suites you perfectly”

Gilda detected the intended insult, “Thanks Dash…” she noticed Martin, “so you’ve gone from hanging out with total losers to freaks now?, progress”

Dash immediately rushed her but was stopped by the combined efforts of Martin and Twilight, Gilda snickered at this. Celestia just casted Gilda a scolding look which caused her to stop as Celestia spoke, “Twilight, I have called you all here because Gilda has been given a message by Lord Hyperion Highwind”, Luna walked to her sisters side as a familiar box appeared before both of them and then Celestia continued, “judging by Gilda’s condition and the fact I have not gotten a response from Hyperion since she arrived, I have assumed the worst, Gilda you may proceed”

Gilda stepped forward, “Okay, so Avilon is destroyed and stuff”

This caused all, except Martin to gasp which caused Luna to speak in a flat tone about the very limited explanation, “would you care to elaborate more”

Gilda groaned in irritation, “Fine, everything was going pretty standard when the weirdest dude you would ever see came into town, he looked like the freak over there,” she pointed to Martin who scowled, “except he looked like black smoke mixed with oil with….those…glowing…white eyes,” a look of absolute fear appeared on Gilda’s face, but she shook it off and continued, “every griffin and tourist went to look at him, then the screaming started, I jumped right at the bozo like the cool griffin I am and then…I blacked out that’s all, when I woke up the dude looked way different in appearance, he was all more solid and stuff and started developing features, so after a while of trying to help I decided to fly to the king to warn him of the threat, due to the fact I am currently employed as a guard”

Dash actually laughed at that, “why would the let you join, were they desperate or something?”

Gilda spoke in an irritated tone, “I was always employed Dash, because of my fighting skills, and because I know a couple of COOL friends who joined up before me”

Celestia cleared her throat as a signal to continue, “Sooo anyway, I suited up and headed to the palace to assist in guarding the king, after hours of silence these black creatures showed up which we trounced easily until the dude in black showed up looking completely different than before, the guy then said that Avilon belongs to him now and blasted all the other guards away, including my friends, he then grabbed the King and he started screaming and thrashing on the ground, before this happened though he told me to tell the Princess what happened if he didn’t make it, so here I am”

Luna and Celestia immediately looked at each other with grave concern, Celestia then opened the box as she addressed the six mares, “If that is the case, then I must ask all of you to wield The Elements of Harmony once more in order to combat this new threat”

Twilight then levitated The Elements on to their respective users; Martin just nodded at them with a sad smile, “I’ll be behind all of you a hundred percent”. Twilight noticed his expression and was about to ask what was wrong when Gilda grabbed her right eye in pain and screamed in surprise. What happened next was that the doors to the throne room opened up revealing a frightening being. The person looked humanoid except for the fact that it was clothed in a hooded robe comprised of churning smoke like shadows; the hands that were seen had pale blue skin with sharp black finger nails that almost looked like claws. The figure then slowly approached, the way he walked almost looked like he was gliding, and the only way you could tell he wasn’t was when you would hear the occasional foot fall which were silent themselves making even harder. The royal guards immediately flew straight at the stranger…who batted them aside with a wave of its hand like it was swatting a fly.

Gilda then pointed and yelled, “That’s the dude that attacked Avilon-“

All of a sudden Gilda was silenced when the figure literally appeared before her causing even the Princesses to jump away in surprise, then the thing spoke in a cold voice devoid of any emotion, “I am surprised I missed one of you,” Gilda’s entire left eye was then consumed and soon matched her right one, she then collapsed and started to silently scream at something no one could see. He then turned and took off his hood as he surveyed the inhabitants in the throne room. His face resembled that of a man directly at the age of thirty with pointed ears, his hair was long, unnaturally white and combed back it also had the resemblance of smoke like fire, the creatures skin was the same pale blue as its hands. He also had two white demon horns coming out of his forehead, and his eyes were the most frightening of all. The whites of his eyes were as black as oil, his irises were as white as his hair and horns and it pupils were inhuman slits that narrowed as he focused on them.

Celestia and everypony and human took on aggressive stances as Luna yelled at the creature in the royal Canterlot voice, “YOU DARE ATTACK ONE OF THE ROYAL GUESTS IN OUR CASTLE, WHO ARE YOU TO DO THIS DEED FOUL DEMON!!!”

The creature spoke in its cold emotionless voice, “I am Phobos,The Lord of Fear”

At the last four words, a pair of white bat wings shot out from his back and extended to a full twelve feet in length. On the wings, seemingly originating from the cloak and made of the same energy, was a network of sinister tribal like shadow lines that ran across the entire surface of both wings.

Chapter 11: Fear Itself

Now as I said in the previous chapter, this chapter is going to be told from Gilda’s point of view in Avilon during Phobos’ attack and what REALLY transpired leading up to Phobos arriving in Canterlot. Then Chapter Twelve will continue where Ten left off, so enjoy

*

The sun rose high over the royal city of Avilon, the city that was the same size of Canterlot rested at the top of the tallest mountain within the griffin kingdom as a shining beacon to all who resided within the glorious land. The city was composed of very high buildings with the occasional landing pad, and in the center was a castle composed of white marble and gold adornments. It was high noon when Gilda awoke from her nap; she had managed to get a few days off from duty thanks to her two partners and friends Onyx and Mariah. She let out an annoyed sigh for two reasons, one was because she wanted to sleep more and the other was because she had to run some errands which she wanted to hold off on but couldn’t due to the fact that she needed the food. She then walked to the edge of the landing pad porch and casually glided down to the ground; she touched down with ease and then bumped into a random tourist pony.

Gilda cast a look that could have burned the paint off of a wall at the pony, “You had better watch where you’re walking, or ill make sure that every time you take a step you’ll have a constant reminder of this day, GOT IT?”

The pony nodded in absolute fear as he ran away, Gilda smiled in slight satisfaction at the threat hitting home her smile vanished however when she heard a male voice with a smug tone to it, “You know Gilda, that is the exact reason why you never get promoted”, Gilda turned her head and saw a griffin that had black streaks on his white feathers, much darker brown feathers and his left eye was ruby red whereas the right was dark blue. The weird thing was that one of the black streaks went straight down over his left eye almost like a scar.

Gilda just grinned as she mocked examined her talons for dirt, “nah, I get asked all the time Onyx, I just keep turning them down because I can’t stand a bigger work load”

Onyx touched down as he shook his head, “why I put in a good word for you I will never know”

Gilda then looked at Onyx with a skeptical look ignoring the intended jab, “I thought you were on duty, what gives dude?”

Onyx just shrugged, “I WAS on duty, but they gave me the day off due to the fact I barely take any”

Gilda nodded as she started walking with Onyx chatting of days past and the occasional skirmishes they had participated in, each griffin trying to make it seem that the other was a bit more incompetent than the other. After a while of walking they came to the market and began to examine various stands and the goods they sold. After a while Gilda had almost gotten everything on her list, but she was currently “debating” to a local shop keep whether or not if the fish she was going to buy was good or not, and this soon escalated into a screaming match to which Onyx turned away from.

Onyx then noticed a group of griffins and tourist young and old gathered around someone near the entrance of the market, Onyx nudged Gilda in the side and pointed, “Hey G, check out the fan club”

Both Onyx and Gilda, who swore to the shop keep that there discussion wasn’t over, flew into the air and got a sky view of whatever the crowd was gathered in front of. The creature was featureless and looked like it was composed of a mixture between black smoke and oil, and it also had eyes that were orbs of glowing white energy. Gilda just raised an eyebrow in confusion as did Onyx, they both continued to stare at the creature in utter confusion; however they were immediately on guard when they had seen the thing. Their preparations were well placed because what happened next was a complete gong show; the creature turned its head and grabbed a griffin’s face causing a discharge of some strange black energy to emit from its hand, and the griffin dropped with completely black eyes that were devoid of light and began screaming in absolute terror. This soon caused every griffin and tourist to run away in terror, the weird thing was that when they ran the thing seemed to inhale sharply before giving chase, almost like it was breathing in the fear around it.

Gilda stood in complete shock unable to move, Onyx remedied this by smacking her upside the head, and she shook herself free of her fright and charged at the thing with Onyx backing her up as they both roared in unison. Onyx slashed at the things chest causing it to reel back…only to follow through with a backhand causing Onyx to hurl into a nearby roof. Gilda growled and went to take the things head off only for the creature to grab her, she then felt a sensation that could only be described as a cold force devoid of any felling pushing itself into her very being, and at the same time having her very soul consumed by it. She then began to see the very world she had known since she was young, starting to darken and warp itself into something else. The last thing she saw was Onyx hitting the thing over the head with a board before blacking out.

*

Gilda woke to find she was lying in the middle of a chaotic market with Onyx trying to snap her out of it, she smacked his talon away, “I’m fine dude, I just got a very bad headache, where did that weirdo go?”

In response Onyx pointed to the farthest side of the market, the thing was still there terrorizing the civilians, except it looked much more solid and it seemed to actually have a rough impression of a face forming. It turned and looked at Gilda who immediately held her right eye in pain, she noticed its eyes were now fully developed, the whites of the eyes were pitch black, the irises where an unnatural white, and its pupils were silted. The thing then turned its attention to Onyx and Gilda and began advancing, until Onyx grabbed Gilda and flew both her and himself away at break neck speed toward Gilda’s home. They soon arrived and Onyx deposited Gilda on her bed as he shut the windows and all the doors.

Gilda immediately hopped off the bed and walked to her closet and opened it revealing armour made of chrome and bronze along with a helmet and special armoured gloves that would make her talons even deadlier as she began to fit individual armour plates on her wings to give them optimal protection Onyx was busy pacing.

