As school closed out for a second day, Stardust got up out of her seat and made her way to the door. Blue Moon said his sister was in town for the first time in around four years and wanted to spend time with her for the first time in a while. She ended up having to walk home by herself today because of that, which she was okay with honestly. She enjoyed the company of others, but the feeling solitude seemed to be a familiar thing to her.

Her mind kept on wondering to Dandelion, who hadn’t shown up today for some strange reason. Was it because of what she had learned yesterday? Or did something else happen. Considering Dandelion was the first friend she had really made, it made her scared of what might of happened. She could shake the thought of something terrible happening to Dandelion from her head.

“Come on Stardust,” She said to herself. “Everything’s okay, you're just overreacting. Everything is going to be fine,”

She wanted to believe it so badly, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that somepony was watching her. Maybe walking home alone wasn’t a good idea after all. After a couple more minutes, she completely stopped. It wasn’t just a feeling she had, somepony was watching her. She looked around, trying to figure out where they were hiding, but couldn’t seem to put her hoof on location.

“I-I,” Stardust stuttered as she grew more concerned “I know you’re there. W-what do you want with me? I didn’t do anything, I swear,”

“Maybe,” She heard a voice say from behind her. No, it was above her… or was it below her? It seemed to be coming from every direction. “Or maybe you just forgot about it. You did, didn’t you my old friend,”

The voice seemed familiar, but it seemed different than how she was remembering it. She started shaking in fear as she looked anxiously around for the place the voice was coming from. Something in her clicked, something that told her that she knew this pony. That couldn’t be right, everyone she knew should be dead… right?

“W-who are you?” Stardust managed to ask. “What do you want with me?”

“Should I tell you?” The voice asked themselves, “No, I won’t tell you anything. It’s too risky, the quicker this is over with, the better,”

Stardust looked up, not knowing what to expect. What was going on? What was happening? Her question was answered when she saw something rise from the trees above. She looked around to see several ponies look at her. No, they weren’t ponies, they were just magic made into the shape of a pony. Their eyes were completely white and had a strange multi-colored shell to them. She recognized this, she had seen this same exact thing happen once before. Something in her mind clicked as she realized who it was.

“Clockwords,” Stardust said, knowing what was going to happen. “What are you doing? I thought we were friends… Why do you want to kill me?”

“Shut up!” The giant mass of duplicates yelled at her, carrying the voice of her friend. “You think I’m going to fall for that? I know it was a memory you just regained, it doesn’t mean anything,”

Without another warning Stardust watched as the duplicates changed shape into needles and launched themselves at her. Stardust tried running away as fast as she can, only for one of the needles to slice into her leg. She fell to the ground crying and yelling in pain, she had no idea why this was happening. All she had remembered was her friend’s name and that she was mad at something that happened. She looked to as the horde of needles closed in, she braced herself for what was to come and closed her eyes.

It never came. She opened her eyes to see herself traveling fast through the forest by a pegasus. She looked to see who it was and realized it was Rainbow Dash, or at least that’s what she saw. She looked behind Rainbow to see them getting farther and farther away from the needles which couldn’t navigate the maze of trees as they hit tree after tree before turning into a cloud of dust and disappearing. When they had successfully shaken them all off, Rainbow went up into a nearby tree branch and placed the Stardust down.

Stardust looked at her leg, expecting to see blood. Instead, Stardust looked on in confusion to see her leg was completely hollow. No bones, no muscles, instead she watched as small particles of her leg feel down onto the branch under her. Her body wasn’t made of normal blood cells and tissue like everypony else, it was made of… dust. She looked confused at her body, not knowing what was going on.

“Stardust,” The princess looked in shock as she heard another familiar voice coming from Rainbow. “Are you okay?”

Yet another thing clicked in Stardust’s head. “Phoenix,” She said, looking at her old friend. “Is that you?,”

The two stopped when they saw Stardust’s body start lighting up. Stardust fell down as her body was hammered in pain. Phoenix, rushed to her friend to comfort her, only for her hooves to grow right through the pegasuses body. Stardust felt herself getting dizzy before finally falling out of the tree and falling to the ground. Phoenix jumped down from the tree in fear, not knowing what was going on.

“Stardust,” She said as she reached for her friends body, only to pass right through it. “Stardust what’s happening to you?”

Her friend didn’t respond, and before she knew it, she started feeling strange. She looked at her body to see her body glow as well, but differently from how Stardust was. She had never seen this happen before, what was happening? She tried moving away, but found herself unable to move. A few seconds later, she collapsed on to the ground as well, unconscious.

Stardust opened her eyes, her eyes wide with fear as she looked around to see fire enclosing her in every direction. She looked at her body to see nothing but white light making up her entire body except for the pupils of her eyes, which were normal. She worryingly searched around her in panic, finding herself able to move around in this ball of fire.

It's time

She looked around herself for the owner of the voice, to see ponies circling her each with strange markings going across theirs bodies and of different colors. Stardust looked at each of them as they started to close in on her.

The darkest hour is coming

She found herself unable to move anymore as four ponies completely barred her ability to move. She looked at them not knowing what was going on, or what was going to happen to her. What were they talking about, what is the darkest hour they mentioned. She looked at her leg that had been hurt by Clockworks to find that it was still hollow like before.

You, the pony made of Stars

Stardust looked up to see the pony glowing red right in front of her. She took a step back, only to back into a similar pony only glowing black instead. They all seemed to be just like her as their pupils were the only thing about them that seemed to a different color on their bodies.

Rise up to Equestria and protect it.

She felt her entire body glow even brighter as they stopped talking and she found herself unable to see a thing. Something came to her mind and she spoke not knowing what she was saying.

