Shadows

Chapters

Rebirth
A colorful experience
"What?"
Rainbows repose or Death meets Twilight
Time Passes
Preparations
Nightmare before Dawn
Death's Race
Meeting
Gilda
Dash meets Time
Dash and Death and Dying and James

Rebirth

The massive immortal being most commonly known as Death, was bored. Eras of doing his job had left him with more memories than the mortal lives he had taken. He was an emotionless being, one which watched and relieved others of their lives. He could take any form he desired, and did so as it pleased him. He was as ancient as the Time and was as certain as Life.

He, in his eternal boredom watched worlds, and waited for the one day that he would meet someone before their time. The other gods wanted him to find an avatar so that their games of worlds could commence. He took his time as always, and the others complained as always. It was as if his very existence was to try and annoy them. That wasn’t boring at least.

All the other gods had told him about the ultimate solution to being bored. They said that they did it often. He could barely believe it. They willingly wiped themselves? Years of memory down the drain? But Time himself had confided in him that he had done it many times. He trusted Time.

After a long time of pondering, and relieving pain, Death came to his decision. Cold, dark Death would be no more. There would be a new Death. A brighter, happier Death. Death concentrated and then suddenly the eras started to slip away. He felt himself splitting up, each part becoming a ruler of death and becoming Death themselves. They quickly found unoccupied places and settled in their dimensions. The original Death stayed, and with himself wiped of his immense experience, settled in the place he had watched.

Well, that was interesting, He thought. Wait? He thought? He didn’t think, he knew. This was indeed interesting. He found himself at a loss as he tried to reach for memories which weren’t there.

What was I doing? He wondered, and gazed upon the globe that represented this dimension's sole interesting planet. As he stared at the globe, he waited for the day to change. It took forever! Was this impatience? He hadn’t felt impatience in so long. He couldn’t remember when he had felt it.

He found himself watching this small world. All of the beings in this world were so… vivid. He truly lacked words to describe it. And it was shielded. He could only view, he could not touch. He got his power by the certainty of his power, and here it wasn’t so certain. Here souls were recycled? He didn’t understand. It was so new, so incomprehensible. He could barely establish a connection to the world. But establish he did. He began to ease the suffering of the world. It had been long without it.

Of all the things that truly shocked him about this place, the biggest one was that there were beings here that rivaled him in sheer power. He was so taken by this world. He barely struggled when they took his connection to the outside. He was now the Death for this dimension chain.

He was happy? He hadn’t been anything but bored for some time. He was happy with his new position. He felt that he should find his avatar. Everything was so new here. His power had been stripped down to almost nothing in comparison with his previous self, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was now something new. He was no longer Death the absolute. He was just the Death now. He was the original, but that no longer seemed important.

He gazed upon his new domain, shocked at how simple it was. There were barely 5 billion souls here, and very few of them died in a given day. He had a list and if their name was on the list, he showed up at the time and took them. There were so many different races here; the ponies: unicorns, pegasi, earth; there were dragons, and gryphons and dogs and buffalo and far more than he believed himself to be used to. He had to remember each cultures Death figure and show up accordingly.

He met with the other gods of this reality, there was Celestia, who gave light, there was Time who actual resided in at least 8 different forms at the same time, and there was Luna who was sealed in the moon. She had apparently gone insane because no one had worshiped her, and the resulting lack of power had made her desperate. She became something that was feared and thus people worshiped her again, if not for the wrong reason.

Celestia was trying to find an avatar at the moment, she was scouring her kingdoms in search for a notable living thing to devote her teachings to. He should find an avatar to, he supposed. Time didn’t need to have an avatar, he being his own avatar. He didn’t pry into Time that much, it wasn’t his domain.

He settled into his new routine and took a few souls a day. The monotony that he had avoided for so long had started to settle in.

It was in this environment that something entirely unexpected happened. Something so spectacularly unlikely that it had most probably never happened before.

There was a breach.

A colorful experience

She had to push. She wasn’t sure what she was pushing but whatever it was, it was stopping her from going as fast as she wanted. She wanted to go faster, faster than anyone else. It felt good going fast. This weird stretching sensation that this pushing had, felt even better. She just wanted to break this last barrier, and then she knew she could go as fast as she wanted. She was going so fast!

It occurred to her that she had been racing some other pegasi, but she realized she couldn’t care about them. Just this delicious burst of speed and she felt that she could just slip away.

She felt rather than saw the barrier stretch beyond anything she had ever known.

Crackoooooooom!!!!

The visible light spectrum parted and she went faster than anything she could imagine. The world blazed by her at an impossible clip...

And just as suddenly the world stopped and lost color. More specifically everything but Rainbow Dash stopped and lost color. She hovered and tried to figure out where all the color went. She couldn’t think of a reason why there was no color. She flew around confusedly and stopped. All around her were massive buildings grey through and through.

All the clouds were grey. Not that clouds weren’t already grey, but this grey was like that of a cloud that was half way between storming and doing nothing. It was a boring grey, and that was something that unnerved her.

It was lonely out here, her mane being the only speck of color in a vast grey wilderness. It seemed endless.

She must have wandered for hours on end looking for anything familiar. She tried to gather her bearings and failing that, tried to figure out why she was there at least. She came up with one explanation.

With the massive speed boost she had, she had flown to an unfamiliar city. She paused for a moment on a cloud, and saw something remarkable.

On a lonely cloud devoid of any other structure there sat a Massive door. And it had no color. It was a deep obsidian and she felt it shouldn’t be there, and was covered in overly intricate designs that seemed to say "I’m not here." The door was even slightly ajar, exposing her to color.

Supposing that color meant good things, she flew inside. It was a hallway. Inside the hallway everything was a muted shade of red. There were windows everywhere and they let in light, but the light itself was red. The shadows she cast were of crimson, and the glass of the windows was just the palest hint of pink. Outside the window Cloudsdale was done up in several shades of red.

The door at the end of hallway however was orange. It was done up in the style of the previous door except that when she opened this door, the world inside was orange.

The next door was yellow, then green, blue, indigo and finally violet.

The end of the violet hallway however was red. A deep, foreboding red. Instead of a forget me door, this one seemed to say “If you open this door you will regret it for the rest of your life.” The most important difference though, was that when she went to open this door, There was a pony behind it.

This pony was grey, and cold, and silent, and swift.