Gilda let out an irritated sigh, “Keep doing that and you’ll wear a groove in my floor dude”, Onyx stopped, “well sorry if I’m a bit worried for our personal safety here, and I don’t think you should be suiting up, your eyes almost the same as the civilians the creature attacked”

Gilda looked in the mirror fixed into her closet door after she donned the last armour component for her body, she saw that her entire right eye was blackened like the others in the market, but he left eye was blackened at the left corner. She just shrugged as she donned her helmet with the T shaped visor and opened the windows and took flight, Onyx followed reluctantly behind her.

Onyx yelled in Gilda’s direction, “G, where are we heading anyway!!”, Gilda looked over her shoulder, “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one, we have to go back up the other guards in protecting Lord Highwind!”

Onyx nodded as they landed at the barracks, he ran inside to get suited up as Gilda flew to the throne room. When she arrived, the other armoured griffin guards let her pass, when she did a griffin without a helmet swept her up in a tight hug with a female squee, “Gilda!!”

Gilda put on a very reluctant smile, the griffin that was hugging her was a bit leaner than most females, and her white feathers were longer in the back than the front, and they also had fiery red highlights along with edges to match, she also had very bright green irises that sparkled with juvenile mischief.

Gilda was put down by the griffin, “Heeeeey Mariah, how’s it hanging”, even though Gilda didn’t overly like Mariah’s default personality, she sort of grew on Gilda after a while, especially when they pranked.

Mariah smiled as they talon bumped, “not much, just got the okay to sound the alarm for palace lockdown….”, Onyx landed beside Gilda fully suited up, “…Hey Nyx”, Onyx nodded at his nickname

Soon the throne room doors were sealed tighter than a tomb, and they all waited in silence. Minutes ticked by transitioning into hours, and Avilon grew deathly quiet. Every griffon knew that the palace would be where they would make their final stand; it was there priority to make sure that the palace did not fall to this creature. After a long while of waiting the doors smashed inwards sharply causing all the griffons to jump into action, the vast majority stood their ground and tried to keep the doors in place, one of the captains ordered Gilda and Mariah to go to the king’s aid in the ballroom. As they turned to leave the doors exploded into splinters scattering the forces, Onyx then roared and led a charge straight at the invading force which revealed itself in earnest. The creatures ran in on two legs like the thing from the market with lanky limbs and a skinny torso to boot, they were all black with weird spikes jutting from their joints and backs; they had no lips, just teeth that were sharp, jagged and resembled black glass, and it almost looked like they were grinning. Gilda ran instinctively away toward the ballroom with Mariah in tow, soon they arrived and saw an old griffon clad in red royal robs and a gold crown.

Lord Highwind approached Gilda immediately upon entering, “Gilda, I know I do not ask much of you, but in case Avilon falls, tell of what transpired here today to the Princesses of Equestria before it’s too late”

Upon saying this, a person clothed in a cloak of shadowy smoke emerged from the doorway now carrying a black eyed Onyx who he then threw at the feet of the King, “Any resistance henceforth is now futile, Avilon is mine, submit to your new lord”, the tone the creature spoke in was cold and devoid of all emotion.

Mariah growled as she rushed the creature, “NOT IN THIS LIFE!!!”

The creature easily grabbed her in mid-flight and threw her to the other things that were behind him, her screams were heard until the doors shut by themselves. It then looked at the king and raised its hand, the king was then dragged into the waiting hand and was black eyed, but not before telling Gilda to run. She immediately dashed out a nearby window and flew as fast as she could; ditching her armour as she went to give her more speed. She knew what she had to do, she just hoped Dash and her loser friends wouldn’t screw things up more than they already were.

*

Phobos absorbed the last bit of fear in the kingdom as he felt himself almost back at his full strength, he looked at his now revived solid form which he had not been in for eons. He turned to the creatures he used to lay siege to the castle known as Moniums and ordered them to watch Avilon until his return. He let loose his wings and ascended through the broken window to give chase, smelling the griffins fear as he went.

Chapter 13: Martin's Choice

All of The Mane Six were gathered in front of the barn at Sweet Apple Acres looking at the roof as the sun was steadily rising revealing the slouched figure of Martin with his amp beside him. The Six had been worried about him since he had not said a word ever since arriving back at Ponyville after their encounter with Phobos in Canterlot, the only thing he said was goodnight before departing indoors to sleep. A few hours later before sunrise, AJ had heard noise that awoke her and noticed Martin taking his guitar and amp to the top of the barn and he had sat there ever since just staring into space, this caused her to call her friends to see what they could do to help him. Immediately as the sun began to gain more height from its rising position, Martin began to play Inferno by Graeme Revell for the second time since he had been in Equestria; however unlike the last time when he played it with much enthusiasm to prank AJ and RD, it was much slower, almost in a sad fashion.

Rarity looked up with concern, “What do you suppose has him in such a sad mood?”

Rainbow just tsked, “He isn’t sad Rarity, so what if he’s playing slowly, that’s his favorite solo remember?”

Pinkie nodded, “Yeah, remember it was mentioned in chapter six”

Everypony looked at her with confused expressions, but they returned their attention to Rarity when she spoke up, “Dash, I have seen enough to know when somepony is miserable or in a sour mood”

They stopped talking when they noticed Martin stand up and began to play the rest of the solo faster with greater speed and efficiency. But as Martin hit the last cord which was louder than the rest, his face suddenly turned to one of anger and he raised the guitar above his head and brought it down hard on the amp. Each time it made contact, all the ponies flinched in unison and eventually Martin threw the amp and guitar off the roof and stood panting. He then saw The Six were below looking shocked at what he did, he just looked away and jumped down to the ground and started walking away…only to be blocked by The Six who had teleported in front of him thanks to Twilight, who had a look of concern and slight anger on her face.

Twilight then stepped forward and stared straight at him, “Why did you do that, Pinkie gave you those as a present and you smashed them, explain yourself mister!”

Pinkie just patted her friend slightly on the side, “it’s okay Twilight, he had to let his anger out, it healthy to let it out you know”

Twilight shook her head slightly, “be that as it may, there was no reason to do that, if there is something wrong just talk to us that’s what we’re here for”

Martin muttered something under his breath, Twilight leaned forward slightly, “What was that?”

Martin then spoke slightly louder in frustration, “HE WAS RIGHT, OKAY!”

They all cringed back as he turned his back to them and began to gesture in the air as he spoke, “I’m not some extravagantly gallant individual who would ride in to save the day!”, he lowered his head as he spoke in a saddened tone, “The REAL Martin Fairbridges is nothing more than a loser”, he turned and faced them as he addressed them in a steadier tone, “When I was in school the only friends I had were Alan who defended me from bullies and other nasty’s if I was incapable to do so myself, and the occasional person who I never see anymore”, he looked down slightly, “I pretty much went through life as a standard individual never going off the beaten path if I could help it, the only job I landed was being a stock boy at a store, after a year I was promoted to the night shift manager position, and my job became worse from then on”, he then looked at them all, “I have enough money to own the home I’m currently living in and to pay the bills and my taxes, I do the occasional fun thing when I’m free, but the rest of those days are spent asleep or sitting around doing nothing, Phobos was right, I’m nothing more than a loser and a foolish mortal trying to fool himself into thinking he’s important”, he then looked at Twilight straight in the eye, “You ponies are the heroes here, not me, I don’t even belong here I’m just getting in the way, hell, all of you practically defeated a deity and saved all of your world I could never do that”.

He then walked to the side and stopped, “And I’ve hated that person I see in the mirror every day of my life”

Applejack stopped him, “But Martin, yer not ah loser, yer our friend and we need you with us when we all head to Avilon tomorrow morning, please”

Martin just gave her a pained look as he responded with sadness, “I’m sorry I….I just don’t belong in this world”

He then walked in silence with his head hung low, as the ponies looked after the sad human as they all went to get prepared for tomorrow’s journey, but they all knew it wouldn’t be the same without Martin being there by their sides.

*

As the day progressed, Martin never spoke to anypony at all, he did put on a fake smile and waved to them though, but he remained silent the whole time. Eventually he had lost track of time and decided to head back to the barn since night had fallen, when he arrived at the farm house he found everypony was asleep. He went to find Applejack but found an empty room; she was most likely killing time at Twilights along with the rest of the six to prepare themselves for the coming battle.

Martin turned on some light in his room and just stared at the wall in silence for a good fifteen minutes until an explosion of white was seen. Martin sharply turned his head and saw Luna with a wooden trunk behind her, he bowed slightly to which she nodded but a look of concern appeared on her face.

Luna approached Martin, “Martin thou seems troubled, might I ask what is wrong?”

Martin just sighed as he sat down and looked at the alicorn who had taken a seat beside him…metaphorically speaking. He then began to explain his situation to Luna to which her reaction slowly changed to an unimpressed one. When he finished explaining they both were silent…until Luna smacked him upside the head.

Martin yelped as he rubbed his head, “Ow! What was that for?!”

