Adventures with the Son of Chaos and Harmony.by Dragon And DraconequusChaptersThe Shadows in the Forest.New Friends. Maybe.The Awakening.The Storm.The Catacombs.The Monster.The Screams.The Wendigo. The Blood. The Transformation.Wingless.We Start Our Story..The Meeting.The StoneThe Awakening, Part Two.The Shadows in the Forest.She'd seen something. It was a pony. Or.. maybe a dragon.. "Who are you?!" She called out. A deep, melodic voice answered "I am the best thing that will ever happen to you.." "No, you aren't.. I know you're not!!" She slowly backed into a wall.. 'Dangit, my claws are too dull to defend myself, and my fire is too cold..' She growled to herself. 'But who.. what am I defending myself from?..' The dark emerald dragon looked to the trees again and froze in shock as she saw the figure. She watched as her mother stepped out of the shadowy trees. She had dark crimson scales and ruby red spikes on her tail. While most of her was an example of red monochrome, her eyes were special. One eye was a bright, icy blue, while the other was a dull light grey. "I'm back, honey!" Said her mother in a sweet voice. But Brush knew better than to listen. "You.. you aren't my mother.. She's gone!.. GO AWAY!!" She yelled, anger taking over. "Darling, I'm not gone.. I'm right here!.." Said the phantom image. The green dragon was pressed against the wall in fear. Her eyes were narrowed, wings half open in case she needed a quick escape. The fake dragon slowly walked over and held Brush in it's warm arms.. it felt just like a dragon mother's embrace.. and Brush was slowly lost in her mother's silky hug.. Soon after Celestia had left after a long rant, Soma had started working on his tornado designs. He would throw in multiple colors, and occasionally a spark or two. But that ended up being too repetitive. So he turned to look at the map on his wall. He had received it years ago from the Griffon Empire as a birthday gift. As he looked around the large map, a particular mountain caught his eye. He struggled to read the tiny labeling on his wall. "Torn.. Torn wall. Torn wall mountain! " He exclaimed. But something was different about it. Since the wall was infused with magic, the objects painted on it were made to look realistic, and they were accurate and ever-changing. And this particular mountain seemed to be.. surreal. As though it were made of plastic, and not the usual rocks and soil. He was intrigued. He quickly packed a bag with a couple apples, two sweaters, a sleeping bag, and his toy fox. 'I'll just wait till sunset, and I'll take a trip to that mountain!' He thought to himself. When he left, and he snuck off good. Even managed to get past the night guard! As he reached the castle boundaries, he spread his wings, and took to the skies! He was soon at the base of the mountain. Smiling, he yelled at the moon, "Freee at last!!!" While he knew he would return home eventually, he felt like he shouldn't have gone at all.. But he'd gone anyway. And he'd grow up to love that decision. New Friends. Maybe.She sat in the corner of her cavern room, watching as he wandered towards her, his empty bag on his back, and a makeshift bandage on his wound. "Hello!" He called down the hall when he saw her. She sat in silence. He ran towards her and slid to sit in front of her. "I'm Soma. What's your name?" He asked quietly. Still she sat in silence and stared at him. "Can you talk?" He asked her. She nodded. "Then tell me your name!" He says to her. She shook her head. He was starting to get annoyed, and she could tell. After a few minutes, she finally said "Brush. My name is Brush Stroke." He looked up at her, and said "So you CAN talk. Why didn't you talk earlier?" She looked to him and whispered "Well, I don't really know you that well. But now you seem nice." He smiled at her. 'He has a goofy smile..' She thought to herself. She leaned back against the wall. "Those red things from your bag.. The crunchy things. Do you have more?" She asked him. He smiled and said "You mean the apples? Yeah, I can get more, if you like!" She nodded shyly. His horn started glowing, and her eyes grew wide. A small basket of apples appeared, and she just stared at it in awe. He grinned at her and said "Have you ever seen someone use magic before?" She shook her head no. He chuckled, and went on to show her a few more small tricks. She watched in pure silence as he set off little sparks from his horn, and flowers popped up from the stone ground! He enjoyed being able to show off his skills. His mother never let him at home.. They went on like this for hours, with Brush watching intently as Soma performed countless spells, and showed light shows from his horn, and the dragon soon learned a few spells herself! They both knew this was the beginning to a beautiful friendship. Unless the old fued between dragons and ponies would be reignited.. The Awakening.When he returned home, it was already early morning, and the sun had risen. He'd had to sneak past the day guards, who weren't as skilled as the night guard, so it was much easier to get back in. Except.. His window was locked. And he'd left the key inside. 'I'm busted. Done for. They caught me.' He thought to himself. He knew that mom and dad had found out he was gone, and made it to where he would have to face them in order to get inside. Utter failure on his part, forgetting the key in his room.. He dropped down to the castle courtyard, and hung his bag on the statue of some explorer that he didn't recognize. The bag looked at home there, and it was a good hiding spot to leave his bag. After making sure that it looked perfect, he walked to the front gates. After being admitted inside by the guards, he went inside, to find that Aunt Luna was waiting for him instead of his mother and father. 'Welcome back, Nephew. I presume you had a nice trip?" She said quietly. "I only went on a walk around Canterlot." He lied. "False. I came to sing you a lullaby after raising the moon and stars, and you were gone. You left to-" All the windows in the castle opened, along with all of the doors, and it was loud. Saved by a sneeze.. "Discord simply must fix his allergy situation.." Luna mumbled quietly. She turned back to Soma, and stopped the draconequus from trying to sneak way; she began to continue her talk. "You left to do something. What was it?" She asked in a stern, but sweet voice. He hesitated to answer. "I was looking at my map, and a particular place caught my eye. So I went there." "And when you got there, did you find something.. Interesting?" He remained silent. "You'd better tell me what you found, Soma. Or I'll make sure Celestia knows you left Canterlot without permission." She knew how to twist him to get an answer.. "..I found a dragon. And the last of her race, too!" He blurted out. "A dragon, you say?" She asked with a smile. She didn't know what the rock was... But it was shiny. And she wanted it. But.. it was surrounded by rings of water and magma.. Farthest out ring was a full forty feet from the stone. And it was water. The second farthest was magma, then water. The rings were patterned. She stepped up to the edge of the first ring. The water was deep, and the ring was wide. Trouble was, her wings were no good, as she could hardly fly, and she'd never bothered to learn how to swim. Times like these she wished she had a family to teach her.. She sat at the edge of the ring, and reached in, as far as she could, without falling. She still didn't reach the water. ''Too deep to wade through..'' She thought to herself. '' I guess I'm learning how to swim today.'' She stuck her tail in first, only to find that the water was freezing cold, despite the scalding magma right next to it. "Oh well." She thought. "I'll survive. I hope.. " And then she jumped in. The Storm.The monster pony didn't return. Not for a while. While he was gone, she learned about the baby dragon that had hatched from the egg. It had bright violet eyes, and it was an ice dragon. Very contrasting to her own normal fire belly. But there was no way she'd be able to tell him no. He was adorable!! But he was simply another mouth to feed. And she already had enough trouble feeding herself. She went two days. And she fed him more than herself. A full week went by. She was still hunting for more animals. Her tail became infected. Another week. The dragon learned to talk. It managed to spread it's wings and hover. Her tail was still hurt. After a full two weeks, the monster pony came. He brought apples. She liked apples. So did the whelp. He came again two weeks later. He brought chalk. She used it to draw. Her pictures weren't coming to life anymore. The monster pony gave her more magic. It helped the pictures to move again. He came every two weeks for a few years. They decided that the whelp be named Firestone. Firestone eventually ran away. She cried for the first time in a long time. She knew she shouldn't. She was now 13. She wasn't supposed to cry. The monster pony came to comfort her. He was nice. Brush learned that the dragon pony was named Soma. Soma came to the cave again. He was much bigger now. Almost bigger than Brush was. But not yet. She was still a few inches taller. Today he'd sneaked away from Celestia. It wasn't his day to leave, and he thought he could come surprise her with an apple. She loved those. He walked in, to see her hunched over in a corner. She looked much different from when they met. He still remembered it. She was his size, maybe smaller, and she was standing just outside the mouth of her rocky home. She was hugging a monster. It was nothing but a shadow to him, but she saw something different. She saw her mother, who had died years ago. She never told him if the monster had returned. Perhaps.. It had been killed by the dagger? That's all he'd had. And she was starting to get hurt, so he had to help. But now things were different. She was bigger, stronger, and smarter. She was able to sharpen her claws more often. Her magic paintings were learning to survive easier. They were small, barely bigger than his head. But they still came to life as long as she made them. She had obviously made one this morning. It was still stuck on the wall. Right next to her. She was still crying. He walked over to her. She was hunched over with tears streaming down her face. He'd only seen her cry once before, and that was when they'd met. He didn't remember her crying bright purple tears. He hugged her, and she fell silent. She started to sob. This went on for a few minutes, and she was calm again. She sat against the wall. "A-Are you... okay?.." He said to her with a trembling voice. She simply nodded. "I'm fine.." She said with a soft, cracking voice. "Just not as happy." She mumbled. He handed her an apple. She ate it in two swift chomps, her sharpened teeth biting through like a knife through jello. She smiled, and he smiled back. "Are you still upset about Firestone?" He asked cautiously. She didn't respond. "When did you make this??" He asked her, pointing to the small drawing on the wall. She mumbled "A few minutes before you came.." She turned to put her back against the wall. Her wings were growing so that she couldn't fold them to her side. His wings had barely grown at all. She had to have her wings half open. Eventually she opened them fully, in order to stretch them out. They sat for hours talking about the different things they had to say. Soon, before they knew it, there were dark grey storm clouds in the sky. Brush folded her wings as best she could. Lightning flashed and startled the pair. Soma was worried. He hadn't told Luna or Celestia, or Discord about leaving. He knew they'd be worried. But he couldn't go out in this weather. He was the son of absolute chaos, along with harmony. He was bound to get struck by lightning. Unless he was in shelter. Brush knew this as well. "C'mon. There's a bigger cavern down this way." She said over the sounds of the storm. Winds were blowing furiously. She started walking down the hall, wings half-folded. He followed closely, having never gone this way before. He looked back towards the mouth of the cave. A branch fell. And something fell with it. "Uhh.. Hey.. There's something over there.." He said under the thunder outside. Brush didn't respond, so he assumed she didn't hear him. He spoke louder. "Uhh.. Brush?? There's something outside the cave!" She turned around to face him. "I know." She said quietly. Though it was barely above a whisper, it could still be heard over the pouring rain. She turned back around and started walking again. The Catacombs.They walked through the tunnels for a few minutes, and stopped in a small cavern. They could not hear the storm here. This wasn't unlike the cavern that Brush had found Firestone in. She sat down in the middle of the cave. Soma sat near the entrance. She curled up and started scratching at the stone floor. Soma remained at the door, listening for the sound of hoofsteps. He was frantically hoping to hear step down the hall.He was afraid that the thing that had fallen was hurt. Or even dead. He sat in the entrance. And they were waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. A full two hours passed. Soma stood up and stretched his wings. "I'm going to go see if the storm is slowing down enough for me to leave. If I'm not back withing ten minutes, either I've left, or I'm lost." He said in a quiet tone. Brush simply nodded and continued scratching. Soma turned to the tunnels. He started walking. Hoping to hear steps in the dark and cool catacombs, hopefully