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

„Well, I can´t tell you that, but I know about place where you might find some clues.“

Shade paused for a while, so he could eat some more colorful crystals, which almost drived Dusty crazy with impatience.

„That place is a human military base. Now, I am not sure how did they worked in human world, but in Equestria - I am pretty sure – they served for the purpouse of guarding certain areas, which means that there always were dozens of all kind of maps.“

Hunter scratched his short beard while he considered this new objective.

„They didn´t really served for the same purpouse on Earth, but we definetely should be able to find maps there. The only question is if they will do any good for us, since the Great Breaking changed both worlds immensely.“

„Well, there is only one way to find out.“

Shade tried to stand up, which caused him to lost his balance. Curiously he stared at his legs, as if he saw them for the first time.

„Damn. All that starvation and aimless walking just now started to affect me.“

„Just take it easy. We are not in hurry.“

„Right. Guess I could use a bit of sleep.“

Grey unicorn took off his brown traveling cape and placed it on the ground, so he could lrest his head on it later.

Now, without the cloth covering his body Dust noticed how skinny that pony was, which made him wonder, how many times did he actually ate something. From his own experience he knew that insanity can help ponies and people to survive longer.

One of the main reasons why starvation caused deaths was the fact that the dieing one accepted his fate. But when he wasn´t paing attention to his body´s needs and wasn´t wasting too much energy, the process of starving to death was much slower.

But Shade seemingly had far to become mad pony, so how did he do it?

„That´s nice toy you got there.“ hunter pointed at a necklace handing on pony´s neck. The jewel looked like simple golden coin with two grey and red gems in it.

„Thanks. I don´t even know where I got it from. All I know is that I had it after the Great Breaking and during my travels it never left my neck. Not that I cared. If it would fall off I wouldn´t even notice. But since it´s still here I guess I will keep it as lucky talisman.“

Shade put his head on the cape and closed his eyes.

„Luck is something, you will definetely need.“

„Meh. I don´t count on luck.“ one eye opened and stared at the hunter. „If it´s my destiny to die somewhere then so be it. What I want is to be powerful enough to bend the destiny to my will.“

Right after he said it his body relaxed and Dusty could hear slow breathing of a sleeping pony.

„Power to bend destiny? You changed a lot during these few minutes I know you. Who knows? Maybe this world can be saved.“ whispered, finished eating the wolf´s meat and went to sleep.

Last thought that came across his mind was: How much big of a difference is between hope and arrogance?

* * * * * *

Next day Dust woke up earlier then Shade. It was understandable, since he slept periodically unlike the pony lying next to fireplace, who propably slept only when his body just couldn´t move anymore.

I will give him few more minutes.

In the meantime he decided to have a look around, since the day before that he focused on the hunt, rather then on the scenary. With bit of luck he might find some eatable berries or mushrooms.

It used to be hard to search for stuff three years ago, since the sky was permantely dark, but as the time went his sight and sight of all living creatures developt and so he could see pretty good even at night.

But Dust wished to have the same luck with searching for food in that moment, as there were only bushes and moss everywhere.

After roughly 20 minutes he gave up and went back to the camp.

To his suprise Shade was already awake and seemingly had the same idea as him. But with better luck, which was obvious from two bowls, made out of some large leaves, filled with multicolored berries.

“How did you find them?”

“I don´t know. Guess that ponies have better smell then humans. Or maybe it was because few meter this way are bushes covered with these things.”

Even though Shade was trying to be funny, corners of his mouth didn´t move at all and remained in not amused expression. But Dust couldn´t blame him, he understood, that this pony will need time to fully recover from what seemingly was three years of solitude.

“I will go with the fist option.” answered finally.

After the breakfast, both human and pony began their journey to find the military base, that Shade was talking about. According to his memories it was supposed to be to on south from the place, where they slept, which was completely opposite direction from the one which Dust wanted to go in order to find the Ponyville.

Even though he risked Shade´s anger, like when he mentioned that town for the first time, Dust decided to tell him about this fact.

“Why are your searching for Ponyville anyway? It´s propably going to be ghost city, maybe with few forsaken souls, just as every other city.”

“I don´t really care about Ponyville itself, but about somepony who lived there.”

Unicorn´s face became confused and seemingly was very curious about hunter´s reasons, but decided to stay quiet. If Dust want´s to tell him, he will.

“Did you ever heard of pony Applejack?”