Luna just shook her head as she took on a look that a teacher would give a misbehaving student, “I was merely checking to see if thou’s brain was working correctly”

Martin took on a surprised look, as she continued to speak, “Martin Fairbridges thou has promised my sister you would stand by Twilight and your friends…”

Martin cut her off slightly, “you mean “her” friends”

Luna shook her head, “No Martin Fairbridges, your friends, for if they were not, why would they stand with thee instead of leaving thou lost and alone in a world thou knows nothing about”

Martin looked down, “But I’m powerless against Phobos, I wouldn’t even be able to stand against him in a one on one fight, I’m just one man, not a hero”

Luna nodded in agreement, “Thou is correct, you are nothing more than a worthless man…”

Martin just looked at her and was about to voice his reply until Luna placed both her front hooves on his shoulders as she smiled, “….who has the potential to be so much more”

Martin looked at her as she tapped his chest when she said potential, she then continued, “You have friends HERE in THIS world, they may not come from your world, but they are your friends none the less, and they fight for all the lives of Equestria and you should be standing with them against Phobos”

Martin just spoke slightly pained, “But how can I stand with them, they are better at this than me and I don’t think I could ever be a true friend to all of them, it’s all just so hard”

Luna just took on a straight face as she walked to the trunk and tapped it, “open this when you make the right choice, I have to be by my sisters side in this time of crisis”

As Martin took on a down casted look Luna left him with a few parting words, “Twilight Sparkle spoke these words in a time of crisis almost like this, Martin”, he looked up at her as she spoke with a kind smile, “friendship isn't always easy. But there's no doubt it's worth fighting for!” She then vanished as Martin stood and contemplated those words in his head, visions of all the good moments of his time in Ponyville flashed through his head but all of them settled on one specific conversation.

“awww, Marty why aren’t you smiling anymore? Were you not surprised enough, I knew I shouldn’t have told you it was a surprise party but I thought if I didn’t tell you it was a party at all you wouldn’t come and you would think we weren’t friends and you would be sad and I couldn’t have that happen after all how would you not meet all these new friends?”

Martin’s face took on a surprised expression, after Pinkie put a plate of cake in his hand and stood beside her friends, “wait a minute, you six consider me a friend? I just met all of you a few hours ago and now you’re throwing me a party, I don’t understand”

Applejack spoke first, “well we aren’t considering yall a frightenin creature and kicking ya out of ponyville, that just wouldn’t be civil of us”

Twilight nodded in agreement with her friend, “Exactly, plus we know it wouldn’t be right to just leave you all by yourself in a world you know nothing about”

Fluttershy finally spoke in a soft voice, “plus you don’t seem dangerous at all; you seem rather nice and just need someponies company”

Martin just smiled at all of them as they smiled back, he couldn’t believe how accepting all of them were of him to them he was just someone alone in a strange world in need of a friend. He actually shed a manly tear as he stared at them, he then quickly wiped it away put down the cake and flexed his arms, “I mean, I’m manly”

Martin then took on a determined expression as he approached the trunk and opened revealing a sword laying atop of a sheath

*

Day broke revealing six mares with packed saddle bags watching the road as if waiting for something, soon they all sighed as they all turned to leave. But they were soon turned by the jumping and pointing of Pinkie Pie; they all turned and saw Martin wearing completely different clothes. Martin's "Hero Clothes" consisted of a black muscle shirt along with matching pants, hard brown leather bracers with matching greaves that had steel plates fitted perfectly on them. He wore black boots with steel plates on the toes, and a harness on his torso which consisted of wide hard leather belt straps in an X shape with a large circular plate fitted perfectly over where the straps intersected in the center of his chest that protected his ribcage area very well, and attached to his back was a sheathed sword.

Rainbow just looked him up and down, "hey stranger have you seen a loser around here?"

Martin nodded and addressed the ponies, "yeah, he wanted to tell you that he is sorry for the way he acted, and that this is not his world and he realized we were never friends...", they all looked shocked but Martin finished his sentence, "...we are the best of friends, and this may not be my world, but i know everypony here and have earned their friendship and respect, and im going to fight for it and for Equestria"

All of them embraced in a group hug for about a minute, then they disconnected as they all turned to face the road before them with determined looks and solid resolves.

Martin then spoke in a completely determined voice, "Alright girls, let's send the Lord of Fear packing and show him the habitants of Equestria aren't going to be pushed around"

Chapter 14: A Hero Will Rise

Phobos sat upon the throne that once belonged to the foolish king that resided over Avilon; the Moniums were skulking around the city keeping watch for any possible intruders that dared enter. He looked to his left and saw the black eyed king and the griffin with the one red eye both silently curled into the fettle position muttering incoherently in fear. Phobos then leaned back and shut his eyes for a minute in contemplation, he reflected on how he had gotten this far when he felt a familiar presence, or more specifically seven familiar presences.

Phobos turned to one of the Moniums that were present, “Prepare a welcoming party, we have guests”

*

On a nearby trail leading to the border of the city, six mares and one human were approaching their goal with determined strides. Martin was doing a few practice swings with his sword and then sheathed it when he accidently took two hairs off the tip of Rainbows tail; thankfully it sort of blended in with its already jagged style and she didn’t really notice. Soon the city came into view and they already noticed that the city wasn’t supposed to give off the atmosphere it was giving at that moment, one of despair and utter dread. They all just stood there and noticed shapes moving around below, AJ immediately pointed this out and was about to rush to see if they were residents.

Twilight stopped her and shook her head, “those are not griffins, and something tells me Phobos isn’t going to let us get close without a fight”

Rainbow Dash smacked both of her front hooves together, “fine by me, let’s take em down!”

Rainbow rushed down the trail letting out a battle cry as everypony else went in pursuit trying to stop the crazy mare. As they ran they all briefly noticed that griffins and various tourist ponies alike were laying on the ground with blackened eyes, some were just trembling where as others were simply rocking back and forth in the fettle position muttering in fright. They soon arrived in the center of the city, Rainbow having stopped flying and was now looking around confused at the lack of bad guys.

Applejack gave her a smack upside the head to which she voiced her pain, “Dash, if the thought of rushin head first into a fight crosses yer mind again, DO NOT LISTEN TO IT!”

Dash just grumbled as she rubbed her head, she then noticed Martin looking around with a more concerned expression, “Hey Martin what’s wrong?”

Martin unsheathed the sword as he sighed, “We just walked into a trap”

The second he said this, Moniums swarmed out of alleyways and from the top of buildings via climbing down the walls. All of them then stood back to back as the Moniums circled around, they made a noise that sounded like a mixture between a hiss and an airy laugh before they rushed at the group with bestial ferocity. As soon as they got close, Twilight’s horn burned bright and a barrier materialized around her and her friends in a matter of seconds.

Twilight was clenching her teeth in concentration as the Moniums slammed against the barrier, Martin immediately turned to her, “How long do you think you can keep this up for Twi?”

Twilight answered in a very strained voice, “I’m not sure, I’ve only used this spell on my house once, but never in an actual fight”

The barrier began to crack like cheap glass as the Moniums continued their assault; this caused both Rarity and Fluttershy to yelp in fear as the cracks began to increase. One of the Moniums broke its head through and took a snap at Applejack, who in response bucked it right in the face causing it to be sent flying into one of it comrades. Martin and the six tightened formation as they prepared to fight, Pinkie put on her best war face as a Moniums claw broke through the barrier. But what happened next shocked them all, it started with a low humming sound coming from behind all of them, then it began to grow, soon they all turned and noticed Twilights horn was glowing brighter and brighter until its aura turned white. Before any words could be said the horns energy began to grow massive, this seemed to cause the entire barrier to turn white and the cracks and holes were instantly repaired, then the dome began to shrink. Soon it became so small that everypony had to stand on their hind legs and press in very tight to avoid any kind of injury from their shrinking sanctuary. Then all the Moniums, seeing this as a possible advantage leapt all at once at the barrier, which then proceeded to expand in a flash. Any Moniums that touched the barrier exploded into wisps of black smoke, however the barrier passed through the surrounding buildings leaving them completely unharmed.

After the barrier subsided, Rainbow flew over to the exhausted Twilight, “Twilight that was so AWESOME! I had no idea you could do that!”

Twilight got to her hooves slightly wobbly, to which Rarity helped her balance, “I…I didn’t either, I’ve never done that before”

Rarity let her gently off of her as she looked at her equally confused friend, “If you didn’t do it Twilight, do you suppose something might have caused it?”

Twilight nodded still feeling slightly lightheaded, “It’s possible, I mean as you once said, unicorn magic just doesn’t happen for no reason, maybe I activated a counter spell I read somewhere”

Pinkie pointed toward the castle interrupting the two unicorns, “Wowie, that’s a big castle, I mean hey I’ve seen big castles before but boy it’s HUUUUGE!!!”

Applejack stood beside the pink pony, “Ya’ll suppose Phobos is in there?”

Martin joined them with the rest of the six behind him, “Let’s see, omni powerful villain with a huge ego and god complex with the entire intention of conquering a large land in mind...”

Pinkie then added, “Don’t forget an army of those meanie beasties”

Martin nodded, “and the meanie beasties, eeeeyup, it’s safe to say that’s where he is”

Applejack chuckled slightly as he did a slight imitation of her big brother; they all then began to walk toward the castle making sure to check any possible hiding places where the “meanie beasties” could be hiding, Pinkie even checked under a flower pot just in case, soon they all arrived at the castle’s main gate and stood there staring.

Rainbow Dash then flew to the gate and took on a brave expression, “alright, let’s do this!”

Just as she raised her hooves to open the gates, they opened on their own revealing several “meanie beasties” standing in rows leading toward the main doors. They made no move to attack any of them as they walked very slowly inside the castle; Rainbow stuck her tongue out at one of them as the doors shut. Soon the saw one of the creatures staring at them, well it would be if it had eyes instead of a smooth section, it then seemed to beckon for them to follow as it led them onward deeper into the castle, as they came to the throne room corridor they noticed an injured black eyed griffin whimpering in the corner, she seemed a bit leaner than most female griffins. Martin reached a hand out to help her; she then looked right at him and recoiled away in absolute fear, Martin pulled back not wanting to make things worse. The doors opened revealing Phobos on Lord Highwind’s throne; the creature approached Phobos as if to ask if it did a good job, in response Phobos just pointed at it causing it to disintegrate into black smoke wisps.

Phobos looked at all of them as they entered, Fluttershy then pointed at the two griffins beside the throne, “It’s the king!”

