Strength to protect friends. Not light, nor darkness. (Broken worlds)

“Isn´t it weird?” asked Any, when he emerged from water, in a lake, which they chose to go swim in. Not only that they needed to get rid of blood, but it also cooled and relaxed their bodies, so they didn´t hurt so much.

Even when it seemed childisch, blue haired earth pony, who was created for Any by scientists in  Wewelsburg, couldn´t stop being suprised about every detail they experienced. Even a simple thing as temperature of water menaged to amuse him.

“What?” Nathan´s head popped out on the surface and stayed half way sunk, so only it´s upper half was visible.

“That we are able to walk and swim, as if we were borned this way. I know that professor Werner said, that he will give us these abillities, but still, there are no reflexes or habits, from walking on two legs.”

“That´s because our mind doesn´t remember, how to walk on two legs anymore. While creating these bodies, it was possible to do with them anything. We lack our human reflexes because they didn´t paste all of our memories. In order for us to not stumble all over the place, they skipped everything about movement and replaced it by fake skills, habits and reflexes.”

“So it is like if we were borned this way.”

“Basically.” Nathan looked at the sun, which was directly above them. “We should go, it would be nice to arrive into Crystal Empire before dark.”

* * * * * *

“It´s beatiful.” That was all what Nathan could get out of him, when they first saw crystal city lying in the middle of frozen land. Any personaly didn´t cared about the Empire in the show, but he had to admit that the way it was carved in – what used to be – one giant crystal, surpassed anything what man could ever create.

In the show, it wouldn´t be so visible, because it would be covered by blue Crystal Heart´s magic, but professor Werner and his team realized, that they don´t know how to make the Heart work. All their tests failed, so they decided to leave it on another time.

“You had lots of fun, when preparing all of this, haven´t you?”

“It wasn´t just me. I admit that I came with idea of some creatures living here, but seeing it for myself is just breathtaking.”

“It really is. Hey look! There is a pony walking over there!”

Under the hill, where they were standing was a frozen lake, with acient statues on its shore and there was the pony Any´t talked about.

“A pony? But there shouldn´ t be anybody besides...” grey unicorn seemingly remembered something from his work in the castle, because he rushed towards the pony.

“What, who is it?” shouted at him Any, while trying to catch up to him.

“Doesn´t matter, this area is not safe! We have to...” whatever he wanted to say died out in sound of breaking ice and frightening hiss.

From frozen earth came three giant, about twenty meters long crystal snakes. They weren´t from the show, so they had to be one of the creatures which Nathan mentioned. As everything in the empire, they seemed like if they were carved from single crystal pieces, but they definetely didn´t lack mobility.

And they were on the hunt.

One of the, quicker then his relatives, opened his mouth full of sharp teeth and attacked the foreing pony.

“Watch out!” shouted at him Nathan and teleported between him and the snake, who wasn´t suprised at all and just turned his head, so he could eat the unicorn first.

Too bad for the snake, space around two ponies shined with dark purple magic and the beast just slid aside.

Nathan looked behind him and now he could see that the pony was actually a mare. And there were just two mares in Crystal Empire so far. Princess Cadence and this one.

“Stay behind me, whatever happens!” shouted at her and focused on the snake, who was moving around them searching for a good opportunity to attack.

Other two snakes were more interested in Any, who, since he couldn´t teleport himself, just arrived. One of the crystal serpents tried to eat him, but earth pony dodged it and kicked him in the jaw. But without any visible effect.

“Any! Look for glowing red crystal, somewhere on their bellies, if you menage to shatter it, the snake will die!”

To prove his words, he shot out beam of purple magic right into the red crystal on his snake´s belly. Unfortunately the attack wasn´t strong enough to kill it, but enough to make the serpent hiss in pain. One of his relatives lost interest in Any, when he heard the voice full of pain and slithered to Nathan.

Ok, one shouldn´t be too much of a problem.

Earth pony patiently waited, because neither of them wanted to attack first. At the end it was the snake who was most impatient one and striked. Like the first time, Any dodged his head, but this time he knew where was snake´s weak spot, so he quickly moved under him and when he saw red light, he kicked it as hard as he could.

Stone heart cracked and serpent angrily hissed.

Not enough.

While the beast was twitching in pain, pony kicked one last time. The red crystal shattered and the crystal snake fell on the ground dead.

“Good work! Take this girl to the Crystal Empire. Now! I will take care of them and catch up to you later!” shouted from far away Nathan and when Any looked in his direction, he saw that both remaining snakes were moving around him, so the ponies couldn´t escape.