from whatever had fallen from the branch.. He reached a fork in the path, and turned right. He was wandering through winding passageways. "Did the amount of turns change since we passed through?..." He asked himself. He reached another junction, this time with four total turns. The first sloped upwards. The second had a sharp 90 degree turn about 20 feet in. The third simply went forward and had no foreseeable end. The fourth tunnel sloped downwards. He turned back, and began walking back to the first fork in the rocky hallways. However, after a few minutes of walking, he reached another junction. It was the same as the last! He paused, then started down the one that went upwards. He realized that he had been gone for more than ten minutes now. Hopefully Brush was looking for him. She was in the cavern. The eyes of her biggest project were done. Ten minutes was all it took. She was proud of herself. Smiling, she rose up, and began walking towards the exit. He'd probably be gone. But she felt better. Maybe there would be some animals to catch! She walked to the cave entrance to find he was really gone. His jacket was gone, along with his backpack. Both of which were left on a small ledge above the entrance. But.. the storm was still raging beyond the mouth of the cave. He wouldn't have gone out there.. would he? She turned to the tunnels, so she could roam about the rocky passageways. She began humming quietly. It was a tune that had no name. She had made the melody up years ago, and simply continued adding more parts to it. By now, nearly two years later, it was three full minutes long. She continued down the halls, worrying about Soma being stuck in the storm somewhere. He left, probably because he was too impatient to stay and wait for the storm to pass. He was generally rather good with waiting, but not when it came to times when he would have to wait in one specific room or area. He hated things like that. His legs were soon tired. The granite halls were sloping upwards, and still he saw no end. The angle gradually evened out, and he sat down to rest his burning muscles. Oh, how he wished he'd brought his backpack, so he could eat an apple, and use his pencil to mark his trail.. But he'd left them on the ledge above the mouth of the cave. He looked around. There was two different shades of red. One was the wall, and the other was.. in a pattern... He looked closer. These weren't patterned. This was writing. Written in.. Blood red. He suddenly felt an urge to keep moving. He got up, mumbling to himself. "No.. it's just a coincidence.. it's not blood, or writing.. it's just the way the granite looks.." But in the back of his mind, he knew it wasn't just the way the rock looked. He continued on. As she moved, the writing became messier and messier.. Droplets of the red ink were splattered.. Eventually, they faded to simple streaks. He felt tired, and hungry. But still he walked. He thought of how long he'd been gone from home. His parents were probably worried sick about him.. He found a new fork in the road. The were exactly the same, just reflections of one another. He contemplated each side for a moment, and chose the left one. He walked. And walked. And walked. Brush was walking through the tunnels. Still humming, she reached her favorite place in the entire system of stone corridors. It was a rounded area that had well over twenty passages. She had marked all of the ones that had already been explored. She went into one of the ones that had remained an unknown territory. She'd gone through, and gotten far, but had never found the end. It was an interchangeable route, that seemed to be different every time somepony would go through. This time it led to a dead end two turns in. She turned back, and began walking. She reached a dead end where the exit should have been. She ran back to where the ending WAS, and found that it had opened up, leading to a four-way junction. She took a tunnel that went downwards. The Monster. She walked along the passage, slowly descending into the depths of the catacombs. Her wings were brushing against the walls. She was beginning to feel cramped. Nearly all of the other passages had been large enough to allow her to spread her wings out a lot more. She continued on, the passageway still twisting. Soon, she noticed her wings were wet. But she couldn't open her wings to see why. She kept moving, to find her wings were burning. She folded them in as best she could, and kept going. This tunnel would simply close itself up if she tried to turn back. Not to mention, she couldn't turn back. Her wings wouldn't allow it. If she was without them, she'd be able to turn full circles, and walk a bit quicker. Her wings were hurting more. She realized they were rubbing against the walls, creating a large scrape down her wings, leaving a bloody trail on the walls behind her. She sighed and continued moving. The passage led to a fork in the path. There was a hole above her, large enough for even HER to fly through. Soma looked ahead. He'd been walking for a few hours now, and no change. Wait.. There was light up ahead! He ran towards it, unaware of the mare behind him. He felt a blinding blow to the back of his head, and yelled out as loud as he possibly could. He fell to the floor as all faded to black and a pair of glowing blue eyes looked down on him. Brush was looking up at the upper exit. She spread her wings to see if she really could fit. And she could. Not very well, but she could. She froze. She heard yelling. It was Soma's voice. Coming from above. Looking up, she listened again. It was all silent. Nothing but her own breathing. She flew up the stone shaft. She reached ceiling, and a new way to go. This way was a larger passageway, and she could spread her wings more. She began to run. Soma woke up with an agonizing pain at the nape of his neck. He tried to stand, only to realize he was held down on some sort of table by leather straps. He turned his head to the right to see he was still within the mountain where the tunnels were. He turned his head to the left to see a mare's face almost nose to nose with his. She was grinning. "I see you're awake now! Not for long." "GAAH!!" He yelled. She lifted a syringe filled with a blue liquid. He slowly lost consciousness as she injected the needle into his arm. Brush heard him yell again. It was dead ahead. She ran faster. She ran. And ran. She reached the end of the hall. There was an opening, that led out into open skies, above a forest. It was nighttime. She couldn't see any traces of Soma having been here. She stepped onto the edge of the opening and looked up. Nothing but starry skies. She looked down. There was another opening just below. She spread her wings, silently vowing that she would practice more. She could feel the breeze. She looked up to see a full moon in the sky, with no clouds to be seen. It was beautiful. The sheer amount of stars was overwhelming. She looked ahead. Took a deep breath. And took off. The absolute force her wings used on the air caused a small rocky avalanche. It felt amazing to feel the wind against her scales for the first time in a long time. And she wanted to fly forever. But she couldn't. She had to help Soma. She flew up, past the clouds, and dove down. She soared around the peak of the mountain. Once, twice, three times. She dropped down to the stone entrance below her takeoff point. Looking in, she saw a monster. It was a creamy white, with claws like daggers. She froze as it turned towards her. It screeched like nails against a chalkboard. It ran towards her, still screeching. Soma woke up once more, still strapped down. However, this time he was in a standing position. Still on the table, he was able to look around much more. He looked forward to see the mare from before. She was holding a dull knife. He felt a rush of terror. She had sharp mechanical wings, a cracked horn, a golden mane and tail, with a coat that was a rusty color. She had bright green eyes that showed no emotion, and her teeth were sharpened to points. She looked in his eyes, grinning with her vicious teeth. She stepped closer, and said in her poisoned honey voice; "Is the patient ready for surgery?" The Screams.Brush was frozen in terror. The monster stopped in front of her. She could smell it's breath. It smelled of rotting flesh. It screeched again. She flinched slightly. It had milky white eyes, and red teeth. It had a slight pony-esque look to it. It had no mane or tail, and it's ribs stuck out, stretching skin tautly. There was a second screeching down the hall. This one sounded different. Like somepony was dragging a knife down the stone floor. The monster in front of her screeched again, and turned around. Brush could see the spine of the thing, sticking out against the creature's taut skin. She remained frozen until the thing was gone. She collapsed on the floor, beads of sweat on her scales. "What.. Was that??" She sat in one spot for a few moments. Shaking, she could feel her heart racing. Her wings were twitching from the rush of blood. "Where's Soma?.." She thought to herself. She jumped up. The screeching was still down the hall, both of the noises mingling together. -- Soma looked at her with pure terror in his eyes. She gently pressed the knife to his stomach, pressing down against his furry abdomen. He twitched, and tried as hard as he could to hold his stomach in. She smiled. "Relax, Soma." She said with a glint in her eyes. He slowly allowed his muscles to relax. She pulled her knife away when he relaxed. He twitched, and whispered "Who are you?.. " She chuckled and showed him her cutie mark. It was four black berries. She said in her relaxing voice "My name is Nightshade. And you are Soma." "How did you know that?" "I know more than you think. Including the fact that your friend is dead." He looked at her, shaking violently. "She isn't dead. She isn't. She wouldn't die. Brush is stronger than that." Nightshade laughed again. Her laugh made Soma feel calm. "Soma, dear, THEY have her. They'll tear her scales off bit by bit. Keep her alive and aware the entire time. Then they'll eat her." He could feel his heart beating quicker. There was a long screeching noise somewhere off in the catacombs. The vicious mare looked off to the entrance into the stone maze. She grinned. "She's been caught." He struggled against the leather straps holding him back. She stepped behind him, and he could no longer see nor hear her. He heard a noise. It was similar to the screeching he'd heard. It was almost more like.. metal on metal, but amplified by 1000. He flinched at the noise. It hurt his highly trained ears to hear something at such a frequency. He heard the mare's voice behind him. "Your friend will be here soon. You won't see her though." "What do you mean?" "Say goodnight, Soma." He felt a needle poke through the skin in his back. Everything faded, and he heard her screech one last time, her voice mingling with another.. -- Brush looked down the hall. It was dark. Very dark. She had no choice but to go in, though, as a thick, heavy fog was rolling in. She blew a small flame into her claw. She held the fire close. Slowly, she stepped into the maze of granite. The darkness surrounded her like a blanket. She gradually added fire to her claws. A feeling crept over her, almost like there was someone watching her. She spun around, straining her eyes to see through the fog. Nobody was there. The screeching was gone. Trembling, she kept moving. She spread her wings out to gauge how wide the tunnel was. She hit something. It screamed. Like the milky white monster. The Wendigo. The Wendigo. Nightshade smiled. She was the only one to ever remain pony, and not become a wendigo. And now they were loyal to her. Perhaps it was the fact that she was utterly terrifying? And now they'd caught the dragon, and she'd gotten the chance to take the prince. He was strapped onto the experiment wall. She was going to feed her little minions tonight. In bits and pieces. She laughed with her high pitched bubbly giggle. She walked to the prince. He couldn't be any more than thirteen. She was well over a millennium old. But she didn't look a day over thirty. She lifted his wing, inspecting each feather. She yanked one out. The prince twitched, but remained unconscious. She pulled another one near the base of the wing. He pulled his wing back to his side. She grinned. She walked back behind him, to her instrument table. She picked up her serrated knife, and walked back to the draconequus. She gently pressed the knife against the joint of his wing. He woke up then. He was shuddering. "H-Hey!! Stop that!!" "No. My Wendigos need a treat. You will be delicious to them." He started struggling against the leather. "Let me go!!" She shook her head. She pressed the knife into his wing joint. It cut through the feathers like a spoon through butter. He winced, and with a voice on the verge of tears he whimpered "Y-You won't keep me here.." She laughed and said quietly "I won't, but THEY will." Laughing once more, she pressed the knife into his wing, causing droplets of his crimson blood to form on his side. He struggled his hardest, then froze. She watched him as he shut his eyes as tight as possible, and his horn began to spark. She laughed, and said in a sharp, harsh voice, "You fool. I put a magic blocker on your horn. You won't be able to do magic, or fly away from me." She chuckled as he squirmed against the leather straps. "Stop moving, or this will hurt a LOT more." He looked at her, straight in her eyes, and said with a voice full of malice "Let. Me. Go." She laughed, and brought her knife up, and behind her back. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for unimaginable pain. She looked at him as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Maybe.. I could keep him?.." Nightshade thought to herself. She laughed at the thought of keeping a prince with her. Not to mention, the Wendigos would eat him in two seconds flat. One of them screeched. It was very faint. Soma didn't hear it, thankfully. She turned her head to look directly at the wing joint. "This knife isn't dull enough. This will cut through immediately." He looked at her with a tilted head. "If it's dull, it will tear the skin, causing more pain. Your screams will attract my pets." -- Brush froze. She looked to her wing, and blew a small stream of fire to her right, only to see a white face a few feet from hers. It was one of the monsters. It had seen her this time. It screeched, but it was a weak noise, hardly louder than a normal mare's screaming. She blew a large burst of flame towards it, and folded her wings. It screeched again in pain. She ran. The thing followed her. The Blood. The Blood. Soma looked to her, trembling with true fear. "P-Please don't kill me.." He said quietly, with a whimper at the end. "I won't. I'm just here to prepare you for the beasts." He began to hyperventilate. "BRUSH HELP MEE!!!" He screamed. He looked frantically to the exit from the cave. He shut his eyes tight, and concentrated on his dragon friend. "Brush.. If you can hear me.. help.. she's about to feed me to some beast.." He waited for an answer. The draconequus could feel tears in his eyes, like floodgates fighting to be opened. He looked to Nightshade, and whispered "Why.." She laughed at him, like he was nothing but a colt. Nightshade brought the knife down on his wing with one swift movement, like an arrow piercing the blue sky. He could feel the heat of his blood streaming down his side, slowly spreading through his fur. She was giggling.. The walls were fading around him.. His head slumped and he passed out. -- Brush had been running through the fog for a few minutes, now, and still had not lost the creature. She shot a burst of flame behind her once more, causing the beast to fall back. It was covered in its own blood, giving it an even more gruesome look to it. "Brush.. If you can hear me.. help.. she's about to feed me to some beast.." Her ears perked up. "Soma!.." She mumbled to herself. The beast screamed again. It was right above her, running on the ceiling. She spread her wings, the tips still feet away from the walls of the passageway. now that they were deeper into the tunnel, the misty fog had dissipated, allowing the emerald green dragon to run faster without having to worry about running into any obstacles. She could also see farther ahead. Running through twisting tunnels, she saw a light ahead. There was a silhouette in the tunnels, partially blocking out the source of illumination. She looked closer, to see that it was a mare. An alicorn mare. She ran faster, closing her wings again. The beast above her screeched and fell back. The mare screeched in a similar tone to the beasts infernal noise. The emerald dragon ran to the mare, to see that she had metal wings, with strips of leather where skin would be. Her horn was glowing with a black aura, and her mane was the color of the purest gold in the entire mountain. Her tail, however was pitch black. Her coat was a rusty color, that seemed to have an underlying color to it. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of auburn. She was holding a curved blade in her black and grey aura. "I am Nighshade, ruler of the beasts. And you are Brush. One of the beasts." The mare said this slowly, and took a step closer to the green dragon. Brush slowly backed up, and turned her head to see behind. There were more monsters.. She turned back to face the mare, to find they were nose to nose. "Welcome to the Core." Was all she said. The next few moments were such a blur, Brush could only remember a scuffle, bursts of flame, and a single blow to the back of her head. The Transformation.The dragon.. it killed her favorite Wendigo. It had been her best friend before she changed. Her name was Moongazer. Nothing had hurt her more than watching as her friend had slowly changed from pony to beast. We'd been in the tunnels for a month now, and the food was running low. Almost everypony thought to grab the saddlebags. Ponies were starting to go missing, and the lights were getting weaker, until unicorns had to light the cavern with their horns. I was the only one who could go very long without food. The others were losing sanity. The tunnels became more dangerous, and I didn't think we would ever get out. We'd been lost for nearly a week. It was a get-together for the anniversary of Equestria's making. It was supposed to be happy. It wasn't. We had a total of 24 ponies. We had one filly, and two colts with us. They didn't make it past the first week. We'd lasted a day in the winding catacombs, gone back to camp for the night, then come back into the winding tunnels. That was when the exit caved in. I remember watching as the rocks fell. It was horrifying to watch the ponies run from the wreckage. One of the colts was crushed by a falling rock. I still remember the agonizing screams as the boulder fell and crushed him. We wandered around the rest of the tunnels, frantically searching for a way out. Eventually, we just gave up. We'd searched for three days. No results. Nothing. Then, after six days of being lost, one of the stallions began to use the hunting poison to kill ponies. I'm ashamed I was in on the infernal plan. After two or three ponies not waking up in the morning, the others began to realize it wasn't a simple case of heart attack or starvation. They all looked to the only bat pony in the group, named Moongazer. She was the only one physically well enough to eat real meat. She looked at everypony, whimpering as the mares and stallions closed in on her, holding sharpened rocks. She looked around to everypony who wasn't ready to attack. When she looked to me, I could see her pleading eyes. I looked to the stallion who had thought of the poison. His eyes were becoming an off-white color, with no pupils. His teeth were becoming deformed, like a shark mouth with jagged teeth. I looked back to the seventeen ponies surrounding Moon. They were like a pack of wolves closing in on a sheep. I gathered my guts, knowing that he would hate me for this, and yelled "It was ScrewDriver!!" The stallion looked at me, and whispered an unknown sentence. He looked at me with a glare of hatred. He rose, paused, and said louder, with a strong voice, "She isn't lying, it really was me." All the mares and stallions who had been on the verge of attacking Moon turned around, all wearing faces of shock. The head mare, a blue maned pegasus, looked to Screw. She threw a knife, and it hit the stallion directly in the stomach. You could see the blood soaking his white overcoat, like a sponge soaking up water. I sank down the wall behind me. I began to cry, not caring who saw. That was when I'd met Moon. The attention was away from her, and the others were slowly separating into different areas. Moon wandered to me, and thanked me. She said other things, but I only caught bits of her talking. She had a dark blue coat, and an even darker curly mane. Her tail was the same, but she had one white stripe down her tail. Her eyes were red. I don't know why, but we just hit it off immediately. I looked over to Screw for a moment. He had always been a handsome stallion, with great skills in magic. I always thought he and I could eventually court each other, but he was never able to decipher my flirting. And now that I saw him, slumped against a wall, with the hilt of the knife poking out from his stomach, I was hit with a deep sense of pain, and joy. For some strange reason, seeing his blood slowly pooling up around him, I felt a rush of adrenaline. I slowly stopped crying, and realized that Moon was hugging me. She was crying, along with me. I hugged her, too. We were beginning to attract the stares of our peers. She whispered, "Thank you.." I felt better after that. We broke the hug, and she looked to me. Her eyes.. I still remember them.. They were a darker red, and she looked as though she were about to cry again. One of the mares called out that it was nearly ten o clock. The only way we knew was a watch she carried around in her pack. "Do you want to sleep upside down tonight?.. Like a bat pony?.." Moongazer asked me quietly. I nodded, and she took my hoof, and pulled me up to the ceiling. I learned how to hang, but I wasn't very good. I lasted through the night, though. I had to use my magic for a while. The next morning was a blur. Everypony had already asked me if I could bust out a tunnel, since I was the most skilled unicorn. But even I couldn't. The head mare said that Moon could eat Screw for lunch. The bat paused, and walked over to the traitor. She slowly pulled the knife out of his stomach, and handed it to the blue pegasus. They exchanged a few words, and the pegasus nodded. Moon then picked up the stallion, and set him in the middle of the cavern. She took off her saddlebag, and pulled out a lighter. She took off her own jacket, and ripped it into small strips of cloth. For a moment, I didn't understand what she was doing. But then she looked to me, and whispered, "Can I use your banner?.." She was talking about the banner that I had made to celebrate Equestria. It was made out of poster paper. It had stayed dry in my saddlebag. I had forgotten about it until she reminded me. I was unsure. We didn't use fire in the tunnels out of fear for combustion. We'd had enough death. But she still asked, preparing to start a fire. Nobody noticed her as she took the banner, ripped it up, and tossed it into a pile. I gave her my spare jacket. She took that, too, and tossed it into the pile. After preparing the fire, she took a knife out of her saddle bag. She was completely silent, as she cut off his limbs, and stripped away the fat. She clicked the lighter open, and lit up the mix of clothes and paper. She drained the fat of all blood, and tossed it into the fire. I don't remember anything past that. I assume that Screw was used as food for everyone. I fell asleep by the flames. The next day, everypony had food poisoning. Except me and Moon. The two children eventually faded. I was no help, as my magic was weakened. Moon and I sat in the corner, as ponies slowly lost the ability to remain awake. They would wake up for moments, but only to pass out again, after screaming. Soon, I looked to the bat pony with whom I'd shared a leg with, and whispered, "Should we put them out of their misery?.." She shook her head. Her eyes were turning a milky white. I looked to other ponies, noticing a few with jagged fangs for teeth, and others with creamy white eyes. I was unsure on how to approach this. So I simply separated myself from the rest of the. I wandered the tunnels that weren't caved in. I walked to the places where there was cave-ins. One of them was a thick amount of rocks. More than twenty feet apart. Huge rocks, too. I looked to the next one. It wasn't very thick, but it was a lot of huge boulders. I slowly looked through the nooks and crannies. There wasn't any spots where I could get good leverage. I tried everywhere. We were trapped. Little did I know, there was many ways I could have left. I watched each and everypony die, aside from the few who changed to the beasts. I had no name for them, other than the names that were theirs before the changing. I watched them change. Moon was the last to change. She was the one who was strongest. It was her who had protected me from the others. They feared her. She cleared out an exit, just before she changed completely. Nothing made me more happy and frightened than seeing her grin at the new way to go. She had sharp teeth, her mane and tail had fallen out in chunks. The same went for her coat. I was frightened, and ran as soon as the tunnel was open. Moon chased after me. She was fast. Much faster than me. That was when I found the exit. I barricaded it. I got out just before she did, and blasted the top of the arching exit. The rocks nearly crushed her. I felt sick to my stomach. Wingless.Soma woke up with a pain in his side. He yawned, eyes still closed. With a sleepy tone to his voice, he whispered, "Brush.. Is the storm over?.." No answer. Then he opened his eyes. After looking around, the past day came flooding back to him. His wings were hurting. He looked down to his sides, to see the matted fur, coated with congealed blood. "Oh my Celestia.. Nononono.." There was still flesh and bone showing from where the wings had been cut off. There was a cackling laughter behind him, and his wings were levitated in front of him, both covered in his crimson blood. The feathers were straightened out, nothing out of place.. There were bits of muscle hanging down from the joint, like stray pieces of string on a scarf or blanket.. He shuddered at the thought of returning home after this. His mother would rampage across Equestria, and his dad would start up chocolate milk storms in every corner of the world. He turned his head to look at Brush, to see she was right next to him, shackled to the floor. Her eyes were completely jet black. Brush had beaten a beast-thing. She'd spat a ball of wet