Chapters At first, it was a seemingly normal day in Ponyville. There were ponies walking about, birds flying, and flowers blooming. At the end of the day, it seemed like just another day, without some crazy quest to go on. Starlight Glimmer had just started her studies, and everypony seemed to accept her. At the end of the day, everypony went to sleep. However, Twilight had a dream that was... not normal, to say the least. It all started with this.
"Once upon a time... There was 1 single dimension in this universe, the land of ponies. However, there was a spirit roaming around this dimension, unseen by them all. This spirit was, essentially, the spirit of hate. All he did was spread hate, and make other ponies hate..."
"However... One day, there was so much hate among the ponies, a massive blizzard came. The hate spirit, The Dark Lord, knew that he had awakened the windigos."
"But, he did not expect what happened next."
"What happened then, was that 6 ponies made what is now Equestria. Somehow, when these 6 defeated the windigos, it spread love everywhere, and the hate sucked back in. The Dark Lord became a very powerful being filled with hate, and soon, another dimension formed from it."
"This universe was Dark Equestria. You can't find it on a map, or by looking at all. There is no entry, but... There is an exit."
"The Dark Lord decided that this exit was ultimately useless. He wouldn't use it, as he knew he would not serve any point in Equestria any longer. Later in Dark Equestria, he made minions, and clones of those minions."
"He then decided to try to corrupt ponies from Equestria to rule in Dark Equestria with him. For the first thousands of moons, all over 1,000 attempts he made seemed like failures."
"Until..."
"One day, which was today, he got it to work. However, sadly, it was only the ponies who had power, and weren't princesses. Those ponies turned out to be your closest friends. Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie."
"Twilight."
"You are the only pony able to fix this. However, this is a dream. You will have to wake up soon. Thankfully, you will, and there will be a portal in the far outskirts of west Ponyville."
"Go alone. It would be dangerous for Spike. Starlight can take care of him, anyways."
"See you there, Twilight."
Twilight woke up, as the dream said. She was startled, as it was sunrise. The dream was so perfectly timed... It didn't make any sense. Twilight did what the voice in the dream said, though. She went to the far outskirts of west Ponyville, alone. She ignored everypony that tried to talk to her, because the lives of her friends might have been at stake. She kept thinking,
"I've got to do this, all for my friends."
Sure enough, she reached where the voice told her to go. But, it came back.
"Here you are!-
"AAAAAAHHH!" Twilight screamed. "Who are you?! Where am I?! Where-"
"Woah, woah, woah, calm down." The voice replied calmly. "I'm that voice you heard in your dream. I'm surprised you listened to me in the first place."
"That's... weird." Twilight said. "How did you even get in my dreams so perfectly timed like that?"
"I'll get to that later. Anyways, the portal is right here, see?
"Yes, I do see."
"Great! Now, just go right in. It's as simple as that."
"Is this really a good idea? How do you know my friends are really in there? What if this is an elaborate scheme to get me killed?" Twilight was unsure of her actions.
"No, I promise you, your friends are in there! You need to save them!" The voice replied, assuring Twilight that this wouldn't be like she thought it would.
"Okay..." Twilight said kind of unsure. "Here I go..." She walked into the portal, to later be thrown in the land of Dark Equestria. Little did she know of the journey she would embark in this.
Author's Note
Fighting for Equestria
Twilight didn't know how to imagine going through that portal. It felt like a sensation of falling endlessly, going through different layers of a ground of some sort. Then, it went black.
*Twi....light! P.......Wa...... Wake up!*
Twilight finally woke up, in some sort of black area that looked along the lines as a mini cave. *Oh, good, you're awake. I know I'm not here, but I think I will be good assistance to you, especially at the start.*
"What do you mean, 'at the start'?" Twilight asked, still confused from what was happening.
*Well... I thought you would've known, but Dark Equestria is actually a very big place. It'll take you many hours, and probably a couple days to get out of here, at least with all of your friends.*
"Great." Twilight replied sarcastically.
Twilight felt like this was going to be a long ride. She was anticipating the giant adventure that awaited her now.
*Anyways, Like I was going to say... It's not only your friends here. There are many minions The Dark Lord has assigned to... pretty much kill you.*
"WHAT?!" Twilight replied, a little nervous now.
*He also did that with your friends.*
"WHA-Well, I guess you did say that in the dream, so it's understandable." Twilight knew that part of the story.
*Ok, great, I guess. Anyways, you should practice what to do in these situations with... ... A training dummy!*
"Really? That's the best you've got?"
*Hey, everypony needs to start somewhere. Anyways, if you see yourself in this situation, do not fight back. That will... uh... n-nevermind. If you fight back, it will be bad. You don't want to be hurting innocents, do you?*
"I guess not." Twilight replied.
*Anyways, you would need to give a minion, or in this case a dummy, some compliments. Make small talk in some circumstances. Just repeat it, until they don't want to fight anymore. It's simple, a trick We-I learned from the U-...nevermind. Forget I said that last part. Just make them not want to fight you.*
Twilight approached the training dummy casually. She looked a bit weirded out by this, but she tried her best to keep her cool. She was a bit quiet at first, but she became one of the only ponies to compliment a training dummy that day.
"Uh... You... Look... Good?"
*...*
"Nice... uh... cotton you got there!"
*Well, good enough. Let's move on.*
Twilight didn't know whether she should accept this at first. It was a daunting task, and it would sure take a long time. But, she now just accepted it. Everything was going smoothly, so she decided to trust this voice that's probably in her head.
