Subject of Faith: A new Paradiseby Mickey AdaptusChapters1 Escape2 Point of contact3 Hope is a delusion4 Story telling5 Remnants of the past1 EscapeUnknown point of view I don't know for how long I have been running, my heart is pounding like crazy while I hear shouts behind me. "Don't let him escape! Don't the slave escape!!" I could hear gunshots fire behind me, but for my luck, those guards that were assigned to that position had barely any combat experience. They acted like most guards around this place, they only cared for loot and the fact that they were allowed to torture slaves up to a point where the slave would be near death. I have been running for wat seemed like ages until I finally found it a sign that said *escape pods*. I couldn't believe my luck! I slammed the door of the escape pod open with brute force as I went inside of it. I had no time to set the coordinates, in fact, I had nowhere else to go for that matter. The only place where I think I could go was where my survivor group once used to be, but then again it was never that save there. The fact that we managed to survive was solely on the fact there were army veterans among our group who had experience fighting the demons. I pushed lots of buttons without a second thought and pushed the start button. The engines came to live as my escape pod shot trough the air, eventually creating a warp gate in order to leave this dimension. I took a look at my body, it was full of scars and dried up blood. I was still wearing some of those old chains that were piercing into my skin, I really needed to find some tools to remove these things. If I find a planet that has *proper* life on it that is. But then I thought back about the fact how I escaped, and more importantly why. I have been in this nightmare of a place for 3 years, everyone who was there faced constant pain to the mind and was getting tortured for most of the day for the amusement of the guards. I must have been one of the luckier ones, there was a woman there who lost her sanity to a point where was desperately trying to kill herself. But the guards were no fools, they placed devices in our chains that prevented us from dying. I did not know how that was possible, but my theory was that the laws of physics of this dimension were very different than those of real space. I had made a friend there, he was an old army veteran who fought during the time the darkness cats overrun our newer home planet. He told me all about it, how it was not just a defeat. It was a total slaughter. They all had been prepared for that attack, but the enemy used a method that impossible to do for anybody else at the time, they used the dimension where I am at as a fast way of transport. This daemon dimension of the opposite from that of real space, when you leave this dimension you will come out as the exact position to that of where it is in real space. The enemy used this to their advantage and swarmed out of the warp gates behind our lines, slaughtering our soldiers to a point where we had no more defence at the front. Those who did survive were ordered to evacuate the population to different planets. But the enemy had no intention of letting that happen. They released their so called darkness cats, mindless beast that used to be one of us but now infected with some sort of virus or foul magic that totally shredded them from their former selves, becoming pure non-sentient beast that slaughter everything they can for blood. This is already bad but to make it worse all darkness cats are linked to a single hive mind. This hive mind controls and directs their attacks, wich makes them excellent for charging trough enemy lines. Without a nearby hivemind, they act like any other wild animal, kill anything that is in sight. They are spread all over the galaxy, inhabiting planets where former civilisations used to live, now wiped out from existence. My friend managed to survive the slaughter, same goes for another 1000 soldiers that managed to live the tale. The shocking fact was that the enemy murdered more civilians than soldiers. The planet used to have a populace of 6 billion, wich was eventually reduced to 3 million but only 18 hours. My friend had a wife and a loving daughter, while he was a soldier that fought a lot he still was having a good time with his family. He told me how his wife was skinned alive and how his daughter got raped and then murdered without any form of mercy. It's sad to say but this is what happened to most people among our kind, we all lost family or dear friends because of those monsters. I can never forget the horrible fate my father met right in front of my eyes, it broke me more than you can imagine. I and my friend had gotten close to each other, wich is a dangerous thing since one of us always had the chance to get relocated or worse, g get infected with the virus if the guards wanted to have some fun. If you got infected you would become one of those monsters, you would be thrown into an arena to fight and murder your former friends or you would be relocated into a random planet to wander and murder. One day my friend had an escape plan, I thought he was out of his mind. Escaping this place was almost impossible since we were no longer in real space but an entirely different dimension. But he told me about how they send darkness cats to different planets. They use small like space pods that get sent into real space and crash into a random planet, that was our key to escape. I thought we were both going to escape, but as we were about to leave, he ran back and went to hold off the guards so that I had a chance to escape. I yelled to him that he had to come with me to freedom. But the look on his face blew my mind off, he was smiling. He must have planned this from the start not telling me the end part on purpose. But how is my life any more important than his? How is my life more important than anyone else's out there in the first place? Truth to be told, I was vastly different than most people were imprisoned here. My friend was at the age of 58 being a veteran of many missions that could have lead to death. I was only 13 years old, being imprisoned in this place ever since I was 10 years old. And for the fact that my kind was rare. Our race is called the Holycats because of ancient legends where our ancestors used to battle the strongest demons that the galaxy has ever seen. But our race was split into 3 subspecies. The first one didn't really have a name since it the most common out of all. We never really bothered to name it for that reason. the second one was the one I was. We were called Eldritch but many know us for our capabilities of using magic/psychic powers. 3/4 of this subspecies lives in a giant planet where they are trained in the arts of battle and magic. It was rare for us to live among anyone else than our own subspecies. The third one was one that almost went to extinction and is very few in number. They are known as raukan. This subspecies is also the most dangerous of all, for the very fact that they get stronger from pain. They used this method their advantage to overpower their enemies but hurting or even torturing themselves in the most painful ways. Their bodies would be unusable at first but when they recovered their physical strength had reached heights that would take years for any other mortal to achieve. Their name is also most notable came from their army called *Clan Raukan*. They were famous for their close combat, charging with insane speeds into enemy firing lines. Turning a long range battle into a slaughter fast. But that is enough history lesson for now. The here and now is what currently matters. I don't know for how long I have been flying in this thing, it seemed like hours perhaps days. But things were not looking very good despite I escaped My body was still bleeding like crazy from all the injuries I got from my escape and still did not know where I was heading towards. But on the bright side, at least I had weapons, my friend found them inside of the armouries and gave 2 weapons to me. One being a revolver wich, unfortunately, he only found around 12 bullets with it. The next weapon made me almost gape my mouth wide open. It was my father's signature knife. It was basically a small sized sword that was handcrafted by himself, forged from very strong metal that has been modified with magic in order to make it even stronger. Most Eldritch weapons are made this way but my father was not only a great warrior, he was also a great scientist. He put some runes on this blade that I don't know anything about. From what I can remember weapons of the Eldritch get their enhanced strength from the user. The user converts some of his magic into the weapon powering it and giving it incredible feats. The stronger the magic of the user is, the stronger the weapon becomes. Suddenly I started to feel weaker, and the next moment I passed out. 2 Point of contactTwilight Point of view It was still late at night when I am looking at the stars with my telescope. Princess Luna did an amazing job as always with the night, she was after all the princess of the night itself. I was still gazing trough my telescope when I heard somebody call out my name. "Twilight! Are you still looking at the stars after all these hours?" It came from my assistant and baby dragon Spike. He and I had become great friends, I was the one who hatched him out of his egg after all. "I know Spike, but I am trying to figure out what I have been seeing out there." Spike gave me a confused look "And what exactly have you been seeing out there Twilight?" "I don't know, I see some sort of small crimson coloured hole." Suddenly something shot out of the hole, it was too small for me to know what exactly it was. "Twilight look! It is a falling star!" Spike said with much joy. I looked into the telescope again and found something odd. "Spike, I don't think this is a falling star because it doesn't have the same moving pattern a falling star has." "Ummm Twilight?" "Not to mention a falling star gives off way more light then this object does..." "Twilight!!" I flinched from Spike's sudden outburst. "What was that for?!" I said in annoyance "That *thing* is heading straight for us!!" Spike yelled in a panicking tone. Jack's point of view I woke up with a slight groan. My entire body was in pain and I could feel the chains piercing into my skin. I became aware of my surroundings and opened the hatch of the escape pod. So I climbed out of the escape and decided to do a bit of exploring. But what I saw kind of surprised me, I was in a dark forest and strangely it felt so.... Alive..... I gathered my weapons and decided to find for any sign's of life. 