Soon all of them immediately noticed this and took on offensive stances to which Phobos regarded with disinterest, “Did you not learn from our last encounter, your feeble if not laughable abilities won’t do a thing against me”, this caused every face in the group to take on an agitated look, “But to business, is there anything on the matter of my proposal? Have you anything to say on the matter?”

Martin walked forward slightly still clenching his sword, “As a matter of fact there is”, he then pointed with his thumb at the six, “look at the ponies, now back to me, now look back at the ponies, back to me, I am not a pony, I am a man, look at the ground…”

Phobos cast a slight glance downwards, and then he looked up and saw Martin in the air going for his head with the sword…which he easily caught with one hand, “If that is the case”, the sword was then wrenched from Martin’s hand and thrown out the window Gilda had used to escape through, “Then you have all sealed your fate”.

Phobos then backhanded Martin across the room back to his friends who immediately went to see if he was alright, Martin looked up at them with a pained smile, “I screwed that up royally didn’t I?”

Applejack then looked down at him and patted his head, “Meh, accidents happen to the best of us”

Martin just smiled at the pony as he sat up, and then AJ was ripped off the ground in the blink of an eye by an invisible force and into the waiting hand of Phobos, who just fixed them with a cold glare, “friendship, such a ridiculous sentiment”, before Applejack could even take a breath, she was black eyed before her friends.

All of them gasped in unison as Phobos dropped AJ like a sack of potatoes, her Stetson falling off and hitting the ground as Phobos just stared down at her now whimpering form, and for the first time, a grin appeared on his face, the grin itself sent chills through all the shocked ponies, except for Martin who just stood there completely shocked.

*

Aequivalere just shook his head as he stared through the viewing window, he then looked at the white cloaked Sortitus, “Honesty as failed, and Harmony is no longer an option, your champion has failed”

Sortitus just shook his head and simply replied, “Phobos should not have done that”

Aequivalere just cast a confused look at his partner who merely gestured toward the window.

*

One thought ran through Martins head several times as he looked at the ground,

“The three of you, no, all of you are my friends and I treasure that deeply, I will never let anything hurt you girls, nothing”

Martin then clenched his fists in anger as Phobos merely cast all of them a look that could only be described as someone looking at dirt on their finest attire,

“The three of you, no, all of you are my friends and I treasure that deeply, I will never let anything hurt you girls, nothing”

Martin’s knuckles then turned white as his fists trembled, Phobos turned around having lost interest,
“I will never let anything hurt you girls, nothing”

Martin then rushed forward without warning, Phobos turned around long enough to see Martin’s fist connect with his chin, and soon the Lord of Fear was sent in an arc toward the ceiling then to the ground.

Martin then muttered one word under his breath as Phobos stood, “Shoryuken”

Phobos then regarded Martin with a look of actual contempt at being hit by a mere mortal, “So that’s the way it going to be?”

Martin just did a hand taunt in response as Phobos looked over at the six, “So be it”

Phobos then waved his hand and before him spawned six ponies that were composed of solidified darkness with glowing red eyes, and they looked exactly like Twilight, Rainbow, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie and Applejack.

Phobos looked at the six shadow ponies, “do what you will with the equines, the mortal is mine”

His wings then extended in an instant, he then closed the distance between himself and Martin and grabbed the utterly surprised human by his throat in a vice grip then flew out of the window. Soon both Phobos and Martin were in the air flying upward at break neck speed; Martin knew if he didn’t do something soon he would die from suffocation, he just barely managed to notice a platform below them where most likely griffins would land to enter the castle through the roof. Martin then waited for the right moment, he then planted both feet firmly on Phobos’ stomach then he head butted him square in the face and pushed off. He then landed, with great difficulty mind you, on the platform and turned around sharply as he saw Phobos land behind him.

The Lord of Fear’s wing retracted upon touching the ground as he regarded the mortal, “how is possible?”
Martin just looked straight at him, “I don’t know it myself personally, but the fact of the matter is, I, Martin Fairbridges, do not fear you”

Phobos then took on a completely confused expression that was almost foreign to him, “What?”

Martin just took a step forward, “I realised you feed of fear to get power, but I guess you never had anyone ever appose you before because you always took one thing from them”, he then put a fist to his heart, “Bravery, and you hurt my friend and you’re going to pay for it”

Martin then rushed the Lord of Fear and proceeded to engage him in combat, Martin threw punch after punch, kick after kick, but all Phobos did was redirect them or dodge around them with ease. After another volley of blows from Martin, Phobos delivered a swift punch to his chest which shattered the armor plate and sent Martin skidding across the ground. Martin then got up and rushed Phobos again, all the while with the intention of beating him within an inch of his life.

*

Twilight and her friends however were doing their best against their evil duplicates, but whatever they did wouldn’t do any good. The shadow ponies knew all of their moves and even had a few of their own which were innate to their forms, Shadow Dash had Rainbow pinned to a wall because its wings had become a mass of tentacles, Shadow Pie was currently trying to chase down her counterpart, but with no success, Shadow Rarity and Shadowshy were both trying to get their counterparts, but Rarity was defending herself and the yellow pegasus by throwing various objects of varying size at them. Shadow Sparkle and Twilight were engaged in a magical duel and it was currently swinging in Shadow Sparkle’s corner. Twilight was desperate, because she couldn’t think straight, but soon she noticed that Shadowjack had barely moved at all, almost like it was waiting for something. Twilight was then blasted across the way and into a vase which caused her to see stars, Shadow Sparkle then moved in for the climax to their duel.

*

Martin was panting from the punishment he had sustained from him and Phobos’ duel; he could already feel bruises beginning to form on his torso, but he still rushed in to fight. Phobos this time took no time in dodging or blocking, all he did was block one punch, delivered four of his own to Martin’s torso in rapid succession, then he placed his open palm a foot from Martin’s face and a psionic blast hit Martin square in the face causing him to fly back faster, and hit the ground harder than the previous times.

Phobos just looked down with pity at the fallen Martin, “Why, Mortal, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting?” Then a genuine look of annoyance appeared upon Phobos’ face as he continued, “Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than their survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it perhaps be for love? Illusions, fool. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as weak and feeble as mortals are themselves”, Phobos’ then regained himself slightly as a tremble of anger entered his voice, “although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, you insolent worm. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting”. Martin chuckled as he realized how this speech appeared so similar to one he heard somewhere before which caused Phobos’ to become angered to the point of spitting out the last words in rage, “Why, Martin Fairbridges!? Why!? Why do you persist!?”

Martin just smiled as he wiped some blood from the corner of his mouth and responded to the speech with four simple words, “Because I’m a hero”

Yes that speech is similar from the matrix revolutions, i had to go with it cause it fit the mood, but its in my own words and i only just took small excripts from it, espescially the big words. Next time the fight continues :)

Chapter 15: Duel

Meanwhile back in Ponyville

The Princesses had just finished declaring that Ponyville and Canterlot are both under threat of attack, but told everypony not to panic because of the elements were currently combating the threat as they spoke. Soon guards were posted at key points around Ponyville to prevent any possible sneak attacks on any unsuspecting ponies, all the while they silently prayed for victory over the threat that loomed.

*

Sortitus had turned away from the window and was walking around the large marble dome shaped atrium that he and Aequivalere called home. The white robed Sortitus walked toward a large polished circular table and placed both of his hands on it as Aequivalere approached.

The black cloaked Aequivalere looked at Sortitus, “Now do you see reason?”

Sortitus merely shook his head as he turned to face him, “No, I was merely formulating how I was going to approach the dilemma”

Aequivalere took on a completely confused expression, “what dilemma?”

Sortitus just smiled, “simple, the one where I explain myself to the mortal in person”

Aequivalere stared shocked, “What?”

Sortitus nodded as he patted his friend on the shoulder, “ready yourself, Martin can only do so much, we need to finish it”

Aequivalere looked after Sortitus as he walked back to the window and exclaimed, “WHAT?!”

*

Twilight was against the wall thanks to the magic of Shadow Sparkle who was currently pinning her in place. Twilight looked her evil doppelganger in the eye as it leered back at her; Twilight then looked around desperately as she noticed all of her friends were incapacitated. For the first time in her life, the unicorn was defenceless and knew not what to do, she then shut her eyes as she felt the same feeling that any other unfortunate soul that Phobos black eyed enter her being and it began to spread rapidly.

Shadow Sparkle laughed as she taunted the now black eyed Twilight in a warped variation of Twilights voice, “How sad, the little unicorn could not defeat fear, it seems magic and friendship has failed”, the dark unicorn looked at her comrades as they all joined in a laugh with her as they all looked at their black eyed counter parts.

Twilight was seeing horrors beyond imagination in her very mind and soul as she thrashed around trying to smack them away, with little success. She continued this for quite some time when she heard her own voice taunting her; she couldn’t believe that she, no, all of them had failed the Princess. She then gave into despair as she continued to live with the horrors that continued their torment of the unfortunate unicorn. As she continued to float in darkness with the tormenting beginning to take its toll, she remembered many things from her past, the day she became Celestia’s personal protégé, when she and her friends defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, and saved her brother’s life along with the rest of Equestria from a changeling invasion. But then two things crossed her mind, one was the spell she performed when she destroyed those creatures in the town part of Avilon, and the other was the Princesses parting words, "I shall always be with you, though things may be dark, always carry on for there is always light waiting to be found”.