Then it spoke.

"What?"

Death phased out reality, which essentially meant that he was going faster than the world had time to react. Whatever had breached his domain was probably going to be big, and powerful. He began unlocking his doors, moving past the white room that held the list, and the general observation rom which held the divine telescope. He stopped in front of his red door, and wondered if he should contact the other divinity. He went back and read the list.

There was no one special on the list today. Someone was here and when he had written the list in the future he must have decided that whoever was here couldn’t die here today. He walked back to te red door, and was about to open it, when someone else opened it.

It was blue, and colorful, and warm, and loud. Then Death spoke.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, halfway dreading the answer. He tried to hide the fact he was trying to look behind the pony to try and find the actual breach source. It seemed rude to him at least to treat what could have a slim chance of being what caused a breach. It was after this occurred to him that he realized he was still out of phase, and that the small colorful pony should be in phase, aka frozen and grey.

Then she spoke.

“I don’t know what’s going on! There was a race and I went faster and faster and then boom and then everything was frozen solid and there was no color and, and there was this door and I went in it and and and…” The pony finished by breaking down in tears. She was so innocent!

Death felt something move inside him. Going off some weird instinct he gave the smaller pony an awkward hug. He felt the pony’s tears in his fur and felt the shaking slowly stop. She peeked her head out he could tell, and tried to look around. She probably couldn’t see much.

“I don’t know where I am…” she finished sadly.

“You are in the domain of Death my child.” Death replied, still holding her to him.

“But, I don’t want to be dead.” She sniffled like she was going to start crying again.

“And there is the problem. You aren’t scheduled to die today.” Death tried to stop her from tearing up again, but was unsuccessful.

“I’M NEVER GONNA GET TO GO HOME AGAIN!!!! I’m gonna be stuck here forever!!! I’m never going home and I’ll be stuck here in this grey nightmare!” She sobbed.

Death felt something for the child in his arms. A true feeling, one of which he felt as if he had never felt before. He wanted to help this child, no the feeling demanded that he help this child.

“I’ll help you get home…” Amazingly enough the crying dried almost instantly. She picked up her head and seemed mildly embarrassed.

“Oh I forgot! My name is Rainbow dash! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!” She seemed excited about something.

“I am Death, and you’re welcome?” How are you supposed to respond to something like this? Death didn’t know. He kind of wished he did though.

She hugged him and refused to let go until he convinced her he was going to teach her a flying trick. She seemed obsessed with some group called the wonder bolts, who could obtain an impressive speed for being mortal. Rainbow, however could go faster than any mortal he had ever noticed, something she seemed particularly proud of. She bragged that one day she wanted to become faster than even him, to which he replied "Nothing escapes Death."

She giggled.

And so Death was roped into teaching Rainbow dash how to drop into and out of phase with the rest of the world. He trained her until she could do it at will, and then made her promise to never do it unless she really needed it. He sent her on her way, but could not stop his own curiosity from making him read ahead in the list for her name. He could not find her.

There was some creature that was not on the list.

Maybe this was a cause to contact the other divinity.

Rainbows repose or Death meets Twilight

Rainbow returned right past the finishing line. In her wake lay a trial of pure rainbow seeming to go on for miles. There was a massive explosion in the distance and it seemed to sweep across the land. It hit mannehatten, it hit canterlot, it hit cloudsdale, and everywhere else.

“Maybe I over did it a little?” She tried to voice, but found there was no one to talk to.

“Where is that other Pegasus…” She tried to find where the little pink and yellow thing had gone but she had vanished. She then had a sinking sensation and looked down. There was a forest there. She flew down almost as fast as she could, and found upon her arrival that the poor yellow thing had fallen down to earth and she was being carried away by some earth ponies.

“Hey! Where are you going? Bring her back!” She stopped yelling when the turned around and glared at her. It was kinda like they disapproved of her.

“We are carrying her to get help. She fell in case you didn’t notice.” They acted like it was entirely possible that she hadn’t noticed.

“But where are you bringing her?” Dash tried to get more details on her new friends captors.

“Ponyville.” He replied in a straight out sort of tone.

“Where?” Where in all of equestria was ponyville?

“Where we are going.” It was kind of like trying to milk a cloud for chocolate. Nothing productive would happen.

She waited for Fluttershy to recover for a few days, then returned home.

“Death? What a shocking surprise! I haven’t seen you in years! You’ll never believe what just happened!” Celestia in all of her radiant gory was clearly excited about something. Death looked about the chamber he was in and could only find a few words to explain it. Bright, colorful, and open. That last word in particular would have seemed ridiculous, had he not been visited a few hours before for the first time.

“There was a breach.” Death tried to explain but Celestia had taken his silence for granted and cut him off mid-sentence.

“I found my apprentice today! It was during routine magic testing. She seemed weak at first but then after this massive explosion she became supercharged and she accidently turned everyone into plants. Wait I’m sorry did I interrupt?” She didn’t look sorry, she looked bright.

“There was a breach.” Death explained.

“WHATTTTTT!” Celestia almost screamed.

“Did they see anything? If they saw something we might end up having to call down luna and performing a mass purge!” She almost panicked.

“It’s ok I took care of it. That explosion earlier was of a tiny Pegasus performing a Rainboom and getting out of phase with the rest of the world. I helped her out.” He couldn’t help but fell smug about this. He had taken care of a Major disaster by himself. Though Celestia did seem a little out of character.

There was a knock on the door and It opened. Much like how the previous being had been innocent, this one was naïve, and purple. It was a tiny unicorn, probably around the same age as Dash was herself. It had a tiny horn and had a tiny magic signature. Then she spoke.

“Who are you?” She asked in a tone that she probably hoped was without fear but was as wavy as a pond after you threw something in it. She repeated the statement again and would proably have gathered her wits for a third attempt if he hadn’t spoke up.

“I am an acquaintance of Celestia’s. Nothing more nothing less.” He said in a tone that hopefully ended the matter. It didn’t of course, but he didn’t really expect it to.

“He is here to investigate the explosion from earlier.” Celestia lied. Death supposed that there were some things you didn’t tell your apprentice until later in life. He wondered what else there were for a second and then stopped.

“Yes, I heard that you are now Celestia’s apprentice. Good job.” That ended any questions from her as she literally seemed to bask in his praise. It felt good giving out compliments.