'I had best keep my guard up, who knows what of horror this planet contains..' But ironically enough that last thought shoved away after what I saw next. There 3 creatures looking for something, but they were made out of wood. 'Wood?! There must be sorcery involved into this, perhaps the caster is still around so I had better check my surroundings more often.' The 3 wooden creatures suddenly noticed me and started approaching me while growling. 'Just because they are made out of wood doesn't mean I should lower my guard, I am familiar with the art of deception and know when I see one.' Pulling out my revolver I aimed at the first one's head, and then I pulled the trigger. Its head exploded and small wooden parts were scattered all over its corpse. His comrades must have noticed their fallen friend because they started rushing towards me with a decent speed. For a minute I panicked and shoot at one of the incoming creatures without even taking the time to aim. Luckily even aiming I somehow managed to kill the second one, wich surprised me a lot. Unfortunately, I was too busy being surprised that I didn't notice the last one was already too close. He jumped at me and managed to bite me in the arm. The pain wasn't too bad but it managed to boost my adrenaline by a mile. With building rage, I grabbed the creature's throat and rip it apart from its body. The creature died within seconds wich was weird because his body was made out of wood. I checked my injury and my arm was bleeding, but for a reason, I couldn't figure out I liked how the blood was flowing. Quickly dismissing the thought I continued to explore the forest. I have walking for what seemed like hours, my body felt like it was going to collapse any moment and only by sheer determination was I able to keep moving. After a few minutes, i suddenly noticed movement behind me, I quickly turned around and saw a big creature that would face a serious threat. The creature was large, and I know by knowledge that his tail would be able to poison me. The big creature started to charge for me while I drew my knife. He tried to strike me with his paw but I was able to dodge by the last second. But the creature suddenly attacked me with his tail heading towards me with insane speed. My senses kicked in and I dodged the incoming sharp end of the tail, I grabbed his tail and dug my knife deep into its flesh. Suddenly I felt runes starting to glow in my knife as the creature screamed in agony as its tail fell on the ground. It seemed that the blade didn't completely cut trough the tail but decided to burn trough the bone and flesh, hence why the runes started glowing. Yet the creature for some reason still had the guts to attack me despite his own tail being brutally burned down from his body. While he was charging, I got a strange feeling. It was the same feeling back when I was 10 years old when I and 7 other survivors stared in the jaw of death itself. Where we fought like wild beast against hundreds of darkness cats swarming to our position. I looked into the eyes of that creature and it reminded me the same way the darkness cats looked at us before they were trying to claim us. Something snapped inside of me, I could my adrenaline shooting upwards like a rocket. Filled with fury I sprinted towards the creature and literally drilled my knife in its face. The knife went so deep it contacted its brain, killing the creature instantly. But for some reason I could not figure out, I still get attacking it. I stabbed it like 5 more times and even went so far to rip out its paw from its body. its bones coming with it. After a while the feeling started to go away and there I stood panting like crazy, I had a blurry vision. I suddenly heard slight movement from close to where I was. I turned around to locate the source and for a second my heart skipped a beat. There close to me was a four-legged creature wich had black and white stripes all over its body. It also wore what seemed to be like rings around certain parts of its body. But what surprised me the most was how it reacted. It didn't have that murder ish expression, it had a shocked but also slight expression I couldn't really make out. I looked closely into its eyes to see if I could find any trace of familiar emotion, I saw... sympathy? It was hard to make it since its eyes were vastly different than that of a holycat's one. But from what I could gather it didn't seem like it was going to kill let alone attack me. All that hatred and rage I showed a few minutes ago was now replaced by worry and uncertainty. Zecora's point of view I was gathering ingredients for one of my potions when I suddenly heard a hard growl, it sounded like a manticore. I quietly went to see what it had found, a mare/stallion that was lost in the everfree forest? Celestia knows what. When I arrived at the scene I saw something wich I had never seen in my entire lifetime. The manticore's tail was cut- no burned off from its body! But that was not what shocked me. It was the creature who did it. In front of the manticore stood a creature I have never seen before, the everfree forest contains lots of different and mysterious creatures but this something that has never been seen in Equestria before. It stood on 2 legs and seemed to have a tail, it reminded me a lot of Rarity's cat. In fact, it was almost like a cat but instead of 4 legs it has 2 and it was way bigger. The creature has scars all over its body, with lots of dried up blood and burned skin. It also seemed to be wearing some sort of chains that were pierced into its skin and it looks like he has been wearing it for a very long time. It had 2 big blue eyes, it also had a knife but it looked something otherworldly compared to that of the design the royal guard used. The manticore charged the creature with the intent of shredding it to pieces. I was pondering whether I should intervene or not, but it seems the creature already had made its choice. He charged the manticore with a murderous intent in its eyes. The creature then drove the knife so far into the manticore's head that it died instantly. I stood there mouth agape because of the sheer force that knife had managed to pierce into the manticore. The creature, however, was for whatever reason stabbing it like a mad man. It even went so far as to rip the manticore's paw from its body, it was a gruesome sight to behold. The creature eventually seemed to have calmed down, but with a fast reaction, it turned my way. I quickly went into a defensive position until I noticed the creature's behaviour. Instead of intending to attack me it just stood there with a scared expression looking at me. Moments ago the creature just brutally murdered the manticore with a look that would put any Equestrian criminal to shame, but here is now being afraid of me? Something is not right here. "Are... Are you sentient?" the creature asked out of nowhere. I was about to use my daily rhyme way of speaking but then I went against it. 