“Hmm, it feels like I should know her, but I don´t. What about her?”

“She helped me a lot before the Great Breaking. Thanks to her I understood the meaning of honesty and found again love to family. You know, I used to be big liar, but I lied only to myself. Pretended to be somebody else, somebody who I wasn´t and didn´t want to be, just so I could be in company of people who I considered friends.

But even though I behaved as shit to them, it were my family members, who stood behind me and holded my hand, when my so called “friends” abandoned me.”

“Oh, so you became honest to yourself and was the person who you truly were, even if you couldn´t hang out with certain company. Right?” Dust nodded and Shade continued talking. “But what I am curious about is how did you meet with Applejack before the Great Breaking? I mean, back then our worlds were seperated.”

“Oh, so you don´t know it. Both our worlds had some kind of connection between them. For us, Equestria and adventures mostly in Ponyville were...I don´t know how to explain it, because you in Equestria didn´t have the same technology as us. You know movies right?”

“Right.”

“So, you could basically say that we had movies about ponies, but they weren´t recorded. Instead of that we used technology to make drawen pictures to move. But back to the topic. In Equestria existed a magical mirror that could transport you into our world directly, which wasn´t something that we humans could do.”

“Oh, I get it. So this is how you “met” Applejack. You saw a story or multiple ones about her, which was considered to be made up, but now when we ponies are real, you want to meet her in person.”

“Yes. There were three seasons about Equestria, but I didn´t saw them all. There wasn´t  enough time.”

“Right, the Great Breaking.”

Dust just nodded again.

“Well, now I at least understand how you didn´t become insane. Friends left you and you didn´t have enough time to create strong bonds with your family. And you have a goal, which I will gladly help you with.”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Several reasons. I like your life story and I am curious about how it´s going to end. And also Ponyville is the place where users of Elements of Harmony came from. Maybe there is still hope in saving this world.”

“Maybe.”

As they continued walking, with few breaks to catch a breath Dust was telling Shade all kinds of stories not only about humans, but about ponies too and since the grey unicorn hadn´t any to share, Dust found in him grateful listener.

He didn´t like thinking about it, but he really missed the company of others and even though Shade was quite quiet pony, it was so much better then being alone.

They walked for days, or at least what seemed as days. There wasn´t really a way to know, when the day ended and night started, but that wasn´t important. When they were tired then they slept and when they weren´t then they walked. As simple as that.

Days have passed, until they finally stood in front of large building, surrounded with rusty barbed wire. All the windows have been destroyed long time ago and as expected, the inside of building was silent and dark.

“This place sucks. It gives me chills.” whispered Shade.

“Yea me too, and I wouldn´t be suprised if there were fiends inside.”

“Fiends?”

“Yea. Creatures made of darkness. They are souls of those, who died with hatred in their hearts. Mostly. There can be exceptions, but that´s not important. They are deadly, so don´t adventure too far away from me.”

“I am not a child. Just tell me, how to kill them.”

Dust weakly smiled. It was so long, since he went somewhere with somebody that he completely forgot, that not everything lies upon him.

“Fiends are usually bounded to a single objects. Sometimes they carry it with them and sometimes it can be hidden, but it is always close.”

“So I have to destroy that thing?”

“Yes, or you can use magic.”

“Alright. Let´s go find an entrance.”

Unfortunately, the walls protecting the whole place were still in pretty good shape, so two friends had to find the gate, which rusted and fell seemingly long time ago. The difficult part began, when they entered the base.

“Celestia damn it! This thing is total maze!”

“Hmm, soldiers usually had marked important rooms, so they could easily navigate through. But who knows to which country this base belonged to?”

“There is something. Hmm. -Levne schlapky u tycse.- What?”

Dust with smile looked at picture of naked woman on the poster they were looking at and which Shade tried his best to read.

“This isn´t for navigation and I rather not explain what it actually is. But seems like local soldiers weren´t speaking English.”

“Well, then I think we should seperate. That way we will find what we are looking for faster.”

“I guess, but I don´t like the idea of leaving you alone. I at least have some experience with fiends.”

“Don´t worry.” Shade pointed with his hoof on his horn. “I am unicorn, remember?”

“Ok, we´ll meet at the entrance.”

After they both went different ways, Shade stopped and looked to the entrance and then to the darkness in front of him.

“Unicorn. But without a magic.” whispered and continued deeper inside the base.