Infamous

A/N I'm going to start naming his new abilities. It needs to be done. Comments for names will be accepted, as the name will come in the A/N of the next chapter. I'll suggest a name... but it's really up to you guys.

Cole slowly made his way back to the world of waking. As his thoughts began to recollect, he noticed a dark, yellowish light through his eyelids. His eyelids fluttered, and he blinked again. He was in some sort of... barn, maybe? He felt the thing he was laying on top of, and discovered it to be hay. Yep. A barn. Blinking to clear his vision, Cole examined the now-identified barn. There were a variety of tools in a corner, and a wagon and yoke next to it. The smell of must drifted through his nostrils, and the scratchy hay lay underneath him. There seemed to be a peaceful quietness, but the heat implied that the sun was up.

Cole picked himself up, shaking the hay off his back, and walked over to the door. He pushed. Nothing happened. He tried pushing harder. The wooden doors creaked under his weight, but they held firm. Then he noticed the hinges. He pulled, and the doors swung quietly on well-oiled hinges.

As he stepped out into the sunlight, he tried to identify his location. He saw a relatively large house nearby, probably the owners of the barn, and decided to go and talk to them. He began walking towards the house, and thought of the past few days. Not even a week ago, he had ended the Beast and the plague in one fell swoop, but also killed off every single conduit in existence. And then, he had woken up in this weird, pony-filled land, met a few, learned how to access the energy within a freaking planet. Not bad, more productive than he had ever been in Empire or New Marais. There was just one thing missing...

Cole knocked on the door, and waited for a moment. The door opened just a crack, and a pink mane peeked through it, followed by a single eye.

"OH! Cole! You're up!" The door was flung open, and the butter-yellow pegasus behind it was revealed. She led him into the house, towards a table. At the table sat Zecora, the blue mare he had rescued earlier, a new orange mare, and a much larger red stallion. Both the newcomers had apples on their flanks, signs of some apple related skill. And they lived in a barn, meaning farm. And they were the "earth pony" type. Definitely apple farmers. Cole approached the table, and upon reaching it, he sat down across from the orange farm pony.

"Applejack, this is Cole. Cole, this is Applejack." The normally shy pegasus seemed to be a little enthusiastic, for some reason. Maybe because she wanted to thank him for saving her? Cole looked across the table at "Applejack", and held out his right arm. She flinched at his sudden movement, then raised a tentative hoof towards it. They shook eachothers' limbs (for lack of a better term), and Cole leaned back into the chair. Applejack seemed to be more calm, reassured by his non-aggressiveness.

"So..."

Cole had gotten to know Applejack relatively well, she lived on the farm with her sister, brother, and grandmother. She grew the best apples in Equestria, etc. Anyways, after they had spoke for a while, her grandmother, "Granny Smith", had brought out some apple pies for them. As they had arrived, the mere aroma of baked apples with a sprinkle of cinnamon had made Cole's mouth start watering.

There was just one thing off... The blue mare hadn't spoke two words since the beginning of the conversation. She had seemed to be traumatized after what she witnessed. After being asked her name, the blue mare, Trixie, hadn't even spoken again. After voicing this thought, even Applejack and Fluttershy had agreed with him, after the last time the mare had been in town. And she still seemed not to notice. After Applejack decided to pity her and offer her a room to stay in, Trixie had just seemed to drag herself over to the bed and hit the hay.

After discussing for a few more moments, the mares had decided upon a plan of action. Zecora would head back to her place, "Big Mac", the red stallion, would stay at home, and the other two mares would head to town with Cole, so that he could meet the rest of the bearers of the "Elements of Harmony", a concept he still didn't quite understand.

Cole needed to use the restroom. After nearly a full day of action, inaction, or something in the limbo between, it was hard for any normal human not to. Even though Cole wasn't by any means normal, he still retained a pair of working kidneys. They were now nearing the huge tree that apparently was the library, aptly named "Books and Branches", where Twilight lived and worked.

"Umm... hey girls..."

"Yea?" Applejack answered for them as they both looked at him.

"I need to... ya know, use the John."

"What...?"

"Umm... use the restroom..."

"Oh. OH. Well, I ain't sure if Twilight's gonna be okay with ya doin' that, so I think ya should go round back or somethin', the tree won't mind."

"Uhh... okay. That works."

"We'll head on in while you... do yur business."

Cole broke off to the side while the other two went to the door, and went about with his business...

Fluttershy and Applejack were greeted by a smiling Twilight, who seemed to be excited due to the visit from her friends. They entered the library, and sat down at a table, Twilight facing the other two, and the door. Fluttershy began to speak.

"Hey, Twilight, we wanted to introduce you to our new friend, if it's okay with you. He'll... be here in a few moments, he had some... business to take care of."

"Okay, well, what's his name?"

"Oh, it's Cole, and you are really going to enjoy meeting him." Fluttershy finished with a bright smile, happy for her friend.

"Oh, I can guarantee that, he sure is... interesting..." Applejack put in.

"Cole? Is he some sort of-"

"Twilight! The Princess just sent me a letter!" Spike scurried into the room, a scroll in one of his claws.

