The last thunderbolt

Things have been going on quite calmly in Ponyville ever since Rainbowdash joined the Wonderbolts. Due to all her training for the team, she's been spending a lot less time with Whitemane lately, but he didn't seem too bothered about that. Whitemane started spending more time with Fluttershy though, and no one really knew why. What could two such different ponies have in common? wondered the rest of the mane six, not that they were bothered by that, it just seemed awkward to them.

For quite a while, nothing worthy of some ponys attention happened in Ponyville, until one day Whitemane started looking really tired, and even...as if tormented by something. When Twilight asked "what was wrong" he would just say "nothing". The other ponies had nearly forgotten all about it, but it happened again and again, and Whitemane looked worse with each next time. All that the other ponies could get out of him was that he had a bad dream.

Eventually the ponies started becoming suspicious and even nervous of Whitemanes odd behavior and refusal to admit what's wrong. They were going to question him on the next day but when they awaited Whitemane to wake up and come to the center of Ponyville for a talk, Whitemane didn't arrive. They went to his house and didn't find him there either. They searched the entire town and even a little bit of Everfree forest...There was no sight of Whitemane anywhere.

On the night before Whitemanes disappearance he had another one of his so called "bad dreams" that have been tormenting him for quite a while. He'd been seeing weird visions of places he'd never seen before and a sinister voice telling him to follow, but he didn't even know which way to go, until that one night, when the voice screamed "To the west!" right before his dream ended, and so he set forth to the west, in hopes of finding an answer to his weird dreams.

                                                                                     ***

Whitemane didn't pack anything since he relied on the journey to be short. He flew fast, hoping to shorten the journey even more. He flew and he flew, seeing some of the places he'd seen in his dreams along the way, but not nearing his goal. At the end of his dreams he would always see some kind of meteor land and make a giant hole in the ground. That was what he was looking for, but had not found any sings of it so far.

Night time soon came, and Whitemane just found a soft spot on the grass to lay down for the night, but the dreams at this point got so unbearable that he would wake up nearly right after falling asleep every time. Sleeping was impossible, so Whitemane had nothing else to do but to keep on flying forward. Despite the darkness, his speed of flight was still the same, until his strenght started fading. Yet Whitemane pressed on no matter how tired he was.

He just kept on thinking that he would reach his destination soon enough. It wasn't long before he started regretting not packing any food or water with him. He flew for two more days....that's when he realized that there was no going back. Either he finds his destination or at least a sea...river...anything! Even a puddle would do to end his thirst. The journey he made was already too far from Ponyville, and he knew that going back would mean dying of thirst.

It wasn't long before he was completely worn out and couldn't even lift his wings anymore. He started walking and later even crawling and gasping nearly every second. His mouth was as dry as a desert, he even tried to drink his own sweat when he saw some. After half an hour of crawling he saw a ledge and figured that it was the edge of the giant crater from that the meteor had made. He barely had enough strenght left to reach it, and as he did he simply fainted and rolled into the crater.

All Whitemane could do was hope that he would role into water, if not, then.....well, lets just say that he wouldn't need to worry about bad dreams anymore.

On the next day Whitemane woke up in the middle of the crater. Oddly, he felt great, without a sign of thirst, hunger or tiredness, so he stood up and started looking around. Water or food was nowhere to be seen. Whitemane wondered why did he feel so great all of a sudden when he should be happy that he's even still alive. Whitemane dreams seem to have ceased, which led him to believe that he's reached his destination.

It was a really massive pit in the ground, but it didn't look like it was caused by a meteor, cause there were no bits of it to be seen, there was only brown ground everywhere...well, almost everywhere at least. Whitemane set his sights on some kind of giant square shaped piece of obsidian. It had an opening at it's bottom the shape of a door. What's weird is that there was nothing behind it, the door didn't lead anywhere since there was a wall behind it.

Irritated by the fact that he's traveled all this way, Whitemane said out loudly "This is it? All these sleepless nights and this tiresome journey just to see some giant door with a mountain in front of it? ARE YOU F***ING kidding me?!" Shouted Whitemane, outraged by the fact that the one who was sending him these visions was nothing but a troll.

With great fury, Whitemane kicked the obsidian sculpture and hurt his hoof "OUCH! Stupid rock!" Shouted Whitemane and started jumping around in agony. He stopped jumping soon enough. "Great! I'm talking to a rock...might as well name him "Tom" while i'm at it." Said Whitemane sarcastically. Whitemane turned around and was about to fly back to Ponyville when all of a sudden he heard a weird noise coming from the rock. He turned around and saw the entrance of the rock was shinning in purple lights. Whitemane wanted to go closer but suddenly an axe flew out of the doorway right towards Whitemane and he didn't dodge it in time, as it flew right for his face.

