The Two Outcasts
By Ultraa
Prologue
Starbright awoke. But she didn’t open her eyes. She knew what she would see if she did, so she laid there for a few minutes. When she opened her eyes, she closed them immediately, and started sobbing. She was wrong. What she saw was much, much worse.
Ruin. Everything was destruction, the houses, the stores, everything. There was fire and destruction as far as the eye can see. There was the occasional moan by another pony in the distance, and the sound of breaking structures echoed across the city. The skies were clogged with smoke, and all there was to breathe was dust. The worst part of it all was the corpses. There were so many. The majority of them were unicorns equipped with Equestrian armor. The rest were changeling. The fight lasted three days, but the sad truth had to be faced.
Canterlot had fallen.
After a few minutes of sobbing, the Duke-blue colored unicorn got on her feet, and started walking. Where, Starbright did not know. But, she knew she couldn’t stay there. As she walked, she started recollecting what had happened the last few days.
Like a swarm of bloodthirsty locust, the changeling army swooped in from above, overshadowing the skies and eradicating any and everything in their path. Starbright remembered her running into her own house, and locking herself in her basement. She sheltered there for the first two days, and on the third, the building above her was destroyed. She was found in her basement by a unicorn supplied with the Equestrian armor and a damaged sword. He proceeded to help Starbright as long as possible, until he was defeated. His last word to Starbright was simply,
“Run”
And she ran, leaving a trail of tears behind her. She ran until a piece of rubble hit her from above and knocked her out.
As Starbright ran out of breath, she took cover behind half a brick wall, and caught her breath. She sat there for a minute, and the sound of a siren blared in her ears and throughout the city. It had to be some kind of voice magnification spell or something. A somewhat odd but threatening female voice started to speak.
“ Attention citizens and soldiers of Canterlot. Your army has been defeated. Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Twilight are in custody. The changeling army, my royal subjects, has taken over.”
Starbright head raspy cheers echo throughout the city, obviously belonging to the Changeling army. The demonic voice continued.
“Resistance is futile. I am asking you now to turn yourselves in to The Royal castle. Failure to do so within the next hour will result in termination.” The alarm sound blared again, and there was silence.
Starbright knew she couldn’t turn herself in. Whether she did or not, she knew would be ‘Terminated’. Starbright knew she couldn’t lose hope.
The only structure that hadn’t been destroyed was the castle. It had barely been damaged. That most likely means the library is as it was before the invasion. Starbright could use a spell. Being the advanced mage she was, she was certain she could use any advanced teleportation spell. She knew it was a long shot, but she didn’t have any other liable options at this point.
Starbright went to the left flank* of the castle. She knew the walls were protective, so she used a basic teleportation spell to get to the top. She closed her eyes, and concentrated. When she opened them again, she was at the top of the inner bialy**. She ran across the path until she was at a turret, and went downstairs from there.
Starbright had been in the castle just once. And that was many moons ago, to visit the library. As she entered a hallway, she turned the first corner, quickly thinking about where she was and where she was going to go.
She knew that she if was in the left wing, the library couldn’t be far. She took cover at a corner, and peered around it. She saw a patrol of four changelings escort a Canterlot solder behind them. When the changelings rounded the corner they saw nothing, and thus, proceeded to march on.
Starbright uncloaked from her basic invisibility spell. She took a deep breath and galloped across the corridor. She entered the first door she saw, which was a sunroom, then the next door, which was a bedroom, and the final door in that specific hall, which was indeed the library.
As she entered the door, leaving a loud slamming noise behind her, her heart skipped a beat. Starbright immediately heard fluttering and galloping at the same time; the previous sentinels were coming. Starbright panicked a little, and levitated a random bookshelf to the door, hoping it wasn’t the one she needed. She scrambled across the library, frantically searching for an extreme teleportation book. She heard a slam against the door. They almost broke though!
Starbright, in horror, knew she had to find this book NOW. She levitated book after book, not getting anything. At this point, she knew any teleportation book would be fine. So she found the first book that had the word ‘Teleport’ in it and flipped though it, finding the most extreme thing there was.
There was a sudden explosion, followed by the same demonic voice on the alarm ten minutes ago saying;
“Where are you, little one?” followed by evil laughing.
Starbright found a spell labeled ‘Marelin’s spell for Telepo--- of Inte----‘ the rest was scratched out. She didn’t care. As Starbright heard hoofsteps come near her, she read the spell aloud.
“Breaking the laws of time and space,” Starbright’s horn started to glow, “Traveling away from this evil embrace” There was a loud flash, and the last thing Starbright saw before she left was the look of terror on Queen Chrysalis’ face.
Starbright escaped.
Chapter 1
Ezekiel pulled up to 3523 Crooked Avenue, Mitchell’s house. Zeke took a deep breath and leaned back, looking at the subdivision. He got fired from his job, his girlfriend broke up with him because of that, and he lost his wallet. But, he had his briefcase full of what he thought was happiness, so his night was about to get a whole lot better.
Zeke walked up to the porch of the small, one story house. He could hear rap music blaring through the walls, and lots of yelling and screaming. Zeke knocked twice. There was silence for about ten seconds, and the door was opened. Zeke showed the briefcase, and Mitchell welcomed him inside.
“It has been forever, my friend! I assume you have everything?” Mitchell asked, introducing him to everyone there with his slight Italian accent.