'I know nothing of this creature and it might be best to make him understands me, you can never be too sure.' "Yes I am sentient, why do you ask?" "So he didn't manage to wipe out all civilisations in the galaxy... I just can't believe it. This is too good to be true.." The creature muttered silently even tough I still managed to hear it. "Wiped out? Galaxy? What do you mean by that?" I asked with a puzzled expression. But before I could get an answer the creature passed out. 3 Hope is a delusionThe Demon Realm - Fighter pit - 2 years ago I can still remember my battles in the fighter pit, but these were not typical gladiator battles. These were moments where you would be fighting for the sake of your own life, whether you were strong or weak didn't matter to our slave masters. My first fight was a horrible one, I was going to fight against a kid who was around the same age as me. The kid was beyond scared, I could see the look on his face. I knew what was at stake, either I die in battle and he gets to live or he dies and I get to live. Refusing to fight would automatically result in option number 3 wich meant we both would die. We weren't given any weapons, we were pretty much forced to use our hands to cut each other's throats. Judging by his scars this wasn't the first time this kid had fought, so I had best not hold anything back. I was in deep thoughts when the kid suddenly said: "I am sorry!! I don't want to kill you but I don't want to die either!! It's going to be one of us, only one of us is going to get out of this alive!" Even tough he did shouted it with a lot of aggression I could see that he was having trouble keeping himself from whimpering. I couldn't blame him in any way, I was having similar feelings tough not as hard as his are. "BEGIN!!" shouted one of the slave masters with a menacing voice The kid sprinted towards me and called first blood by punching me in the face. The punch was so fast I didn't see it coming. That one punch did manage me to snap back to reality. I acted quickly and jabbed my right elbow in his stomach with a strong force, knocking the wind out of him. I then trusted my right fist upwards against his chin, performing a strong uppercut. The kid was flung into the air and then fell to the ground with a small impact. It seemed I hit him rather hard, he was choking up blood after only 2 blows. He managed to regain his bearings and tried to punch me again but with much more force this time. I saw this move coming and quickly dodged his arm while I made my move. I acted fast and held him into a choke hold, trying to make him pass out. He, unfortunately, managed to escape my choke hold by headbutting me in the face with his own head. My vision became blurry from the headbutt but I could barely make out what his next move was going to be. Sadly I didn't have time to counter as he dealt 5 deadly blows towards my body, making me yelp and fall to the ground with lots pain. Suddenly I felt something boiling up inside of me, pumping my body with adrenaline. He was about to make his final move when I shot up and grabbed his fast with my bare hand. I used my other arm to hammer fist him on the sensitive part of his elbow, breaking the bone that held it together. He was screaming in agony as his right arm was bungling next to him. I grabbed his head with both hands and used my knee to jab him in the face. He collapsed to the ground with a broken arm, a ruined face and lots of pain. I stood over him as he pleaded with me. "Please.... Kill me.... End my suffering from this hell hole... I b-beg of you!!" Despite all the terrible damage, I did to his body he pleaded to me like we were best friends. "Don't worry, I am going to set you free from this place, you may not have your body but your spirit will be at rest," I said with a calm voice. "T-thank you... I will not forget what you did for me.." I could hear a hint of happiness from his voice. I grabbed him by the throat and snapped his neck with a fast twist. His lifeless corpse fell to the ground. I can not explain why but... For some reason, I don't act like the way used to be. Sure I may be willing to use brutal tactics in fights if need be, but I would never end someone with such disregard. Normally I show compassion those who have not yet succumbed, but during the battle, something changed in me and made me act like his life was worth nothing to me. I would never act like that, all that warp exposure must have gone to my head during the fight. "It seems you have survived the battle new blood." The voice sends shivers to my spine. I looked around and stared in the face of a rather old holycat with a body full of scars and burned skin. "But your fun ends here, now it is time to devourer!!" the man shouted with range. He unsheathed his knife and stabbed me in the body, I started to black out while screaming out my last breath. "Aaargh!" I yelled out in pain when I woke up, the way I got stabbed in my dream felt like it happened in real life too. There was no wound there but the pain still came from that spot, I couldn't wrap my mind around it. "Are you ok?" came a concerned voice from close by. I decided to take a look at my surroundings and I was in some sort of house. I saw tables filled with potions and ingredients. There was a variation of weird mask hang up to the wall. Finally, I saw that the voice came from the alien. 'This must be her house I.' I thought. She came close while she said, "How are you feeling right now?" I looked at her with a blank expression "it feels like somebody stabbed in my chest but I am used to this type of pain so no worries. "During our first conversion you blacked out so I took you to my house, but I am curious. I looked at her with confusion "Curious? Curious about what?" "I want to know what kind of creature you are, I have seen any of your kind in the everfree forest let alone Equestria before." "So this planet is called Equestria? Huh, never figured it would have such a name." I saw a change in her expression from my remark. "But to answer your question I am not from this planet, I crash landed here a while ago." "You mean you travelled trough the stars? You managed to go trough your planet's atmosphere?" "Well my kind has travelled trough space since aeons ago, but back then they used wat we call warp portals, but since now we already long invented spaceships that are capable of fast travel trough space." "You're kind must be pretty smart, for pony kind, space travel is way to hard." "What is up with the rhyming?" I said with a *I do not understand* tone. "Sorry about that, it just a habit of mine and if you want me to stop it that is fine." "It would be best if you hold that habit back if you talk to me, no offence intended of course." She smiled at this "None was taken." "But while you explained how you got here, you still haven't told me what the name of your kind is". 'Oh boy, time for another history lesson. Dad would have loved to hear this..' 4 Story tellingJack's first person perspective I told her about the history of my race and some the recent events that have taken place, but I decided to let some things out for personal reasons. "Dear Celestia, that was quite a long story you told me. From what I can gather you escaped an alternate dimension, but how were you able to do that? Only beings with immense magic could perform such feat as travelling trough dimensions itself." "Well truth to be told, I didn't use any sort of magic to travel to back to this dimension, the escape pods have a built in device that opens a warp gate straight to the exact same location from where you exit the demon realm." She was a bit surprised about this "A build in device that lets you travel trough dimensions? Pony kind could do amazing things with, almost putting Discord to shame." I gave her a puzzled look when she said *Discord* "Who is this Discord?" "Discord is the spirit of chaos and disharmony, he once ruled over Equestria thousands of years ago until the princesses put a stop to his evil reign." Something about that seemed familiar to me "Hold on, was he any chance a demon? Or a warp entity?" "I do not know what you mean with *demon* or *warp entity* but he is a Draconequus. And as far as I know he never came in contact with any of the things you mentioned." "What is his current status? Is he dead or alive?" "Well he is alive and he stays with a pony named Fluttershy, the same pony who reformed him." I looked at her with disbelief "Reformed?! How can a spirit that exists from pure dark energies and emotions get reformed?! It makes no sense!" She chuckled a bit at my surprised reaction "As evil, as he may have been, Fluttershy really managed to reform him and they became good friends. I also doubt Discord wanted to be turned into stone again by the Elements of Harmony." "Elements of Harmony? What do you mean by that? Is that some sort of artefact?" "The elements of harmony are 6 artefacts that represent the aspects of harmony and are known to be most powerful magic known to pony kind. There are 6 ponies who wield the elements and are the only ones who can use them. The elements itself destroys or purifies any evil entity, in Discords case he got turned to stone, the effect is different on who it is used on." I could not believe what I was hearing. 'Those artefacts are even able to purify something?! No wonder why their kind is so peaceful at the moment, any threats they fast could just be pushed away just like that... These artefacts are similar to the artefact that Aliah wielded before he met his end...' "You seem to be surprised by this. Don't your kind have any sort of artefact like that?" "We do have one but its vastly different than these elements of harmony, for one it is not limited by purifying or destroying. It can do anything the user wishes and is not bound my limits. From what I can remember the power itself has existed since the dawn of time, my ancestors have harnessed the power inside artefact millions of years ago. Of course, there is only one of this artefact, and anybody can use it. Yet any evil person who would get his hands on that artefact would be able to destroy existence itself, and for the fact that this artefact can even affect multiverses in a way." "Aliah was one of the only mortals to ever wield this artefact and used it billions of lives from the horrors that are lurking among the stars. But ever since Aliah's death the artefact has gone missing, but there have been rumours that a person named Moriah had been assigned to become the new guardian of the artefact. Moriah was an old friend of Aliah." "But this is where things had started to go weird, Aliah and Moriah were both still on the planet when they were about to die, Aliah's death has been confirmed, but Moriah has never seemed to have died. There are certain magic users among our race who can sense when someone has died, but they never sensed Moriah die. It was like he just vanished