flames at the creature's face, and as it tried to claw away the fire, she doused it in her blue flames. There were more, and one of them had scratched up her sides. There was spilled blood everywhere, so much that the air around the emerald dragon stunk of blood, and decay. After that, when there were no beasts left, Nightshade had picked her up in her black aura, and carried her back to the cavern where Soma was, and chained her to the cold stone ground. All the while, the disturbed alicorn slowly sapped away at Brush's memories. Nightshade sat down on her bed. It was made of pony skin, stuffed with the manes and coats of multiple groups of mares and stallions. But never did she ever let a filly or colt be harmed due to her, or her minions. She had a soft spot for the little ones. She looked around the room. On the other side was was the emerald dragon who had caused her so much pain and strife. Next to her was the prince. He had passed out immediately after his loss of a wing. The knife had cut straight through the bone, due to her magic heating it to the point of the steel hissing from the heat. But the stallion didn't notice. He had been crying. Nightshade had almost felt bad for ridding him of the chance to get a marefriend. No pony would want a draconequus with no wings. Not to mention, the magic blocker on his horn lasts for an unknown amount of time. Even SHE didn't know how long it could last. So that was definitely a big hint that he wouldn't be able to gain a marefriend. Slowly lying back against her soft blanket of fur, she could hear the creaking of her wings. She'd made them from various times ponies brought in any sort of metals. using her magic, she had melded the metal to be this way. Various joints, sharp edges, and a smooth underside, so that she wouldn't be hurt when she curled up for the night. The ends of the metal were sharpened to the point where they could cut through rock, in any circumstance. She'd tested it before. It worked. She slowly rose from her bed of past lives, and levitated the wings away. She walked over to Soma, stood behind him, and whispered in his ear, "You're mine, now. You'll never get out. You'll be my minion from now on." She watched as he shuddered, then yelled at her, "WE'LL GET OUT, AND YOU WON'T STOP US!!" She laughed at him. He was blubbering like a colt. Tears streaming down his face like crocodile tears, she felt a pang of guilt, but it wasn't much, so she didn't thing anything of it. He struggled even harder than the last time, causing the raised table to shake. She pulled a leaver to the right of the prince, and the table was slowly lowered, and tilted back to look like a normal flat table. "Soma, don't struggle. You'll only hurt yourself. Or rather, you'll make me want to hurt you more." "Let me go." "No." "Then let Brush go." "She's already too far gone for any saving." She watched as he turned to face the dragon, his eyes filled with fear, like a sheep nose to nose with a wolf. The dragon hadn't moved a muscle. He looked back to Nightshade, and whispered, "Why would you do this to us?.." She laughed and said in her boldest voice, "Because you would make a great pillowcase!" Nothing. She saw nothing. She couldn't move. She was in a black room. She could hear him. Soma was there. But she still couldn't see him. "Brush.. Is the storm over?.." She couldn't respond, no matter how hard she tried. She tried and tried and tried, as hard as she possibly could. She felt the tears coming to her eyes, like a dam about to overflow. There was the clicking of hooves again. It came from the same direction as soma's voice. There was whispering, then a burst of frightening laughter, and a mare who yelled out, "You'd make a great pillowcase!" She was scared. Vey scared. And the fact that she couldn't move wasn't helping. There was a sharp pain in her back, and then a warm feeling spreading over. The pain was still there, though. Almost like a knife or a dagger digging into her back, and then twisting around. The warmth slowly spread down her back. The pain was nearly unbearable for her. She began to cry. She still couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. The pain continued. It was as if somepony had dug a knife into her ribcage, then jerked it around. The warmth began to pool up around her. It was wet. Likely her blood. Soon, she began to feel numb. Her tears still flowed. We Start Our Story.."No breaking fourth walls in the castle, Soma!!" Yelled the white sunny Princess. 'Hmph. She thinks I'm still three. I can handle doing stuff like this. ' Soma thought as he phased through walls without using his horn. 'It's not like I'll get stuck.' Celestia chased after the young draconequus with her horn glowing. "GET BACK HERE NOW!! BEFORE I CALL IN YOUR FATHER!!" She yelled to him, quickly running out of breath. Now THAT was something he'd listen to. He stopped in his large cave-like bedroom after phasing through another hallway. "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO STAY ON THE FLOOR, AND NOT TO BREAK WALLS!!" Celestia yelled violently after catching her breath. Soma sat on the bed, looking to a wall as his mother started up her yelling. As Tia continued on her long rant, Soma tuned her out, and thought instead, of the new tricks he would come up with. She sat in her cave. Alone once more. Her paintings were fading again.. And she was without more paints and pencils, and her claws were too dull to scratch more into the wall. She started crying again. It wasn't unusual. As she curled up in her wings and tail, she heard a voice. "Come with me, and I'll take away ALL the pain, darling.. All of the loneliness.. Everything.." She lifted her head slowly. 'It's just one of my pictures again..' She thought. But the shadows were moving differently outside. While the full moon might have been shining brightly, it still seemed pitch black outside of her cave. As her night vision kicked in, she saw something, or someone, moving around. The Meeting.She melted away in her mother's arms.. Oh, how long it had been since she'd felt a hug like this, she'd never know.. "Don't worry, dear, mommy's here!" Said the sweet voice. Brush felt at home in the phantom's arms. *SHINK* A titanium object stuck through her mother's stomach, and poked Brush's own gut. Her mother dissolved into shadows and faded away to reveal a new visitor in the cave. Her eyes lit up with a flaming anger and her ears were splayed back against her head. "WHAT THE BUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!?" She yelled at the pony in front of her. "WHO ARE YOU, AND WHY DID YOU KILL MY MOTHER AGAIN?!?" The pony grinned weakly and said "I'm Soma. And your mom, was actually some shadow beast thingy." Brush glared at him for another moment before spinning to get around him, to hit him in the back of the head with her tail, knocking him out. Soma yawned and opened his eyes to see a small pair of glowing eyes in front of him.. He smiled and sat up, only to see the eyes were merely two fireflies.. They flew off down the cavern hallways. "Hey.. Don't leave me behind.." He whispered. He felt throbbing pain at the back of his head.. As he reached back to feel it, he realized there was blood gushing from a wound at the nape of his neck.. Welp, he brought a handkerchief for a reason.. As he wrapped his neck up, he started observing his surroundings. Faded paintings covered the walls, and they all looked realistic.. Nothing primitive.. He got up and grabbed his bag, which was sitting, empty, in a corner. "Where did that whelp put my stuff?.." He said to himself. Brush had never had something this delicious.. Oh boy this little red ball tasted amazing!! Other than the little stem at the top, and the core, of course. And the pony monster had so many of them! 'I wonder if he has more..' She thought to herself. But he wasn't awake yet. At least, he shouldn't be awake yet. The emerald dragon bit into the red object once more, and lifted her head to look down the hall, to see.. the pony! He was smiling at her. Surely he was scared of her! No mortal pony would be unafraid of a dragon! But there he was.. Smiling and waving at her, like they were old friends.. She roared at him, but he just roared back louder. Something no sane pony would ever do. Something was different about him, and she wanted to know what. She was going to find out why he wasn't scared. The StoneThe next morning came, and they were both beginning to yawn after their long night of conversation. Soma knew he should probably head home, but he felt as though something bad would happen if he did.. After all, dragons were rumored to be unimaginably powerful beings.. This one could be an omen or something.. He'd heard lots of bedtime stories about the last of some species being the only one left, and then they would turn out to be all powerful beings of doom and destruction!!! Or at least, that's what the guards always said. But every story started with that last of the species making a friend. And it ended in that friend being used for evil. 'The monster pony is letting his guard down..' Brush thought to herself. 'I think we're friends now.' She knew it wouldn't last long, and he'd leave and possibly never return.. But she still had hopes of him becoming her best friend. She just had to keep faith that she wouldn't let instinct take over, like it did last time.. But enough negativity! She was going to focus on the time she could use to learn about normal Equestrian culture! In just a few hours, Brush had taken in information about Equestrian Royalty, normal food, and lots of magic! She even learned a spell or twenty! She had practiced levitation using Soma, and had succeeded in throwing him in the air! While she still couldn't do as much as the pony, she could do MUCH more than she did the day before. And she intended to use her new skills. She intended to use them very much, in survival and fun. Soon, Soma knew it was time to go home. So they said their goodbyes, and Soma left, taking his torn belongings with him. And Brush began to explore deeper into the cavern. As she traveled down the winding tunnels, she noticed something.. She'd never been down this way. The tunnels continued to get bigger, and bigger, until she could fly in full circles. Eventually the walls of the tunnels smoothed out, and they started twisting and turning. They soon straightened, and Brush could see a light at the end of the corridor! "THANK GOODNESSS!!" She yelled, as she'd been walking for what must have been hours! She started running, and reached the end, only to realize that the corridor opened into a HUGE room. Directly in the center was a glowing stone. The Awakening, Part Two. She yelled as she sank into the water. It was freezing cold. Icy, more like it. More than that. She sank in, and the water reached her neck. Which was pretty deep, considering she was nearly twice the size of the average pony. Even though it was deep, she was still able to walk. Slowly, but enough to cross the ten foot ring. As she want to climb onto the narrow strip of rock between her and the next ring, which had magma, she felt something on her neck. The water was rising.. She frantically pulled herself back to the edge. The water was up to her snout. She was struggling now to keep her head above water. Then she felt something! "GAAH!!" She yelled out. There was something in that water and t was biting her tail! She was trying to shake it off, but it had it's teeth sunken into her tail. She roared into the silent cavern, causing an echo. The stone shook, but very slightly. Brush was still clinging heavily to the edge as the creature sunk it's sharpened teeth deeper into her tail. Tears coming to her eyes, she was being pulled under the surface by some unknown creature. "I'm not that weak.. I'm stronger than this beast. I've got this." She thought to herself. She reached over the edge of the ring, and dug her claws into the cracks in the rock. Pulling herself up, the water below was now swirling with her blood. She could hardly feel the tip of her tail now. She pulled herself over to find that her tail was trapped in some bear-claw mechanism! She yelled out as she pulled the trap off of her tail. She lost a chunk of her muscle, but she wrapped it in the monster pony's jacket. She slowed the bleeding, but it still flowed from the wound. She sat on the edge of the ring, tears coming to her eyes. She looked over the next ring, which was filled to the brim with hot magma. Though she was only a few inches away, she couldn't feel the heat.. She reached over to dip her claw into the boiling hot lava. As she reached over, she realized that it was cold! She tapped the surface, to find out that it was merely ice, which was tinted to look like boiling rock. She started tapping the ice, to find it wasn't very thin, but easily chipped. This was going to give her very bad vertigo. She stepped onto the surface, slowly but surely. The blood fell to the ice, and for the slightest moment, she was afraid the heat from the blood would melt the ice. It didn't. But she was still scared. Slowly, she stepped forward. She stepped out of the cavern holding the stone. It was warm, and it had a pattern. Spots, it looked like. It started shaking!! It.. Formed a crack.. This wasn't a stone. This is an egg.. A small head poked out. It was a boy. A baby dragon. It looked like her, but with bright green scales. Hers was blue. Like mother. It had the eyes of a dragon. His were bright purple. Brush knew that she was now the one to take care of him.
