Jack's Lament

Author's Note: Now, I don't have to worry about character building! The shit is starting to hit the fan now.

I was teaching Spike how to fight. We were in Twilight's backyard, and he was picking up quickly. After a while, I could hear knocking. Twilight, who had been watching the two of us spar, got up to go open the door. She screamed as soon as she opened the door. I took off toward the door, about to tackle the intruder, as if I were a dog. I was quickly over taken however, because the next thing I knew, I was laying in the dirt road as if I had been thrown.

"Don't worry, Twilie, I got this guy!" A voice called out from behind me.

"No, wait! He just thought you were somebody else!"

I felt a odd energy envelop me, and I was being picked up off the ground. I looked at my target/aggressor. He had tan skin, and was wearing a white leather jacket, with Celestia's symbol on it. His undershirt was navy blue, and he had a double edged sword strapped to his blue jeans. He had electric blue hair. He looked serious as heck, but after he looked over me, his expression softened. He put me down, apologizing.

"Sorry, about that. I got carried away, thinking you broke in and you were just hiding." He smiled.

"No problem. I had a similar assumption."

He offered a hand, "I'm Shining Armor, Twilight's older brother."

I shook it, "I'm Jack Parker, I've been living with Twilight for a while now."

Shining Armor grinned, "Twilie, you have a boyfriend? I never would have guesed!"

Twilight blushed, "He's not my boyfriend!"

I laughed, "Twilie? That's adorable!"

"Shut up, Jack!"

Shining Armor put a hand on her shoulder, "Calm down, sis, we were just teasing. But, I didn't come to visit. Celestia wanted to see you and Jack."

I frowned, it's only been a couple of days since she teleported me there. "What happened?"

"She hasn't told me yet, but I can tell it's making her worried."

"Okay, so you gonna teleport us. or..." I let the sentence trail off.

Shining Armor grinned. "Teleport, of course! Hold still..."

Before I knew it, we were standing in the throne room. Celestia and Luna were looking at us, both had worried expressions.

"Let's not waste anymore time, shall we?" Celestia offered.

The rest of us nodded.

"Well then, to put it simply, Discord is free once more."

Twilight frowned, "But how? Nothing's happened for a long time, doesn't he need chaos to escape?"

"He does, but he never needed it from one dimension. He simply used the chaos and negative energy from another dimension to free himself here."

"Let me guess: Earth." I stated.

"Yes, that is correct, actually. How did you know?"

"I've told you why."

Celestia nodded, "Ah, yes. I remember now."

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"We've located him, and our best guess is to find him, and take him down for good."

"Well, let's go! That crazy bastard knows where my girlfriend is!"

Tracking. It sucks. You have absolutely no idea what you're doing as it happens. You're just there, waiting out a storm. That is, until you actually find something. We sent Twilight home, so she wouldn't get hurt. Shining Armor and I volunteered to check it out. It was a ship. Not like a primitive ship either. This was like the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier on steroids. Shining Armor drew his sword, and I just kept my eyes wide open. We navigated the ship with expertise. And then we heard breathing on the other side of a wall we were pressed to. We looked at the door that was next to us. Getting on either side of the door, we silently counted to three. On three I kicked the door down and we ran inside.

We looked around the room. It looked pretty comfortable. We were about to leave, considering the fact that it was probably a false alarm.

"What the hell?" A female voice shouted. But it was familiar.

Shining and I turned around to see who said that, but when I looked at her, her jaw dropped, and my jaw dropped.

"No way. Rachel? What are you doing here?" I asked, running toward her. I hugged her tight, and kissed her on her cheek. "Where were you? What is this place?"

Rachel opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by a male voice, "You are aboard the Draconeqqus, flagship of yours truly, Discord!"

The man, apparently our guy, clapped his hands sarcastically as he walked toward me. I recognized him. He was the guy that kidnapped Rachel and sent me here! I tried to punch him, but he caught me and threw me to the other side of the room. As he walked toward me, there was a tremor underneath us, and I felt an extreme sense of vertigo. Shining Armor ran and looked out the window.

"Uhh, dude, I think we're flying!" He shouted.

Discord laughed, "You are correct! We are indeed flying! Now I can take care of you two personally..."