without leaving a single trace from him or the artefact itself. Many people have tried to find him but nobody know's where he could be, and perhaps that might be for the best with the evil entities that are corrupting our galaxy..." "That seems like quite a strong power to me. But I wonder, why did they not just use the artefact itself to stop that civil war from ever occurring?" I frowned at this "Doing such things is very dangerous, it could affect both the past and the future and who knows what will happen next. Aliah was the only mortal to wield the artefact for a reason. He had a very clear mind and could perform incredible feats. Any person other who would wield the artefact could be affected. Even the most loyal and purest person could have personal plans to make their own wishes happen". "I see, and I apologise but after all that story telling we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Zecora, what is your name young one?" "I go by different names because of my blood line but the one I always call myself is Jack." We talked for a bit longer until he reminded me of my current objective. "Zecora I hate to break our current conversation but I don't have much time, could you please tell me where I can find the nearest town?" "Of course just follow the dirt road, it leads to a town called Ponyville. I suggest you contact a pony called Twilight Sparkle. She is a purple unicorn with a multicoloured mane. She owns a library, it is built in a giant tree." "Thanks a lot, you don't know thankful I am for everything you did for me. If there is any way I can pay yo-" "You don't have to pay me back Jack, I just did what had to be done. And have this, it's a potion that calms your mind. You seem like you worry a lot about the past, this should put that to rest." "Thank you, hopefully, we will meet again soon." We said our goodbyes and I started heading towards Ponyville. 'I haven't met such a friendly person ever since.... No. I will not think about him right now, I must push forward' I tought. 5 Remnants of the pastThis chapter is more focused on flashbacks and thoughts, next chapter will be more about the current here and now parts. This chapter contains dark thoughts and gore filled memories, if you can't stand such things, you are warned. Jack's point of view I have been walking for a while now, Zecora was kind enough to tell me a bit more about this Ponyville. It was a town where unlike some cities/towns, the 3 subspecies lived together here whether you were a Unicorn, Pegasus or Earth pony. She also told me of her first time experience in that town, everybody feared her because they taught she was some sort of witch, and the ponies who live there are known to freak out over smaller things. While I was not sure if it was going to be the same case with me, it may be very well since they don't seem to know my kind. And if I am going, to be honest, my hope of finding a place to live on this planet is going bleaker by the second. Zecora may have been friendly but that doesn't account from every single one of them, I am certain about that. If they end up being afraid of me or even worse try to hunt me down I already know my next course of action. I am going to give myself a quick and painless death, putting a bullet trough my brains is the best and quickest way to do it. And you may be wondering, why would I do something so extreme like that? I had nothing to lose at this point, everyone I cared about was murdered or infected right in front of my eyes while I lived on. And no matter where I would go I would always find death and destruction. Even living in a survivor group like I used to before I got captured wasn't always that great. Sure, you get the chance to make new friends, but that will also give you the chance of even more suffering. Most survivors out there will never last longer than 2 years at the very most, The darkness cats are already a threat by itself but there are more dangers out there. The blood legion consists of soldiers who have become corrupt and joined the dark powers, some of them who are ex-soldiers who served in the thundershock army. When the darkness cats are doing a bad job at eliminating a survivor group the blood legion sends in a vast amount of soldiers who kill with fast and brutal skill, There have been active survivor groups who were actively fighting against the blood legion with run and gun tactics, even destroying enemy bases when given the chance. Unfortunately, they always lack the numbers to carry out strong counter attacks. Truth to be told I was in one of these activate groups at the age of 10, I met a person there and we became fast friends. I can remember the times where I and he and some other survivors fought off hordes of darkness cats, we were armed to the teeth and those moments were very tense. Tough me and him were rather young at the time and had only learned basic combat tactics. We couldn't let our guard for just a moment and most of the time we tried to escape from those blood thirsty animals. It was strange, even when we were near the brink of death, I still was happy, I guess having someone you care about you fight at your side in battle really does make even the worst scenario's a lot more bearable. But with having someone you care about also comes with a great cost, if something were to happen to that person it would break you. Normally someone only has something to them likes this at least once when they lose dear friends or family, I had this happen to me 3 times. I have never recovered from all these things and after everything that has happened I have turned into a shadow of my former self. Where I once used to be a happy but also a pretty scared boy, I have now turned into a broken wanderer who sees nothing but death and destruction in life. But ironically this how must of us have turned out. There was an old man among our group who kept telling us about things such as hope, how we could still see light in the darkness. And how we should keep fighting to get a future, a better chance at living. But even if the Blood legion was wiped out, would that make much difference? There would still be billions of darkness cats roaming among the galaxy, and there is no way we could bring back all those people who died or even succumbed to the virus. Among the 40 billion holycats that used to be around the galaxy only 16 million of us remain. Is this really worth saving? I have asked this question myself countless of times, and how would we even be able to beat them? The blood legion is led by the Recently resurrect and powerful warlord Valtrek. He posses powers that defy the laws of physics by 1000 times, Some people manage to cut off his limbs, even vaporise his body. Yet it didn't seem to do anything good, he would simply regenerate like he was some sort of smoke, he could even kill people by overflowing their minds with dark powers. To make matters worse he never really did get resurrected, he simply took over someone's body and became the new host, becoming even stronger than before, wich means if someone managed to destroy the body he could simply take over someone else. And nobody of us has any means to end him once and for all, especially with how broken we are currently. I know this better than anyone out there, my father was one of the strongest known warriors of the Eldritch empire. He used his blade as an extension of his body and he moved with a style that made it look like he was skipping seconds in time. In a desperate attempt to save our planet from the destruction he went out to Valtrek all alone. It may have been a hero's decision, but the outcome was far from what a hero's death should have been. Valtrek was merely toying with him and ripped off his limbs one by one as he was taking his sweet time inflicting pain on him. After 3 hours of painful torture, my dad told me to leave this planet and seek somewhere safe to live. But before he could finish his word Valtrek crushed his entire head with his feet, ending my dad's life instantly. I was so devastated I just stood there, not even caring what would happen to me next. And when I thought the finishing blow would come for me it never came, Valtrek instead used his dark powers to burn some sort of mark on my right arm, it hurt so much I passed out from the pain. It was until about 5 years later when I became imprisoned that I learned what the meaning of that mark was. I had become of Valtrek's personal proxies, a walking beacon that would give away my position where ever I went. It also does scary things to my mind, for one thing, it floods me with crazy memories and painful headaches at times where I panic. I also did not dare to sleep since it gives me constant nightmares that can go so far as physically hurting me when something painful happens to me in a dream of mine. And ever since I escaped the demon realm I realised something, I can finally die..... If I were to die in the daemon realm by some sort of event my soul would become part of the daemon realm itself and I would become a mere thought of memory. If I die in real space there could be a chance I could get reunited with my father in the afterlife. Even tough I have no knowledge of whether there is an afterlife or not, I would be willing to end my life if it means seeing my dad again. This is probably the first time since months that I have actually smiled, at least I now had an alternate plan if the other inhabitants of this planet would want to hunt me down. It is now or never, i might as well just hurry up and get this whole ordeal over with as i started running towards Ponyville.
