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

by Faelivan

Rating: teen
Tags: Tragedy, Dark, Alternate Universe, Human, Sad, Adventure
Length: 14377

Post-apocalyptic story, where group of friends has to find a way to renew the harmony in the Broken world.

UPDATE: I changed the name of the story, because I got new idea, which in my opinion fits better, so sorry all of you, who clicked on the story and got confused.
* * * * *
World, now called Broken is filled with darkness and horrors, created, when Equestria was brutally poured on the Earth. Ponies and humans - who didn´t die during the Great Breaking - are living their lives scattered, with their wills broken and minds insane.
Magic of the pony world and primal evil of people conflicted and created fiends, hiding in shadows and waiting for any poor soul to come by. In this chaos are three friends, who didn´t lost their hope, each one with their own secondary goal. But they all wants the same thing. Renew the balance and seperate these two worlds. Is it possible? And how did this tragedy even happened?

*****
The story consists from two parts. What happened (the Great Breaking) and what happens next (three friends).
Also it is taking place between S3 and S4.

WARNING: The story mentions real-life places.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-04 10:34:05 UTC

What happened part 1.

It´s been long time, since being a brony was a simple hobby. Few thousands people liking the same thing and struggling with hate of others, who didn´t understand them.

Now? It´s been more rare not watching My Little Pony, then yes. The question was, if it was the right thing. Wasn´t it best, when it wasn´t something common?

Any looked from window on street under him and watched people with strangely colored hair, walking outside, often with images of ponies on clothes. Those people reminded him, that even he had light blue hair, not possible to be born with, not mentioning colorless eyes.

„Is something concerning you mister?“ spoke young girl´s voice behind him and when Any turned around he saw maid, standing in his office. She didn´t look like any regular woman. Her pale skin was sparkling like if it was made out of thin crystal pieces. That was another part of body, which people sometimes changed to look more like ponies. Same as the man, whom she called mister she had unusual color of eyes, which were turquoise, like same nammed stone, and rose red hair with black streams.

Any lived alone, since he had always too much work, to find a girlfriend, so he hired this girl as his maid to do housework for him.

“Yes Erii. I am thinking about the effect of My Little Pony on people. Just look at us!” Any spreaded his arms, as if he was going to hug the entire room. “It seems to me, that people are starting to dislike being humans and so they are changing their appearence, to match Equestria standarts. It just worries me, if it wasn´t better, when we were just a small community.”

Erii slowly touched her crystal-like skin. “My apologize mister, but I think that you are wrong.” She raised her eyes and met with his colorless ones.

“It´s not that we don´t want to be humans anymore. Everybody propably have different reasons, but I chose to do it, so I always remembered who I want to be. I want to be loving wife and caring friend, just like Princess Cadence and I don´t want to forget it. Ever.”

“And what about being us so many? Don´t you think that it used to be better, when being a brony or pegasister was something rare?”

“Definetely not mister! Just remember when was the last time when somebody commited a suicide! Or those terrible murders what often ocurred more then ten years ago! Even though it´s common now being like us, it definetely made an positive impact on the society! Who wants to have friends has them. People cares about each other and are more helpful. I personaly think that it´s incredible change compared to times, when Friendship is Magic was starting.”

Any slowly smiled and patted her on head. “You are right. Thank you, I am propably starting to be ungratuful. Now could you please make me some coffee?” asked her politely.

“Sure mister!” nodded and ran out of the office.

“Maybe I should get some rest. I am not thinking clearly, how could I not realize things like this?” whispered when the girl left the room.

Any again came to the window and looked out. This time he saw something rather unusual. A person with black and purple hair, carefuly brushed back, wearing black coat, almost touching the ground and walking straight to Any´s house.

“Erii?”

“Yes?” she shouted at him from the kitchen.

“Make those coffees two please. It seems that we will have a visit.”

“Of course!”

What could he possibly want? Everybody he worked with communicated with him via internet, or by calling him. It wasn´t often when somebody actually visited him.

Also he wasn´t sure if he even knew that guy. Fans of King Sombra were often wearing black clothes as well as Queen Chrysalis´s ones, but even those often preffered normal clothing.

Any didn´t waste time, and walked to the front door, before the person ringed the bell.

“Greetings Mr. Any. Pleasure to meet you.” greeted him the visitor and slightly bowed in front of him, when the doors opened, after he rang. Now, when he was close, Any noticed that he was wearing dark grey scarf too. It was summer, but even though he didn´t seem to be affected by the fact, that his body should be incredibly warm.

“Greetings. How can I help you?”

“My name is Nathan and I am working in Bifrost company. I am supposed to ask you for help with our newest project.”

Bifrost? Any knew what that was. Thanks to this company, things like unnatural color of eyes, hair and even crystalized skin were possible. They called themself Bifrost, after bridge from Norse mythology, which was supposed to lead into paradise.

“Well, things like this can´t be discussed in the doorway, please, come in.”

Blue haired man led the visitor back to the office, where they sat behind the table and Erii just in time finished making coffees.