"Oh..." Twilight grabbed the scroll out of his hand with her magical grasp, and read it out loud.

"Dear Twilight Sparkle, my most trusted student. I have been alerted of a strange not-entirely-magical presence. It first came about in the Everfree forest, someplace inside of it. I ignored the first, assuming it to be one of the normal flares of energy that happen from there, every once in a while. However, I also sensed it again on the outskirts of Ponyville."

As she was reading, Cole entered, quietly, as to not interrupt the mares.

"Please keep alert for any sort of powerful creature, or anything not seen before. This creature could potentially be highly dangerous, so, please be careful. The Elements are on their way, and in case of any emergency, I want you to be ready. Your mentor, Princess Celestia."

Cole was too busy closing the door quietly to pay attention to the mare reading out loud. Besides, it was a library, there was too much white noise from an assortment of rowdy, teenage, hormonal ponies running around shouting at the top of their lungs for him to be able to hear anything.

Twilight looked up from the letter, and her face instantly morphed. The approaching creature seemed to be far different from anything she had ever read about, and she had read the Encyclopedia Equestria.

Cole looked at the purple, or more accurately, lavender mare in front of him. And then his inner eye was blinded by a surge of energy.

Twilight had sprung to her hooves, charging a bolt of pure magic as she did. With a slight adjustment, she set it to stun, but not in any particular way. She let it loose.

Time seemed to slow for Cole, as a bolt of energy left the horn of the scared lavender mare. He brought up his arms, in a defensive gesture, and felt his right palm brush the tip of the bolt. Pain coursed through his accelerated nerves, and time seemed to slow even further. The bolt seemed to pierce through his hand, and as it continued, his left hand found itself in the way of the bolt. Pain. Again. Cole couldn't even scream, the pain was so much, and the things around him seemed to have stopped moving entirely, the sands of time slowed to a trickle. Cole fell to his knees, but caught himself before he hit the ground.

The pain was constant, burning, and complete agony for Cole, but he began to fight it. His natural energy began to purge himself of the painful foreign energy, and the pain began to subside. But there was something else. Some other store of energy, like his ionic powers, but different. It felt more like a battery than charges. The energy inside of him began to convert, to mutate into something better. The energy seemed to flow more freely throughout him, as if he had gained another nervous-like system of energy conduits. He could feel the very trickle of time past him with his mental eye. And he pulled.

Something in him snapped. Some energy reservoir, some metal capacitor, something. He began to feel years of pent up rage building, building, and nearly bursting forth from the dam he had built around it. Time's passing seemed to fall under his control, and he altered the trickle, letting it grow larger. The world around him seemed to speed up, enough for him to watch Fluttershy and Applejack yelp in surprise and begin turning. Twilight seemed to understand full well what she just did, and what just happened.

His bursting ire focused itself on one target. The unicorn who hurt him. Two balls of energy pooled into his palms, and he closed them on each-other, allowing a small ball of it to form. He lowered his stance and brought it back to his right hip, then, watched as Twilight's already wide eyes grew even wider. He smiled a sickly, hateful smile and hurled the energy ball forwards, mimicking the effects of Twilight's previous attack. He pushed against the time stream, and pulled at a small bit.

Twilight could now think as fast as him, but could not move, at all. A shine seemed to emerge from her horn, and a sheen of light seemed to cover her as the energy closed the shortening distance between them.

Impact. The sheen seemed to ripple with power as more and more energy from Twilight was poured into the spell. But it was in vain. The ball tore through the barrier after a moment, overcoming the defensive layer Twilight had erected. Blue electricity lanced over her, and she yelped in pain.

Cole fell to his knees for the second time in seconds. The rage was suddenly gone, all evil thoughts purged from his mind, as how the foreign energy was. He held up his hands. The right was covered with glowing blue swirls, some sort of ancient, subconscious symbol Cole completely understood. It seemed to converge itself into a shield, a sight of the protector, the guardian, the one who takes pain for those who can't. The left, however, was different. The sharpness and staccato-ness of the left design seemed to contrast directly with that of the right. It seemed to have a completely different meaning, one of righteous anger, pain. Like that of the avenger, he who deals judgement unto others for the misdeeds which they have done to the innocent.

Cole looked for a moment longer, and began to understand. He had once made the choice, to be a hero, or to be a villain. He had made his decision, to put himself in front of other, to fight for the greater good. Now, he had one more choice: he could go to the next level. He could become the defender, the guardian, the protector. Or he could become the judge, the arbiter, the avenger. It was, once again, a choice to make to determine his fate.

And then he looked up at the two fear-stricken mares moving towards the twitching one in the corner.

A/N again. That was surprisingly fun to write. I think it's pretty good. Now, I want comments. Guardian or Avenger. Also, he now can slow and speed up time, to a certain degree, as he was over-charged when he was hit. Think Reaper Conduit style from the first Infamous.

Vote: Guardian or Avenger? You have until I start writing the next chapter...

I'll take what you say into consideration, but I may just have you guys vote per scenario.