1 EscapeUnknown point of view I don't know for how long I have been running, my heart is pounding like crazy while I hear shouts behind me. "Don't let him escape! Don't the slave escape!!" I could hear gunshots fire behind me, but for my luck, those guards that were assigned to that position had barely any combat experience. They acted like most guards around this place, they only cared for loot and the fact that they were allowed to torture slaves up to a point where the slave would be near death. I have been running for wat seemed like ages until I finally found it a sign that said *escape pods*. I couldn't believe my luck! I slammed the door of the escape pod open with brute force as I went inside of it. I had no time to set the coordinates, in fact, I had nowhere else to go for that matter. The only place where I think I could go was where my survivor group once used to be, but then again it was never that save there. The fact that we managed to survive was solely on the fact there were army veterans among our group who had experience fighting the demons. I pushed lots of buttons without a second thought and pushed the start button. The engines came to live as my escape pod shot trough the air, eventually creating a warp gate in order to leave this dimension. I took a look at my body, it was full of scars and dried up blood. I was still wearing some of those old chains that were piercing into my skin, I really needed to find some tools to remove these things. If I find a planet that has *proper* life on it that is. But then I thought back about the fact how I escaped, and more importantly why. I have been in this nightmare of a place for 3 years, everyone who was there faced constant pain to the mind and was getting tortured for most of the day for the amusement of the guards. I must have been one of the luckier ones, there was a woman there who lost her sanity to a point where was desperately trying to kill herself. But the guards were no fools, they placed devices in our chains that prevented us from dying. I did not know how that was possible, but my theory was that the laws of physics of this dimension were very different than those of real space. I had made a friend there, he was an old army veteran who fought during the time the darkness cats overrun our newer home planet. He told me all about it, how it was not just a defeat. It was a total slaughter. They all had been prepared for that attack, but the enemy used a method that impossible to do for anybody else at the time, they used the dimension where I am at as a fast way of transport. This daemon dimension of the opposite from that of real space, when you leave this dimension you will come out as the exact position to that of where it is in real space. The enemy used this to their advantage and swarmed out of the warp gates behind our lines, slaughtering our soldiers to a point where we had no more defence at the front. Those who did survive were ordered to evacuate the population to different planets. But the enemy had no intention of letting that happen. They released their so called darkness cats, mindless beast that used to be one of us but now infected with some sort of virus or foul magic that totally shredded them from their former selves, becoming pure non-sentient beast that slaughter everything they can for blood. This is already bad but to make it worse all darkness cats are linked to a single hive mind. This hive mind controls and directs their attacks, wich makes them excellent for charging trough enemy lines. Without a nearby hivemind, they act like any other wild animal, kill anything that is in sight. They are spread all over the galaxy, inhabiting planets where former civilisations used to live, now wiped out from existence. My friend managed to survive the slaughter, same goes for another 1000 soldiers that managed to live the tale. The shocking fact was that the enemy murdered more civilians than soldiers. The planet used to have a populace of 6 billion, wich was eventually reduced to 3 million but only 18 hours. My friend had a wife and a loving daughter, while he was a soldier that fought a lot he still was having a good time with his family. He told me how his wife was skinned alive and how his daughter got raped and then murdered without any form of mercy. It's sad to say but this is what happened to most people among our kind, we all lost family or dear friends because of those monsters. I can never forget the horrible fate my father met right in front of my eyes, it broke me more than you can imagine. I and my friend had gotten close to each other, wich is a dangerous thing since one of us always had the chance to get relocated or worse, g get infected with the virus if the guards wanted to have some fun. If you got infected you would become one of those monsters, you would be thrown into an arena to fight and murder your former friends or you would be relocated into a random planet to wander and murder. One day my friend had an escape plan, I thought he was out of his mind. Escaping this place was almost impossible since we were no longer in real space but an entirely different dimension. But he told me about how they send darkness cats to different planets. They use small like space pods that get sent into real space and crash into a random planet, that was our key to escape. I thought we were both going to escape, but as we were about to leave, he ran back and went to hold off the guards so that I had a chance to escape. I yelled to him that he had to come with me to freedom. But the look on his face blew my mind off, he was smiling. He must have planned this from the start not telling me the end part on purpose. But how is my life any more important than his? How is my life more important than anyone else's out there in the first place? Truth to be told, I was vastly different than most people were imprisoned here. My friend was at the age of 58 being a veteran of many missions that could have lead to death. I was only 13 years old, being imprisoned in this place ever since I was 10 years old. And for the fact that my kind was rare. Our race is called the Holycats because of ancient legends where our ancestors used to battle the strongest demons that the galaxy has ever seen. But our race was split into 3 subspecies. The first one didn't really have a name since it the most common out of all. We never really bothered to name it for that reason. the second one was the one I was. We were called Eldritch but many know us for our capabilities of using magic/psychic powers. 3/4 of this subspecies lives in a giant planet where they are trained in the arts of battle and magic. It was rare for us to live among anyone else than our own subspecies. The third one was one that almost went to extinction and is very few in number. They are known as raukan. This subspecies is also the most dangerous of all, for the very fact that they get stronger from pain. They used this method their advantage to overpower their enemies but hurting or even torturing themselves in the most painful ways. Their bodies would be unusable at first but when they recovered their physical strength had reached heights that would take years for any other mortal to achieve. Their name is also most notable came from their army called *Clan Raukan*. They were famous for their close combat, charging with insane speeds into enemy firing lines. Turning a long range battle into a slaughter fast. But that is enough history lesson for now. The here and now is what currently matters. I don't know for how long I have been flying in this thing, it seemed like hours perhaps days. But things were not looking very good despite I escaped My body was still bleeding like crazy from all the injuries I got from my escape and still did not know where I was heading towards. But on the bright side, at least I had weapons, my friend found them inside of the armouries and gave 2 weapons to me. One being a revolver wich, unfortunately, he only found around 12 bullets with it. The next weapon made me almost gape my mouth wide open. It was my father's signature knife. It was basically a small sized sword that was handcrafted by himself, forged from very strong metal that has been modified with magic in order to make it even stronger. Most Eldritch weapons are made this way but my father was not only a great warrior, he was also a great scientist. He put some runes on this blade that I don't know anything about. From what I can remember weapons of the Eldritch get their enhanced strength from the user. The user converts some of his magic into the weapon powering it and giving it incredible feats. The stronger the magic of the user is, the stronger the weapon becomes. Suddenly I started to feel weaker, and the next moment I passed out.