Other strange thing Any noticed on Nathan was his strange eye color. Not that any color was unusual in those times, but his dark green eyes didn´t fit to his hair color. With his black and purple combination, Any would expect him to have them either black or some shade of violet. Definetely not green.

“So, what project do you need to help with? Don´t take me wrong, but I am sure that there are lot´s of specialists in the Bifrost.”

“There are, but you Mr. are famous with you headcanons and explanations of things, which

weren´t explained in the show. Fantasy isn´t something what we require in the company, so now we need as much creative people as possible.”

It was true - one reason why he never had too much free time was that his hobby was making theories about Equestria and posting them on internet. Any wouldn´t call himself famous, sure known, but definetely not as much to get Bifrost´s attention.

Quietly waited for Nathan to finish up his sip of coffee and meanwhile drinked his.

“This will sound silly, but did you heard about Heaven and Hell?” asked with tone of person who already knows the answer.

“Of course. Two dimensions, where souls of people travels after dead. What about them?”

“True. These two worlds cannot be accesed while in mortal body and each one is ruled by God or the Satan. Or by their other versions but that´s not important.

Our scientists found out, that our world and these two aren´t the only ones existing. In fact, there are millions of them, mostly completely empty. This maybe doesn´t sound very interesting, compared to existence of Heaven and Hell, but just wait.

We discovered, that we can create our own world, inside empty ones.”

The last sentence shocken Any, so he choked up with coffee.

“Are you trying to say, that you can create Equestria, inside of empty world?”

“Exactly! And that is why we need your help. If we want to create it, we have to establish thousands of things. Most of them are pretty obvious and we already have people to take care of them, but others needs to be discussed about. King Sombra´s origin, magic, homeland of changelings and so on.”

“But there is one problem. How can we get into that world, even if we create something there?”

“I am so glad you asked. As I said, Heaven and Hell can only be entered by a soul, so in order to get into empty world, we would have to die and direct our souls into bodies, which we would create in advance. This procces is two-way, so after finishing everything, we plan on sending a group of people into Equestria, who would check, if everything is alright and then came back with report.”

“So you want me to help you fill the holes in Equestria´s world bulding?”

“Yes, and as a reward, you would get the opportunity to be in the world of ponies.”

“Then we have a deal.”

Both men stood up and brehoofed in agreenment.

“Erii? I have to leave and I don´t know when I will return. Could you please cook something what I could eat tomorrow, in case it will take longer then I expect?”

“Of course mister. Just don´t overwork yourself. You´ve been working really hard in last few days.”

“Don´t worry, this shouldn´t be too difficult.”

Outside both men crossed the street, which Any was watching earlier and got into Nathan´s car.

“Where are we going exactly?”

“To the airport. The main base of Bifrost´s researches is castle of Wewelsburg, in Germany. Plane is already waiting for us.”

“Germany? You traveled long way just to get me.”

“At least you see how much important your imagination is for us, my boss professor Werner wants to finish this project as fast as possible which isn´t too suprising since we all wants to see Celestia raise the sun.”

“But still, why didn´t you guys contact me differentely?”

Nathan sighed, but didn´t stop watching the road. “Think about that question.”

Any scratched his short beard and thinked about it.

“You are afraid of somebody discovering your project?”

Nod. “And not only that. Can you imagine reaction of politics, if they knew what we plan? They would wipe us out from the face of the Earth.”

“Aha. Of course, I should´ve know it. After you create Equestria completely, you will not leave it empty. How many people do you plan to transfer?”

“Everybody who will want to, except for criminals of course. There is going to be plenty of space for all of them, because Equestria is giant continent and we only know handful of ponies. At the end, these people will be citizens of cities like Las Pegasus, Hoofington and so on.”

“I still can´t believe it. Living in Equestria!”

“They couldn´t believe either.” whispered Nathan and immediately shaked his head as if he was daydreaming.

“Who?”

“My colleagues.”

* * * * *

“Greetings Mr. Any, I am so glad you made it so fast.” greeted him older man wearing white shirt and black pants, when they arrived to Wewelsburg. Blue haired man couldn´t stop staring at beatiful old castle. He never was in Germany, but he saw photoes in magazines, but they were nothing compared to the real thing.

Along the way there, Nathan explained him, that Bifrost chose this castle as it´s main base ten years ago, because of it´s suitable location. Not only that they still were in higly developt country, but also there was lower chance of discovering their projects by government.

This place of course served for research purposes only. Things like economy were taking care of back in America.

“Pleasure meeting you.”

“Both, please come inside, you have to be tired after long journey.”

“Not so much, I personaly am very excited to hear details about empty worlds and so on, Mr. ...”

“Oh, exuse me, I forgot to indroduce myself. I am professor Werner. Nathan might told you about me.”

“Yes he did.”

“Let´s go inside so we can discuss everything.”

Professor led them through massive wooden gate, which was seemingly being opened automaticaly. Next, they walked through the castle itself, which was even more amazing then view from the ouside. Walls were covered by antic paintings and here and there were also old knight armors.

Simply breathtaking.

When they arrived into a large room, with wide wooden table in the middle, the professor turned to his followers.