"AAAH!" Whitemane woke up screaming. "Huh? Phew...just another dream...or was it?" Whitemane had no idea where he actually was, so he just flew west, and reached the crater in just a few minutes. As Whitemane looked in the crater, he saw the giant rock standing still, with no signs of a portal, or whatever it was opening from it. Whitemane went down, touched the stone and waited for something to happen, but nothing did. After a short while, Whitemane flew back to Ponyville, this time not turning his back on the rock for even a second.

Whitemane kept wondering along the way if he could sleep soundly now. He kept flying and kind of hoping night time would come soon so he would know whether he can sleep again or not, but after a short while Whitemane could already see Ponyville. Surprised by what his eyes were showing him, Whitemane stopped in mid air, took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes thinking that they're fooling him, but they weren't...Ponyville was right in front of him.

"Huh...i could have sworn it was way further when i was flying the other way...what trickery is this?" Asked Whitemane to himself and continued his flight to Ponyville. In less than a minute, Whitemane was already at the first houses of the town and got spotted by one of the ponies searching for him.

The first pony to spot him was Fluttershy, who then yelled from excitement "Whitemane! Girls! I've found him!" She shouted trying to attract the attention of the other nearby ponies.

The rest of the mane six popped their head out of various nearby spots in Ponyville and momenterally rushed over to greet Whitemane. The mane six gathered around Whitemane and started cheering as they all gave him a great bit hug.

"Where have you been?" Asked Twilight, overjoyed by Whitemanes return.

"Yea, what happened? we've been worried sick." Added Fluttershy.

"Hehe, if only i knew my dear ponies...if only i knew." Replied Whitemane in a bright attitude.

The ponies all widened their eyes and gave a confused look upon Whitemane. "What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Rainbowdash.

"It simply means that i don't exactly know where i've been." Replied Whitemane.

Whitemanes sentence made the ponies even more confused. "HOW can you not know where have you been?" Asked Twilight.

"He looks really tired, i think he doesn't even know what he's talking about right now. I think we should let him rest for a bit" Said Fluttershy, worried about Whitemane.

"You have no idea....there's nothing i'd like more right now than a good nights sleep" Said Whitemane and yawned.

"Alright...but you'd better be ready to explain what happened to you on the next day." Said Twilight.

"Sound good" Replied Whitemane and started heading over to his house.

"And don't even think about running off again!" Yelled Rainbow.

"Don't worry, i won't." Yelled Whitemane back to Rainbow as he walked off. Whitemane was sound asleep already In less than an hour.

                                                                                     ***

Whitemane slept soundly that night, no visions were torturing his dreams that night. A new day dawned and Whitemane was awoken by a sound of breaking glass. Shocked by the loud noise, he turned around to see what could have caused it. What Whitemane saw then made him think he was dreaming again. He saw the same axe that flew out of the portal in one of his previous visions. The axe was stuck in the inner wall of his house and it must have been what broke his window.

Whitemane got up to get closer to the axe to see if it's real, but a scream coming from outside attracted his attention. He walked over to the window and saw something worthy of nightmares. Whitemane started backing off from the window in fear as he saw the entire town of Ponyville bursting in flames. Pegasi were flying around trying to exhaust the flames that had caught their wings. They either didn't make it in time and burned down and fell to the ground or were shot down with arrows coming from somewhere that Whitemane couldn't spot.

Whitemane got close to the window and saw the streets of Ponyville full of dark sinister creatures in black armor, armed to the teeth with giant axes and bows. These things were unlike anything anypony had ever seen before. At first Whitemane thought that they were walking on their legs but then saw that they were more like levitating, coz instead of legs there was some kind of black mass poping out of the parts where their armor was being tied together, and Whitemane didn't see any connection they made with their legs to the ground. Their torso seemed to be unarmored for some reason, and it resembled the torso of a human.

The torso looked different for each of the beings, as if they had each stolen a part of a human body for themselves and added it to the black mass that their own body consisted of. Their heads were covered in black metal helmets with long horns on their edges. Their eyes were blood red and their teeth couldn't be seen.

What were these creatures and where did they come from Whitemane had no idea. Then an idea hit his brain, and he immediately left Ponyville in order to look for the crater he saw in his previous visions. As he flew over to it he saw a horde of the creatures moving to Ponyville from the direction of the crater. He was flying over the could so he wouldn't be spotted. When he reached the crater he realized that his fears were true. The dark creatures were coming from the portal.