My bones hurt. Shining Armor was already out numbered. Discord was raising Shining Armor's sword over my head, about to bring it down on me. This was it.

As it turned out, no it wasn't. I looked to see Rachel shoulder ram the dude into a wall. She pinned him there, then turned to look at me, with a half-grin, half-angry look on her face.

"Get going. Get the other guy outta here! I'll be fine, I promise."

I took one last look at her. She seemed to be glowing with a pink aura. I snapped out of my trance, picked up Shining Armor, and prepared to jump out the window.

"I love you Rachel. " I said.

"What did I say, hurry up! I can't hold him off for long!"

"No, I can't leave you-"

She cut me off. She kissed me full on, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and threw me out the window.

I was falling, holding on to Shining Armor so I didn't drop him. Turning in midair, I saw something that made my heart stop. The ship was falling, and the back rotors were smoking.

Not good.

I looked down to see water rapidly approaching. I braced myself for impact.

We hit the water. It hurt like a bitch. But nothing felt broken. I looked to see Celestia and Luna running toward us. And I looked in the other direction to see the ship land in the water and start sinking. Without thinking. I started swimming.

Celestia grabbed my arm, "Don't! That's too far out, The currents will take you out to a point where you can't come back!"

"I don't care! Let me go!" I screamed, and I felt a burst of energy. I broke free of Celestia's grip. I swam toward the ship, and dove under. I looked around. I saw Rachel sinking even deeper. I swam toward her, picking her up, and taking her with me. I swam the the shore, and watched Shining Armor get up, and try CPR on her. No good. She wasn't moving. Shining Armor began to glow blue. His eyes turned black, and his irises turned white. He looked over the body, and he sighed.

"Internal bleeding, and some ruptured organs. She's done Jack."

It had been a week since that day. Days tend to blend together. My memory of what happened is still kind of fuzzy. All I could remember is how much I screamed, how much I cried. Twilight had to get her friends to drag me outta bed. She told me that I had to do something. So I went into the Everfree. Just to do something. Then I heard something odd. A girl crying. I followed the noise to a clearing next to a river. There was a girl, wiping her eyes and sobbing. She had blue-green hair, and pale skin. She had a white T-Shirt and tight black jeans. I walked over to her, and sat next to her.

"What's wrong?"

She looked at me, "Nothing. At least, nothing you'd care about..."

"Try me."

She shook her head, "Doesn't matter."

"Well then, why are you in the Everfree?"

"Because no one would accept me in the towns."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Because I'm a changeling. At least a year ago, we nearly destroyed Canterlot. I wasn't with them, but I know they won't see me any differently."

"Really? They're all nice people. They wouldn't be mean to you because you're different."

"Are you so sure?"

"I'm positive."

"Changelings area race of shapeshifters. We feed on the love of others. Our queen tried to overthrown the princesses and take over your nation. Do you really think I'd get accepted after being a part of that?"

"But I thought you said you weren't there."

"I wasn't, but they don't know that."

"Well, how is that-"

"Listen to me! Do you want to waste away in the Everfree, or do you wanna come with me?"

"I'll stay."

There was a howl in the distance.

She looked at me, "On second thought, let's get outta here."

We walked toward the exit. "Wait, what's your name?" I asked.

"Call me Crystal. What's yours?"

"Jack."

She nodded. "That's a nice name..."

I got her to the library. Twilight gave her an odd stare, but it disappeared just as quickly.

"Twilight, this is Crystal. I met her in the Everfree forest."

"Okay, and?"

I was taken aback, Twilight wouldn't be that rude normally, "Can she stay with us? She doesn't have a home."

"Sure."

Crystal's face brightened. "Thank you so much!"

Twilight took her to go see her room.

I dragged myself to the bed. For some reason, I wasn't feeling so fucked up right now. I could actually rest easy.

Crystal was sitting in the room Twilight had given her. She was looking around at the various things and trinkets placed around.

"Don't try and bull crap me."

Crystal looked at Twilight, "What are you even talking about?"

"You know damed well what I'm talking about! You're a Changeling, aren't you?"

Crystal's eyebrow furrowed, "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm warning you."

"About what?"

"If you even try to lay a finger on either princess, I will end you."