“I believe that Nathan already explained to you, how does the transferring works. The creation of Equestria itself is incredibly complicated and would take weeks to fully understand it. So let me tell you what do we expect from you.”

“Alright.”

“It´s nothing what you wouldn´t be used to. Every day we, and by that I mean me, Nathan and few other people, meets here and solve holes in Equestria´s world bulding. After agreeing on something we immediately add it into a file, which will eventually create new world in one of the empty ones.”

“Seems that you want to have it done quickly.” commented Any, who was mighty suprised how easily people around him talked about creating a new world.

“Oh don´t worry. Of course, where you are going after all the work is done is going to be only beta version. It´s purpose will be to show us, how everything will look like and if it´s going to work. Then, after you come back, everything is going to be checked and edited. If there occures any problems.”

“I get it. I am no scientist, so I believe that you know what you are doing better then me.” answered him, with shy smile and old professor smiled back.

“It´s going to take a long time, until everything is done. If you want, you can stay here, so you don´t have to fly from America every day.”

“Thank you for offer. I will gladly stay here, but I need to go home just once to take care of few things. I am just not sure if I will catch a plane this late”

“If you want, you can stay here and fly home tomorrow. At least you will get used to the castle.”

“Thank you, that would be preferable.”

“I though so. Nathan, since you two seems to get along just well, could you please show Any his room and the rest of the Wewelsburg?”

“Of course professor!” Any almost forgot that Nathan was still with them. Since they arrived he didn´t say a word and with his black coat he easily hid in shadows.

“Thank you. I will leave you for now. I have some work to do.” excused himself Werner and walked away.

“So, you are making headcanons too?” asked Any, when both men headed into a room for guests, where he was supposed to spend a night and maybe even few weeks.

“Yes, I didn´t talk about them on public, but my favourite ones are those about King Sombra. That´s why professor Werner wants me to help with filling the holes in Equestria´s world building.”

“He seems like a nice guy that Werner. Kinda reminds me Princess Luna.”

During the time Any knew Nathan he seemed like quiet guy, who doesn´t like to show his emotions. He would definetely call him shy, which would also explain, why was he wearing coat and scarf in the summer.

Because of this he wouldn´t expect him to start laughing, after saying something like that. His laughter traveled through ancient halls of the castle and Any almost had to cover his ears because of echo.

“Luna? If he would hear you, he´d freak out. He hates her and thinks about her as a loutish brat.”

Well, he surely heard you. Thought Any. He began to understand, that working with this guy, might be actually interesting.

“Then who?” Asked Any still smiling Nathan.

“Propably Princess Celestia. Or at least that´s what he him says. But let´s not waste time, I still have to show you your room and other things...you curious Twilight Sparkle.”

Now it was Any who had to laught, even not so loudly. Twilight was his favourite pony and it was her from the main six who was in his opinion the most similar to him.

It was strange feeling, being in ancient castle owned by brony company and where was being created a way to the real Equestria.

About something like that. people, when the show started, about 10 years ago didn´t even dreamed about. They would feel sad and thought that something like that couldn´t ever happen.

Suddenly, blue haired brony began to realize, how much was everything going to change, if they succeeded. Not only his life, or Erii´s, but lives of all people on the Earth.

He just hoped that humans will be gratuful for this second chance and will not ruin their new home the same way how they did it with the Earth. And he didn´t mean pullution or anything like that. Darkness in hearts of people was a fact which they, as he hoped, will menage to overcome.

What happened part 2.

Weeks of working in the castle of Wewelsburg have past like a water in the river. At first, Any kept on getting lost in ancient halls and Nathan´s guidence proved to be essential. After about five days of life in the castle, blue haired brony finally got used to it.

Of course, there wasn´t too much time to do so, since he and other people were every day discussing about all possibilities, which they could implement into the Equestria. Turned out, that the biggest problem was Nathan´s hobby – King Sombra´s origins. Make a backstory for him wasn´t too difficult, but there was dark magic, which had to properly explained and most importantly – sealed somewhere, so only they knew, where to find it. Any expressed his opinion, that it would be best, if there wasn´t dark magic at all.

This option was declined, because – as he later understood – there had to be balance between good and evil and the best way to achieve that, was to have a power, which evil could potentionaly use. Of course to counter that, there were Crystal Heart and Elements of Harmony.

Even though this question was propably the most difficult, it couldn´t stand up to the importance of having a matrix, which would hold the Equestria in the empty world. As professor Werner explained to him, to get the “file” as everybody called it, into empty world, they had to create a hole in it´s reality. Unfortunately people hadn´t equipment to close it permanently, so for creation of Equestria´s beta version they agreed to create a matrix, which could as well be a permanent solution, since there was no possible way to break it.

Like this continued works two more weeks and during that time, the team closed up all important holes in Equestria´s world building. They hadn´t as much hard time as other people had - other teams, often made from dozens of people had to fill shops with merchandise, put animals into woods, plains and on sky, create backstory for every pony, who had any kind of connection with projects that Any´s team worked on and of course give flavor and smell to every possible thing on the continent and beyond it.

But at the end, all work has been done and Any, Nathan and four more people who worked either with them, or on other important projects, were being prepared for transfering into now completed beta Equestria.