*You really are doing pretty good! Now, just move on ahead. There's a lot more from here.*
Twilight moved out of the cave-like area. Eventually, she found light. Somehow, this part of the seemingly dark and scary place looked completely innocent. Just like ponyville, actually. It was sunny, there was grass and trees, and it just seemed like something normal. She could even see another cave in the distance.
"What's with all these caves?" Twilight actually asked the voice.
*I don't know. But I think it's the only one in here. It may be some thing down here. This is DARK Equestria after all. There's bound to be a lot of dark places, from what I assume.*
Twilight just didn't respond. She just understood. She finally decided to go forward and actually progress for once. She admired the scenery, until she bumped into a monster like creature. She wasn't paying attention, so it surprised her. The enemy seemed angry, and then noticed who he bumped into.
*Whoops. Not a good move. Well, I guess this is your first encounter with a real enemy. Just do what I told you to do.*
The purple alicorn examined the minion and tried to see what compliments she could give him based on his appearance. He had small horns that almost matched the skin of his body. His body almost had a dry feel to it. It was a mix of Orange and Brown that seemed kind of unnatural, even for a monster. He was a short creature, with a crack in his body that had his teeth in it. The body itself was a half-circle like shape on the bottom, and mostly the same shape, but bigger on the top, but it extended a little near the middle to fit the size of the split. She decided to try to give some sort of compliment.
"I... really like your horns!" Twilight exclaimed, thinking that was the best she could say at the time.
"Oh...? Thanks! They recently grew on me, and I'm kind of proud of them! I don't know why the Dark Lord thinks you're so bad, I don't even want to do this!"
The "fight" with the minion ended, with him satisfyingly walking away.
*Wow! You're a natural at this! I'm sure you'll get the hang of this in no time!*
Twilight felt at ease. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as she thought.
Author's Note
I'll try to update whenever I can. I don't have all the time in the world, you know?
This all seemed to be very simple to Twilight now. To be honest, she thought this was actually rather dull and boring. it was the same old thing, at least until she found one of her friends. Even so, Twilight kept persisting, and did what she had to at the moment.
*Twilight, what's wrong? You seem rather quiet lately.* Twilight didn't respond for a while.
"I don't know." She started explaining. "It just seems boring, and kind of confusing to do the same thing over and over again. Do you perhaps know when I'll see one of my friends?"
*Hmm... most likely when you get through that cave. Even then, I wouldn't know who it would be.* Twilight now felt intrigued, and kept on going with this new information.
Twilight met many minions along the way. But, for some reason, there was a tree. This tree was odd, however. It didn't look like a normal tree. She went to go examine the tree, and maybe find more information. But, it could still just be a tree, after all. There are a lot of weird trees in Equestria.
"heheh..." Twilight heard a faint distorted voice.
*Um, what?*
"Do you think you wouldn't know?" Twilight felt scared.
"Wouldn't know What?!" Twilight said with fear for another invisible object.
"That you wouldn't know... that you would just KILL everyone?" The voice giggled.
"Why would I kill anyone though? I'm the princess of friendship. It's my sworn duty to spread friendship, not bloodlust."
"Oh, I never said you would spread bloodlust. How could you... WHEN I ALREADY HAVE. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH 01010100 01001000 01001001 01010011 00100000 01010111 01001111 01001110 00100111 01010100 00100000 01000111 01001111 00100000 01000110 01001111 01010010 00100000 01001100 01001111 01001110 01000111 00101110 AHAHAHAHAHHAHA
" Then it suddenly stopped. Twilight was completely paralysed from what happened. Even the disembodied voice went silent.
"W-what was that?" Twilight asked, shaking with fear.
*...I..... I don't......*
"..."
*Just ignore it, okay?*
"I'll try." Twilight said, nervous. However, for some reason, all the memories of that event just got erased from her head.
"Wait.... try what?" Twilight asked, confused from what she just said.
*I don't know. Must have been something weird. Anyways, let's move forward.*
There were about 3 other minions Twilight encountered. One of them was a female pink slime with pink eyes and a blue bandana. It looked like she had trouble keeping it on. She also looked like she was trying to grasp a wooden sword. Must have made it herself. The other one was... genderless? It was an orange almost troll-like creature, that even had a shirt on. It was just weird. The final one was this relatively small creature that was dark green on the top, and light green on the bottom. The bottom part of her looked like a snake, and the top part looked like an egg. The Dark Lord really knew how to pick these.
After a lot of befriending, convincing, complimenting, and in some cases, lying, Twilight approached a big structure. She thought that this was the cave that the voice was talking about. It looked really bigger compared to what she thought it would be. It was a big, grey cave. Just like the ones she'd been in before.
"Wow...." Twilight said in awe.
*Yep, It's one of the biggest structures here. But, this is almost the only major thing you'll find before the capital.*
"Capital? What capital?" Twilight asked.
*Oh, it's nothing to worry about. It's this thing near the end of the journey that you'll stumble upon. It's one of the most populated areas in Dark Equestria. I don't suggest worrying about it, since you would've encountered all the minions by then. My predictions also say you'll save 4 out of your 5 friends.*
"Well, that's great. Anyways, let's go in!" Twilight exclaimed, eager to explore the cave.
The second Twilight stepped in, she almost regretted her decision. There were stalagmites and stalactites almost everywhere. Some areas were either dripping or wet, and it was almost pitch black. She pretty much couldn't see anything.
"Woah, this is dark." Twilight said. She instantly used her magic as a flashlight. This cave was really big, and she could only see directly in front of her. Twilight felt this was the first real danger of her journey.
Author's Note
Finally a new chapter, am I right?