Twilight thought on this as best she could, trying her best to keep herself anchored to the here and now and not to fully let herself succumb to the fear. The Princess was wise and knew many things; perhaps maybe she knew Twilight could perform the feat she did on the creatures even when Twilight didn’t. She continued to think of harder, but it soon became harder to focus as the horrors increased in intensity, almost like they knew she was on to something and were trying to prevent her from reaching the solution. All of a sudden it clicked, just like in the moment when she discovered her friends were they embodiments of The Elements of Harmony, the only thing that can combat fear is bravery, and the only thing to destroy darkness is light. She then remembered back to that same moment in the town when she did that massively powerful spell; she knew that even though they were afraid, they still were bravely facing down the creatures willing to fight. Since they are all connected via the elements, somehow she must have unintentionally resonated with her friend’s collective courage and formed it into a massively powerful counter/light spell. She then began to focus inwardly as she grabbed at the one thing she could find, one speck of herself which was still fighting valiantly to stave off the consuming darkness, she then grasped it with all of her might and focused it.

Shadow Sparkle looked down at her counterpart who was now twitching slightly, a pure white magic aura sparking to life on her horn, “What!?, that’s not possible!”

Twilight was then engulfed in the magic aura which then literally purged all the black from her eyes, “Possible or not, you’re going down”

Twilight then blasted her Shadow self who exploded in white light, the other shadow ponies just looked in amazement and shock, Twilight then shot each of her friends in turn who stood up immediately, upon noticing their friends position on the battlefield they joined her side, Applejack donned her hat and pawed the ground. Twilight then spread her white aura around all of them, the horns glow becoming immensely bright at the combined courage of the six; she then did a practical “solar flare” which disintegrated all of their evil doppelgangers and purged the ruby eyed griffon along with Lord Highwind. Twilight wobbled slightly but righted herself as Fluttershy took a quick look at the two griffon’s condition.

Fluttershy came back to her friends, “They’re both fine, just exhausted”

Rainbow nodded, “Alright, now that mirror mania is done, let’s go give Martin a hoof”

Applejack then noticed Martin’s absence, “Speakin of him, where is he anyways?”

Pinkie immediately broke into a bombardment of words, “Well, after you got black eyed by Phobos Martin got really mad and did a rising dragon punch on him which got Phobos angry too, which he then spawned those meanie us and now he’s fighting Phobos all by himself after they both went out the window and landed on the royal flight platform”

Everypony just looked at her, Fluttershy immediately addressed this, “how do you know there on the royal flight platform?”

Pinkie just rolled her eyes, “Duh, all climatic battles between good and evil take place on a platform that large, everypony knows that”

Twilight just shook her head in confusion, “Well then how in Equestria are we all going to get up there?
Pinkie pointed a hoof to a door they all failed to notice, “Silly filly, we take the stairs”

*

Phobos had become slightly more aggressive toward Martin, this took the form of psionic powered punches and kicks to boost his blows damage output, and Martin was unfortunately starting to feel the damage. Martin himself was getting a few blows in, and thanks to his enhanced durability and stamina he was holding his own, but just barely. During their fight Phobos stopped for a moment as if he sensed something amiss, this was soon followed by a white flash from the throne room windows.

Martin just smiled, “looks like my friends just beat your soldiers, that’s gotta sting”

Phobos just grabbed Martin by the throat and choke slammed him into the ground in response. Martin coughed up some blood as he stood back up; his vision was starting to get blurry as Phobos approached him. Phobos then proceeded to dish out several psionic enhanced hyper punches to Martins abdomen; the last punch was a massive uppercut which hurled Martin in the air, at that moment the door opened as the six entered and witnessed Phobos flying up and air juggling Martin further into the air with well-timed punches. Soon they were both high enough that Avilon looked like a speck, Phobos then brought his elbow down on Martin’s back which was heard as a sickening crack just from the sheer force. Then Phobos grabbed Martin around the waist and dive-bombed the royal flight platform, at the last second Phobos pulled up and let the built up momentum and gravity do the rest. Everypony had to shield their eyes when Martin crashed into the ground with such force that a crater was formed in the flight platforms center.

When the dust cleared, Phobos had already landed beside Martin’s limp form; Fluttershy already had tears in her eyes when Phobos picked up Martin by the back of his neck. He then walked to the edge of the platform and looked down, the back of the castle, like Canterlot was a sheer drop to the ground below.

He then held Martin out over the edge, which caused Rainbow Dash to yell, “HEY! Let him go freak!”

Phobos just regarded her with a blank expression, “Poor choice of words”, Phobos then released Martin who fell fast toward the quickly approaching ground.

All the ponies then yelled a collective, “NO!!!”, as Phobos let out a laugh that shook them to their very core.

*

As Martin fell, his life flashed before his eyes, as he opened them and saw his predicament, he responded with the most reasonable phrase he could, “OH SHIIIIIIIITTT!!!”

*

Rainbow had been allowed to fly over the edge to see if she could catch, it’s that or Phobos didn’t care in the slightest. She flew back up with a saddened look, “I couldn’t find him”

All the ponies then took on aggressive looks as they all rushed Phobos at once, he then sent them flying with a wave of his hand, then his fists lit up with black light as he flew into the air, “I think it’s time that I just end this little show once and for all”

He then raised his hands as he yelled down in a mocking tone, “Nothing will save you now little ponies”

“Don’t be so sure”

Phobos was then sent flying by a powerful blow, of which rivaled his own psionic punches strength, Phobos then turned in mid-air, “where are you?!”

Martin then uncloaked himself and appeared a good twenty feet from Phobos, levitating in mid-air like superman, “right here”

Phobos just shook his head in disbelief, “impossible, you could not fly before, and you were not as strong as this when we fought mere moments ago!”

Pinkie was on the ground in her science get up and seemed to answer Phobos’ question, which most likely everypony else had mentally asked the same thing, “Well it’s quite simple, Twilight said Martin could get more powers or his present powers could evolve into something else”

Rainbow just looked at Pinkie, “so you’re saying his strength evolved, and his jumping ability evolved into the ability of flight?”

Pinkie just nodded, “Yep”

Rainbow just smiled, “That is so EPIC!!!”

Martin just tilted his head in the directions of his friends, “yeah, what she said, oh and before I forget…”, Martin then pulled his sword out from behind him, “...I picked this up on my way back, turns out it got stuck on a branch”

Phobos just narrowed his eyes as he summoned his own sword and readied it , “I have grown weary of your foolishness, I’m going to end this, NOW!!!”

Martin then hand taunted briefly as he raised his sword, “come get some”

Phobos and Martin then met in the center of the sky and engaged in sword combat, sparks flew as both swords collided with one and another, black sparks from Phobos’ sword, normal ones from Martin’s as they continued their dual. Everypony just looked up in amazement at the spectacle unfolding before them, never before had something of this magnitude transpired before.

Rainbow pumped a hoof in the air, “COME ON MARTIN, KICK HIS BUTT!!!”

Martin was continually trying to gain the upper hand in the sword fight, but in truth he was losing due to the fact that he never actually used a sword before. This gave Phobos the upper hand, due to the fact that judging how he could easily switch from two handed moves to one handed ones so quickly and efficiently meant he was extremely proficient with a blade.

Phobos then whipped around a swing from Martin and slashed horizontally through the blade of Martin’s sword and into Martin’s chest making a pretty nasty wound. Martin lost his edge as he was kicked back into the same crater which collapsed at the center causing Martin to fall back into the throne room. As Martin clutched his chest trying to stand, the tip of Phobos’ sword hovered a few mere centimeters from Martin’s neck.

Phobos just stared at the injured human, “And so ends your pathetic life, where are your friends now Martin”
Martin braced himself for the killing stroke…which was interrupted by a blast of white magic that hit Phobos square in the chest. Martin looked behind him and he saw Twilight and the rest of the six standing behind him, he smiled as he got to his feet and then noticed a scorched section of Phobos’ shadow like robe, which then slowly repaired itself.

Martin turned to look at Twilight, “What did you just use?”

Twilight took on a determined smile, “The magic of bravery!”

Chapter 16: White

Phobos rose from the ground as he regarded the beings before him, he had never been bested by mortals let alone a pony, he had always been a force to fear, to be respected, but THESE worms had the tenacity to oppose him, insult him and make a fool of him, he had officially had enough.

A mask of complete rage appeared on Phobos’ face as his white irises began to glow an ominous white, “YOU ALL HAVE MADE THE LAST MISTAKE OF YOUR MISERABLE LIVES!!”, Phobos’ cloak then began to enlarge around his body before it completely engulfed him, a few seconds passed and the cloak itself exploded off of him.

Phobos now looked completely different; his skin had become completely pale and covered in the same black evil tribal tattoo like lines that were on his wings. His wings had transformed into six wings made out of pure darkness covered in demonic red eyes that had inhuman slits. His horns had jagged edges and his hair had become black fire, he wore nothing on his upper torso, but he wore black robes for his pants. His fingers had become black bone like claws; and his eyes had become orbs of glowing black energy.

Phobos then summoned his sword once more, “Consider this a privilege, not many have seen my divine form”

Rarity just scoffed, “Divine form?, darling, there is nothing divine about that form, it’s an atrocity and nothing more”

The second that was said, Phobos’ wings extended and expanded, when this happened, the eyes widened and glowed which caused Rarity to nervously back up.

Twilight and Martin stood their ground as they both turned around to shield their eyes, Martin just looked at Rarity, “Rarity, he’s just messing with your head, just ignore it and power on through!”

Rarity regained herself and joined her friends once more, “Thank you Martin, Twilight do you have a plan?”

Twilight’s determined look slowly dropped, “Truthfully I haven’t gotten that far yet, although this spell could give us an advantage I’m not sure how powerful Phobos is right now”

Martin just shook his head, “as long as we have something that gives us an edge, we can win”

Phobos just spoke in frustration, “How can all of you still be so confident in the face of your demise?!”

Martin and Twilight spoke at the same time, “Because we have bravery and harmony on our side!!”

Phobos just narrowed his eyes as The Elements attached themselves to their wielders, “they did not work before, what makes you think it will work a second time?”