“So, how are we going to get there?” asked Any and suspiciously looked at a giant machine with four beds, every one of them with leather belts for hands and legs. To be honest he was kinda scared, though he already knew that he has to die somehow, so they could transfer his soul into a body in Equestria, but who wouldn´t be scared in such situation? And the fact that Nathan was also shaking and had pale face didn´t really calmed him down.

“First you should know how does the soul work, because in order to get us eventually back here, we need our original bodies to be workable. So, lot´s of people thinks that soul is in your heart, chest or whatever. In fact it´s in your brain. Soul and your stamina, what you gain from eating and sleeping are two thigs, which keeps your mind going.

But it´s not directly in your blood either, it´s kinda hard to explain. Simply said, professor Werner and other scientists invented a poison which works like opening a bottle and pouring out the content. This is what´s going to happen with your soul, while the body stays perfectly functional. This machine will catch it and direct it into the Equestria, so you didn´t simply died.”

“Aha, and when we´ll go back the “liquid” will be just poured back to it´s bottle, right?”

“Yes.”

“So let´s do it.”

All four men lied down on the beds and scientists, who were operating with machine tied their hands and legs.

Before the poison was injected, Werner came to them and said: “Boys, you have no idea how am I jaelous at you. You are going to see the real Equestria and we have to stay here and wish you good luck.”

“To be honest I am so nervous right know, that I would gladly swapped my place with you.” answered him Any and tried to smile.

Professor stepped back and robotic arms came down from the ceiling, each holding one injection of transparent liquid inside.

“Good bye.” professor Werner waved his hand and watched the mechanic arms to inject the poison.

* * * * *

So, this is what people feels, when they experience clinical death?

He flew, even though he hadn´t a body, as far as he knew and saw things, even though he knew he hadn´t eyes to look around. Any just knew that was moving and he just knew that there were things around him. Though, calling them things would be inappropriate, because those were worlds. Sometimes he could feel something inside, but most of time not. Those times were, when worlds, he flew by, were the empty ones.

He hadn´t time to think about why they didn´t choose an closer empty world, because something in front of him was requiring his full attention. That something was nothing else then a world, but this one shined with all colors of rainbow and even with few more on top of that. In his spectral mind he knew that it was his destination. Equestria.

He tried to prepare somehow, even though he didn´t know how it will be like to suddenly in a pony body. He knew that it was going to be a pony, because all memebers of their group requested the race and appearance.

The colors were coming closer and closer, until Any suddenly opened eyes, like if he just woke up. And immediately screamed in pain. Every move was followed by agony, like if every muscle was being torn apart and every bone crushed.

His neck quickly filled with a liquid and he felt the taste of blood on his tongue, stopping him from screaming. He coughed it up, but the pain wasn´t weakening, but increasing. His skin and lungs felt like if they were burning and on top of all that he was caughing even more blood.

The only thing he could think of was, that his new body wasn´t used to movement or to simple living, but that didn´t ease the pain.

Any didn´t know how long did convulsions lasted, how long it took, before the pain left, or when he stopped caughing blood. The only thing he cared about at the end was that he was still alive. And with that in mind he lost consciousness.

Hours past, until Any woke up. To his relief the pain was almost away, but moving was still quite painful and the taste of blood in his mouth didn´t disappear either.

Nathan!

He and Nathan were together in one small group, which was supposed to go explore the Crystal Empire. The other two groups went into Ponyville and Canterlot.

“Are you alright?” asked and immediately realized, how much stupid question that was. He looked at lying grey unicorn, with black coat, covering his cutiemark and the same hairstyle as Nathan had and was shocked by amount of blood around him. Not just grass, but his coat and fur were soaked by it, when organs, which never worked had to suddenly do stuff.

Any realized, that he propably looked just as terrible, but that wasn´t his concern at that time. He walked towards his friend, not even minding that he hadn´t human legs anymore, and touched with his hoof Nathan´s neck, to check, if he was still alive.

Fortunately he was breathing and the second Any touched him, his eyes opened and Any realized, that even as a pony he still had them green, not fitting to his main colors.

“Can you stand up?”

“I...guess.” unicorn frowned with pain, but eventually menaged to stand still. “I didn´t expect the transfering to be so painful.” rasped with voice still tired from screaming. Any knew that it was terrible to think, but he was glad that he wasn´t the only one who lost the control over his feelings.

“We should go find a lake and wash the blood off, then we can go on our way to the Crystal Empire.”

“Sure. Let´s go.”

While slowly walking, Any stared at his surroundings and on his new body. He almost expected to see pixels, but he was pleasantly suprised. Even though everything looked like from the show, the leaves and grass were moving in the wind and everything felt like back on Earth. If they´ll menage to make the transfering less painful then he could easily imagine this world to be their new home.

What happened part 3. FINALE

“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.

Just a shadow

There he is!

Man with black and orange hair carefuly watched his prey, which was grey wolf-like animal. Human was tracking it an hour already and finally he found it´s lair.