“How?”

“Wait a second!”

The mare, hiding behind his back glowed with his magic and suddenly was standing with Any. One of the snakes turned his head around to hunt her down, but Nathan regained his attention, by hitting him into the eye, which was the only sensitive place the snake hadn´t covered at that moment.

“Run already!”

Even though, Any felt bad for running away, he believed that Nathan knew what he was doing. After all, it was him who worked on creation of those creatures.

They couldn´t hear the noise of fight or snakes hissing, when they finally stopped to rest.

“Are you alright?” asked Any, when they stopped and looked at the mare. She was an earth pony, just like him, but she had crystallized fur and mane, like all joyful crystal ponies.

“Yes, thank you for saving me. My name is Stardust. Sorry for troubling you, I had no idea that creatures like this lives in the Crystal Empire.”

“You´re welcome. I am Any. What were you doing here anyway? No offense, but arctic isn´t a place for lone lady.”

Her face suddenly got all sad.

“I was visiting a grave.”

“Whos? If you not mind.”

“Did you ever heard of King Sombra?”

Any´s eyes widened in suprise. The fact that King Sombra had a grave wasn´t really unexpected, considering Nathan being his fan, but somepony actually visiting it?

And who was this mare anyway? He didn´t remember her from the show, so it had to be somepony new.

“Why in Equestria would you visit his grave? Didn´t he enslaved the whole empire by using dark magic?”

Right when he said it he realized that he already kinda knew the answer. Nathan was in charge of making the backstory for Sombra and in this case, it was only presented to Any and others in their team to either accept it or not.

But he had to admit that King Sombra never interested him too much, so he wasn´t listening very well back then and forgot most of it.

“He did. But he used to be kind and loyal to the Crystal Empire. More then thousand years ago, before he became a king, changelings attacked the empire. The power of Crystal Heart didn´t work at them, so in order to save us all, Sombra adventured into the dephts under the city to find a way to defeat the enemies.”

“And what he found was dark magic?”

“Yes. He knew how evil it was, but his determination and love for our home was so strong, that he decided to take that risk.“

„And I guess that he wasn´t strong enough to control it and became evil?“

„That is right. But before that, he created something to ensure, that if the evil takes over him, there will be a way to defeat him.“

„Crystal Heart? But you said that...“

„No. He made this.“ Stardust holded her front right leg in front of him and Any saw simple looking golden bracelet.

„He entrusted this bracelet to me, his only friend, so if he failed I would be the one to stop him, before it would be too late.“ mare took a deep breath and Any could see few tears drop from her eyes.

„But I failed him. I hesitated and condemned everypony in the Crystal Empire to years of slavery and then one thousand years of banishment.“

Blue haired earth pony knew that now wasn´t the best time to ask more. He didn´t want to bring out any more paiful memories, so he rather looked in direction where they left Nathan.

The sky above that place was black and they could hear thunder. The strange part was that the storm was only there, anywhere else was the sky clear.

This can´t be natural. Nathan, what the hell did you do?

As if the named pony wanted to answer him, a shadowy figure appeared on top of one hill and quickly disapeared.

„What was that?“ asked Startdust next to him, seemingly scared.

„I don´t know. The storm is growing bigger and soon it will cover the Empire.“

„Look! Shadows!“

Any at first didn´t know what she meant, but then he saw it. Even though the sun was almost covered, everything had shadow dark as if the sun was shining at its fullest. And was it just him or were they moving?

„Sweet Celestia!“

When Any saw, what frightened Stardust he almost wished to be back on Earth. In front of them, out of one shadow, emerged a pony. If it could be called like that. He seemed like if somebody decided to make the body, but when he got to the face he got bored and quited it.

That was the best description Any could think of. The demon – because it couldn´t be anything else – had only chest, four legs, tail, neck with head on it and two shining green eyes with purple mist coming out of them.

„What is this thing?“ Any asked. He didn´t remember it from any of the discussions back in the castle, because something like this couldn´t have been allowed.

„That´s what Sombra tried to use to save the Empire!“

„But where did it came from? It was supposed to be sealed away!“

„I set it free.“ spoke new voice nearby and from behind an ice shard, tall like several ponies, came Nathan. His black coat was a bit tattered, but he himself seemed unscathed.

“You did what?” shouted at him Any. This wasn´t supposed to happen, why would Nathan do something like this?