Martin stepped forward, “because now we know how to defeat you”

*

Sortitus was now walking away from the window which Aequivalere had reluctantly made disappear; Aequivalere fell in step with Sortitus, as they were about to pass the shined white round marble table, they stopped. They both looked at the two high backed chairs they used and then at four chairs that had not been touched in eons.

Sortitus took on a saddened look; Aequivalere placed a hand on Sortitus shoulder, “it was out of our hands, we did what had to be done”

Sortitus nodded in understanding as he straightened up, “I know, but time is short and we must assist the mortals immediately”

Sortitus then raised his hand and a white arcane circle appeared about one foot from his hand, it then glowed bright and an identical one appeared beneath both of them and the vanished in a flash.

*

Martin and the ponies were running in all directions dodging black light bolts that Phobos was hurling at them. After the latest bombardment, Phobos rushed Martin and swung at the human… who immediately vanished, Phobos stopped in mid swing as he looked around for the invisible mortal.

Phobos just laughed, “You think you can hide from me”, the eyes on the wings darted around, “think again”

Martin then yelled right beside Phobos, “It’s called a distraction dingus”

Twilight and her friends were glowing white and fired the elements straight at the Lord of Fear once more, when it collided with Phobos, Martin felt the tingling sensation once more as he jumped away. Phobos shot right out of the blast and sent all the other ponies flying with his wings as he grasped Twilight by the throat, Martin saw this and rushed to her aid only to be sent flying by the wings.

Phobos looked straight into the unicorns eyes as he seethed, “I don’t know why, but I’m under the impression that if I snap your neck, one of the major nuisances that currently plague me will disappear”, he looked straight into her eyes with a maniacal smile, “tell me I’m wrong”

Twilight only croaked in response, Martin then grabbed a shard of his broken sword and rushed up to Phobos and proceeded to drive it into the Lord of Fears back. Phobos roared in absolute pain and anger as he back handed Martin into the throne, Phobos then let go of Twilight as he leapt in the air and impaled Martin through the shoulder with his shadow sword.

Phobos then landed and approached, “you’re first now”

Martin tried to remove the sword to the best of his abilities, but it didn’t budge. Martin was in constant pain as he looked at the six who were about to come help, he knew that he couldn’t fight Phobos on his own, he knew that the brave spell weakened Twilight and the elements only pissed Phobos off. There had to be a way, if only the magic in the world that was giving him his abilities was stronger…wait a minute.

Martin a crazy idea then dinged in his head, “TWILIGHT, FIRE THE ELEMENTS AGAIN!!!”

Rainbow just yelled on Twilights behalf, “IT WONT WORK!!”

Martin was then picked up by the throat as he gestured frantically toward himself, everypony was confused, but Twilight caught on immediately, “MARTIN YOU’RE A GENIUS!!”

Pinkie then spoke as they all began to light up, “no he’s not, he’s a hero”

Phobos began to tighten his grip as the elements fired into Martin, the second that happened, Martin right hooked Phobos out another window. Martin just looked at his hand as a rainbow aura appeared around him, Phobos rushed right at him and went for Martins neck with the shadow sword…which immediately exploded into shards upon contact.

Phobos just looked at Martin with rage as he went to slash at him with his claws, which Martin blocked with ease, Phobos tried again and again but all of Phobos blows were blocked easily.

Martin just yawned as he threw Phobos clear across the room and pummeled him into the ground with moves that would make Neo jealous. Phobos stood shakily to his feet and attempted to shoot a black light bolt at Martin, but a blast of white hit him in the chest which literally shattered his divine form and reverted back to his previous form. Phobos then looked straight at Twilight whose horn was still glowing white, he angrily tried to rush over but he was repelled once more by Martin who punched him in the gut knocking the wind out of him.

Martin turned to look at Twilight as he raised his fist; Twilight fired the spell straight at it and it was soon engulfed in white as Martin turned back to Phobos who weakly said, “this is impossible, how can this be?”

Martin brought his fist back, “open up your eyes maybe you’ll see”, he then yelled at the top of his lungs, “MARTIN PUNCH!!!!”, and hit Phobos square in the heart.

The shadow like robe exploded along with Phobos’ very being revealing his incorporeal form underneath, the humanoid shadow with white energy orbs for eyes collapsed defeated. Soon all around the kingdom of Avilon and Equestria, black eyed victims were cured and recovering slowly.

Martin beamed at his friends as they all whooped for joy, Fluttershy even yelled, “WE DID IT, I CAN’T BELIEVE WE DID IT!!”

They all embraced in a group hug, which was cut short by Phobos being behind them, he grabbed Martin and yanked him off his feet and began to black eye him. Everypony then rushed to his aid, but then two bolts of energy, one white and the other black hit the ground behind Phobos.

A voice was then heard yelling, “Ligare!”

Soon white tentacles of magic ensnared the astral Phobos as Martin was released; he immediately bolted away from the bound Phobos as two cloaked men appeared on either side of Phobos. One was cloaked in white, the other was in black, and both approached Phobos and tilted their heads slightly as if examining him, the black one grabbed Phobos by the shoulder and nodded at Phobos before uttering something.

Then in a blink of an eye Phobos vanished, soon the white cloaked man turned to Martin and the six and uttered one word, “yo”

Martin immediately stood up and pointed, “You just came down out of nowhere, trapped our bad guy and made him vanish and all you can say is “yo”, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!”

The guy in the black cloak took a step forward only to be stopped by the white cloaked man, “forgive me, it’s been quite some time since I have given a proper introduction, my name is…”, the white cloak removed his hood revealing the smiling face of a twenty year old man, his hair was a silvery white and medium length, his irises were sapphire blue with the occasional flecks of white, “…Sortitus, and this is my associate Aequivalere, it is truly an honor to finally meet you all in person”

When everypony saw Sortitus’ face they all gasped, Fluttershy pointed, “Martin, he’s a human, just like you”

Martin didn’t even respond, he just continued to stare at Sortitus in absolute shock, after a minute of silence Martin finally spoke, “You said, it is an honor to finally meet us, does that mean you already knew who we were prior to coming here?”

Rainbow picked up on that immediately, “Yeah, if you knew about us, why didn’t you show up sooner?”

Applejack spoke in a more annoyed tone, “ah think the bigger question is, if he knew about us, why didn’t he help us fight Phobos “

Martin heard this and pointed an accusing finger, “They all have a point, so what’s the deal Sortitus?”

Sortitus just sighed, “I could not interfere”

Martin just got more annoyed, “what do you mean you couldn’t interfere?”

Sortitus then scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile, “It’s kind of hard to explain”

Aequivalere placed a hand on Sortitus’ shoulder, “It would be wise if we discussed this elsewhere lest…”, he turned and regarded the now recovering griffin’s, “…more questions are asked”

Sortitus smiled at that and nodded, he then raised his hand and his trademark white arcane circle appear under all of them, a blinding flash was all they saw before Avilon vanished around them leaving a confused Highwind, Mariah and Onyx to question about the damage that was done.

*

Celestia was sitting in the royal throne room alongside her sister contemplating the fates of the group in Avilon. She knew there was a good chance they were coming back because the palace nurse had informed her that Gilda had returned to normal and was currently resting. Even though the good news in itself informed her of their fate, she was still worried for the safety of her student and her friends.

Luna gave her sister a calming sister a calming smile, “worry not dear sister Twilight Sparkle and her friends shall return in due time, I dare say they might…”, she was interrupted by a flash of white.

Sortitus surveyed the room he had arrived in with a blank expression, “I might have overshot it just a bit”, he then caught site of the princesses who had immediately broken out into smiles which he did as well.

Celestia and Luna approached both of the cloaked individuals first, Sortitus and Celestia hugged for a brief moment whereas Aequivalere and Luna both bowed in respect.

Sortitus pulled away with a happy smile, “it’s good to see you Celestia, I see your kingdom has flourished as much as its ruler”, he then crossed his arms as he looked her up and down, “If I recall correctly, you were not this tall last time I saw you, although I do like what you have done with your mane, it truly fits you and your spirit perfectly”

Celestia smiled, “thank you Sortitus, I see you’ve shortened your hair and shrunk”

Sortitus just laughed at the smart remark, “still have your wit, eh?”

Both Alicorn and man shared a collective laugh which was interrupted by Twilight clearing her throat, “Princess, you know these two?”

Celestia nodded, “indeed my student, these two beings helped me and Luna become the rulers we are today, they are our Teachers, as I am to you”

The group of friends gasped as Sortitus turned to address them, Twilight however spoke first, “then the biggest question is, WHAT are you, because you both can’t be human because Martin has told me humans have fairly short lifespans and you both are supposed to have been around when the princesses ascended the thrones?, sounds a little suspicious to me”

Rarity spoke next, “And might I add that you two seemed to be a little too familiar with Phobos when you saved Martin from him”, Martin just gave her a confused look, “trust me darling, I know when somepony knows another pony to such an extent of giving them a sympathetic look”, when she said this, the unicorn looked straight at Aequivalere.

Sortitus nodded at Rarity’s remark, “Why wouldn’t we, he is our brother after all”

All of the ponies gasped, even the princesses did as well, Luna then addressed Sortitus, “But that was not the Phobos we saw when you…”

Aequivalere shushed her to allow Sortitus to continue, Sortitus continued, “I would rather not continue on the subject of him so I will give you the short version, Phobos was our responsibility and we finished what we started, all of you I’m afraid were caught in the crossfire and for that I am sorry”

Rainbow zoomed right up to him, “Sorry, SORRY?!, you almost got us killed and you expect us to accept your apology?!”

Sortitus just nodded, “you have every reason to be mad, and I understand that Rainbow Dash”

She took on a surprised look, “how do you know my name?”