It wasn’t until after he left that he realized he hadn’t asked her what Dash’s name not appearing on the list meant.

Time Passes

Time went on and Death found himself missing Dash. She had been a bright spark in his overall boring life. The dull black and white of his personal chamber didn’t seem quite as inviting as it once was. He did his job though, day in and day out. He was waiting for the day when that Pegasus came through that door again.

5 years passed by so quickly.

Time called him down from his place and asked if he would be there when he died. Time was currently living in Ponyville , a place where the only remarkable thing about it was the lack of deaths. He had invited Death to witness well, his death. And subsequent rebirth. Time is weird like that. [There was this one dimension where Time went backwards in time as he aged. And Death got killed and actually was replaced!]

He went out of phase and was in ponyville . Time was in the house with the giant clock on it. Smooth. And here he thought he was supposed to be hidden. He walked inside and phased in with the rest of the world. It was a quaint place, everything in nice tones of brown. There was a dresser here and there were clocks. There was at least 150 clocks all ticking at the same speed.

“Oh hello there Death.” Time, or as many ponies called him Cog, was a yellow earth pony with an hour glass cutie mark.

“I need a few things before I depart.” He handed Death a list and a bag of bits.

“I want you to get these in phase if you would. It will help you later.”

There were a few things on the list;
An apple from the apple orchard,
A cupcake from sugar cube corner
A sapphire from the local boutique
A message delivered

That was it.

Everything about this town was beautiful. There was no fear in this place. There were vibrant colors everywhere he looked. Beautiful masses of pinks and reds and blues. There were flowers at every street corner and everywhere in between. This place was a virtual paradise.

He got started on his job.

It was a bit of a walk to get to the apple stand and he got plenty of stares along the way. Apparently a mono-colored pony was really rare.

The stand was operated by a stubborn looking orange pony. She took one look at him and said

“A stranger? We don’t get many of those around here. Will you tell me your name? Mines Applejack.” She held out a hoof like she was expecting him to do something with it. He guessed and shook it. She smiled at him. He spoke.

“My name is Death, pleased to meet you.” He said simply. She opened her mouth as if to say something but he cut her off.

“I would like one apple.”

“That would be one bit.”

The bakery was up next. He walked inside, and to his surprise the pink pony behind the counter let out a high pitch squeal and handed him a cupcake and dashed out the door.

The boutique looked out of place amongst all the other simpler buildings. It had a weird style and grace that the other brightly covered buildings seemed to lack. He opened the door and it ringed, signaling a unicorn to appear before him.

“I would like a sapphire.” She seemed disappointed that he wanted something so simple, but handed him a small sapphire about an inch square. She looked at him and he said.

“My name is Death.” She looked away and he left.

Flagging down the mail mare was the hardest part of the whole list. No matter what he did they seemed to ignore him. While he was standing there waiting for a mail mare to notice him, he failed to notice a Pegasus approaching him rapidly. It knocked him over as it tried to get to a stop before him.

“Sorry!!!” She yelled at him snatched his letter and dropped a muffin in front of him.

He walked back to Cog’s shop and gave him the things he had requested. Cog looked a little shocked at how fast he had gotten the things he wanted.

“You are going to need to back away for this.” Cog warned. Then a very indescribable thing happened. All the clocks ticked as one then stopped. Then a tessaract opened up and Time was gone. It was if a very loud thing had happened yet at the same time, it was as if nothing had happened. In a blink where there was a yellow earth pony there was now a brown earth pony.

“Call me Whooves.” The new Time said.

Rainbow Dash was crying. Tears built up in her eyes and they rolled down her face. When she had returned to the flight camp, she was shunned. Nopony wanted to be around her. Fluttershy had fractured her leg when she had fallen, and when she had woken up had blamed the whole thing on her. She was disgusted at Dash, and Dash's chances at making a new friend were slim to none. They all whispered about her now. "Get away from her, she's dangerous." The boys that had raced with her claimed that it was all her idea and that they had been pressured into it. It had gotten worse when she had refused to describe what the Rainboom was like. They didn't trust her at all.

Her parents had disappeared about a month after it happened. She could hear them whispering about how she had driven them away. The whispering never stopped.

She missed Death. Death had been nice when by all rights he should have been furious.

After a few years of putting up with the whispers and the students, she left cloudsdale. She didn't know where to go, and it seemed like fate when a mailmare stopped her and gave her a letter. It was an invitation to join the weather squad in Ponyville.

The years passed so quickly, she made friends and lost friends and soon found herself promoted to captain of the weather team. It was an honor, but she wanted something more. She wanted to move onto to somewhere new.

Preparations

Rainbow dash smashed her clock as it went off, sending it flying out of the cloud castle. Why on earth would she ever want to get up so early? She looked around trying to divine the reason from her surroundings. Then it hit her.

"Today is the summer sun celebration thing!" She whispered. Oh well It can wait. She thought. I'll go find a cloud to nap on for awhile.

So she flew out of her bed and found a particularly low flying cloud over one of the streets in Ponyville. She was in the middle of a dream involving the students at her old school jumping into a giant mouth when a shout woke her up.

"Excuse me, Are you Rainbow Dash?" A clear but slightly frayed voice asked. Dash looked down and saw a purple unicorn. she looked a little sick as well, but she could've just stuffed herself silly.

"Who's asking?" She challenged.

"Oh right, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am in charge of the Summer sun celebration preparations. I want to know where the pony that is in charge of the weather is?" Dash tried to figure out how long she had been asleep. She had napped in the morning and now it was late afternoon...

"Yes, I am Rainbow dash. I overslept a bit...I'll take care of these clouds." With a zoom she was up. She felt like she was everywhere at once! The sky was cleared and she found Twilight and the dragon looking at her incredulously. It felt good to be appreciated.

"Thank you Rainbow Dash. You have no idea what I've been through. First I had to go check on the food, and I got guilt tripped into stuffing myself silly! Then on the way out i got knocked into some mud by some mailmare and had to go clean off. When I went to check on the decorations, I was abducted by some lunatic fashion designer and forcefully given a makeover. Then I had to go check on the music and Fluttershy went nuts on Spike! You are the sanest pony I've met today!" Twilight looked like she was about to hyperventilate.

"Sounds like you had a tough day. Did anything else happen?" Dash said.

"Yes some pink pony freaked out at the sight of me."