“I am the light,” She said “Made by my own will. Formed from love and hope, strengthened by passion and talent,”

Then, once again, she fell unconscious as a strange power took ahold of her body.

Canterlot castle, not long before hand

The princesses meeting was interrupted by what sounded like thunder outside. Twilight looked outside the window expecting to see a thunderstorm, but instead saw something else. In front of her, heading straight for Canterlot castle, was a giant fireball. She gasped in fear as she slowly started stepping back, before finally breaking into a run to the door.

“We got to get out of her,” She said scared “There’s a fireball heading straight towards us,”

Celestia looked outside to see what Twilight had seen, nodded to the other two princesses before they all ran out of the door. As they made their way down the hallway, they heard another boom in the distance as they rushed away from the room. When they got outside, they looked up to see that another Fireball was in front of them, only a few feet away. They all watched as it quickly started closing in the distance, bracing themselves for their death. It didn’t come, just like it had with Stardust.

Celestia looked up to see something blocking the fireball. A pony glowing bright green stood between them and the death as the easily reflected it back out of space. Celestia and Luna had no idea what was going on, in all their lives they had never seen anything like this. With one fireball out of the way, the alicorns watched as it did the same with many other fireballs closing in on Canterlot, doing the same thing to each one. They were stunned, at what was happening.

In a matter of seconds, all the fireballs had disappeared from the sky. The princesses watched as the pony that saved them floated over to them and onto the ground. The light that had surrounded them faded away to reveal a pegasus under it with a long dark green mane that reminded Twilight off Fluttershy’s just more curly at the end of it. They had a strange streak of light green hair going across there face in the shape of what looked skeleton. He had no cutie mark, but somehow his mane flowed just like Luna and Celestia’s, which was strange considering they weren’t even an alicorn.

“Your majesty,” The pony said in a calming tone. “I am Hollow, an Estrail from the invisible continent in the western ocean,” The pony named Hollow kneeled down in respect. “I am here to look after the daughter of the stars, the one who will stop the end of Equestria,” He turned his attention to Celestia and Luna “And your younger sister. We are sorry to have never shown ourselves until now, but I am here as a representative for our king, who will be arriving to speak with you in a few days time,”

“The invisible continent?” Twilight asked confused. “Why is it invisible? What’s an Estrail?”

“All will be answer in time,” Hollow replied just as calmly as before. “However, I can answer that last question now. An Estrail isn’t a particular kind of pony, as they can be pegasi, earth pony, unicorn, and even alicorn, but there are certain conditions that need to be fulfilled in order for that to happen. First of all, they are born in a different way, meaning that no Estrail is ever normally born but rather made,”

“And how does that apply to you?” Celestia asked curiously.

Hollow sighed as he raised a hoof up to see it had some kind of blade attached to it. “I usually don’t show ponies this,” He said as he raised the hoof up to his face and somehow managed to get it all the way to the back of his neck. “You want to know why my name is Hollow? This is why,” He said as he ripped off what they had thought was his face,

They looked away as he ripped it off, only looking when they saw him still standing, but his normal pony face was gone to reveal a bunch of bones holding together in the shape of his skull. They didn't seem to be from the same pony, or at least hadn’t stayed in one piece, as multiple lines showed that the bones had been broken into smaller pieces. He somehow then managed to easily slip back on the face that they had seen earlier to see it somehow reattach itself to his body.

“As you could see,” He continued completely unfazed by the look of shock and disbelief on all four of the princesses face. “My entire body is made up of different bones from different animals and ponies. Due to what my fellow of Estrails have managed to figure out, it was caused by a magical disruption somehow and I was born from it. There are many other forms, rapid evolution, transformation, the only way you won’t expect a Estrail to be born is through normal reproduction,”

“Second of all, the pony must have a special ability or power that is not connected to their talent. That being said, when this condition is fulfilled and that pony becomes an Estrail, they lose their cutie mark,” Hollow turned to show the princess his lack of cutie mark “Or never had one in my case. As for my special ability, I am able to reform my body if badly damaged in a small amount of time as well as twist my body in otherwise impossible ways,”

“Incredible,” Twilight said, her eyes beaming at all the new knowledge she had. “To think that there are ponies like that in the world and we never even knew about them. Is the fact you're an Estrail the reason you were somehow able to deflect that fireball?”

“I’ll answer that latter,” Hollow replied “My colleagues should be arriving at the castle gates in a few minutes, I would request that you allow them inside as we have much to discuss,”

Celestia nodded, she was just as curious as Twilight was about this pony and these so called “Estrails”. She wondered what kind of ponies they were, and who they had managed to keep themselves completely separate from Equestria for so long. The invisible continent part definitely help explain it, but exactly why did they exist at all. Maybe so sort of magic phenomenon that she was never aware of, but she would have felt it if that was the case. She wondered how this pony had managed to stay so calm with how he was.

Hollow was a mystery of his own, he was so calm and somehow managed to deflect something that wasn’t even a solid object. It was clear that this pony was more powerful than any of them, even as a pegasus. That being said, the fact that he could live with only a skeleton and could twist his body so strangely creeped them out. In Celestia and Luna’s thousand years as Equestria’s rulers, they have never been so puzzled by a pony this much in their lives.

Wait till that stupid executive hears about this Celestia thought to herself.

Author's Note

Wow, two chapters uploaded on the same day (for two different stories obviously) that's a new thing for me. I was honestly a little worried about putting this chapter up because of the introduction of the Estrails and I honestly don't know if I would be offending or not with it, but I decided that in the end it's best to just upload this. Also, I can't believe I have had almost 200 views on this already, that's crazy for me. Also, in case you guys don't know I have a new story up on here called Fallout Equestria: False Guilt that I have been having a blast working on along with this so check that out when you get the chance. Like, Comment, Follow and I will see you all next time.