Nervously squeezed handle of his dagger and sneaked towards the wolf. He planned on suprising it and killing it without a fight, but when he made a step, something broke and the noise alerted the prey.

Wolf quickly turned towards the source of noise and swung his paw towards the hunter. There was several meters long gap between them, so the wolf couldn´t possibly hit him, but that wasn´t what he wanted to do.

As his claws sliced through the air, black lines appeared and flew towards the man. Hunter tried to dodge it, but one of the magic blades scratched his side. And he could hear sound of magic waves cutting through the trees. He wasn´t seriously hurt, but enough to know that he had to kill that wolf as quickly as possible.

Human wasn´t suprised by mere wolf having magic powers. After Great Breaking, which unexpectedly merged Earth with Equestria, everything sank into darkness and chaos. Earth, as the hunter understood, wasn´t able to withstand all that magic and so, for some reason, which propably nobody knew, it gave it to animals and humans.

Or at least, as much as possible. The rest of it, and it wasn´t a small amout, remained and continued in breaking laws of physics. Everybody, no matter of race or gender were by pure force scattered across the world, breaking up all bounds they had between each other.

Pure madness, that what that was. Most of inteligent beings ended up insane from sudden losts, so nobody even tried to build up again any kind of society.

He was lucky enough to not have anybody to lost, in fact the Great Breaking gave him opportunity to find the one, who, he used to though, will stay only in his imagination.

But now he had to focus on the wolf, who wasn´t happy at all, that the hunter survived and was preparing for another magical attack.

Human was faster and threw his dagger which stabbed the beast into the neck. Animal choked and quickly started lose his balance and strenght, when the dark red liquid began to quickly leave his body. With it´s last growl it fell on the ground.

„Ts. Damn bugger.“ whispered hunter and gave a quick look to his wound. As he expected it wasn´t deep, but that didn´t mean that he couldn´t get an infection from it. He decided to take care of it, after he gets back to his momentary camp.

Hunter grabbed the wolf´s body, sliced his belly and ripped out all organs. They were eatable, or at least most of them, but he hadn´t time or equipment for it, so simple meat had to be enough.

He was about to throw them away, but then he noticed something hard in beats´s stomach. After he sliced it open, he discovered that it was medium-sized pouch and several bones.

It propably belonged to wolf´s last victim. When animals obtained magic after the Great Beaking, many of them became higly aggresive and didn´t hesitate for a second to eat a human, when they were hungry.

Hunter opened it and saw several pieces of variously colored crystals.

„Hmm, this might be useful, even though I can´t eat them.“ so he attached the pouch to his leather belt, picked up dead wolf and headed to his camp, which was basically just a flat place where he decided to spend night.

Night. Also something doubtful. The hunter didn´t see the sun since Great Breaking, three years ago. He and everything living had to get used to it. Fortunately the sun still existed and was just permamently hidden behind black clouds, so „day“ was just less dark „night“.

Along the way he got rid of all part from the wolf, which he didn´t planned on eating, for example

it´s head and fur and threw it into bushes. The animal wasn´t really as young as he hoped, which meant that it´s meat was going to be tough and hard to eat. But whatever, he needed to eat something and during those three years he had to eat much worse things then just tough meat.

Finally he arrived on the place, where he decided to sleep. It was just flat space in the forest, surrounded by bushes.

Hunter already prepared for himself small campfire and when he even had something to roast, he just had to ignite it.

So the hunter took out two sharp stones, from one of his many pouches and used them to create small sparkles, which then turned into small flames. After few blows the whole surroundings bathed in orange light.

There was no point in trying to do anything fancy with the meat, so the hunter just attached it to a stick and holded it over the fire. Then he remembered the wound on his side, which didn´t even hurt anymore, so he wedged the end of the stick between few rocks and took of his hard leather chestpiece and cloth shirt, which he weared under it. The chestpiece alone was incredibly uncomfortable, since he made it by himself, so besides being hard, so it gave him enough protection, it also was very rought and scratched like hell, when he weared it on the skin.

It worked great against physical threats, but against magic it was like being naked, but better something then nothing.

„Damn.“ slipped from his mouth, when he examined the scratch, which was now surrounded by dried blood.

From another pouch he took out small glass bottle with not nicely smelling ointment. It was disinfection, which he made by combining several kinds of herbs. It was the best he could make alone, without complicated equipment.

But that also meant that there wasn´t anything to prevent pain.

Hunter painfuly hissed, when he forced the ointment, into still wet living flesh and he could hear quited sounds of bacteries being burned by the mixture. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and took out not large coil of bandages, which he often found in ruins of cities, where he had to go on scavenger hunts.

After those three years, most of consumable things were already gone or expired, but it was something. Fortunately there wasn´t many of those, who would want things like that, since, when somebody suddenly lost his home, familly and friends, the last thing he desired was to stay alive.

When he began to wrap the bandage around his side he heard noise in the bushes. He didn´t know what that was, so he just pretended to not notice it, so that in case it would be something dangerous, he could suprise it.

But as the source of the sound was coming closer it seemed less and less as any kind of danger. The one who was walking out there didn´t care at all about if somebody heard him or not. That wasn´t something that any kind of hunter or one of those cursed fiends would do.