“You´ll see shortly, don´t worry.” His magic grabbed nothing expecting Stardust and pushed her towards the pony of darkness.

The demon, who was until now patiently waiting and maybe deciding, who he should attack first, turned into black mist and embraced the poor mare, until he completely merged with her.

Her eyes opened and both ponies could see that her irises changed their color on red. With evil blazing from her, she faced them.

“Don´t get too confident.” whispered Nathan and broke piece of ice, which he immediately stabbed into Stardust´s chest. Her warm blood made the ice melt, but the damage was already done. Grey unicorn walked to her and when Any tried to stop him, he realized that something was holding him on the spot, next thing he discovered was that he couldn´t speak. It was like he just lost his voice, so all he could get out of himself was rasping.

“Just so you understand,” unicorn gave him quick look, but continued to the wounded pony. “this demon is basically the power what King Sombra had. By letting him take control over her he got into a vessel, which isn´t able to do magic.

The shock from death weakens him and now I can without a worry take this magic for my own.”

Nathan put his hoof on the wound and sended out his magic into it. The reaction was instantaneous. All the evil magic in Stardust was being sucked out, and judging by Nathan´s face it was resisting quite a lot, but it had to be nothing against what it would be, if he didn´t do all those preparations.

Finally the spell was over and Stardust just lifelessly fell on the ground.

“Why?” forced out of himself Any. He couldn´t decide what was worse, if the fact that Nathan seemingly betrayed him, or the fact that he just gained the same power King Sombra had.

“Why? It´s for humans.”

Grey unicorn, now with his body glowing with shadows watched Any struggle with spells that trapped him.

“The whole idea of us escaping into Equestria is making me sick! Run from our problems, that´s all we can do! And that fool Werner didn´t even realized that this can never work!”

“What...are you...talking about?”

“Destiny my friend. You know what Equestria lacks compared to the Earth? The fate. Anything can happed in our world and everything has it´s future. That´s how it was created.When a baby is borned it´s on destiny to choose, if it´s going to be for example healty or not. Equestria doesn´t have this!”

“But...how do you...know it?”

“Ach, poor Werner. He trusted me so much. He would never expect me to do something without him knowing it. Well, there is nothing to be suprised about, since you could say that I am basically his faithful student. Didn´t you ever asked yourself, how did Bifrost discovered the possibility of creating Equestria in only ten years?”

Any didn´t say anything.

“You´d know it, if you learned about the Wewelsburg. Before Bifrost turned it into it´s main base, it was center of Nazi occultism. That´s true. We, or maybe I should say, I used their knowlage to not only create the vision of brony paradise, but also to convince him into creating the Bifrost. Of course, I kept some informations for myself.”

“So what...is your...plan?”

“I will break the matrix, which holds the Equestria in this empty world and merge it with the Earth, so it gains destiny! Also the Earth will be much better. The joy and harmony of Equestria will balance it out towards the good. Imagine rude old man with empty bottle. Somebody fills it with sweet strong liquor and the guy will get drunk and will be joyful and happy.

Except that this happiness will never fade!”

“You are...crazy! Also, how...will you get...more ponies?”

“Any, Any, Any. The worlds will became one all-in. And there are few things I predestinated just for this occasion. Well anyway, it was nice talking with you. The next time we´ll see each other will be back home.”

Nathan turned into smoke and quickly disapeared in the wind.

“Damn it! I have to stop him! He might be right about some things, but giving people magic will be terrible!”

As soon as he realized that with Nathan gone, the spell stopped working he headed out towards the Ponyville, but something grabbed his leg.

It was Stardust, on whom Any completely forgot. He though that she was dead and so he focused on his friend´s madness.

“Any...you have to...stop him! He is the same *cough* as Sombra. He loves...his people...but his *cough* determination will lead...to his end. It will drive him...into darkness!”

“But how can I stop him?”

“Take my *cough* bracelet! It has...the power to...stop him.”

“Thank you.”

With last her last breath she fell dead.

“Nathan. As much as your objectives might be the best for people, I will make sure you will pay for this!”

When he was leaving he thought of one more thing. He said that he will break the matrix. That shouldn´t be possible! There wasn´t anything stronger then friendship. Or was there?

* * * * * *

“Finally I can go to sleep. *yawn* It was a busy day.” whispered Fluttershy, when she was going to lie down on her bed. It was late and she was tired from her everyday duties with animals.

She was just about to fall asleep, when something gently poked her into chin. When she forced her eyes to open she saw that it was black and purple snake, who woke her up.