2 Point of contactTwilight Point of view It was still late at night when I am looking at the stars with my telescope. Princess Luna did an amazing job as always with the night, she was after all the princess of the night itself. I was still gazing trough my telescope when I heard somebody call out my name. "Twilight! Are you still looking at the stars after all these hours?" It came from my assistant and baby dragon Spike. He and I had become great friends, I was the one who hatched him out of his egg after all. "I know Spike, but I am trying to figure out what I have been seeing out there." Spike gave me a confused look "And what exactly have you been seeing out there Twilight?" "I don't know, I see some sort of small crimson coloured hole." Suddenly something shot out of the hole, it was too small for me to know what exactly it was. "Twilight look! It is a falling star!" Spike said with much joy. I looked into the telescope again and found something odd. "Spike, I don't think this is a falling star because it doesn't have the same moving pattern a falling star has." "Ummm Twilight?" "Not to mention a falling star gives off way more light then this object does..." "Twilight!!" I flinched from Spike's sudden outburst. "What was that for?!" I said in annoyance "That *thing* is heading straight for us!!" Spike yelled in a panicking tone. Jack's point of view I woke up with a slight groan. My entire body was in pain and I could feel the chains piercing into my skin. I became aware of my surroundings and opened the hatch of the escape pod. So I climbed out of the escape and decided to do a bit of exploring. But what I saw kind of surprised me, I was in a dark forest and strangely it felt so.... Alive..... I gathered my weapons and decided to find for any sign's of life. 'I had best keep my guard up, who knows what of horror this planet contains..' But ironically enough that last thought shoved away after what I saw next. There 3 creatures looking for something, but they were made out of wood. 'Wood?! There must be sorcery involved into this, perhaps the caster is still around so I had better check my surroundings more often.' The 3 wooden creatures suddenly noticed me and started approaching me while growling. 'Just because they are made out of wood doesn't mean I should lower my guard, I am familiar with the art of deception and know when I see one.' Pulling out my revolver I aimed at the first one's head, and then I pulled the trigger. Its head exploded and small wooden parts were scattered all over its corpse. His comrades must have noticed their fallen friend because they started rushing towards me with a decent speed. For a minute I panicked and shoot at one of the incoming creatures without even taking the time to aim. Luckily even aiming I somehow managed to kill the second one, wich surprised me a lot. Unfortunately, I was too busy being surprised that I didn't notice the last one was already too close. He jumped at me and managed to bite me in the arm. The pain wasn't too bad but it managed to boost my adrenaline by a mile. With building rage, I grabbed the creature's throat and rip it apart from its body. The creature died within seconds wich was weird because his body was made out of wood. I checked my injury and my arm was bleeding, but for a reason, I couldn't figure out I liked how the blood was flowing. Quickly dismissing the thought I continued to explore the forest. I have walking for what seemed like hours, my body felt like it was going to collapse any moment and only by sheer determination was I able to keep moving. After a few minutes, i suddenly noticed movement behind me, I quickly turned around and saw a big creature that would face a serious threat. The creature was large, and I know by knowledge that his tail would be able to poison me. The big creature started to charge for me while I drew my knife. He tried to strike me with his paw but I was able to dodge by the last second. But the creature suddenly attacked me with his tail heading towards me with insane speed. My senses kicked in and I dodged the incoming sharp end of the tail, I grabbed his tail and dug my knife deep into its flesh. Suddenly I felt runes starting to glow in my knife as the creature screamed in agony as its tail fell on the ground. It seemed that the blade didn't completely cut trough the tail but decided to burn trough the bone and flesh, hence why the runes started glowing. Yet the creature for some reason still had the guts to attack me despite his own tail being brutally burned down from his body. While he was charging, I got a strange feeling. It was the same feeling back when I was 10 years old when I and 7 other survivors stared in the jaw of death itself. Where we fought like wild beast against hundreds of darkness cats swarming to our position. I looked into the eyes of that creature and it reminded me the same way the darkness cats looked at us before they were trying to claim us. Something snapped inside of me, I could my adrenaline shooting upwards like a rocket. Filled with fury I sprinted towards the creature and literally drilled my knife in its face. The knife went so deep it contacted its brain, killing the creature instantly. But for some reason I could not figure out, I still get attacking it. I stabbed it like 5 more times and even went so far to rip out its paw from its body. its bones coming with it. After a while the feeling started to go away and there I stood panting like crazy, I had a blurry vision. I suddenly heard slight movement from close to where I was. I turned around to locate the source and for a second my heart skipped a beat. There close to me was a four-legged creature wich had black and white stripes all over its body. It also wore what seemed to be like rings around certain parts of its body. But what surprised me the most was how it reacted. It didn't have that murder ish expression, it had a shocked but also slight expression I couldn't really make out. I looked closely into its eyes to see if I could find any trace of familiar emotion, I saw... sympathy? It was hard to make it since its eyes were vastly different than that of a holycat's one. But from what I could gather it didn't seem like it was going to kill let alone attack me. All that hatred and rage I showed a few minutes ago was now replaced by worry and uncertainty. Zecora's point of view I was gathering ingredients for one of my potions when I suddenly heard a hard growl, it sounded like a manticore. I quietly went to see what it had found, a mare/stallion that was lost in the everfree forest? Celestia knows what. When I arrived at the scene I saw something wich I had never seen in my entire lifetime. The manticore's tail was cut- no burned off from its body! But that was not what shocked me. It was the creature who did it. In front of the manticore stood a creature I have never seen before, the everfree forest contains lots of different and mysterious creatures but this something that has never been seen in Equestria before. It stood on 2 legs and seemed to have a tail, it reminded me a lot of Rarity's cat. In fact, it was almost like a cat but instead of 4 legs it has 2 and it was way bigger. The creature has scars all over its body, with lots of dried up blood and burned skin. It also seemed to be wearing some sort of chains that were pierced into its skin and it looks like he has been wearing it for a very long time. It had 2 big blue eyes, it also had a knife but it looked something otherworldly compared to that of the design the royal guard used. The manticore charged the creature with the intent of shredding it to pieces. I was pondering whether I should intervene or not, but it seems the creature already had made its choice. He charged the manticore with a murderous intent in its eyes. The creature then drove the knife so far into the manticore's head that it died instantly. I stood there mouth agape because of the sheer force that knife had managed to pierce into the manticore. The creature, however, was for whatever reason stabbing it like a mad man. It even went so far as to rip the manticore's paw from its body, it was a gruesome sight to behold. The creature eventually seemed to have calmed down, but with a fast reaction, it turned my way. I quickly went into a defensive position until I noticed the creature's behaviour. Instead of intending to attack me it just stood there with a scared expression looking at me. Moments ago the creature just brutally murdered the manticore with a look that would put any Equestrian criminal to shame, but here is now being afraid of me? Something is not right here. "Are... Are you sentient?" the creature asked out of nowhere. I was about to use my daily rhyme way of speaking but then I went against it. 'I know nothing of this creature and it might be best to make him understands me, you can never be too sure.' "Yes I am sentient, why do you ask?" "So he didn't manage to wipe out all civilisations in the galaxy... I just can't believe it. This is too good to be true.." The creature muttered silently even tough I still managed to hear it. "Wiped out? Galaxy? What do you mean by that?" I asked with a puzzled expression. But before I could get an answer the creature passed out.