Tears started falling flowing from his eyes as he finally realized that the visions were a warning that he did not listen to.

"This was all my fault" Said Whitemane to himself in a desperate voice. "Forgive me Ponyville....i have failed you".

But no matter how desperate the situation seemed, Whitemane wasn't one for giving up, so he flew back to Ponyville as fast as he could to look for anypony that he could still save. As he flew through the flaming streets of the town, more and more pegasi passed by him, nearly setting him on fire while trying to put their own flames out. One of the pegasi ran right on him and they both collapsed to the ground. The other pegasus seemed to have fainted, but Whitemane was still awake, but couldn't get up, coz the other pegasus had landed right on his wing and nearly broke it.

Whitemane was alright but couldn't get up just yet because of the fall, he pushed the pegasus off his wing and turned around and saw another pegasus sitting in mid air trying to put out the flames on her wings.  She succeeded, in exhausting the flames and started cheering despite all that's going on. Whitemane couldn't see who that was so he started slowly crawling towards the direction of her. As he got closer something drew his attention away from her.

It was one of the creatures, he had been tied to the ground by the rubble of one of the buildings. The creature didn't try to escape, instead it reached for it's bow and drew an arrow it and pointed it toward the pegasus in the air. As he was readying to launch the arrow, Whitemane turned back to the pegasus trying to warn her. He shouted to her but she didn't hear him, so Whitemane kept crawling and shouting as loud as he could. when he finally got close to the pegasus he recognized her, right as the creature launched the arrow that pierced her torso.

Whitemane was right under the pegasus when the arrow reached her. His mouth was wide open and his eyes filled with fear and sorrow as he felt Rainbow's blood dripping onto his face. Rainbow touched the part of her body where the arrow had pierced her, lifted up her hoof and saw blood all over it as she lifted the hoof to her face.

The creature let out a sinister, mocking laugh before it fainted, Whitemane saw the creature pass away, after that looking up to the sky once more, just to see Rainbowdash collapsing right onto his face. Whitemane couldn't move and nor did he want to. He had lost all that was left of his hope. Tears started flooding from his eyes as he saw the dead Rainbowdash laying on his body. He turned his head to the left and saw something that seemed to be the leader of the creatures walking towards him. This creature didn't look much different from the others, it was his axe that made Whitemane sure it was him.

As the creature approached him, he laughed in a loud sinister voice, and spoke to Whitemane "Did you trully think that you could escape ME? And where would you go? do you think that i only came here for one mere town? Hahahaha, I've conquered continents, worlds and universes with my army of darkness, and Equestria will be turned into a pile of ashes in just a few days as well."

As the creature finished it's sentence it lifted it's axe over it's head, ready to cut Whitemane in half, but Whitemane had no fear in his eyes as he awaited his death. with his last breath he whispered "Bring it you bastard! If i'm going down, then i'm going down laughing instead of giving you the pleasure of seeing me scream in terror, hahaha!" laughed Whitemane "Mors principium est!" He added something in latin that the creature couldn't understand.

Whitemanes mocking attitude left the creature in confusion for a moment, but soon he came to his senses and shouted "No one escapes my wrath you pathetic creature, for i am The Legionnaire!"

And with those words he swung his axe down towards Whitemanes face.

                                                                                             ***

Just when Whitemane had lost what was left of his hope for anypony to survive, he woke up screaming, and realized that it was just another vision. This vision was more then enough this time for him to know what he had to do. Whitemane woke up in a field of grass near the crater. He flew over the pit and saw the portal still closed. He sighed as he realized that there is still time for him to warn everypony of the upcoming disaster.

He flew back to Ponyville as fast as he could, and as he arrived, everything happened just as it did in his vision before. The first pony to spot him was Fluttershy, who then called the others and the mane 6 was soon all around him, cheering for his return and asking the same questions as before, until they noticed that Whitemanes head was still hanging down and he didn't breathe a word. Whitemane stood like a scarecrow there for minutes until one of the ponies finally decided to ask.

The pony knew that what ever it is that's bothering Whitemane, can't be good. Rainbowdash mustered her strenght and finally asked. "Whitemane....what's wrong?"

Whitemane still stood silently for a moment and then raised his head up with a grim look upon his face and turned towards Rainbowdash, it looked like he was ready to collapse, and that the mane six were the only one holding him from falling. After a brief moment, Whitemane finally spoke in a quiet voice, that seemed to be carrying a message about the end of Equestria in it.

"......I brought guests.........".

                                                                          To be continued......