The Shadows in the Forest.She'd seen something. It was a pony. Or.. maybe a dragon.. "Who are you?!" She called out. A deep, melodic voice answered "I am the best thing that will ever happen to you.." "No, you aren't.. I know you're not!!" She slowly backed into a wall.. 'Dangit, my claws are too dull to defend myself, and my fire is too cold..' She growled to herself. 'But who.. what am I defending myself from?..' The dark emerald dragon looked to the trees again and froze in shock as she saw the figure. She watched as her mother stepped out of the shadowy trees. She had dark crimson scales and ruby red spikes on her tail. While most of her was an example of red monochrome, her eyes were special. One eye was a bright, icy blue, while the other was a dull light grey. "I'm back, honey!" Said her mother in a sweet voice. But Brush knew better than to listen. "You.. you aren't my mother.. She's gone!.. GO AWAY!!" She yelled, anger taking over. "Darling, I'm not gone.. I'm right here!.." Said the phantom image. The green dragon was pressed against the wall in fear. Her eyes were narrowed, wings half open in case she needed a quick escape. The fake dragon slowly walked over and held Brush in it's warm arms.. it felt just like a dragon mother's embrace.. and Brush was slowly lost in her mother's silky hug.. Soon after Celestia had left after a long rant, Soma had started working on his tornado designs. He would throw in multiple colors, and occasionally a spark or two. But that ended up being too repetitive. So he turned to look at the map on his wall. He had received it years ago from the Griffon Empire as a birthday gift. As he looked around the large map, a particular mountain caught his eye. He struggled to read the tiny labeling on his wall. "Torn.. Torn wall. Torn wall mountain! " He exclaimed. But something was different about it. Since the wall was infused with magic, the objects painted on it were made to look realistic, and they were accurate and ever-changing. And this particular mountain seemed to be.. surreal. As though it were made of plastic, and not the usual rocks and soil. He was intrigued. He quickly packed a bag with a couple apples, two sweaters, a sleeping bag, and his toy fox. 'I'll just wait till sunset, and I'll take a trip to that mountain!' He thought to himself. When he left, and he snuck off good. Even managed to get past the night guard! As he reached the castle boundaries, he spread his wings, and took to the skies! He was soon at the base of the mountain. Smiling, he yelled at the moon, "Freee at last!!!" While he knew he would return home eventually, he felt like he shouldn't have gone at all.. But he'd gone anyway. And he'd grow up to love that decision.
New Friends. Maybe.She sat in the corner of her cavern room, watching as he wandered towards her, his empty bag on his back, and a makeshift bandage on his wound. "Hello!" He called down the hall when he saw her. She sat in silence. He ran towards her and slid to sit in front of her. "I'm Soma. What's your name?" He asked quietly. Still she sat in silence and stared at him. "Can you talk?" He asked her. She nodded. "Then tell me your name!" He says to her. She shook her head. He was starting to get annoyed, and she could tell. After a few minutes, she finally said "Brush. My name is Brush Stroke." He looked up at her, and said "So you CAN talk. Why didn't you talk earlier?" She looked to him and whispered "Well, I don't really know you that well. But now you seem nice." He smiled at her. 'He has a goofy smile..' She thought to herself. She leaned back against the wall. "Those red things from your bag.. The crunchy things. Do you have more?" She asked him. He smiled and said "You mean the apples? Yeah, I can get more, if you like!" She nodded shyly. His horn started glowing, and her eyes grew wide. A small basket of apples appeared, and she just stared at it in awe. He grinned at her and said "Have you ever seen someone use magic before?" She shook her head no. He chuckled, and went on to show her a few more small tricks. She watched in pure silence as he set off little sparks from his horn, and flowers popped up from the stone ground! He enjoyed being able to show off his skills. His mother never let him at home.. They went on like this for hours, with Brush watching intently as Soma performed countless spells, and showed light shows from his horn, and the dragon soon learned a few spells herself! They both knew this was the beginning to a beautiful friendship. Unless the old fued between dragons and ponies would be reignited..
The Awakening.When he returned home, it was already early morning, and the sun had risen. He'd had to sneak past the day guards, who weren't as skilled as the night guard, so it was much easier to get back in. Except.. His window was locked. And he'd left the key inside. 'I'm busted. Done for. They caught me.' He thought to himself. He knew that mom and dad had found out he was gone, and made it to where he would have to face them in order to get inside. Utter failure on his part, forgetting the key in his room.. He dropped down to the castle courtyard, and hung his bag on the statue of some explorer that he didn't recognize. The bag looked at home there, and it was a good hiding spot to leave his bag. After making sure that it looked perfect, he walked to the front gates. After being admitted inside by the guards, he went inside, to find that Aunt Luna was waiting for him instead of his mother and father. 'Welcome back, Nephew. I presume you had a nice trip?" She said quietly. "I only went on a walk around Canterlot." He lied. "False. I came to sing you a lullaby after raising the moon and stars, and you were gone. You left to-" All the windows in the castle opened, along with all of the doors, and it was loud. Saved by a sneeze.. "Discord simply must fix his allergy situation.." Luna mumbled quietly. She turned back to Soma, and stopped the draconequus from trying to sneak way; she began to continue her talk. "You left to do something. What was it?" She asked in a stern, but sweet voice. He hesitated to answer. "I was looking at my map, and a particular place caught my eye. So I went there." "And when you got there, did you find something.. Interesting?" He remained silent. "You'd better tell me what you found, Soma. Or I'll make sure Celestia knows you left Canterlot without permission." She knew how to twist him to get an answer.. "..I found a dragon. And the last of her race, too!" He blurted out. "A dragon, you say?" She asked with a smile. She didn't know what the rock was... But it was shiny. And she wanted it. But.. it was surrounded by rings of water and magma.. Farthest out ring was a full forty feet from the stone. And it was water. The second farthest was magma, then water. The rings were patterned. She stepped up to the edge of the first ring. The water was deep, and the ring was wide. Trouble was, her wings were no good, as she could hardly fly, and she'd never bothered to learn how to swim. Times like these she wished she had a family to teach her.. She sat at the edge of the ring, and reached in, as far as she could, without falling. She still didn't reach the water. ''Too deep to wade through..'' She thought to herself. '' I guess I'm learning how to swim today.'' She stuck her tail in first, only to find that the water was freezing cold, despite the scalding magma right next to it. "Oh well." She thought. "I'll survive. I hope.. " And then she jumped in.
The Storm.The monster pony didn't return. Not for a while. While he was gone, she learned about the baby dragon that had hatched from the egg. It had bright violet eyes, and it was an ice dragon. Very contrasting to her own normal fire belly. But there was no way she'd be able to tell him no. He was adorable!! But he was simply another mouth to feed. And she already had enough trouble feeding herself. She went two days. And she fed him more than herself. A full week went by. She was still hunting for more animals. Her tail became infected. Another week. The dragon learned to talk. It managed to spread it's wings and hover. Her tail was still hurt. After a full two weeks, the monster pony came. He brought apples. She liked apples. So did the whelp. He came again two weeks later. He brought chalk. She used it to draw. Her pictures weren't coming to life anymore. The monster pony gave her more magic. It helped the pictures to move again. He came every two weeks for a few years. They decided that the whelp be named Firestone. Firestone eventually ran away. She cried for the first time in a long time. She knew she shouldn't. She was now 13. She wasn't supposed to cry. The monster pony came to comfort her. He was nice. Brush learned that the dragon pony was named Soma. Soma came to the cave again. He was much bigger now. Almost bigger than Brush was. But not yet. She was still a few inches taller. Today he'd sneaked away from Celestia. It wasn't his day to leave, and he thought he could come surprise her with an apple. She loved those. He walked in, to see her hunched over in a corner. She looked much different from when they met. He still remembered it. She was his size, maybe smaller, and she was standing just outside the mouth of her rocky home. She was hugging a monster. It was nothing but a shadow to him, but she saw something different. She saw her mother, who had died years ago. She never told him if the monster had returned. Perhaps.. It had been killed by the dagger? That's all he'd had. And she was starting to get hurt, so he had to help. But now things were different. She was bigger, stronger, and smarter. She was able to sharpen her claws more often. Her magic paintings were learning to survive easier. They were small, barely bigger than his head. But they still came to life as long as she made them. She had obviously made one this morning. It was still stuck on the wall. Right next to her. She was still crying. He walked over to her. She was hunched over with tears streaming down her face. He'd only seen her cry once before, and that was when they'd met. He didn't remember her crying bright purple tears. He hugged her, and she fell silent. She started to sob. This went on for a few minutes, and she was calm again. She sat against the wall. "A-Are you... okay?.." He said to her with a trembling voice. She simply nodded. "I'm fine.." She said with a soft, cracking voice. "Just not as happy." She mumbled. He handed her an apple. She ate it in two swift chomps, her sharpened teeth biting through like a knife through jello. She smiled, and he smiled back. "Are you still upset about Firestone?" He asked cautiously. She didn't respond. "When did you make this??" He asked her, pointing to the small drawing on the wall. She mumbled "A few minutes before you came.." She turned to put her back against the wall. Her wings were growing so that she couldn't fold them to her side. His wings had barely grown at all. She had to have her wings half open. Eventually she opened them fully, in order to stretch them out. They sat for hours talking about the different things they had to say. Soon, before they knew it, there were dark grey storm clouds in the sky. Brush folded her wings as best she could. Lightning flashed and startled the pair. Soma was worried. He hadn't told Luna or Celestia, or Discord about leaving. He knew they'd be worried. But he couldn't go out in this weather. He was the son of absolute chaos, along with harmony. He was bound to get struck by lightning. Unless he was in shelter. Brush knew this as well. "C'mon. There's a bigger cavern down this way." She said over the sounds of the storm. Winds were blowing furiously. She started walking down the hall, wings half-folded. He followed closely, having never gone this way before. He looked back towards the mouth of the cave. A branch fell. And something fell with it. "Uhh.. Hey.. There's something over there.." He said under the thunder outside. Brush didn't respond, so he assumed she didn't hear him. He spoke louder. "Uhh.. Brush?? There's something outside the cave!" She turned around to face him. "I know." She said quietly. Though it was barely above a whisper, it could still be heard over the pouring rain. She turned back around and started walking again.