Sortitus smiled, “I know all of your names”, and he then pointed to each pony with each of their names, “Kind Fluttershy, Pinkamena Diane Pie whose laughter fills the hearts of many, Honest Applejack, Generous Rarity, and the magically acute Twilight Sparkle who I can say is a strong and intelligent pony that cares for her friends and all others”.

Twilight then came to a realization, “What happened with the stones, that mysterious voice, that was you?”

Sortitus merely smiled at the question, he then turned to Martin and placed a hand on his shoulder, “now the other reason I have come here…”, Martin shrugged off the hand, “I believe you still need to answer Twilight’s question on what you are”

Pinkie bounced next to him, “Yeah, the readers have been dying to know who you guys are, I mean come on you both have only had brief cameos up until now”

Sortitus nodded once more, “fair enough, myself, Aequivalere and Phobos a merely three of The Aspects of Creation”

Once more everypony gasped as Sortitus continued, “Aequivalere is the Aspect or Spirit of Balance, Phobos was self-explanatory, and I am The Aspect of Destiny”

Martin just stared at Sortitus as he turned to face the human once more, Martin then came to a realization, “does that mean your…”, Sortitus nodded, “that’s right Martin Fairbridges, I am the one who brought you here”
Martin just stared shocked as Sortitus continued, “Ever since you were born, you were destined to come here, I did not see how the rest of your fate would play out but I knew you were the one”

Martin stepped forward as he nervously asked, “but why me out of everyone on the Earth, you could have chosen anyone else, I mean I know I’m destined and such but why?”

Sortitus summoned up a window which showed various things, many were humans in Equestria, others were things Martin could only perceive from popular media, one showed a pegasus walking amongst several zebra, another showed a human repairing all of Canterlot with a wave of his hands, another depicted two ponies who were once friends on earth hoof bumping each other, then the window stopped.

Sortitus looked at him, “It was not just you on earth I had to choose from, it was throughout the entire multiverse I had to choose a champion that could face down Phobos…”, and the window then proceeded to vanish, “…and you were the one I chose”

Martin then asked once more, “why?”

Sortitus then answered in a serious tone, “If I chose the wrong champion, then Phobos would have consumed this dimension Earth and Equestria, and moved on to the others until there would be nothing left, not even the champions of the other dimensions would be able to stand against him at that point, and you had something that all the other champions did not have”

Martin just looked at Sortitus as he continued, “your fate was unpredictable, you could have taken any path, but you chose the one of the hero and you finally got the destiny you yearned for all these years”

Martin then raised his hand with a smile which Sortitus took, “thanks dude, you have no idea how happy you have made me, if it wasn’t for you”, he turned and looked at the six who smiled at him, “I would have never met the best friends I have now”

Sortitus nodded but then straightened up as he turned to the princesses, “but there is still a matter that needs to be addressed”

Celestia looked at Sortitus with a confused expression, “what’s that?”

Sortitus then grinned as he brought Pinkie over too his side, “the matter of their victory party”

Pinkie Pie then got the biggest smile on her face.

Chapter 17: Black

(Listen to this to optimise the awesomeness of the victory party, if you wish that is)

The party that followed was known as the biggest party Pinkie had ever organized, Everypony in Ponyville and Canterlot attended along with the griffins from Avilon, both princesses and the two Aspects. Vinyl Scratch was in charge of music, Martin had made a request for some of the party songs on his iPod to be played, to which she happily obliged out of curiosity of how earth music sounded, currently Dreams by Van Halen was playing causing the party to get into full swing. Martin was sitting with the six at a nearby table looking out at the stars, Martin had changed out of his damaged “hero” clothes and into the same clothes he had worn when he first arrived in Equestria, his coat was currently draped over the back of his chair and he absently scratched at his shoulder where he had been impaled by Phobos’ shadow sword.

Twilight noticed this, “Martin, Nurse Redheart said not to scratch at it for at least another few hours”

Martin stopped immediately, “sorry, it was unintentional I assure you”

Applejack just shook her head, “Yeah, and am the mayor of Ponyville”

Pinkie perked up, “you didn’t tell me you were running for office Applejack”

Everyone, except Pinkie who was confused, shared in a laugh, soon the laughter died down when Lord Highwind approached their table flanked by Gilda, and the griffin with the one ruby eye and the Griffin he had tried to help back in the palace hallway.

Martin stood with the six who then bowed; Lord Highwind then spoke, “Rise, I owe all of you a great deal of thanks, for if it had not been for you, my kingdom along with the rest of my dominion would have fallen prey to that monster that attacked, and in saying that, you are all here by my honored guests if you may ever find yourself in my kingdom”

Twilight and her friends bowed once more, “thank you your majesty”

Lord Highwind departed with all but Gilda, who just stared at Martin, the silence between both was mind numbing until Gilda raised a talon in a fist, “I gotta say, what you all did was pretty cool”

Martin fist/talon bumped her as Gilda pointed at the six, “don’t think for a second that this changes anything”, she then walked off leaving the group of friends to sit down once more.

The hours passed by with everypony and griffin having a chance to chat with The Mane Six and Martin as they all partied to their hearts content. Various things happened that night, Rarity got into an intellectual argument with a pony known as Octavia which soon began to escalate into a physical argument which was stopped by AJ and Vinyl. Rainbow was sang along to Welcome to The Jungle with Martin when it came on over the speakers, Pinkie and Twilight got into a cupcake eating contest which only had one decisive winner, and Fluttershy talked with Aequivalere after overcoming her fear of his appearance for a good portion of the night while Twilight chatted with Sortitus on what magic he used and what the princesses were like in their younger years.

As the party began to die down, various ponies and griffins alike left with fond memories and good spirits, soon only The Princesses, The Six, The Aspects and Martin remained. All of them were gathered around one table as they began to reminisce of times past.

Martin was just finishing one of his stories, “…and then Alan said his cat attacked anything that moved so he told me not to move, then a second later the cat was attacking a kitchen chair like it stole his favorite toy to which I pointed out, “yeah, look how it attacked that fast moving chair”

Everypony laughed except for Pinkie who added, “Hey chairs move fast, I actually had to nail one down because it kept moving away from me when I tried to sit down”

Twilight then pointed out with a half-smile, “Pinkie, that chair had wheels remember?”

Pinkie nodded thoughtfully, “So that’s why it kept moving after I put nails in its legs”

The laughter only increased, it soon stopped when Celestia spoke to Sortitus with a smile, “Remember back when you helped me harness my full powers?”

Sortitus nodded, “Yes, I remember that day well, I was teaching you how to harness your magic by drawing on the power of the sun to give you a boost”, he then smiled, “if I remember correctly Celestia, the spell blew up in your face and it blackened your horn for weeks”

Celestia blushed slightly as everypony laughed at their ruler; they shared many mirthful stories until Luna informed them that the time of the night had arrived for all of them to get some rest.

As they all got up, Sortitus announced one last thing, “Martin Fairbridges, I request that you bring your friends with you to the place where you arrived in Equestria this coming morning”

Martin took on a confused expression, but he knew deep down what the reason was but he still asked, “Why?”

Sortitus raised his hand above his head as his signature teleport spell started up, “to send you home of course”, he then vanished in a flash of white.

*

Martin could barely sleep that night, it’s not that he didn’t WANT to go home; it’s just that he had made so many friends and various connections in Equestria that he felt at home in the land of ponies. But deep down he knew his stay would not last forever, but in truth he wished that his stay would be longer after all he and his new friends just saved the magical land from evil which had made him a hero in all of the ponies and griffins eyes officially wiping all paranoid notions from the Equestrians minds. But none the less he awoke the following morning and ate his last breakfast with The Apple Family, they were all sort of in the dark about his leaving, as far as they were concerned he was going on a vacation.

Soon he and AJ left the farm and headed toward Twilight’s where the rest of the six were waiting for them, it was silent until AJ turned to Martin, “Martin”

Martin looked at her, “yeah?”

AJ stopped for a second, “when Sortitus sends ya back to yer world, yer not gonna forget us are you?”

Martin just took on a half grin, “hell no!!”

AJ smiled at having the question that had been plaguing her for the entire night answered. Soon she and Martin arrived at the library, all the ponies were happy to see their friend arrive, but were saddened because they all knew what was coming.

As they all headed to the hill where Martin had arrived on when he came to Equestria, Martin just gave them all a reassuring smile. Soon they all arrived in the small clearing where Sortitus was currently standing.

Sortitus stood aside revealing the same door Martin had entered in the hallway that fateful night he found it in the alleyway, Sortitus just gave an understanding smile, “I know this is hard, but it must be done Martin”, Martin nodded with a hard look on his face.

Martin turned to the six who were tearing up slightly, however Rainbow passed it off as something getting in her eye, “Don’t you girls worry, and just always remember the good times, K?”

All of them nodded as Rainbow trembled slightly in mock sickness at the sappiness of the moment, but she joined in the one last group hug.

Martin opened his wallet and plucked a photograph of him in a phone booth with a big smile and handed it to Twilight, “Make six copies if you can”

Sortitus cleared his throat as Martin approached the door, “Now the process is simple, I have made it so the return trip through The Bridge will deposit you back on the night you left so not to cause any problems”

Martin nodded, “Just like in Narnia”

Sortitus just chuckled slightly, “Indeed, now you might want to close your eyes this time”

Martin turned to look back at the Main Six as he grabbed the knob, as the light began to flare to life, the last thing he did was make a saluting gesture, and then the light engulfed him.

*

Martin opened his closed eyes and was looking at the night sky; he then looked at his surroundings and saw he was indeed back in the alleyway. He checked his watch as he stood up from the ground, only a minute had passed since he touched the door knob for the first time; he then quickly looked where the hallway had been, but all he saw was the redbrick of the building, he then turned and walked home.