"Your gonna have a surprise party when you get to your house." Dash explained.

"What? But ho-"

"Don't question it, it's Pinkie. See ya at the party!" Dash gave her a farewell.

Dash thought the party was going fine. She talked to a few of the other pegasi and mingled a bit.
A feeling of impending doom had settled on her though, and she decided to go out for a bit of fresh air.

Was it just her, or did the face on the moon just move? No way, I just need a little more sleep.
It was almost time for the celebration and without her really thinking about it, she was in the hall. The hall was completely stuffed full of ponies of all shapes sizes and races. It was time for princess Celestia to arrive.

Nightmare before Dawn

"The one, The only, Princess Celestia!!!" The announcer shouted. Except nothing happened when the curtains parted.
There was nopony there. Everypony was silent for a few moments before they started panicking.

Then there was a Massive peal of thunder, [and for a second Dash thought she had went out of phase in shock] and suddenly there was a dark pony there. It was dark and evil, covered in armor that Dash could just tell was magical.
It spoke.

"Oh my beloved subjects, it's been so long since I've seen your precious sun-loving faces." She drawled in a manner that told Dash that the mare thought herself far superior to everypony.

"Where is Princess Celestia?" AppleJack yelled out. Was she stupid? This being could probably send them all into oblivion.

She laughed and said.

"Why? Am I not Royal enough for you? Do you even know who I am?" Dash didn't but she knew that she was trouble. Pinkie began babbling but Twilight shoved a pastry in her mouth.

"Does my crown no longer count? -" The mare continued but was cut off by Twilight.

"No It doesn't Nightmare Moon! Princess Celestia banished you for a reason!" Dash looked at twilight like she had just said that pink was not the mares color. Everypony else just gasped.

"You know why I'm here, do you?" Nightmare Moon queried.

"To cause... " Twilight started, but faltered.

"Remember this day, ponies for it is your last!" Nightmare Moon picked up where Twilight let off.

"There will never be another day! This night is eternal!!" And then in a very dramatic cloud of blue mist Nightmare Moon phased out.

Dash looked around at the panicking crowd and Twilight booking it away. She flew after Twilight.

This definitely counted as a crisis. A massive cloud of blue mist enveloped everything she could see.

Regaining her bearings again, she flew after twilight and landed in front of her.

"When did you get there?" She demanded.

"What do you know about this nightmare moon character? Tell me now!" She became aware that she was wrapped in magic and unable to move. Twilight's horn was aglow. She was helpless at the hands of her captor.

"All I know is that we have to use somethings called the elements of harmony to defeat her." Twilight carried her with her magic back to her library and set her down on the floor.

"What was that for?" Dash yelled thoroughly angry at the situation.

"You've been attacked by her magic." Twilight explained.

"What? I don't know what you are talking about"

"Well you were!" Dash was suddenly made aware that their were other ponies in the room.

"We heard your explanation darling and would love to help." Rarity said.

"Well you can't start helping me if I can't figure out where the elements are!"

Suddenly Pinkie pie had a book out and read off,

"There are 6 elements of harmony, though only 5 have been identified. There is kindness, laughter, generosity, honesty, and loyalty." Twilight grabbed the book and read it over. She continued.

"The last known location of the elements of harmony was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. It is located in the EverFree forest." And with that, the journey to the castle began

Death's Race

Tying the bridge across the chasm, Dash didn't look back before she rejoined the others.

"Let's get this over with." Behind her, blue mist winked out of existence.

The last willing action that Dash took before her nerve endings were burnt out was to knock Twilight out of the way of Nightmare's first magical volley. The last thing she heard was the sick sizzle of burning. The last thing she saw was the face of Twilight Sparkle, her face torn between a mixture of shock and regret. The last thing Dash knew was the cold hard bolt of magic that shot through her, assaulting her sanity and scrambling her senses.

Saying that the attempt on Nightmare Moon had gone wrong was an understatement. It was as big an understatement as saying that Celestia is sort of important, or that Rainbow Dash was sort of fast, or that Pinkie Pie is just a little bit crazy. The elements weren't summoned as a whole. Only four were summoned from the tiny fragments of the crystal shards, leaving Twilight floundering for the fifth.

"And Rainbow Dash who..." Dash waited for her to get a compliment from Twilight like the other ponies got before they got their magic necklace thing. "Who..." She couldn't come up with anything? "Who..." Nightmare Moon locked eyes with Dash meaningfully. "Look, it doesn't matter! All I know is that she represents loyalty!"

"Really Sparkle? You couldn't come up with anything for me?" Dash snarked out. The crystals came up from the circle of shards, though they were grey and looked cracked beyond repair. It circled Dash like a miniature tornado, albeit a slow one.

"All you did was fly a bridge over! Fluttershy did more than you!"

"Well excuse me for not havnig anything threaten me! All that was over there was some blue mist!"

"You are not being very harmonious. Can we get back to the issue at hand?"

"But you don't have the sixth element!" The crystals that were orbiting the ponies converged upon their respective ponies necks. Well, all except for Dash's the shard's simply refused to get any closer to her than they already were.

"She's right girls! I'm sorry, but without all six elements I can't do anything to her..." Dash tried to convince the shards to converge around here. She was completely unsuccessful, succeeding only in getting a long cut across hey right fore leg for trying to stop the fragments slow spin. Everypony in the room was looking at Dash, who could only sit there and look vaguely sheepish as she was orbited.

"HAHAH! And now to make you pay for your foalishness TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!" The air was filled with a charged current and the off putting smell of death and burning. While Twilight cowered in fear, a single point in space began to burn, sending off a cascade of sickly greens and browns across the wall. The point grew steadily bigger, the light trading brightness for surface area. Nightmare Moon cackled and that was all the warning she got before Dash found herself thrown across Twilight taking the entire spell into her. The satellites swarming Dash shot out in every direction, a few catching Nightmare Moon's face and drawing a single drop of blood. The drop fell and hit the ground. In a massive flash of light, Nightmare Moon was gone with Celestia in her place.

"I'm alive?" Dash asked out loud as Celestia explained her prison tied to her blood. Dash looked behind her, the color in the room leaving as she did so. "I'm dead aren't I..." She stated sadly. The color left her friends and Celestia, and they froze mid speech. The color was eaten out of the nights sky, and soon the moon was dead to the world. A single door lay open in the middle of the room. Death was there. Death had take the form of a grey alicorn with pupils that stretched over his entire eye, each leading into a pit of eternal darkness this time. Death had a soul in his mouth, a dark twisted soul that called out to her from across the room. Death caught her eye.