The Catacombs.They walked through the tunnels for a few minutes, and stopped in a small cavern. They could not hear the storm here. This wasn't unlike the cavern that Brush had found Firestone in. She sat down in the middle of the cave. Soma sat near the entrance. She curled up and started scratching at the stone floor. Soma remained at the door, listening for the sound of hoofsteps. He was frantically hoping to hear step down the hall.He was afraid that the thing that had fallen was hurt. Or even dead. He sat in the entrance. And they were waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. A full two hours passed. Soma stood up and stretched his wings. "I'm going to go see if the storm is slowing down enough for me to leave. If I'm not back withing ten minutes, either I've left, or I'm lost." He said in a quiet tone. Brush simply nodded and continued scratching. Soma turned to the tunnels. He started walking. Hoping to hear steps in the dark and cool catacombs, hopefully from whatever had fallen from the branch.. He reached a fork in the path, and turned right. He was wandering through winding passageways. "Did the amount of turns change since we passed through?..." He asked himself. He reached another junction, this time with four total turns. The first sloped upwards. The second had a sharp 90 degree turn about 20 feet in. The third simply went forward and had no foreseeable end. The fourth tunnel sloped downwards. He turned back, and began walking back to the first fork in the rocky hallways. However, after a few minutes of walking, he reached another junction. It was the same as the last! He paused, then started down the one that went upwards. He realized that he had been gone for more than ten minutes now. Hopefully Brush was looking for him. She was in the cavern. The eyes of her biggest project were done. Ten minutes was all it took. She was proud of herself. Smiling, she rose up, and began walking towards the exit. He'd probably be gone. But she felt better. Maybe there would be some animals to catch! She walked to the cave entrance to find he was really gone. His jacket was gone, along with his backpack. Both of which were left on a small ledge above the entrance. But.. the storm was still raging beyond the mouth of the cave. He wouldn't have gone out there.. would he? She turned to the tunnels, so she could roam about the rocky passageways. She began humming quietly. It was a tune that had no name. She had made the melody up years ago, and simply continued adding more parts to it. By now, nearly two years later, it was three full minutes long. She continued down the halls, worrying about Soma being stuck in the storm somewhere. He left, probably because he was too impatient to stay and wait for the storm to pass. He was generally rather good with waiting, but not when it came to times when he would have to wait in one specific room or area. He hated things like that. His legs were soon tired. The granite halls were sloping upwards, and still he saw no end. The angle gradually evened out, and he sat down to rest his burning muscles. Oh, how he wished he'd brought his backpack, so he could eat an apple, and use his pencil to mark his trail.. But he'd left them on the ledge above the mouth of the cave. He looked around. There was two different shades of red. One was the wall, and the other was.. in a pattern... He looked closer. These weren't patterned. This was writing. Written in.. Blood red. He suddenly felt an urge to keep moving. He got up, mumbling to himself. "No.. it's just a coincidence.. it's not blood, or writing.. it's just the way the granite looks.." But in the back of his mind, he knew it wasn't just the way the rock looked. He continued on. As she moved, the writing became messier and messier.. Droplets of the red ink were splattered.. Eventually, they faded to simple streaks. He felt tired, and hungry. But still he walked. He thought of how long he'd been gone from home. His parents were probably worried sick about him.. He found a new fork in the road. The were exactly the same, just reflections of one another. He contemplated each side for a moment, and chose the left one. He walked. And walked. And walked. Brush was walking through the tunnels. Still humming, she reached her favorite place in the entire system of stone corridors. It was a rounded area that had well over twenty passages. She had marked all of the ones that had already been explored. She went into one of the ones that had remained an unknown territory. She'd gone through, and gotten far, but had never found the end. It was an interchangeable route, that seemed to be different every time somepony would go through. This time it led to a dead end two turns in. She turned back, and began walking. She reached a dead end where the exit should have been. She ran back to where the ending WAS, and found that it had opened up, leading to a four-way junction. She took a tunnel that went downwards.
The Monster. She walked along the passage, slowly descending into the depths of the catacombs. Her wings were brushing against the walls. She was beginning to feel cramped. Nearly all of the other passages had been large enough to allow her to spread her wings out a lot more. She continued on, the passageway still twisting. Soon, she noticed her wings were wet. But she couldn't open her wings to see why. She kept moving, to find her wings were burning. She folded them in as best she could, and kept going. This tunnel would simply close itself up if she tried to turn back. Not to mention, she couldn't turn back. Her wings wouldn't allow it. If she was without them, she'd be able to turn full circles, and walk a bit quicker. Her wings were hurting more. She realized they were rubbing against the walls, creating a large scrape down her wings, leaving a bloody trail on the walls behind her. She sighed and continued moving. The passage led to a fork in the path. There was a hole above her, large enough for even HER to fly through. Soma looked ahead. He'd been walking for a few hours now, and no change. Wait.. There was light up ahead! He ran towards it, unaware of the mare behind him. He felt a blinding blow to the back of his head, and yelled out as loud as he possibly could. He fell to the floor as all faded to black and a pair of glowing blue eyes looked down on him. Brush was looking up at the upper exit. She spread her wings to see if she really could fit. And she could. Not very well, but she could. She froze. She heard yelling. It was Soma's voice. Coming from above. Looking up, she listened again. It was all silent. Nothing but her own breathing. She flew up the stone shaft. She reached ceiling, and a new way to go. This way was a larger passageway, and she could spread her wings more. She began to run. Soma woke up with an agonizing pain at the nape of his neck. He tried to stand, only to realize he was held down on some sort of table by leather straps. He turned his head to the right to see he was still within the mountain where the tunnels were. He turned his head to the left to see a mare's face almost nose to nose with his. She was grinning. "I see you're awake now! Not for long." "GAAH!!" He yelled. She lifted a syringe filled with a blue liquid. He slowly lost consciousness as she injected the needle into his arm. Brush heard him yell again. It was dead ahead. She ran faster. She ran. And ran. She reached the end of the hall. There was an opening, that led out into open skies, above a forest. It was nighttime. She couldn't see any traces of Soma having been here. She stepped onto the edge of the opening and looked up. Nothing but starry skies. She looked down. There was another opening just below. She spread her wings, silently vowing that she would practice more. She could feel the breeze. She looked up to see a full moon in the sky, with no clouds to be seen. It was beautiful. The sheer amount of stars was overwhelming. She looked ahead. Took a deep breath. And took off. The absolute force her wings used on the air caused a small rocky avalanche. It felt amazing to feel the wind against her scales for the first time in a long time. And she wanted to fly forever. But she couldn't. She had to help Soma. She flew up, past the clouds, and dove down. She soared around the peak of the mountain. Once, twice, three times. She dropped down to the stone entrance below her takeoff point. Looking in, she saw a monster. It was a creamy white, with claws like daggers. She froze as it turned towards her. It screeched like nails against a chalkboard. It ran towards her, still screeching. Soma woke up once more, still strapped down. However, this time he was in a standing position. Still on the table, he was able to look around much more. He looked forward to see the mare from before. She was holding a dull knife. He felt a rush of terror. She had sharp mechanical wings, a cracked horn, a golden mane and tail, with a coat that was a rusty color. She had bright green eyes that showed no emotion, and her teeth were sharpened to points. She looked in his eyes, grinning with her vicious teeth. She stepped closer, and said in her poisoned honey voice; "Is the patient ready for surgery?"
The Screams.Brush was frozen in terror. The monster stopped in front of her. She could smell it's breath. It smelled of rotting flesh. It screeched again. She flinched slightly. It had milky white eyes, and red teeth. It had a slight pony-esque look to it. It had no mane or tail, and it's ribs stuck out, stretching skin tautly. There was a second screeching down the hall. This one sounded different. Like somepony was dragging a knife down the stone floor. The monster in front of her screeched again, and turned around. Brush could see the spine of the thing, sticking out against the creature's taut skin. She remained frozen until the thing was gone. She collapsed on the floor, beads of sweat on her scales. "What.. Was that??" She sat in one spot for a few moments. Shaking, she could feel her heart racing. Her wings were twitching from the rush of blood. "Where's Soma?.." She thought to herself. She jumped up. The screeching was still down the hall, both of the noises mingling together. -- Soma looked at her with pure terror in his eyes. She gently pressed the knife to his stomach, pressing down against his furry abdomen. He twitched, and tried as hard as he could to hold his stomach in. She smiled. "Relax, Soma." She said with a glint in her eyes. He slowly allowed his muscles to relax. She pulled her knife away when he relaxed. He twitched, and whispered "Who are you?.. " She chuckled and showed him her cutie mark. It was four black berries. She said in her relaxing voice "My name is Nightshade. And you are Soma." "How did you know that?" "I know more than you think. Including the fact that your friend is dead." He looked at her, shaking violently. "She isn't dead. She isn't. She wouldn't die. Brush is stronger than that." Nightshade laughed again. Her laugh made Soma feel calm. "Soma, dear, THEY have her. They'll tear her scales off bit by bit. Keep her alive and aware the entire time. Then they'll eat her." He could feel his heart beating quicker. There was a long screeching noise somewhere off in the catacombs. The vicious mare looked off to the entrance into the stone maze. She grinned. "She's been caught." He struggled against the leather straps holding him back. She stepped behind him, and he could no longer see nor hear her. He heard a noise. It was similar to the screeching he'd heard. It was almost more like.. metal on metal, but amplified by 1000. He flinched at the noise. It hurt his highly trained ears to hear something at such a frequency. He heard the mare's voice behind him. "Your friend will be here soon. You won't see her though." "What do you mean?" "Say goodnight, Soma." He felt a needle poke through the skin in his back. Everything faded, and he heard her screech one last time, her voice mingling with another.. -- Brush looked down the hall. It was dark. Very dark. She had no choice but to go in, though, as a thick, heavy fog was rolling in. She blew a small flame into her claw. She held the fire close. Slowly, she stepped into the maze of granite. The darkness surrounded her like a blanket. She gradually added fire to her claws. A feeling crept over her, almost like there was someone watching her. She spun around, straining her eyes to see through the fog. Nobody was there. The screeching was gone. Trembling, she kept moving. She spread her wings out to gauge how wide the tunnel was. She hit something. It screamed. Like the milky white monster.
The Wendigo. The Wendigo. Nightshade smiled. She was the only one to ever remain pony, and not become a wendigo. And now they were loyal to her. Perhaps it was the fact that she was utterly terrifying? And now they'd caught the dragon, and she'd gotten the chance to take the prince. He was strapped onto the experiment wall. She was going to feed her little minions tonight. In bits and pieces. She laughed with her high pitched bubbly giggle. She walked to the prince. He couldn't be any more than thirteen. She was well over a millennium old. But she didn't look a day over thirty. She lifted his wing, inspecting each feather. She yanked one out. The prince twitched, but remained unconscious. She pulled another one near the base of the wing. He pulled his wing back to his side. She grinned. She walked back behind him, to her instrument table. She picked up her serrated knife, and walked back to the draconequus. She gently pressed the knife against the joint of his wing. He woke up then. He was shuddering. "H-Hey!! Stop that!!" "No. My Wendigos need a treat. You will be delicious to them." He started struggling against the leather. "Let me go!!" She shook her head. She pressed the knife into his wing joint. It cut through the feathers like a spoon through butter. He winced, and with a voice on the verge of tears he whimpered "Y-You won't keep me here.." She laughed and said quietly "I won't, but THEY will." Laughing once more, she pressed the knife into his wing, causing droplets of his crimson blood to form on his side. He struggled his hardest, then froze. She watched him as he shut his eyes as tight as possible, and his horn began to spark. She laughed, and said in a sharp, harsh voice, "You fool. I put a magic blocker on your horn. You won't be able to do magic, or fly away from me." She chuckled as he squirmed against the leather straps. "Stop moving, or this will hurt a LOT more." He looked at her, straight in her eyes, and said with a voice full of malice "Let. Me. Go." She laughed, and brought her knife up, and behind her back. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for unimaginable pain. She looked at him as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Maybe.. I could keep him?.." Nightshade thought to herself. She laughed at the thought of keeping a prince with her. Not to mention, the Wendigos would eat him in two seconds flat. One of them screeched. It was very faint. Soma didn't hear it, thankfully. She turned her head to look directly at the wing joint. "This knife isn't dull enough. This will cut through immediately." He looked at her with a tilted head. "If it's dull, it will tear the skin, causing more pain. Your screams will attract my pets." -- Brush froze. She looked to her wing, and blew a small stream of fire to her right, only to see a white face a few feet from hers. It was one of the monsters. It had seen her this time. It screeched, but it was a weak noise, hardly louder than a normal mare's screaming. She blew a large burst of flame towards it, and folded her wings. It screeched again in pain. She ran. The thing followed her.