As he waited for the intruder to come out of bushes, he grabbed the handle of his dagger. Just in case.

To his suprise, from the bushes came out grey pony with cape on his head and walked right by the hunter, to the fire, where he lied down and besides short glance towards him, he didn´t pay any attention to the human. Instead of that he just stared into the flames.

Hunter couldn´t really say if he was mare, stallion, or how did he exactly looked like. All of that because of his cape.

Since he didn´t seemed as much of a threat, hunter decided to get his attention.

“Do you need help?” asked carefuly. He couldn´t not notice that the pony was unicorn, so even if he didn´t seemed dangerous, he definetely had magic to use.

“Does it even matter? You help me and I will just suffer longer.” answered him quiet male voice, suprisingly young.

“Life isn´t suffering. It depends on how you will live it.”

“Naive. There is no hope in this raped world.”

“Think whatever you want. I have my goals, and I will accomplish them, no matter what condition the world is in.”

Pony still stared into the flames, but his voice sounded much more sadder then before.

“Naive.”

Hunter was interested by this pony. Most of survivors were so lost in themselves that they wouldn´t react even if somebody died directly in front of them. But this one was sane enough to have a conversation with him. That meant that there still was hope for him and the human always used opportunity to show it to somebody.

“Here, take this!” he grabbed the pouch, which he found in wolf´s stomach and threw it in pony´s direction. Few of the crystals fell out, but that was exactly what he wanted.

Grey pony looked at them and the hunter could hear quiet rumbling, coming out of pony´s belly.

“Why are you doing this? Why aren´t you broken as everybody else? What makes you continue?”

Hunter didn´t say anything for a while and focused on the meat above the fire.

“It´s not important to know why should you continue, but to know what made you want to begin in the first place.”

“And what was that?”

“I am searching for Ponyville to...” he couldn´t finish his sentence, because the grey pony suddenly stood up, so fast that his cape fell off and the hunter could see purple eyes angrily shining through black and purple mane, which´s streams were falling into his face.

“Don´t talk about Ponyville!” shouted the pony, but even though he was seemingly very mad, his horn did not shine.

“Why not?” the hunter was suprised by his sudden change of mood, but also was curious about his reasons.

“It reminds me how the world used to be! How beatiful it was until somebody destroyed everything!” he pauzed for few seconds. “What´s funny about that?” growled, when he noticed weak smile on man´s face.

“See? You are able to get mad. That means that there are things you care about.”

He raised his head and his simple light blue eyes met with those purple ones.

The grey pony freezed as he realized the meaning of his words.

“What are you...talking about?” his voice was shaking and weak, as he fought his inner battle.

“If you were as broken as you think you are, you wouldn´t feel anything. No hatred towards the one, who brought upon us the Great Breaking. Hell! You wouldn´t even talked to me.”

“I guess you are right. There are things worth living for. I just was...”

“Scared?” tried to help him.

“That as well. But mostly I was too focused on how everything changed and on my misery.”

The grey pony picked off the ground one crystal, that the hunter gave him and bitt off piece of it.

“So what are you going to do now? Revenge?”

“No. At the end, revenge would just destroy my life inti pieces. There is something different. As I said, I was too focused on the lack of hope in this world, so I didn´t even notice that I don´t have any memories on what I did before the Great Breaking. I know how the Equestria was, but that´s about everything.”

“So, you want to try discover your past?”

“Heh. I am not gonna try. I will do it. That lack of memories makes me feel, as if I had hole in my chest. And I want it to stop. You said that the most important thing is to remeber, why did I start. Well, I maybe don´t know that, but I surely know, why am I starting right now.”

His eyes shined with life, which hunter didn´t see for very long time. He was actually suprised, how quickly did this pony find a way to go in his life, but since he seemingly wasn´t insane and just wished to be, the realization wasn´t difficult. He just needed a little push.

“I am happy for you. Don´t you want to travel with me? I think that we both will feel more comfortable together, rather then alone.”

“Can I?” for the first time. The hunter heard some joy in pony´s voice.

“Sure. My name is Dust.”

“My name is...ehm...”

Unicorn´s face got all confused as he tried his best to remember, what he wanted to say.

Did he forgot his name too?

After a while, all the confusion dissapeared and pony sighed.

“Call me Shade. I fell like, whoever I was in the past, I am nothing more then his shadow, until I become whole again.”

Dust comfortably leaned against a tree, bitt off piece of wolf´s meat and watched Shade to chew hard pieces of crystals.

„You want to know where the Ponyville is, right?“

Goal

„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.

Forsaken base

The deeper he adventured into dark tunnels of forsaken military base, the more his fear grew stronger. It was as if large cold hand grabbed his chest and prevented him from breathing slowly. Shade knew that it was foolish idea to go seperate ways, when he alone had no means of protecting himself. But his pride was stronger then fear, and so he continued walking through the darkness. Along the way he went past many doors, and he tried to open them, but all were locked and made of solid metal. And the last wise thing to do would be causing noise.

As the silent adventure continued, Shade started to realize things, which he hadn´t though of before. For example how exactly will he find what he was searching for, whatever that was?