"Why hello Dash! Why can you see me on this fine day? Is there something wrong?" Death's new melodious baritone sang out through the crumbling courtyard, reverberating off the still forms of the 6 living ponies. Dash supposed her face said it all. "Don't tell me you died! You aren't on my list!"

"What? Can you return me to the world of the living?" Dash was incredibly hopeful.

"Yes..." Death looked away and ate the dark warped soul he was carrying. He just lifted up his mouth and swallowed it whole without chewing. "Sorry about the snack. I could return you to your body... But... How do I know you won't just take it for granted and die off the list." Death must've been surprised by anything not on the list she surmised.

"I promise I won't?" That probably wasn't going to cut it. Dash felt her hopes plummet.

"All you have to do is do well enough in a race. If you win, you can go free without me for the rest of your life. If I win, you owe me a few favors and you get to be brought back to life. It's win/win for you my dear." Death thought he was being remarkably charitable today. After all, it wasn't like he offered to bring things back to life on a daily basis.

"What's the catch?" Asked Dash, naturally suspicious of the physical manifestation of the very concept of Death.

"It won't be a physical race. I would win one of those instantly you see. Instead my dear, we will race with our very spirits! Our wills will participate in a race to the finish, sped on by our emotions and true feelings. It is not a matter of who is faster, it is a matter on who wants to win more. All you have to do is keep up with me Dash and I will bring you back to your body safe and sound. You have my word that I will hold my word." Death definitely desired to dare Dash, to convince her to race him.

"I accept, duh."

"Come closer Dash so I can tell you the race path." Dash hesitated for only a brief moment, deciding to try her best in this race. She stepped the few steps that separated her from Death, and stopped directly in front of her.

"This won't hurt."

"What?" Death's front hoof smashed down on Dash.

"Hey what was that for!?" Dash yelled, but the world around her had changed. Instead of the crumbling ruins of the old castle crisp blue sky surrounded her. Hey cyan wings were already out and flying, though she couldn't feel them.

"All you have to do Dash is want it." Death reminded her. Dash wanted to move up. She thought that she moved up, but there was no other objects around her besides Death who could have easily just moved down from her.

"Do you see that flag over there dear?" Death pointed towards a distant pinprick far off in the sky. Dash willed herself forward towards Death. Her wings were moving through the air without a sound, the air seeming to pass through them.

"First one there wins." And just like that Death was off.

Death slowly floated towards the flag. Dash willed herself to go faster than Death. The endless blue sky whizzed by her, the lack of reference points throwing her off. There was no feedback to the movement and Dash found herself stopping while she contemplated how to comprehend her own movement. Death continued floating slowly ahead. Dash decided to use the flag as a reference point. With what would have left a low whistle if she had been in the air, Dash instantly was ahead of Death, his slow smug smirk telling her that it wasn't going to be quite as easy as she thought.

"Why do you want to win?" It was a slow easy statement, but the deeper meaning struck her. Why did she want to live? She was a lonely pegasus, her fear of trying to make another friend after Fluttershy stopping her from having contact with others beyond what she had to. Would anypony miss her if she left? Would the one non pony she knew miss her? Probably not, and hadn't Dash been planning on moving away from Ponyville after this celebration? Dying would certainly be a way of getting away from it all. Certainly, dying would be best.

Dash fell farther and farther behind Death, his statement stopping her will from guiding her ahead. He looked back.

"Are you done already? What drives you? Why has it left?" His questions ignited something within Dash, a horrible infernal fervor to stop. Why was Dash so pathetic? Wasting her life away, ignoring everypony around her. Why was she born? What was her purpose in life? Why was she here?

"Pathetic. And here I thought I would get a challenge." She was pathetic, not even trying to salvage her life. Why was she already dead? She should've lived out the rest of her life as a leech on those that actually cared about life. Why did she die? She could've changed, could've maybe made a difference. She could've definitely beat Death at this race.

"Are you Rainbow Dash? The only mortal to ever step in the halls of death and live? The first mortal to lays eyes on me and leave? The one who makes the impossible possible and makes ponies true purpose clear? All I see is a pathetic pony who can't even get to the finish line." Death mocked Dash, quenching her restraint.

"Is that what you really think of me? You think I'd give up? I can change! This isn't over!" A sudden burning rage overcame Dash's depression, leaving only an unsettled blue sky where she had been. A single wave of pure distortion spread from the epicenter of where Dash had been. A single line rested between where Dash had been and where Dash was now, illuminating the path that Dash had traversed in her mental anguish. Death floated at the flag waiting.

"You took your time... was it something I said?" Death queried with a massive smirk on his face.

"You knew that was going to happen! You knew I wasn't living my life!" Dash accused. Death's smirk grew wider. "And now I owe you a few favors..." Death's smirk stretched until he literally had one from ear to ear, exposing a bit of Death's skull when he smiled. "Thanks..." Why was Dash thanking him? Death's smile shrunk until it looked quite a bit more natural.

"For what?" It was an honest enough question.

"For fixing me." It was an honest enough answer.

Dash's body lay on the ground, untouched by the events around it. Dead, it was clear that the large burnt patch was the entry point for the spell, the patch taking up all of her cutie mark and most of the surrounding area. The bright magenta eyes that were normally so bright and lively seemed dull and grey, like a frosted window. The body was broken and dead.

That wouldn't stop Dash. Death had led her back from the realm of the Sky and was upholding his word. Dash stared down at her own broken corpse and wondered if she would change, if she could change from her old ways. The flesh on the side of her empty receptacle of living slowly knit back together, the cutie mark reforming an the flesh unburning. The skin uncurled and was unrended, while healthy muscle overtook the old burnt out muscle. Dash felt herself settle back into her body. The color slowly returned into the world and with it came the pain. A horrible agonizing pain.

"She's ALIVE? Princess Celestia! She's alive!" Who was yelling so loud? It hurt. A purple blur stared at Dash.

"Twilight?" She moaned out. "Too...loud..."

"SHUT UP!!" Instantly the slight din from the other ponies celebrated stopped.