The Blood. The Blood. Soma looked to her, trembling with true fear. "P-Please don't kill me.." He said quietly, with a whimper at the end. "I won't. I'm just here to prepare you for the beasts." He began to hyperventilate. "BRUSH HELP MEE!!!" He screamed. He looked frantically to the exit from the cave. He shut his eyes tight, and concentrated on his dragon friend. "Brush.. If you can hear me.. help.. she's about to feed me to some beast.." He waited for an answer. The draconequus could feel tears in his eyes, like floodgates fighting to be opened. He looked to Nightshade, and whispered "Why.." She laughed at him, like he was nothing but a colt. Nightshade brought the knife down on his wing with one swift movement, like an arrow piercing the blue sky. He could feel the heat of his blood streaming down his side, slowly spreading through his fur. She was giggling.. The walls were fading around him.. His head slumped and he passed out. -- Brush had been running through the fog for a few minutes, now, and still had not lost the creature. She shot a burst of flame behind her once more, causing the beast to fall back. It was covered in its own blood, giving it an even more gruesome look to it. "Brush.. If you can hear me.. help.. she's about to feed me to some beast.." Her ears perked up. "Soma!.." She mumbled to herself. The beast screamed again. It was right above her, running on the ceiling. She spread her wings, the tips still feet away from the walls of the passageway. now that they were deeper into the tunnel, the misty fog had dissipated, allowing the emerald green dragon to run faster without having to worry about running into any obstacles. She could also see farther ahead. Running through twisting tunnels, she saw a light ahead. There was a silhouette in the tunnels, partially blocking out the source of illumination. She looked closer, to see that it was a mare. An alicorn mare. She ran faster, closing her wings again. The beast above her screeched and fell back. The mare screeched in a similar tone to the beasts infernal noise. The emerald dragon ran to the mare, to see that she had metal wings, with strips of leather where skin would be. Her horn was glowing with a black aura, and her mane was the color of the purest gold in the entire mountain. Her tail, however was pitch black. Her coat was a rusty color, that seemed to have an underlying color to it. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of auburn. She was holding a curved blade in her black and grey aura. "I am Nighshade, ruler of the beasts. And you are Brush. One of the beasts." The mare said this slowly, and took a step closer to the green dragon. Brush slowly backed up, and turned her head to see behind. There were more monsters.. She turned back to face the mare, to find they were nose to nose. "Welcome to the Core." Was all she said. The next few moments were such a blur, Brush could only remember a scuffle, bursts of flame, and a single blow to the back of her head.
The Transformation.The dragon.. it killed her favorite Wendigo. It had been her best friend before she changed. Her name was Moongazer. Nothing had hurt her more than watching as her friend had slowly changed from pony to beast. We'd been in the tunnels for a month now, and the food was running low. Almost everypony thought to grab the saddlebags. Ponies were starting to go missing, and the lights were getting weaker, until unicorns had to light the cavern with their horns. I was the only one who could go very long without food. The others were losing sanity. The tunnels became more dangerous, and I didn't think we would ever get out. We'd been lost for nearly a week. It was a get-together for the anniversary of Equestria's making. It was supposed to be happy. It wasn't. We had a total of 24 ponies. We had one filly, and two colts with us. They didn't make it past the first week. We'd lasted a day in the winding catacombs, gone back to camp for the night, then come back into the winding tunnels. That was when the exit caved in. I remember watching as the rocks fell. It was horrifying to watch the ponies run from the wreckage. One of the colts was crushed by a falling rock. I still remember the agonizing screams as the boulder fell and crushed him. We wandered around the rest of the tunnels, frantically searching for a way out. Eventually, we just gave up. We'd searched for three days. No results. Nothing. Then, after six days of being lost, one of the stallions began to use the hunting poison to kill ponies. I'm ashamed I was in on the infernal plan. After two or three ponies not waking up in the morning, the others began to realize it wasn't a simple case of heart attack or starvation. They all looked to the only bat pony in the group, named Moongazer. She was the only one physically well enough to eat real meat. She looked at everypony, whimpering as the mares and stallions closed in on her, holding sharpened rocks. She looked around to everypony who wasn't ready to attack. When she looked to me, I could see her pleading eyes. I looked to the stallion who had thought of the poison. His eyes were becoming an off-white color, with no pupils. His teeth were becoming deformed, like a shark mouth with jagged teeth. I looked back to the seventeen ponies surrounding Moon. They were like a pack of wolves closing in on a sheep. I gathered my guts, knowing that he would hate me for this, and yelled "It was ScrewDriver!!" The stallion looked at me, and whispered an unknown sentence. He looked at me with a glare of hatred. He rose, paused, and said louder, with a strong voice, "She isn't lying, it really was me." All the mares and stallions who had been on the verge of attacking Moon turned around, all wearing faces of shock. The head mare, a blue maned pegasus, looked to Screw. She threw a knife, and it hit the stallion directly in the stomach. You could see the blood soaking his white overcoat, like a sponge soaking up water. I sank down the wall behind me. I began to cry, not caring who saw. That was when I'd met Moon. The attention was away from her, and the others were slowly separating into different areas. Moon wandered to me, and thanked me. She said other things, but I only caught bits of her talking. She had a dark blue coat, and an even darker curly mane. Her tail was the same, but she had one white stripe down her tail. Her eyes were red. I don't know why, but we just hit it off immediately. I looked over to Screw for a moment. He had always been a handsome stallion, with great skills in magic. I always thought he and I could eventually court each other, but he was never able to decipher my flirting. And now that I saw him, slumped against a wall, with the hilt of the knife poking out from his stomach, I was hit with a deep sense of pain, and joy. For some strange reason, seeing his blood slowly pooling up around him, I felt a rush of adrenaline. I slowly stopped crying, and realized that Moon was hugging me. She was crying, along with me. I hugged her, too. We were beginning to attract the stares of our peers. She whispered, "Thank you.." I felt better after that. We broke the hug, and she looked to me. Her eyes.. I still remember them.. They were a darker red, and she looked as though she were about to cry again. One of the mares called out that it was nearly ten o clock. The only way we knew was a watch she carried around in her pack. "Do you want to sleep upside down tonight?.. Like a bat pony?.." Moongazer asked me quietly. I nodded, and she took my hoof, and pulled me up to the ceiling. I learned how to hang, but I wasn't very good. I lasted through the night, though. I had to use my magic for a while. The next morning was a blur. Everypony had already asked me if I could bust out a tunnel, since I was the most skilled unicorn. But even I couldn't. The head mare said that Moon could eat Screw for lunch. The bat paused, and walked over to the traitor. She slowly pulled the knife out of his stomach, and handed it to the blue pegasus. They exchanged a few words, and the pegasus nodded. Moon then picked up the stallion, and set him in the middle of the cavern. She took off her saddlebag, and pulled out a lighter. She took off her own jacket, and ripped it into small strips of cloth. For a moment, I didn't understand what she was doing. But then she looked to me, and whispered, "Can I use your banner?.." She was talking about the banner that I had made to celebrate Equestria. It was made out of poster paper. It had stayed dry in my saddlebag. I had forgotten about it until she reminded me. I was unsure. We didn't use fire in the tunnels out of fear for combustion. We'd had enough death. But she still asked, preparing to start a fire. Nobody noticed her as she took the banner, ripped it up, and tossed it into a pile. I gave her my spare jacket. She took that, too, and tossed it into the pile. After preparing the fire, she took a knife out of her saddle bag. She was completely silent, as she cut off his limbs, and stripped away the fat. She clicked the lighter open, and lit up the mix of clothes and paper. She drained the fat of all blood, and tossed it into the fire. I don't remember anything past that. I assume that Screw was used as food for everyone. I fell asleep by the flames. The next day, everypony had food poisoning. Except me and Moon. The two children eventually faded. I was no help, as my magic was weakened. Moon and I sat in the corner, as ponies slowly lost the ability to remain awake. They would wake up for moments, but only to pass out again, after screaming. Soon, I looked to the bat pony with whom I'd shared a leg with, and whispered, "Should we put them out of their misery?.." She shook her head. Her eyes were turning a milky white. I looked to other ponies, noticing a few with jagged fangs for teeth, and others with creamy white eyes. I was unsure on how to approach this. So I simply separated myself from the rest of the. I wandered the tunnels that weren't caved in. I walked to the places where there was cave-ins. One of them was a thick amount of rocks. More than twenty feet apart. Huge rocks, too. I looked to the next one. It wasn't very thick, but it was a lot of huge boulders. I slowly looked through the nooks and crannies. There wasn't any spots where I could get good leverage. I tried everywhere. We were trapped. Little did I know, there was many ways I could have left. I watched each and everypony die, aside from the few who changed to the beasts. I had no name for them, other than the names that were theirs before the changing. I watched them change. Moon was the last to change. She was the one who was strongest. It was her who had protected me from the others. They feared her. She cleared out an exit, just before she changed completely. Nothing made me more happy and frightened than seeing her grin at the new way to go. She had sharp teeth, her mane and tail had fallen out in chunks. The same went for her coat. I was frightened, and ran as soon as the tunnel was open. Moon chased after me. She was fast. Much faster than me. That was when I found the exit. I barricaded it. I got out just before she did, and blasted the top of the arching exit. The rocks nearly crushed her. I felt sick to my stomach.