3 Hope is a delusionThe Demon Realm - Fighter pit - 2 years ago I can still remember my battles in the fighter pit, but these were not typical gladiator battles. These were moments where you would be fighting for the sake of your own life, whether you were strong or weak didn't matter to our slave masters. My first fight was a horrible one, I was going to fight against a kid who was around the same age as me. The kid was beyond scared, I could see the look on his face. I knew what was at stake, either I die in battle and he gets to live or he dies and I get to live. Refusing to fight would automatically result in option number 3 wich meant we both would die. We weren't given any weapons, we were pretty much forced to use our hands to cut each other's throats. Judging by his scars this wasn't the first time this kid had fought, so I had best not hold anything back. I was in deep thoughts when the kid suddenly said: "I am sorry!! I don't want to kill you but I don't want to die either!! It's going to be one of us, only one of us is going to get out of this alive!" Even tough he did shouted it with a lot of aggression I could see that he was having trouble keeping himself from whimpering. I couldn't blame him in any way, I was having similar feelings tough not as hard as his are. "BEGIN!!" shouted one of the slave masters with a menacing voice The kid sprinted towards me and called first blood by punching me in the face. The punch was so fast I didn't see it coming. That one punch did manage me to snap back to reality. I acted quickly and jabbed my right elbow in his stomach with a strong force, knocking the wind out of him. I then trusted my right fist upwards against his chin, performing a strong uppercut. The kid was flung into the air and then fell to the ground with a small impact. It seemed I hit him rather hard, he was choking up blood after only 2 blows. He managed to regain his bearings and tried to punch me again but with much more force this time. I saw this move coming and quickly dodged his arm while I made my move. I acted fast and held him into a choke hold, trying to make him pass out. He, unfortunately, managed to escape my choke hold by headbutting me in the face with his own head. My vision became blurry from the headbutt but I could barely make out what his next move was going to be. Sadly I didn't have time to counter as he dealt 5 deadly blows towards my body, making me yelp and fall to the ground with lots pain. Suddenly I felt something boiling up inside of me, pumping my body with adrenaline. He was about to make his final move when I shot up and grabbed his fast with my bare hand. I used my other arm to hammer fist him on the sensitive part of his elbow, breaking the bone that held it together. He was screaming in agony as his right arm was bungling next to him. I grabbed his head with both hands and used my knee to jab him in the face. He collapsed to the ground with a broken arm, a ruined face and lots of pain. I stood over him as he pleaded with me. "Please.... Kill me.... End my suffering from this hell hole... I b-beg of you!!" Despite all the terrible damage, I did to his body he pleaded to me like we were best friends. "Don't worry, I am going to set you free from this place, you may not have your body but your spirit will be at rest," I said with a calm voice. "T-thank you... I will not forget what you did for me.." I could hear a hint of happiness from his voice. I grabbed him by the throat and snapped his neck with a fast twist. His lifeless corpse fell to the ground. I can not explain why but... For some reason, I don't act like the way used to be. Sure I may be willing to use brutal tactics in fights if need be, but I would never end someone with such disregard. Normally I show compassion those who have not yet succumbed, but during the battle, something changed in me and made me act like his life was worth nothing to me. I would never act like that, all that warp exposure must have gone to my head during the fight. "It seems you have survived the battle new blood." The voice sends shivers to my spine. I looked around and stared in the face of a rather old holycat with a body full of scars and burned skin. "But your fun ends here, now it is time to devourer!!" the man shouted with range. He unsheathed his knife and stabbed me in the body, I started to black out while screaming out my last breath. "Aaargh!" I yelled out in pain when I woke up, the way I got stabbed in my dream felt like it happened in real life too. There was no wound there but the pain still came from that spot, I couldn't wrap my mind around it. "Are you ok?" came a concerned voice from close by. I decided to take a look at my surroundings and I was in some sort of house. I saw tables filled with potions and ingredients. There was a variation of weird mask hang up to the wall. Finally, I saw that the voice came from the alien. 'This must be her house I.' I thought. She came close while she said, "How are you feeling right now?" I looked at her with a blank expression "it feels like somebody stabbed in my chest but I am used to this type of pain so no worries. "During our first conversion you blacked out so I took you to my house, but I am curious. I looked at her with confusion "Curious? Curious about what?" "I want to know what kind of creature you are, I have seen any of your kind in the everfree forest let alone Equestria before." "So this planet is called Equestria? Huh, never figured it would have such a name." I saw a change in her expression from my remark. "But to answer your question I am not from this planet, I crash landed here a while ago." "You mean you travelled trough the stars? You managed to go trough your planet's atmosphere?" "Well my kind has travelled trough space since aeons ago, but back then they used wat we call warp portals, but since now we already long invented spaceships that are capable of fast travel trough space." "You're kind must be pretty smart, for pony kind, space travel is way to hard." "What is up with the rhyming?" I said with a *I do not understand* tone. "Sorry about that, it just a habit of mine and if you want me to stop it that is fine." "It would be best if you hold that habit back if you talk to me, no offence intended of course." She smiled at this "None was taken." "But while you explained how you got here, you still haven't told me what the name of your kind is". 'Oh boy, time for another history lesson. Dad would have loved to hear this..'
4 Story tellingJack's first person perspective I told her about the history of my race and some the recent events that have taken place, but I decided to let some things out for personal reasons. "Dear Celestia, that was quite a long story you told me. From what I can gather you escaped an alternate dimension, but how were you able to do that? Only beings with immense magic could perform such feat as travelling trough dimensions itself." "Well truth to be told, I didn't use any sort of magic to travel to back to this dimension, the escape pods have a built in device that opens a warp gate straight to the exact same location from where you exit the demon realm." She was a bit surprised about this "A build in device that lets you travel trough dimensions? Pony kind could do amazing things with, almost putting Discord to shame." I gave her a puzzled look when she said *Discord* "Who is this Discord?" "Discord is the spirit of chaos and disharmony, he once ruled over Equestria thousands of years ago until the princesses put a stop to his evil reign." Something about that seemed familiar to me "Hold on, was he any chance a demon? Or a warp entity?" "I do not know what you mean with *demon* or *warp entity* but he is a Draconequus. And as far as I know he never came in contact with any of the things you mentioned." "What is his current status? Is he dead or alive?" "Well he is alive and he stays with a pony named Fluttershy, the same pony who reformed him." I looked at her with disbelief "Reformed?! How can a spirit that exists from pure dark energies and emotions get reformed?! It makes no sense!" She chuckled a bit at my surprised reaction "As evil, as he may have been, Fluttershy really managed to reform him and they became good friends. I also doubt Discord wanted to be turned into stone again by the Elements of Harmony." "Elements of Harmony? What do you mean by that? Is that some sort of artefact?" "The elements of harmony are 6 artefacts that represent the aspects of harmony and are known to be most powerful magic known to pony kind. There are 6 ponies who wield the elements and are the only ones who can use them. The elements itself destroys or purifies any evil entity, in Discords case he got turned to stone, the effect is different on who it is used on." I could not believe what I was hearing. 'Those artefacts are even able to purify something?! No wonder why their kind is so peaceful at the moment, any threats they fast could just be pushed away just like that... These artefacts are similar to the artefact that Aliah wielded before he met his end...' "You seem to be surprised by this. Don't your kind have any sort of artefact like that?" "We do have one but its vastly different than these elements of harmony, for one it is not limited by purifying or destroying. It can do anything the user wishes and is not bound my limits. From what I can remember the power itself has existed since the dawn of time, my ancestors have harnessed the power inside artefact millions of years ago. Of course, there is only one of this artefact, and anybody can use it. Yet any evil person who would get his hands on that artefact would be able to destroy existence itself, and for the fact that this artefact can even affect multiverses in a way." "Aliah was one of the only mortals to ever wield this artefact and used it billions of lives from the horrors that are lurking among the stars. But ever since Aliah's death the artefact has gone missing, but there have been rumours that a person named Moriah had been assigned to become the new guardian of the artefact. Moriah was an old friend of Aliah." "But this is where things had started to go weird, Aliah and Moriah were both still on the planet when they were about to die, Aliah's death has been confirmed, but Moriah has never seemed to have died. There are certain magic users among our race who can sense when someone has died, but they never sensed Moriah die. It was like he just vanished without leaving a single trace from him or the artefact itself. Many