"How is it that you are alive? Twilight claims that Nightmare Moons' spell obliterated you." A necklace was materializing on Dash's neck. The process left a weird sensation, like a bug was crawling on her.

"Death says hi." Dash simply said. Luna whimpered faintly in the corner.

Meeting

For quite a while after Dash carried Death's debt, Death was lonely. The whole having emotion thing was something that he still hadn't quite dealt with in the entirety of the 75 years or so he had been in this dimension. The odd pang of having nobody around to share the monotony of his existence with almost drew Death to call upon his debt quite a bit sooner than he intended. The previously completely omnipotent being was now a slave to the hand of fate, his endless machinations with the world being limited to fitting with the other gods' plans.

Sure, he and Time occasionally got together and talked about their jobs, but Time existed in another dimension and gave He-who-takes-you-where-you-go-when-you-die a headache. Time could best be described by using extra dimensional terms, so when Time complained about how the pseudoparabola of the Xeinty's Tangent was being disturbed by some moron with a wand, Death just nodded. And smiled.

For that matter, smiling was something different. Apparently, the peoples of this planet wanted his service with a smile. For instance, when the wife of the current Griffon king decided to finally die, she rebuked him for not coming sooner. It might've been that she was senile, but she dared to insult Death!

Her soul made a tasty snack. It was corrupt with the weight of her misdeeds in life anyway and he would later send it along to the god of life.

It was odd though. The king who was present at the death bed of his wife, Gloria, had written him a note! Someone actually knew he existed! It was amazing to be acknowledged! It was like someone had filled his nonexistent body filled with the light of a million warm suns and replaced thoughts with the energy from a fusion reactor!

Wait. They don't have fusion reactors here. Got to remember that.

At any rate, The king wanted to Death to take mercy on his poor daughter. Something about Gilda not quite fulfilling all of the requirements to be a proper griffon warrior or something. Death had to wonder just who Gilda was.

So the-one-who-is-inescapable graced the mortal king with his presence.

"Who is this Gilda? Why should I care for her, lowly mortal? I follow who the list chooses, not what any mortal wills to happen." Death decided on showing up as a griffon with a dapper looking fedora on his head for a change. Despite his urging to the sun goddess, fedoras never really caught on outside of the griffons. Something about it making it harder to hear or something. Honestly, why there were so many species with ear adorning the very top of their fragile heads was just another thing that confused Death.

"Please, have mercy upon her, Gilda will soon be parentless." Death took this moment to slip out of phase with the world. He took a particularly cruel dictator's soul from him and had it for another snack. While he was back in his little out of reality home, he took note of the time of the king's demise. It was barely a month away from the conversation he had just paused. Though paused is a bad term. Time would yell at him if he actually paused a medium that was not his own.

He also took his look over on the list to check on Gilda, Dash, and Sparkle. To his annoyance and even more so his confusion, none of the names were on the list. It was clearly the powers that were above him's way of messing with him.

They never liked Death that much.

He rejoined the regular speed next to the king.

"I will be as merciful as the situation allows." Though it really wasn't because the king had asked. No, it was because the king, in his odd knowledge of the existence of Death, had held a death appreciation day. Death had never seen so many fireworks before, and surely griffons had the best firework displays in all of the seven kingdoms that this world was made of!

Certainly, it was better than the tiny display the donkey's gave him.

Death, while all these admittedly odd and fantasmic things were happening, was still lonely.

And Death was growing bored.

In some odd cosmic coincidence, Dash was also growing bored. Of being in the hospital that is.

"Really? I save Equestria and almost DIE in the process and you can't even get me out of the hospital a day early?" Celestia had decided to visit, her apprentice Twilight Sparkle following like a purple dog. A purple dog that she had tried to kill herself to protect, that is. Apparently, as the story was going around, her noble and LOYAL sacrifice had been enough for the elements of harmony to awaken and do their thing through what small cut she had opened in Nightmare Moon's body. Her resurrection was thankfully not garnering quite the same amount of attention that she had half feared it would. There would be no cult of Dash anytime soon.

"We must make sure that whatever process gave you life again does not leave in a place where we cannot easily help you. You must understand, ponies aren't supposed to come back to life." Celestia had not, in quite a long time, experienced a pony that would talk to her so informally. The lack of respe-, respect was a bad word to use for Dash's behavior. The lack of reverence almost certainly proved that Dash had met Death, and Celestia would have doubted it even then if Dash had not said that she had met Death. Though of course, that was not what she had said in so many words.

Dash really wanted to explain to Celestia just why there was no need for her continued stay in that lonely little hospital room, with the single bed and single windowed barred from the outside world. But Dash had a feeling that Celestia knew that she knew Death. That this was some overly elaborate test designed to bring about Dash's confession that she knew Death. This odd cyclical thinking almost made the blue pony's head hurt.

"So I can leave today right? I can stay with my friends?" She made an awkward annunciation on the word friends, probably to stress her surprise that she even had friends. That was Celestia's take on the issue. Being a not-so-omnipotent sun god did have it's draw backs, and Celestia would be the first to point out a few of them. Luna would probably be second, with Death being a close third. Such drawbacks included the natural seclusion that develops as everypony you know dies a slow death from age, until you finally begin to view the act of living as a slow phase of dying. Making her new apprentice immortal would be one of her top priorities.

"We can have a sleep over! It will be my first one! I still haven't gotten a chance to thank you for saving my life, you know." Twilight was completely ignorant of the silent tension that was being created of the knowledge of knowing that the other knew. Such was the affairs of gods, over complicated. Such was also those who had been touched by gods and it was something that Twilight would soon be blessed with the knowledge of.

"Very well, if Twilight will accompany you, I'm sure she should be able to contact me in time if you drop dead." She said the possible death sentence in the same tone as one would talk about the weather. Dash responded in kind.

"I don't think you have to worry about that."

And to Death's surprise, he found that quite a few of the names of ponies he had encountered in his meetings with Time were not on the list. The normally complete and reliable list was missing the names of at least 8 individuals.

But that really wasn't his greatest concern.

Death, or rather another Death from another Dimension, was coming to visit. As was customary for Death, he gave little to no warning and only said that it would be a week or so before he showed up. Though the bright flashing lights read him as coming with another. And thusly, the message changed to mention that he would be bringing his apprentice and that he looked forward to meeting Death's avatar. He also said to call him Dying.