“Umm. I am really tired mister Snake.”

“Can I jussst asssk a quessstion?” hissed at her. In her mind the fact that snake was talking for som reason completely fine, so she didn´t get amused and instead just nodded.

“Are you good friendsss with Pinkie Pie and Rarity?”

“Of course! They are my best friends!”

“Really? But they never helpsss you and never caresss about you!”

The snake´s voice sounded very nice to Fluttershy´s ears and somehow it felt soothing.

“That is not true.”

“It isssn´t? Jussst remember when Rarity talked you into being a fassshion model, even though ssshe knew that you are ssscared of performing on ssstage.”

The remembrance on that moment reminded Fluttershy how scared she was and that nopony helped her. But still they were friends!

“Everypony makes mistakes. I can´t blame Rarity for that.”

“What about when you were practisssing with Ironwill? Sssure, they recommended him to you, but if Rainbow or Applejack sssaw poniesss being that mean to you, they would defend you. Pinkie, nor Rarity even tried to sssave you.”

“That is not true! They were giving me lot´s of advices!”

“And? That doesssn´t change anything on the fact that they were sssupposed to ssstand on your ssside and defend you. Even more, when they knew that you are ssshy and don´t want to argue.”

Now Fluttershy was literaly crying, but still there was hope in her words.

“But they were always with me!”

“No they weren´t. Rainbow Dasssh, Applejack and Twilight were with you, when you need it.” The snake cravled on her bed a bit and gently rubbed his head on her chin.

“I like you Flutterssshy and that´s why it painsss me to sssee you wasssting your heart on poniesss, who don´t deserve it.”

Now it was obvious that her will was broken. Streams of tears flowed out of her eyes and dropped on her pillow.

“Sssee? You know that...” he couldn´t finish the sentence, because magic arrow made of golden light pierced snake´s tail.

“So, you came after me.” he said without hissing and turned into dark mist, from which emerged Nathan, irritably staring at pony, who suddenly standed at the cottage and holding his front left leg, from which flowed dark blood.

“Yes. I promised to myself that I will not let you ruin this world. Not now, when I know that you are wrong!”

Nathan gave him curious look.

“This world doesn´t lack destiny! If it did, then I wouldn´t be able to come after you, because somebody like you would create a destiny just for himself in advance. It is created by our wills so it is my duty to defeat you and save Fluttershy from your fake destiny!”

Nathan watched him silently for a while, but then he started laughing.

“You don´t understand. I know this! Of course you have free will, I could´ve make a destiny for you, so you couldn´t go after me, but why bother? I didn´t change anything in terms of our wills, because it wasn´t necessary. What I said back in the Empire was that destiny, which this world lacks, is for example how a baby will be borned. If it´s going to be sick or not. Girl or boy.”

Nathan shaked his head.

“You are always wrong. I don´t understand what Werner saw in you.”

“I don´t know either, but I know that I have to stop this fake destiny and save Equestria!”

“Fake destiny? Oh no my friend. This is real.” grey unicorn poited on still crying Fluttershy and Any noticed that there were small cracks in the reality itself.

“I didn´t prederminated this either. The matrix – friendship between main six -  is like a chain. Only as strong as it´s weakest segment.”

Just when he finished talking he just barely dodged golden bolt, which Any shot at him.

“There is nothing stronger then friendship! I will prove it to you and will show to Fluttershy the truth!” Both ponies attacked, Nathan summoned dark crystals from shadows, while Any always shattered them with magic of Stardust´s bracelet.

“There are things stronger than that. In  this case it is truth itself!”

As they continued to fight, with every strong collision of light and shadow, the cracks were getting bigger. It almost looked like ticking clocks.

“There is one thing you still don´t understand Any. My determination is much stronger then yours.”

Blue haired earth pony didn´t answer and instead of that he cut with beam of light, trying to hit Nathan´s neck. But the light vanished, when a black crystal pierced Any´s side.

All strengh left him and he would fell, if he woudn´t got stopped by grey unicorn.

“I really didn´t want to kill you, but it´s for better world.” whispered to him and left the body fell on the floor.

When he turned around to see Fluttershy he noticed, that the reality around her was almost shattered. If that would happen, the whole Equestria would be poured on the Earth.

Nathan slowly walked to her bed and said into her ear, so she could hear him clearly.

“You can´t deny it.”

The air shattered and Nathan, Fluttershy and everything in that world was ripped out, like splinter from a finger.