people have tried to find him but nobody know's where he could be, and perhaps that might be for the best with the evil entities that are corrupting our galaxy..." "That seems like quite a strong power to me. But I wonder, why did they not just use the artefact itself to stop that civil war from ever occurring?" I frowned at this "Doing such things is very dangerous, it could affect both the past and the future and who knows what will happen next. Aliah was the only mortal to wield the artefact for a reason. He had a very clear mind and could perform incredible feats. Any person other who would wield the artefact could be affected. Even the most loyal and purest person could have personal plans to make their own wishes happen". "I see, and I apologise but after all that story telling we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Zecora, what is your name young one?" "I go by different names because of my blood line but the one I always call myself is Jack." We talked for a bit longer until he reminded me of my current objective. "Zecora I hate to break our current conversation but I don't have much time, could you please tell me where I can find the nearest town?" "Of course just follow the dirt road, it leads to a town called Ponyville. I suggest you contact a pony called Twilight Sparkle. She is a purple unicorn with a multicoloured mane. She owns a library, it is built in a giant tree." "Thanks a lot, you don't know thankful I am for everything you did for me. If there is any way I can pay yo-" "You don't have to pay me back Jack, I just did what had to be done. And have this, it's a potion that calms your mind. You seem like you worry a lot about the past, this should put that to rest." "Thank you, hopefully, we will meet again soon." We said our goodbyes and I started heading towards Ponyville. 'I haven't met such a friendly person ever since.... No. I will not think about him right now, I must push forward' I tought.
5 Remnants of the pastThis chapter is more focused on flashbacks and thoughts, next chapter will be more about the current here and now parts. This chapter contains dark thoughts and gore filled memories, if you can't stand such things, you are warned. Jack's point of view I have been walking for a while now, Zecora was kind enough to tell me a bit more about this Ponyville. It was a town where unlike some cities/towns, the 3 subspecies lived together here whether you were a Unicorn, Pegasus or Earth pony. She also told me of her first time experience in that town, everybody feared her because they taught she was some sort of witch, and the ponies who live there are known to freak out over smaller things. While I was not sure if it was going to be the same case with me, it may be very well since they don't seem to know my kind. And if I am going, to be honest, my hope of finding a place to live on this planet is going bleaker by the second. Zecora may have been friendly but that doesn't account from every single one of them, I am certain about that. If they end up being afraid of me or even worse try to hunt me down I already know my next course of action. I am going to give myself a quick and painless death, putting a bullet trough my brains is the best and quickest way to do it. And you may be wondering, why would I do something so extreme like that? I had nothing to lose at this point, everyone I cared about was murdered or infected right in front of my eyes while I lived on. And no matter where I would go I would always find death and destruction. Even living in a survivor group like I used to before I got captured wasn't always that great. Sure, you get the chance to make new friends, but that will also give you the chance of even more suffering. Most survivors out there will never last longer than 2 years at the very most, The darkness cats are already a threat by itself but there are more dangers out there. The blood legion consists of soldiers who have become corrupt and joined the dark powers, some of them who are ex-soldiers who served in the thundershock army. When the darkness cats are doing a bad job at eliminating a survivor group the blood legion sends in a vast amount of soldiers who kill with fast and brutal skill, There have been active survivor groups who were actively fighting against the blood legion with run and gun tactics, even destroying enemy bases when given the chance. Unfortunately, they always lack the numbers to carry out strong counter attacks. Truth to be told I was in one of these activate groups at the age of 10, I met a person there and we became fast friends. I can remember the times where I and he and some other survivors fought off hordes of darkness cats, we were armed to the teeth and those moments were very tense. Tough me and him were rather young at the time and had only learned basic combat tactics. We couldn't let our guard for just a moment and most of the time we tried to escape from those blood thirsty animals. It was strange, even when we were near the brink of death, I still was happy, I guess having someone you care about you fight at your side in battle really does make even the worst scenario's a lot more bearable. But with having someone you care about also comes with a great cost, if something were to happen to that person it would break you. Normally someone only has something to them likes this at least once when they lose dear friends or family, I had this happen to me 3 times. I have never recovered from all these things and after everything that has happened I have turned into a shadow of my former self. Where I once used to be a happy but also a pretty scared boy, I have now turned into a broken wanderer who sees nothing but death and destruction in life. But ironically this how must of us have turned out. There was an old man among our group who kept telling us about things such as hope, how we could still see light in the darkness. And how we should keep fighting to get a future, a better chance at living. But even if the Blood legion was wiped out, would that make much difference? There would still be billions of darkness cats roaming among the galaxy, and there is no way we could bring back all those people who died or even succumbed to the virus. Among the 40 billion holycats that used to be around the galaxy only 16 million of us remain. Is this really worth saving? I have asked this question myself countless of times, and how would we even be able to beat them? The blood legion is led by the Recently resurrect and powerful warlord Valtrek. He posses powers that defy the laws of physics by 1000 times, Some people manage to cut off his limbs, even vaporise his body. Yet it didn't seem to do anything good, he would simply regenerate like he was some sort of smoke, he could even kill people by overflowing their minds with dark powers. To make matters worse he never really did get resurrected, he simply took over someone's body and became the new host, becoming even stronger than before, wich means if someone managed to destroy the body he could simply take over someone else. And nobody of us has any means to end him once and for all, especially with how broken we are currently. I know this better than anyone out there, my father was one of the strongest known warriors of the Eldritch empire. He used his blade as an extension of his body and he moved with a style that made it look like he was skipping seconds in time. In a desperate attempt to save our planet from the destruction he went out to Valtrek all alone. It may have been a hero's decision, but the outcome was far from what a hero's death should have been. Valtrek was merely toying with him and ripped off his limbs one by one as he was taking his sweet time inflicting pain on him. After 3 hours of painful torture, my dad told me to leave this planet and seek somewhere safe to live. But before he could finish his word Valtrek crushed his entire head with his feet, ending my dad's life instantly. I was so devastated I just stood there, not even caring what would happen to me next. And when I thought the finishing blow would come for me it never came, Valtrek instead used his dark powers to burn some sort of mark on my right arm, it hurt so much I passed out from the pain. It was until about 5 years later when I became imprisoned that I learned what the meaning of that mark was. I had become of Valtrek's personal proxies, a walking beacon that would give away my position where ever I went. It also does scary things to my mind, for one thing, it floods me with crazy memories and painful headaches at times where I panic. I also did not dare to sleep since it gives me constant nightmares that can go so far as physically hurting me when something painful happens to me in a dream of mine. And ever since I escaped the demon realm I realised something, I can finally die..... If I were to die in the daemon realm by some sort of event my soul would become part of the daemon realm itself and I would become a mere thought of memory. If I die in real space there could be a chance I could get reunited with my father in the afterlife. Even tough I have no knowledge of whether there is an afterlife or not, I would be willing to end my life if it means seeing my dad again. This is probably the first time since months that I have actually smiled, at least I now had an alternate plan if the other inhabitants of this planet would want to hunt me down. It is now or never, i might as well just hurry up and get this whole ordeal over with as i started running towards Ponyville.