When he first asked himself that question, his first reactiong were curses pointed towards his arrogance and desire to prove his independence.

Fortunately, the answer came quickly enough, so he didn´t had to give up. Maps and reports will be most likely in office and there was just a small chance, that an office would look like any regular room. Any architect would put it at the end of a road, so it would be easier to find.

Shade didn´t know how did he get to such conclusion, but he attributed it to his lost memories. He propably knew something about this before The Great Breaking and it was just a tiny bit, that was hidden in his memory and just now came to the surface.

His joy went quickly down, when he came across a crossroad. Multiple of them.

“Just fantastic!” whispered angrily, when he went pass third one. The last thing he wanted was to get lost, so Shade always went the left way, so getting back would be easier, but damn, that base was huge.

Just when he started to lose hope again, he saw lane of darkness, which was darker then shadows around it, far from him. And by far he realized, was meant several meters. Even with eyes used to three years of darkness he wasn´t able to see almost anything. He barely saw his hooves and all colors were shades of grey.

As he was getting near to the darker lane, he realized that it´s gap, made by half-closed doors. With this discovery he also noticed another thing. The base wasn´t nearly as quiet as it was minutes ago. Shade immidiately stopped close to the gab and listened.

In that moment it was just an echo, so he couldn´t really say, what the sound was, but as it was getting closer he distinguished the souces. There were fast clapping of hooves, some strange tinkling of something small, made of metal and the strangest one weren´t footsteps, but as if somebody was dragging behind him heavy cloth.

His first idea was that it was one of those fiends, that Dust mentioned, but he said that they were souls, and what soul makes sounds of clapping hooves?

Then he heard the voice.

“Leave me be!”

It was made by a gils and was mixture of anger and fear. Enough emotions to prove, that it´s owner was at least a bit sane.

Shade shortly wondered how did he know that it belonged to a girl, since he didn´t meet one since he met Dust and didn´t remembered any encounters from before. But now wasn´t time for that. It was a terrible idea, but he was going to save the girl and he even had same kind of plan.

By that time it was obvious, that the girl and whatever was chasing her had to run past him, so he opened the door a bit and turned his back on it. Light movement revealed, that even though they were old, the hinges were still well lubricated.

Then he just waited for them to show up.

The sounds were getting closer and closer, until he finally could see the one who he was going to try to save. She looked like a pony, but seemingly with better eyes, since she was staring at him, even before he himself could see her head.

In order to not ruin the moment of suprise he just smiled and shaked with his head to show her, that he wasn´t meaning her any harm.

The very second she ran past him he saw a silhouette of the “thing” what chased her. He couldn´t waste time staring at it, because it was very fast. All he noticed was that it was floating, it had heavy grey cloak, which was making one of the sounds he heard and from somewhere inside came the sound of tinkling.

Right when it was getting close to hidden Shade kicked the door as strong as he could.

Since he joined Dust in his adventure to find Ponyville, he finally started to eat like normal pony should have. There wasn´t enough time to fully recover, but he definetely was much stronger then when he radomly found the human, who became his only friend.

For a split of second he got afraid that his little trap won´t work, but finally he heard loud noice of metal hitting a metal. That thing sure was a fiend, which meant that a simple door couldn´t hurt it, but it was seemingly carriing the item, to which it was bound to with it.

And hitting that precious object was what made that sound...and also caused loud unholy scream, which shaked with Shade´s every bone.

“Come on, don´t just stand there!” spoke the girl behind him, he felt strangely sharp hoof around his front leg and she dragged him away.

“We have to get outside! That thing definetely isn´t dead and it will come back for us any minute!”

“Then we should kill it right know!”

“We can´t. These things are vulnerable only to magic.”

“They are not. This one is carring an object and is bounded to it with it´s life. You could´ve notice it, when I hit it with those doors.”

“An object? I really did see it carry an old ring with keys on it but I didn´t though...”

Shade interrupted her, to which she reacted with angry growling. “If you can create a distraction I could take them from it and break them with those opened doors. According to what my friend said, it should kill it.”

“Should...I don´t like this, but it´s better to let that thing hunt us down. Go hide in that turn and leave it to me.”

It didn´t take long to hear the sound of dragging cloth again. And that damn tinkling. After a while, the fiend appeared out of the darkness and Shade could notice how did he really looked like. And he wished, he didn´t look.

It used to be a human, but now it was half of spectal skeleton, covered in the cloak. Eyes, that should´ve been blind without any eyes stared dead at the girl.

“So you aren´t here alone after all.” whispered that thing with voice lacking any emotions.

“I will admit, that hit wasn´t really pleasing. First you and then your friends, you all will suffer and die in my prison.”

The girl was slowly retreating, but hit a wall with her back. Skeleton reached his arm to grab her and spinned the keys in his other hand.

That´s my chance!

Shade jumped out of his cover in darkness, bit the metal circle and snatched it out of the meatless hand. Then he immediately rushed towards the opened door. He could hear the fiend turn around and hurry after him, but he tried to not think about it.