Wingless.Soma woke up with a pain in his side. He yawned, eyes still closed. With a sleepy tone to his voice, he whispered, "Brush.. Is the storm over?.." No answer. Then he opened his eyes. After looking around, the past day came flooding back to him. His wings were hurting. He looked down to his sides, to see the matted fur, coated with congealed blood. "Oh my Celestia.. Nononono.." There was still flesh and bone showing from where the wings had been cut off. There was a cackling laughter behind him, and his wings were levitated in front of him, both covered in his crimson blood. The feathers were straightened out, nothing out of place.. There were bits of muscle hanging down from the joint, like stray pieces of string on a scarf or blanket.. He shuddered at the thought of returning home after this. His mother would rampage across Equestria, and his dad would start up chocolate milk storms in every corner of the world. He turned his head to look at Brush, to see she was right next to him, shackled to the floor. Her eyes were completely jet black. Brush had beaten a beast-thing. She'd spat a ball of wet flames at the creature's face, and as it tried to claw away the fire, she doused it in her blue flames. There were more, and one of them had scratched up her sides. There was spilled blood everywhere, so much that the air around the emerald dragon stunk of blood, and decay. After that, when there were no beasts left, Nightshade had picked her up in her black aura, and carried her back to the cavern where Soma was, and chained her to the cold stone ground. All the while, the disturbed alicorn slowly sapped away at Brush's memories. Nightshade sat down on her bed. It was made of pony skin, stuffed with the manes and coats of multiple groups of mares and stallions. But never did she ever let a filly or colt be harmed due to her, or her minions. She had a soft spot for the little ones. She looked around the room. On the other side was was the emerald dragon who had caused her so much pain and strife. Next to her was the prince. He had passed out immediately after his loss of a wing. The knife had cut straight through the bone, due to her magic heating it to the point of the steel hissing from the heat. But the stallion didn't notice. He had been crying. Nightshade had almost felt bad for ridding him of the chance to get a marefriend. No pony would want a draconequus with no wings. Not to mention, the magic blocker on his horn lasts for an unknown amount of time. Even SHE didn't know how long it could last. So that was definitely a big hint that he wouldn't be able to gain a marefriend. Slowly lying back against her soft blanket of fur, she could hear the creaking of her wings. She'd made them from various times ponies brought in any sort of metals. using her magic, she had melded the metal to be this way. Various joints, sharp edges, and a smooth underside, so that she wouldn't be hurt when she curled up for the night. The ends of the metal were sharpened to the point where they could cut through rock, in any circumstance. She'd tested it before. It worked. She slowly rose from her bed of past lives, and levitated the wings away. She walked over to Soma, stood behind him, and whispered in his ear, "You're mine, now. You'll never get out. You'll be my minion from now on." She watched as he shuddered, then yelled at her, "WE'LL GET OUT, AND YOU WON'T STOP US!!" She laughed at him. He was blubbering like a colt. Tears streaming down his face like crocodile tears, she felt a pang of guilt, but it wasn't much, so she didn't thing anything of it. He struggled even harder than the last time, causing the raised table to shake. She pulled a leaver to the right of the prince, and the table was slowly lowered, and tilted back to look like a normal flat table. "Soma, don't struggle. You'll only hurt yourself. Or rather, you'll make me want to hurt you more." "Let me go." "No." "Then let Brush go." "She's already too far gone for any saving." She watched as he turned to face the dragon, his eyes filled with fear, like a sheep nose to nose with a wolf. The dragon hadn't moved a muscle. He looked back to Nightshade, and whispered, "Why would you do this to us?.." She laughed and said in her boldest voice, "Because you would make a great pillowcase!" Nothing. She saw nothing. She couldn't move. She was in a black room. She could hear him. Soma was there. But she still couldn't see him. "Brush.. Is the storm over?.." She couldn't respond, no matter how hard she tried. She tried and tried and tried, as hard as she possibly could. She felt the tears coming to her eyes, like a dam about to overflow. There was the clicking of hooves again. It came from the same direction as soma's voice. There was whispering, then a burst of frightening laughter, and a mare who yelled out, "You'd make a great pillowcase!" She was scared. Vey scared. And the fact that she couldn't move wasn't helping. There was a sharp pain in her back, and then a warm feeling spreading over. The pain was still there, though. Almost like a knife or a dagger digging into her back, and then twisting around. The warmth slowly spread down her back. The pain was nearly unbearable for her. She began to cry. She still couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. The pain continued. It was as if somepony had dug a knife into her ribcage, then jerked it around. The warmth began to pool up around her. It was wet. Likely her blood. Soon, she began to feel numb. Her tears still flowed.
We Start Our Story.."No breaking fourth walls in the castle, Soma!!" Yelled the white sunny Princess. 'Hmph. She thinks I'm still three. I can handle doing stuff like this. ' Soma thought as he phased through walls without using his horn. 'It's not like I'll get stuck.' Celestia chased after the young draconequus with her horn glowing. "GET BACK HERE NOW!! BEFORE I CALL IN YOUR FATHER!!" She yelled to him, quickly running out of breath. Now THAT was something he'd listen to. He stopped in his large cave-like bedroom after phasing through another hallway. "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO STAY ON THE FLOOR, AND NOT TO BREAK WALLS!!" Celestia yelled violently after catching her breath. Soma sat on the bed, looking to a wall as his mother started up her yelling. As Tia continued on her long rant, Soma tuned her out, and thought instead, of the new tricks he would come up with. She sat in her cave. Alone once more. Her paintings were fading again.. And she was without more paints and pencils, and her claws were too dull to scratch more into the wall. She started crying again. It wasn't unusual. As she curled up in her wings and tail, she heard a voice. "Come with me, and I'll take away ALL the pain, darling.. All of the loneliness.. Everything.." She lifted her head slowly. 'It's just one of my pictures again..' She thought. But the shadows were moving differently outside. While the full moon might have been shining brightly, it still seemed pitch black outside of her cave. As her night vision kicked in, she saw something, or someone, moving around.
The Meeting.She melted away in her mother's arms.. Oh, how long it had been since she'd felt a hug like this, she'd never know.. "Don't worry, dear, mommy's here!" Said the sweet voice. Brush felt at home in the phantom's arms. *SHINK* A titanium object stuck through her mother's stomach, and poked Brush's own gut. Her mother dissolved into shadows and faded away to reveal a new visitor in the cave. Her eyes lit up with a flaming anger and her ears were splayed back against her head. "WHAT THE BUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!?" She yelled at the pony in front of her. "WHO ARE YOU, AND WHY DID YOU KILL MY MOTHER AGAIN?!?" The pony grinned weakly and said "I'm Soma. And your mom, was actually some shadow beast thingy." Brush glared at him for another moment before spinning to get around him, to hit him in the back of the head with her tail, knocking him out. Soma yawned and opened his eyes to see a small pair of glowing eyes in front of him.. He smiled and sat up, only to see the eyes were merely two fireflies.. They flew off down the cavern hallways. "Hey.. Don't leave me behind.." He whispered. He felt throbbing pain at the back of his head.. As he reached back to feel it, he realized there was blood gushing from a wound at the nape of his neck.. Welp, he brought a handkerchief for a reason.. As he wrapped his neck up, he started observing his surroundings. Faded paintings covered the walls, and they all looked realistic.. Nothing primitive.. He got up and grabbed his bag, which was sitting, empty, in a corner. "Where did that whelp put my stuff?.." He said to himself. Brush had never had something this delicious.. Oh boy this little red ball tasted amazing!! Other than the little stem at the top, and the core, of course. And the pony monster had so many of them! 'I wonder if he has more..' She thought to herself. But he wasn't awake yet. At least, he shouldn't be awake yet. The emerald dragon bit into the red object once more, and lifted her head to look down the hall, to see.. the pony! He was smiling at her. Surely he was scared of her! No mortal pony would be unafraid of a dragon! But there he was.. Smiling and waving at her, like they were old friends.. She roared at him, but he just roared back louder. Something no sane pony would ever do. Something was different about him, and she wanted to know what. She was going to find out why he wasn't scared.
The StoneThe next morning came, and they were both beginning to yawn after their long night of conversation. Soma knew he should probably head home, but he felt as though something bad would happen if he did.. After all, dragons were rumored to be unimaginably powerful beings.. This one could be an omen or something.. He'd heard lots of bedtime stories about the last of some species being the only one left, and then they would turn out to be all powerful beings of doom and destruction!!! Or at least, that's what the guards always said. But every story started with that last of the species making a friend. And it ended in that friend being used for evil. 'The monster pony is letting his guard down..' Brush thought to herself. 'I think we're friends now.' She knew it wouldn't last long, and he'd leave and possibly never return.. But she still had hopes of him becoming her best friend. She just had to keep faith that she wouldn't let instinct take over, like it did last time.. But enough negativity! She was going to focus on the time she could use to learn about normal Equestrian culture! In just a few hours, Brush had taken in information about Equestrian Royalty, normal food, and lots of magic! She even learned a spell or twenty! She had practiced levitation using Soma, and had succeeded in throwing him in the air! While she still couldn't do as much as the pony, she could do MUCH more than she did the day before. And she intended to use her new skills. She intended to use them very much, in survival and fun. Soon, Soma knew it was time to go home. So they said their goodbyes, and Soma left, taking his torn belongings with him. And Brush began to explore deeper into the cavern. As she traveled down the winding tunnels, she noticed something.. She'd never been down this way. The tunnels continued to get bigger, and bigger, until she could fly in full circles. Eventually the walls of the tunnels smoothed out, and they started twisting and turning. They soon straightened, and Brush could see a light at the end of the corridor! "THANK GOODNESSS!!" She yelled, as she'd been walking for what must have been hours! She started running, and reached the end, only to realize that the corridor opened into a HUGE room. Directly in the center was a glowing stone.
The Awakening, Part Two. She yelled as she sank into the water. It was freezing cold. Icy, more like it. More than that. She sank in, and the water reached her neck. Which was pretty deep, considering she was nearly twice the size of the average pony. Even though it was deep, she was still able to walk. Slowly, but enough to cross the ten foot ring. As she want to climb onto the narrow strip of rock between her and the next ring, which had magma, she felt something on her neck. The water was rising.. She frantically pulled herself back to the edge. The water was up to her snout. She was struggling now to keep her head above water. Then she felt something! "GAAH!!" She yelled out. There was something in that water and t was biting her tail! She was trying to shake it off, but it had it's teeth sunken into her tail. She roared into the silent cavern, causing an echo. The stone shook, but very slightly. Brush was still clinging heavily to the edge as the creature sunk it's sharpened teeth deeper into her tail. Tears coming to her eyes, she was being pulled under the surface by some unknown creature. "I'm not that weak.. I'm stronger than this beast. I've got this." She thought to herself. She reached over the edge of the ring, and dug her claws into the cracks in the rock. Pulling herself up, the water below was now swirling with her blood. She could hardly feel the tip of her tail now. She pulled herself over to find that her tail was trapped in some bear-claw mechanism! She yelled out as she pulled the trap off of her tail. She lost a chunk of her muscle, but she wrapped it in the monster pony's jacket. She slowed the bleeding, but it still flowed from the wound. She sat on the edge of the ring, tears coming to her eyes. She looked over the next ring, which was filled to the brim with hot magma. Though she was only a few inches away, she couldn't feel the heat.. She reached over to dip her claw into the boiling hot lava. As she reached over, she realized that it was cold! She tapped the surface, to find out that it was merely ice, which was tinted to look like boiling rock. She started tapping the ice, to find it wasn't very thin, but easily chipped. This was going to give her very bad vertigo. She stepped onto the surface, slowly but surely. The blood fell to the ice, and for the slightest moment, she was afraid the heat from the blood would melt the ice. It didn't. But she was still scared. Slowly, she stepped forward. She stepped out of the cavern holding the stone. It was warm, and it had a pattern. Spots, it looked like. It started shaking!! It.. Formed a crack.. This wasn't a stone. This is an egg.. A small head poked out. It was a boy. A baby dragon. It looked like her, but with bright green scales. Hers was blue. Like mother. It had the eyes of a dragon. His were bright purple. Brush knew that she was now the one to take care of him.