“Yea, but it didn’t come cheap.” Zeke said, raising his eyebrow.
“Yes, yes…” Mitchell looked in his wallet, and yelled at somebody in Italian. About thirty seconds later, that person came back with another briefcase, filled with stacks of hundreds.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mitchell, I appreciate what you are giving me, but this is more than double, maybe triple, the amount, I’m sure.”
“Relax, my friend, it’s on the house.”
Zeke walked away, feeling exited, knowing he had more than enough to support him for the next few weeks, and realized that he looked like crap.
Zeke went into the bathroom to make himself look decent. He kind of fell apart after what happened earlier with his boss and girlfriend, with dirty and wrinkles clothes, including tear stains. Zeke wasn’t the manliest guy out there, and he didn’t consider himself a gangster. But, as the assumptions of the civilians go, if you are black or wear a hat, or both (in Zeke’s case), you have to shoot at least one person.
Zeke hadn’t done that, and he was perfectly fine with that. But he knew how his gang was, and he could predict he was going to shed someone else’s blood in the near future.
He straightened his hat, and tied his blood-red bandanna around his neck, representing the Blood Bandit gang. Zeke straightened his long, black hoodie and reached in his pockets, looked at himself in the mirror, and walked out of the bathroom.
It wasn’t long before Zeke got stoned and drunk. As he was partying hard, he heard some other guys talking about his bandanna, but it was mostly a blur to him. Zeke saw this pretty looking girl across the room, and after a while, they began to talk. And, due to them both being drunk, they both went into the bathroom, to do what cannot be explained.
Zeke exited the bathroom, feeling great for a second, and upon seeing what was on the other side of the door, the smile turned to a look of worry. Zeke saw three guns being pointed at him. His put his hands up, and when he did this, he noticed the color bandanna everyone else was wearing. Cyan blue. The opposite of blood red, and the Blood Bandit’s rival gang that have been killing each other for three months.
Zeke knew he was going to die tonight. Mitchell went up behind the men with the guns, and then Zeke noticed his Cyan blue sweatshirt and sighed. His eyes went straight to his shoes. How could he have been stupid? Mitchell started to speak.
“Oh, Ezekiel, why have you done this. First, you take our drugs that your gang stole from us a week back, then you take my money and use our drugs, and you rape my sister in my bathroom. I hate to bring a end to your ‘bad day’, but I hope you burn in he-“
Zeke heard a gunshot, blinked, and saw a bullet hole in Mitchell’s head. As his corpse fell, he saw a man with the Blood Bandit’s bandanna over his mouth. There were more gunshots, followed with more Blood Bandits entering the fight, and the house became a warzone.
Zeke ran outside, dodging bullets and nearly tripping over corpses, to his car. As he opened the door to the red hybrid, he was grabbed and his head slammed against the hood of his car. He faced the man who saved his life a few minutes ago, now with a look of anger in his eyes.
“You… Dealt with the Blue Dragon? Man, you can consider yourself dead.”
The man motioned two other Bandits near him. Three of whom Zeke thought to be his friends, his family, beat Zeke to submission. After ten minutes, police showed up, and everyone split. There were gunshots, and Zeke felt pain. Everywhere. Outside, and inside. He knew he messed up. Why couldn’t he just have listened to his mother and stayed away from people like Mitchell?
Ten years ago, Zeke spoke to Mitchell the first time in the schoolyard on the first day of school. Mitchell told Zeke he liked him and didn’t like to get upset. And, unfortunately for Zeke, that is exactly what he had done.
Zeke knew he had to do something. The police couldn’t see him behind his car, so he looked around, and saw the briefcase with all the money. He knew it was his only hope at the moment, and looked again, seeing no cops around. So, he leaped forward, grabbed the briefcase, crawled across the street, and ran behind another house. Zeke then turned his head and ran as fast as he could away from the house. After a while, he hit the city of Milwaukee, where he was born and raised. He walked down the street, hearing news reports from TV stores about police looking for men with red bandannas around their necks. Zeke took the bandanna, and threw it in the street. And he kept walking, shedding a few tears.
After walking to the alley where his apartment was, he put his hood up and went inside. He shut the blinds around him, and started sobbing in his bed. He new he messed up, big time. Had he had known he was dealing with the Blue Dragon, he wouldn’t have been there. He wouldn’t have to skip out of work for the fifth time this month. And he wouldn’t have had to lie to his Girlfriend. Zeke wept. After a while, he looked at the worthless money and threw it across the house and cried some more.
After he was done, Zeke knew the Blood Bandits were going to be on to him within a few hours time, so he grabbed his gun from under his pillow, and went outside. He took cover behind a dumpster, and waited. Zeke knew it was suicide, for the Blood Bandits were not to be joked around with. With the Blue Dragon out of the way, they were heading straight to Zeke’s house. Zeke watched the sunset turn into darkness, and before he knew it, fell fast asleep on the dumpster.
Suddenly, Zeke heard an explosion behind him, and snapped awake. He turned around, his gun ready, still half asleep, and walked forward, toward the noise explosion. As he went closer, he noticed blue dust around his position, and ignored it. Moving forward, he saw a silhouette.
“S-Show yourself!” Zeke said.
Zane stepped back, and saw the weirdest thing in his life. He saw a nude woman walk out of the shadows on all fours, awkwardly smiling at him.