Which left Death with a bit of an issue. All of the other gods had avatars. Celestia was in the process of getting her avatar ready. Luna was in the same predicament, her newly cleared mind had latched onto a certain pony and had convinced her to be her avatar.

Even Space had decided to get an avatar.

But Death didn't particularly care for Space. He was a bit of a braggart.

But he really didn't want to disappoint Dying, or maybe Dying had gotten a foretelling from his Time that he would have an apprentice.

Or maybe Dying wanted to talk about the meeting that was coming in the next year. Death was in the clear with that, but apparently there were going to be quite a few universes destroyed because one of the higher powers had gone bad and started to play around with the series of worlds it was in charge of. Something about letting some human world know of other worlds.

Nothing that Death really cared about, but Dying might be part of one the soon to be destroyed worlds.

Which was why he was going to call in one of his favors with Dash.

Surely she wouldn't try and do something stupid and refuse.

Gilda

"You are such a flip flop! Cool one minute, lame the next! When you get over these lame-os, you know where to find me." Gilda stomped out of the door, the party pausing until she had completely vacated. At any rate, a few fluttering feathers were left in her wake, the golden glare of her presence fading away.

"Who does she think she is? She thinks she can get away with pranking me? I'll show her, I'll show the-" She cut herself off, her talons scratching deep furrows in the dirt she stood upon. Her frustration still not worked out to her tastes, she let out a shriek and began her journey back.

"Should've known better than to try and visit her. Should've just given up when that Pink one came after me. What is her problem anyway?" Gilda fumed a little more, occupying her gaze with her mutilation of the little dirt path out of Ponyville.

"Wait. What was I doing before I got here? I was never that good of friends with Dash!" She paused from her deconstruction to try and fathom exactly what brought her here. She let out a slight yelp as another voice joined her.

"As such is those who are pawns of fate, you were thrown onto this path years ago. If it were not for Death's interference, I'm afraid that you would be even worse off. You would feel the pain of losing a friend, not just the embarrassment and confusion you must be experiencing." Gilda looked up. Another griffon sat there, his crimson feathers warping the light around them. His black beak caught her eye, and the far too large pupils took up the majority of his eye sockets. His hindquarters were black, and his tail the same, except for a tip of crimson.

"Who are you? What are you talking about!" Gilda paused for a moment, her breathing quickening as she realized she couldn't move her eyes from the new griffon. She put on false bravado, panic beginning to set in as similarities between parts of griffon folklore and what she was experiencing began to occur to her. "I'm nobody's pawn! I am my own griffon!"

"Then tell me, my little griffon, how did you arrive here?" There was an odd ethereal hint to his voice. It was infuriating, and despite it occurring to Gilda that it was designed to be that way, she fell for the bait.

"I don't need to answer you, freak!" She was planning on going on a bit further and give the griffon a piece of her mind, but she suddenly found herself unable to open her mouth.

"Tut, tut. A sharp tongue will cut your throat. Such a beautiful creature you are and such a cruel fate awaits you. I give you one chance. Do you go back on your lonely path or do you become something greater?" Gilda looked onto her prospects for life. Then she took it at face value. Was the being really going to let her go if she said no? The answer became obvious.

"I accept." There was an odd flash of light, and then nothing. There was nobody left on the path.

And Gilda awoke in a world that defied explanation. Odd irregular forms decorated the walls, crystal spires jutted out a unpredictable intervals. A myriad of colors, like those on a soap bubble painted this abstract wall. And in the center, there sat some odd thing, it's bipedal and clothed appearance as odd as the world itself.

"Gilda! So glad for you to wake up again! Grace me with your intolerable wit, why don't you? The summit of the gods does not wait for any mortal, nor does it wait for me." Gilda blinked a few times. The bipedal thing spoke? That was new.

"What are you? Where's that freak griffon from before?" The bipedal thing morphed, the body liquifying and reforming into the previous griffon. Gilda watched, slightly nauseated. How does that even work?

"Oh Gilda, my poor little gal. You are going to be my avatar. Isn't that swell?"

"Avatar? What are you getting on about?" The red griffon flew over next her, the crimson feathers literally alight. The feather's fire leapt from him to her, catching her alight in their brilliance.

"Gilda, you'll know it when it happens."

Dash meets Time

As Gilda left the party, an odd fog that Dash had been previously unaware of lifted from her. It was not really a cloaking fog, but rather a numbing one, one that made her accept a slew of false memories into her mind that she would never have dared accept otherwise. As she watched, the confusion spread throughout the room, all asking the same question with their minds. What had they been doing? The many colored pegasus honestly couldn't say. Her last real memory had been of receiving a letter from an acquaintance of hers from back in school. Honestly, it described her as being an old friend when she certainly hadn't been. After that, it all seemed to blur together. As she tried to piece together the parts, the puzzled party members began to leave the party. She walked over to the unicorn mare that she had recently killed herself over.

"Uh, Sparkle?" She asked, despite the fact that Twilight hadn't moved from her position of staring out the window. "What are we doing here?"

Twilight turned to look at her, and for one brief moment Dash could've sworn that her eyes were completely taken up by her corneas. It was really freaky, for sure. "I'm not really sure. Something about a party?" Twilight motioned towards the evidence; a few stomped party hats, a few glasses filled with punch and a few broken glasses. A banner half fallen in front of the door. Twilight's face had a dull look to it, like the numbing fog had not quite left her and she still suffered from whatever it was.

"Yeah..." Death's debtor replied, looking around. She walked over to the window, blinking as the color began to fade from the sky. It started from far out in the horizon, the color eaten away by the wave of grey. Eventually, the sun lost it's color as the ponies still in the party froze, cold and dark. Dash became the only speck of color. Dash looked around before finding her self being calmed with the all invading silence. Dash tried to slip out of the phase, but found herself locked into it.

"I have to wait?" She asked. And as if that thought had summoned the cause, the door flew open. It wasn't death as she expected. It was a brown stallion with an hour glass for a cutie mark. She barely recognized him as Whooves, the owner of the clock shop. After a moment of staring at each other, Whooves leaned forward and waved a hoof in front of her face.

"Oh goody. I'll have to wipe you after this." He looked not the least bothered by this. He pulled out an odd wrench looking device.

Dash moved. "So... why are you moving?" She asked him, walking around his. His eyes were practically one color. "And why are your eyes like that?"

