My Kind of Town

"Umm, hello?" Blackout called into the empty barn. "Anypony home?" He knocked every door but nothing would respond. He tried the house, nothing. The fields were empty, nopony was attending the animals, and not a soul was found in the massive orchard. Giving up Blackout decided to just sleep on one of the many trees surrounding the farm. They wouldn't mind right? There are tons of them anyway. Finding a solid branch to sleep on, Blackout landed on the tree. He thought of his mission, was this Nightmare thing really going to bring eternal night? Why isn't Celestia doing anything about it? Why send a lone pegasis to do the job? How could he stop something made of pure dark magic, and to top it off, it possessed an alicorn that was Celestia's sister, and she doesn't want him to simply kill her. In fact, Celestia's student is supposed to stop the Nightmare. The purple mare who did nothing but read is supposed to stop an all-powerful evil being. There must be a catch. Celestia always makes plans that sound ridiculous but somehow work in the end. Without knowing it, Blackout slowly drifted to sleep as he thought about these questions.

"Why do pegasis always sleep in mah' trees?" a mare with a southern accent spoke obviously annoyed. She kicked the tree, causing the pegasis to fall out of it.

"You could have just said please." Blackout groaned.

"Ah thought ah made it clear when ah told the pegasis not to sleep in mah trees." she scolded.

"How should I know, I'm not from here." Blackout retorted, trying to adjust his helmet which was covering his eyes. Pushing the rim of the helmet above his eyes, he caught sight of the orange mare. "So I guess you own the farm?"

"Sorta, what brings ya to Ponyville?"

"Business trip." he lied. "Sorry about sleeping in your tree, nopony was home and I needed a place to stay so I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Well since yer new I'll let it go, but try to stay out of mah trees o.k."

"Will do, say what time is it?"

"Two o'eight."

"Aww man, hey since your here could I...you know, stay at your place?" he said bashfully.

"Well since yer new ah guess it would only be fair, alright you can stay."

"Thank"

"But only for tonight, got it?" not knowing how to respond, Blackout just nodded. "Good, well now that we got that out of the way, ah'm Applejack." she extended a hoof, which met by Blackout's.

"I'm Blackout, sorry about the tree."

"Don't be, you didn't know, but ah'm a bit saddle sore about you staying over on such short notice."

"He, yeah sorry." he apologized again as the mare led him into the modest farm house. "You sure about this? I don't want to be taking up any space or anything."

"Don't worry, we have too much space as is, well here's yer room." It was a small room with a western style theme to it. "If ya need anything jus' ask." but before she could finish, the room echoed with a low grumbling.

"Yeah, do got any food?" the question made the farmer look at him like he was an alien. "Oh, right, forgot that your a farmer." Applejack led Blackout to the kitchen and laid out an assortment of apple based foods in front of him.

"What do ya want? Ah've got apple crumbles, apple fritters, candy apples, apple turnovers, apple strudels, and apple pie."

"I'll take them all." again the farm pony stared at him. "What?"

"You can eat all of this?"

"Uh huh."

"Huh, o.k., whatever you leave you can just save it for later." but before she could finish, Blackout had scarfed down the entire set of apple products. "Wow, you weren't kiddin'."

"That was GOOD! Oh and here's the payment."

"Nah, you can keep it. Think of it as a first time discount." This was great, free food and shelter, how could anypony be so nice. It was too good to be true, it couldn't be true.

"Your not lying about that are you?"

"Ah'd never tell a lie, especialy to a newcomer."

"Just making sure, you never know when a pony will drop a heavy bill on your lap."

The day, or night, ended quickly and Applejack had woken Blackout up who left with her to attend the Summer Sun Celebration.

Alright, be on your guard, that Nightmare thing is supposed to show up at any second now.

"...Princess Celestia!" the mayor anounced as the white mare from yesterday opened the curtains. She wasn't there, and as ponies exchanged worried looks and murmers, the white mare came back to the balcony reporting that Celestia was no where to be found. As if on cue, a mist containing what looked like small stars. The mist condensed into a form that looked like a large alicorn, about Celestia's size.

"Nightmare Moon." Blackout whispered to himself. He tried to move but something was holding him back, he could feel a slight tingling around his body. It was magic, powerful magic, he couldn't fight it and watched hopelessly as the dark entity introduced herself. This would be his first glimps at dark magic, it took the form of a mist with small stars in it. It swirled around the alicorn and seemed to be eminating from her mane and tail. He watched in awe as the Nightmare quickly defeated the Royal Guard and then disintigrated into mist, leaving the building and town. The magic grip that kept Blackout in place finaly let go and he decided to make his exit.

"Blackout what happened?" a voice came on his radio, "I just detected a huge dark magic spike in your area. Blackout?" He never responded, there was no time for questions, he needed answers. He made his way to a nearby hill and surveyed the area. It wasn't long before another voice broke the silence, but this one was in his head.

"That was my sister Luna." the voice explained, "She is heading to the castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. The Elements of Harmony are located there. Only they can stop the her, you must protect them or she will destroy them. Can I trust you to do this?"

"Yes ma'am." he had his orders, now for the easy part. Blackout headed back to the apple farm to don his gear. His black vest was now complemented with a black ACU, trousers, and combat boots. Not knowing to expect, Blackout brought almost all of his gear, excluding the heavy weapons. Now dressed head to hoof in equipment, Blackout made his way to the forest. Just outside of the forest stood six mares, all of them looked familiar. Not wanting to attract attention to himself, Blackout waited for them to enter the forest. He stayed there for about ten minutes to make sure he wouldn't run into them, then he entered the forest himself. It was a good five minutes before the trail ended, like the mountain collasped. Sliding down the slope, Blackout picked up the trail of the six ponies at the bottom of the ravine. Further down the path he ran into a manticore. It looked happy but he didn't take any chances. Drawing his Colt 45, Blackout slowly passed the creature, eyeing it. He made his way past the animal with no trouble, if anything it seemed like the beast didn't care about him. Normaly manticores tear anything to shreds on sight, but this one was different. The six ponies must have been responsible for this, maybe it was hurt, or it ate them and had no room for another meal.

After about ten minutes of hiking, Blackout had almost caught up with the girls ahead, who had just entered a thick group of trees. There was little to no visibility but there was no other way. Walking through, Blackout soon became lost, and to make things worse, the trees are now making faces at him.

Wait, what? The trees had faces and oddly enough, glowed red. A scream was emited from the trees, it came from behind him. Was something in here? Not wanting to find out, Blackout picked out a direction and ran. Bursting from the thicket, he saw the hoofprints of about seven ponies.

Wrong way stupid. Turning back Blackout sprinted through again, lowering his head so the branches would hit his helmet. Again he bursted out of the trees and in front was a new path. Not knowing how much time he wasted, Blackout decided it was best to hurry through the trail.

The path was almost completely clear, except for a water serpent but he was kind enough to let him pass. Running down the trail Blackout spotted something strange. It was misty and he couldn't see much but it looked like an ancient castle. Blackout's focus was so centered that he didn't realise that he ran out of ground. He felt the sensation of taking the next step, and feeling nothing there, sending a shiver down his spine. His sight was blurred by thick fog, and wind filled his ears as he plumeted down the canyon.