Soon he was welcomed by line of black darkness. With keys in mouth he tried to force them inbetween metal doors and the frame.

His heart was beating like crazy and on top of that, those keys got covered in saliva and he almost got heart attack when they didn´t got stuck on one place, but instead slid down and got stopped by the hinge.

“Quickly! Close the door!” heard Shade voice of that girl and when he raised his head, he saw the fiend charging in his direction and just before he could reach him, the grey pony kicked the door to close them.

Sound of breaking metal came out and then there was just a scream of the undead creature as it quickly disolved and died again. Only it´s cloak stayed.

“Finally it´s gone.” the girl hugged Shade, which made him freeze on place just like fiend´s scream. Eventually he got hold of himself and returned the hug and again noticed, that her hoves and whole body was strangely sharp.

“Thanks for saving me. I am Violet. It´s nice to see face, that didn´t lost hope.“

“I´m Shade. Yea, it really is rare these days, but what are you doing in place like this?”

Violet blushed, which was something that Shade couldn´t notice in the dark.

“You will propably think that it´s weird, but I had a dream about this place. A day ago I went past this base, but then it appeared in my sleep. There was voice calling me inside and since I was running out of supplies I decided that i might as well visit it. What about you?”

“That´s kinda long story. Let me tell it to you on the way out.”

* * * * *

Dust, discousted, dropped on floor small madailon, which shattered into pieces after impact. Few minutes ago there was woman human fiend bounded to it. Hunter didn´t know what reason she had to become demon, but he didn´t care. He had enough skills and means to deal with enemies like that.

He did it in past and this one wasn´t anything special.

It took him about ten minutes to reach the end of the road, which ended with solid wooden door.

“If those maps aren´t here, then I don´t know anymore.” Dust tried to open it, but it wouldn´t budge. Nothing suprising, so he took out his knife and carefuly tried to pick the lock with it. After a while he heard the sound of unlocking and doors opened inside.

“Shade will be pissed.” said, when he saw tables covered with all kind of maps. Mostly of Europe. All of them had all kinds of notes on them and some even had red cirles around certain areas.

This was what they came there for, but that wasn´t all. One of the tables had on it instead of maps papers, which even hunter like Dust recognized as reports and orders.

Unfortunately they were all in that foreing language, but human didn´t lost hope just yet.

“There has to be vocabulary somewhere, in case they would get an order in foreing language. So he examined book shelfs, until he found the book he needed.

“Hmm, seems like I could translate all of this into english, even without knowing the grammar. It will sound akward as hell, but I need the informations, not freaking elementary school.”

Dust sat to one of the tables, which had at least some clear space on it and started to translate of of the newest reports, which came from place called Wewelsburg.

* * * * *

He didn´t even realize how much time did past, but he menaged to have one of the maps, that seemed as most important, and the newest report, translated, right when higly mad Shade and some unknown girl entered the office.

No...that wasn´t just an unknown girl he quickly realized, when he noticed her black skin, or more like quinine protecting her body, sharp hooves and eyes without pupils. She was a changeling!

“Oh, who do we got here?”

“Hi, thanks for NOT leaving any message at the entrance, which was the least you could do, since we agreed on meeting there. We spended like two hours standing there, waiting for you to show up, until we went to check on you!”

“Hups. Sorry. I got distracted by my find.”

“Anyway. Violet this is my friend Dust. He is that human hunter who saved me from madness. Dust, this is Violet. I met her deep inside the base, being hunted by a fiend. But we took care of it.”

“Pleasure too meet you.” said human from behind the table.

“You too. Shade told me, that you guys are searching for Ponyville. It´s not really my goal too, but could I join you? It´s been so long, since I traveled with anybody and I don´t have yet clear, where exactly I want to go.”

“Yea sure, if Shade doesn´t mind, then welcome to the group. Anyway, about these maps. Seems that almost all research of The Great Breaking was being made in a castle called  Wewelsburg. I got it marked here on the map, along with out location.If there is a place to get full map of the Broken, it will be there.”

“Then there is no reason to stay in this cursed building. Let´s go.” said Shade.

“The only problem is, how do we get there. According to this map it´s not only 200 kilometers far, but also it seems like part of Equestria appeared betweeen this base and that castle.”

Both guys seemed clueless, but Violet had an idea.

“Didn´t you humans have vehicles of some kind? Even in Equestria we hade some.”

“Of course! I completely fogot! It´s been so long. Yes, we did have them and I am pretty sure that there could be some in this base.”

Dust took all maps and papers, he considered as important ones, the vocabulary and along with their, new companion they left the office.

* * * * *

When the doors closed, near the table, where few minutes ago sat Dust, appeared a figure of a human. He could have been as tall as Dust and his whole body was hidden under grey robe. Even his hands were safely in same colored gloves and even through there was window to the room, his face wasn´t visible at all.

Human raised his head, or more exactly – his hood and looked at the window.

There was thin sunbeam, that somehow fought it´s way through permanent clouds and darkness. The cloaked person stared at it and reached with his arm, as if he was going to touch it. But before his fingers went through, the sunbeam dissapeared.

The cloaked human stood there for a small while and then he dissapeared too.