The pony looked at her. "I am the present incarnation of time. Being able to dwell in areas of stopped time is a perk of the job. Another perk is the ability to permanently erase outliers. Like yourself for instance." He pointed the wrench at her. It just floated there, unlike if a unicorn had grabbed it or anything.

The rainbow pony gulped. "Uh... Death wouldn't like that?" She tried.

Whooves's eyes widened. "That's why there was a breach around here? Good thing I caught you in time, young lady. This party almost triggered a domino effect that could've wiped the plans of fate."

Dash wasn't entirely sure what that meant but it sounded bad. "Uh... sounds like a bad thing?"

He nodded. "Right... You stay here until Death decides to show his gloomy head. I have a fabric of space time to knit." As if it was always there, another wrench appeared.

She blinked. "How are you creating those?" She pointed at the wrenches.

He shook his head. "I'm not actually creating those. A long time ago, and I MEAN A LOOOOOOONG time ago, I paid off Space to scatter wrenches all through out space. I'm actually localizing time to a previous point where there was a wrench and using them to pull off this hatch."

She nodded like she understood. "Hatch." She stated.

He pointed at a floating black square. Her eyes slid off of it when she tried to stare directly at it. Looking at it from the corner of her eyes, she noted that it was just a floating black square. With wrenches spinning against it.

"Oh. Hatch." She shrugged.

Whooves grinned. "You know, I've never actually had company while I'm doing this. It's rather refreshing." The black square slid off and hit the ground with an agonizingly loud crunch. She jumped at the noise. "Sorry. I guess I should've warned you."

She glared at him. "Well DUH." She walked over to him.

"Hey, you want to see the fabric of space time? I've got to warn you, it's very disorienting."

Dash made a face. "Uh... I'll just... stay here..." Where the black square was was a simple hole in existence. That's the best way to explain it. Dash circled the distortion. It was two dimensional; unless you were viewing it straight on from either side, it was not viewable.

Whooves prodded the square and a soft green light gently poured from it. He jerked the wrench at her. "Come take a look. This place is messed up."

She found herself dragged over to it. Wherever there was a non static object where the portal obscured, there was a knot of green threads around the objects. A half spilled glass of punch was the most vibrant object in the room, the green thread turning red around it.

However, where there were ponies there was a complex network mesh of the threads and there were more colors. Around twilight was a blue thread that shot through the wall and far into the distance. Whooves himself was connected to nothing, unlike every other pony. Applejack was connected directly to her cup cake, Pinkie was connected to a large cake faintly.

Fluttershy, unlike everypony was tied to the hole by a faint pink thread. She had a mesh surrounding yet another mesh. "What's wrong with Fluttershy?" She frowned.

He looked into the hole. "That's bad. That is VERY bad. Right right. When you find Death, repeat after me. The Sys admins have reached us and the server is corrupt. Understand? It's very important that he understands that. They are coming after him, after all." He looked at her.

"What about Fluttershy?" She asked again.

"That's a behavior modification matrix. Would she normally go to a party with you?" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I have to fix this mess. If anybody does anything out of the norm for them, don't go with them. Please. In fact, they probably wanted you here for something. Get out."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. "Huh?"

"GET OUT." He repeated.

She blinked and found herself more than a hundred yards away up in a cloud. A note was taped to her chest. She pulled it off and read it. "You were going to argue. Go find Death and tell him."

She turned around and found herself at the threshhold of Death's door.

Dash and Death and Dying and James

Death hummed lightly to himself and examined his little niche in the minimacroverse. A few pillows were thrown about; apparently less divine creatures liked the comfort of them. Or something. Death never really understood why mortals were weird like that.

He was happy with just living. Or... whatever word you use to describe his previous omnipotent being broken down into parts as. Death didn't really know.

The point was, Death supposed, was that Dying was not quite the same as Death. He was... Well. An offshoot. And prone to bad choices. Most of the off shoots were prone to bad choices. Last time he had heard from Dying, the other incarnation of death had an avatar that had creatively called himself Grim. Who names themselves Grim? That is so cliche.

It would probably be the death of him, all these Death puns. If only the person who would be receiving this information understood the correct theory of narrative flow and the weaving of space time. It would make describing this so much easier.

But debating the pros and cons of that revelation was something far too great for just one god to be responsible for. After all, the chances of more breaches to the continuum was far too great to comprehend.

And then Dash walked in and her nervous form sent more than a little bit of alarm through him. Not that he showed it. Showing alarm was one of those odd expressions that he didn't really understand. Was he supposed to erupt into red lights and emit high pitch noises?

Dash almost collapsed against the semi permeable mystery material that made up the ground. "Time... Said... Admins... server..."

Death froze, well not literally. Freezing was another odd saying. He looked at her and the doors slammed shut behind the new arrival. "What?"

She pulled her head up from the floor. "Sys admins... are coming and the server is corrupt."

He groaned loudly and wrapped his wings around his head. "Great. Right. At any rate, I need you to stay here for the time being. Do you think you are up to acting?"

She blinked a few times. "Acting?"

He nodded. "I need you to act like we are fairly close and do it well enough to fool another almost omnipotent aspect of the world."

She nodded like she understood. "I'll... try."

He smiled. Or rather, being Death, he tried to smile. "Good."`

There was a knock on the proverbial door, and then there was a door, cut into the side of the cloth that made of the walls. It opened.

"Dying?" Death queried, still trying to smile. A billowing cloaked figure slowly drifted in, his face hid by a mask and a large scythe in his hands. The masked face looked around.

"Death?" It spoke in about the same town.

A small cat walked in behind him. "Woah. Talk about Death being a pale horse." It spoke.

Dash noted that, quite like most of the things she had met recently, the cat had overgrown pupils. It walked into the cloaked form and seemed to weave its way through the figures legs.

Death spoke. "What happened to Grim?"

Dying made a shrugging motion. "He tried to kill me, so I ate him. At any rate, the way of magic was growing outdated."

Death winced. "Let me guess. Technology."

He nodded. "Such a shame, really. I was liking that place. Technology, that idiot, did his work. They saw fit to deny me..." His mask turned up into a wry smile. "They didn't do it for long."

The cat ventured out from under his cloak.

Dash blinked and looked over all of them. She had a feeling that this was going to give her a headache.