*

Three days had passed since the day of his return to Earth, and things were looking up. The morning after he returned, his boss had called him regarding his future employment at the Stop Shop. His boss had told him that he was retiring in a few days and moving on to live the life of a king, he also told Martin he was being promoted for his hard work. Martin’s current position is that of running the store, what the boss told him he had to do was simple in itself, he told him since it was a fairly small business the only time he had to get involved was if there was an emergency or if he had to train new employees. Martin was fine with that, especially because of the pay increase he got. So ever since he had all the free time to do anything he wanted, his social life improved in terms of him getting out a bit more, but he still missed his friends. When he came home to his two floor home he walked into his bedroom and saw a person in a white business suit with a familiar face.

Sortitus smiled at Martin, “What’s up?”

Martin just looked completely confused, “Sortitus, why are you in my room?”

Sortitus stood up, “well you see, I was thinking hard on the subject of you and those six ponies for a while, and I thought it wasn’t right for me to thrust you back into this world the way I did”

Sortitus examined a statue of the thinking man, “And I came to a decision, I already asked the ponies and they agreed”

Martin looked even more confused, “What decision?”

Sortitus turned toward Martin and pulled an old fashioned brass key from his suits lapel pocket, “this key will fit any door and open The Bridge to Equestria…”

Martin just waved his hands in a “slow your roll gesture”, “Hold on a second, I can’t go back now, I have a new job and stuff that I sort of need to be on call for”

Sortitus nodded, “I understand that, but you see that’s the thing about The Bridge, when you enter it and leave your home dimension, time slows to a crawl”

Martin just gave him a look, “you’re saying it like I now have the power to go back and forth between the two worlds”, in response Sortitus raised an eyebrow as he raised the hand holding the key

Martin just gave The Aspect an embarrassed smile, “seriously?”

Sortitus nodded, “If you choose to accept it”

Martin just opened his hand as the key was placed in it, “go ahead”

Martin then shut his bedroom door and touched the knob with the key, there was an unlocking sound as he opened it and stepped into the light. He opened his eyes and was tackled to the ground by six familiar faces.

Martin looked at them all as he stood up, “Hey girls”

Sortitus appeared behind them in his robes, “Now I must tell you the same thing I told the elements, I’m afraid only you yourself can use The Bridge, you must promise me that you will uphold this promise”

Martin nodded, “yes, I promise”

Sortitus smiled as he turned on his heel, “then enjoy this gift Martin Fairbridges, and use it wisely”

Martin just stared after Sortitus as The Spirit of Destiny vanished in a flash, he then turned back to the six, “What should we do now?”

Pinkie Pie immediately bounced over, “PARTY!!!!”

Martin smiled as he joined in the happy cheering as he came back to Ponyville and was greeted by its inhabitants; he was all smiles when the party started. The princesses even decided to attend the celebration, at one point Martin scored some bits from a RD and approached Luna with a request.

Luna just gave him a confused look, “Pray tell, what exactly will this favor serve?”

Martin just smiled, “As a welcome back present”

Luna smiled and inhaled deeply, she then yelled in the royal Canterlot voice, “FUS RO DAH!!!”

Martin just smiled, “Worth every bit”

Martin then gathered the six close and instructed Spike on how to use the camera function on his phone, “EVERYPONY SAY, WATERMELON!!!”

The photo was then snapped

Epilogue

Sortitus was currently sitting in front of the round table with Aequivalere across from him, in their home known simply as The Sanctuary.

Aequivalere just stared at Sortitus, “You sure it was wise that you gave the human control over The Bridge?”

Sortitus didn’t even look up from the book he was currently reading, “What did I say about questioning my judgement?”

Aequivalere sighed, “That I can never win the argument”

Sortitus smiled, “Exactly”

All of a sudden Sortitus was struck with a migraine as images flashed before his eyes;

Martin besieged by an unknown assailant
Two people sharing a kiss of passion
Earth in total chaos
And a Draconequus laughing maniacally as a women stood by its side

Sortitus then looked at Aequivalere with a worried expression, “It seems things are about to become chaotic, fate has shown me a most unfortunate vision”

Aequivalere just nodded, “He’s returning then?”

Sortitus only nodded in response

*************************************************************************************

Thank you so much for sticking by me to the end of this tale, I promise you more to come.

Chapter 12: The Shadow of Doubt

Well this is continued from Chapter 10 sorry for the wait

*

Phobos folded his wings back into his cloak and looked at the beings present; his face was an unreadable mask of calculation as he began to weigh the odds and possible strengths of them as he continued to stay silent. Martin and The six present were trying to keep on their best poker faces, but in truth deep down they were frightened to death of this new person, but to her credit Fluttershy was trying her best to stay standing and not to faint.

Phobos sharply inhaled as he looked at the six first then Martin, “I smell your fear, it is truly intoxicating and marvellous in quantity.”

When his eyes stopped on Martin, Phobos tilted his head slightly, “How interesting, a mortal human not within his own dimension standing before me."

Celestia then yelled at Phobos in a commanding tone, “Silence creature, you have no business being here, begone at once!!”, Phobos then sharply turned his head and his stare bore into Celestia’s eyes with intensity, “You are the one who should remain silent you insignificant worm, you shall speak when I give you permission”.

That’s when Rainbow finally lost it in terms of holding herself back, she looked right at Phobos and flew as close as she dared, “JUST WHO THE HAY DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!!!”, everypony was making gestures for her to not even continue which she ignored, “YOU MARCH IN HERE ACTING ALL HIGH AND MIGHTY AND YOU HAVE THE TENACITY TO VERBALLY INSULT THE PRINCESS AND ATTACK EVERYPONY AND LOOK AT US LIKE WERE DIRT?!!”, Phobos looked straight into the eyes of the infuriated pegasus unfazed, “WELL I GOT NEWS FOR YOU PAL, YOUR ABOUT TO GET A DOSE OF PUNISHMENT FROM THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONEY!!!!”

Rainbow flew back to her friends who were already glowing with the power of the elements, Phobos raised an eyebrow at this as Martin backed off, he then felt a strange sensation in his heart which he dismissed as nothing. All six mares then levitated in mid-air and then Twilight opened her eyes which were completely white and glowing, then a rainbow of power shot from all six and slammed into The Lord of Fear. Everypony smiled in victory as they all cheered, Twilight approached Martin with the rest of the six as he joined in the celebration, and a dark day had been averted and…

“Was that all?”

Everypony turned sharply around back to the throne as the smoke cleared revealing the intact and imposing figure of Phobos, “Honestly I was expecting more of a challenge from the strongest magic in all of Equestria, how unfortunate you all failed in my expectations”.

Twilight her friends and The Princesses were at a loss for words, the one thing that had stopped Nightmare Moon, Discord and saved all of Equestria before, had failed against this new being. For the first time in their lives, the princesses felt absolute fear of which Twilight and her friends now shared. Even Pinkie Pie who would literally laugh in fears face was utterly frightened, Martin looked at all of his friends and an angered look appeared upon his face as he approached Phobos.

He then pointed right at Phobos’, “how dare you mouth off to my friends!”, he then took a step forward, “I have seen some twisted individuals in my life, but you are by far the worst of them all, tormenting innocents for your sick fun, well I got news for you….”, he was silenced as Phobos grabbed Martin’s lower jaw and hoisted him off the ground giving a glare that chilled Martin to the core.

Phobos spoke in his cold tone, “Do not take me for a fool mortal, I can sense that your bravery is nothing more than a mask to hide your fear”, Phobos then turned Martin to face the faces of the princesses and the six, “You stand with them when they are not even of your own species, you even defend them as a hero at this moment ”, he then turned Martin back to face him as his wings extended and he began to hover several feet in the air, “You think yourself a hero boy?, you are nothing more than a pathetic child who is far from home that’s just trying to justify his meaningless existence with a dream of grandeur all because you have acquired powers beyond your understanding?”

He then threw Martin to the ground as he spoke with actual disgust, “How absolutely pathetic”, he then looked to the ponies as they came to the humans aid, Phobos then addressed all present, “I would end your existence now, but I’m afraid you have bored me to the point of becoming uninteresting to me”, he then opened his hand toward a nearby window which exploded outward, “I shall give you time to rethink your place in my new kingdom, when you come to a decision, I await in Avilon”. Phobos then took flight and shot out the window like a bullet leaving all who witnessed breathless.

Martin stood and dusted himself off as Celestia turned to Twilight and spoke so all could hear, “My little ponies, I am afraid I cannot ask you to partake in what has transpired for I fear above all things for your safety, if The Elements have failed, myself and Luna are the only things that can hope to stand in Phobos’ way”.

Twilight shook her head, “We can’t let that happen Princess, if you and your sister fall to that monster all of Equestria will fall with you”, she knew what she said next might seal the fate of all of her friends, “we will all go and face this threat since we are the embodiments of The Elements of Harmony it’s our duty to defend Equestria”.
Pinkie Pie spoke up as she playfully pulled Martin toward her friends, “Plus we’ll have Marty with us, he can keep us safe he promised”

Celestia then addressed Martin, “is this true?”, Martin slowly nodded in response as Celestia looked down at her faithful students determined expression, “No matter what I say or do you’re going to stick by this decision aren’t you?”, Twilight nodded with a determined smile.

Celestia then spoke in a tone of authority, “Then be brave and always remember, I shall always be with you”, she then spoke in a gentler tone, “and even though things may be dark, always carry on for there is always light waiting to be found”

With that they all departed back to Ponyville in silence as Twilight began to formulate a strategy, while Martin made no sound and kept a completely straight face.

Sorry for the short chapter, but im currently writing the thirteenth chapter and it shall be uploaded hopefully alongside this one