Another Like Me

"HALT!" Applejack, who had been taking a short nap to rest from the day's work, was jolted awake by a yell that was loud enough to be heard all across Ponyville. After taking a few moments to calm herself from the sudden awakening she started to wonder who could possibly have yelled so loud. After contemplating the matter a couple of seconds another thought made its way to the front of her thoughts, "wait a minute...the fillies!" Her eyes widened as she realized she had no idea where her sister and her friends had gotten to! Just as she was about to run out and go search for them, Big Mac came downstairs, looking a little irritated that he'd been woken up so suddenly.

"Sis, what in tarnation was that yell I heard a second ago?" He asked his sister in his usual calm manner now that the notion to sleep had left his mind.

"I haven't got a clue big brother, but that don't matter right now! I need to find Applebloom and the others!" His younger sister replied frantically as she once again rushed towards the door. However, Big Macintosh held her back for a second, making her a bit angry. "Let me go! I gotta' make sure they're ok!"

"Applejack, calm down!" He said, giving her a stern look in the process.

"Calm down?!?" She yelled in outrage, "Applebloom could be out their being chased by who knows wha-"

"Applejack!" He snapped, silencing her, "just take a couple a' deep breaths now, and calm down." Applejack did as he asked, and looked considerably less anxious than she had before. With his sister now relatively more at ease, he continued, "I'm sure the girls were just out around the house playing, no need to get your tail in a knot over this kinda' thing." He placed a hoof on her shoulder in reassurance, and she gave him a grateful smile in return.

"Thanks Mac, I can always count on ya' to set me straight in times like this."

"Aw shucks Applejack, I know how worried you can get lookin' out for our sister like that." He then gave a slight smirk, "besides, if I wasn't here, who else would keep ya' from havin' a breakdown every other day."

"Oh quiet you!" Applejack said in fake anger, but then chuckled as she playfully punched her brother in his side. "Now let's go find those fillies." She then put on her signature stetson hat before opening the door and heading out into the farm to search.

"Hey sis, why don't we split up to search for em'?" Big Mac suggested.

"Hm...alright that'll make things easier I suppose," Applejack agreed after mulling over the idea in her head. "Alright, you head around the barn an' check there while I check in the apple orchards," she ordered. Her brother gave a nod and went off to his designated area, while she headed off to hers. "Why do I feel like something is about to happen..." She asked herself, tensing up as her steady trot began to turn into a gallop.

~~Another Like Me~~

As the dark blue mare approached Shingo he felt a strange aura emanating off of her. His fighter's intuition told him that there was more to her than she was initially letting on. The pony stopped a good ten feet away before staring him down, as if sizing him up. He knew that this was serious and held the stare she had for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she spoke.

"So, what manner of beast art thou?" She inquired boldly, raising an eyebrow in curiosity as she waited patiently for an answer.

"Hm...I wonder if I should actually answer her or not...I mean Twilight and the others have already seen my human form talking and whatnot, but this mare is kind of putting me on edge..." Shingo thought to himself, remaining silent in the face of the alicorn's questioning. Finally after a few moments of hesitance he decided to go ahead and answer her. "Well ma'am, I'm what you'd call a human, but I'm pretty sure you haven't heard of my kind before." He said, making Night Stalker's eyes go wide in shock at hearing him speak, while Luna's eyebrows simply raised in mild surprise.

"Your statement is correct, for we have not heard of your species in any tome or biological archive. However, this would explain the odd dreams we hath been sensing for the past few nights."

"Dreams?" Shingo repeated, giving a confused look to the mare across from him, "she can sense dreams? Huh...well I suppose I was right about her being something out of the ordinary then..."

"Yes, as the Princess of the Night and co-rulers of Equestria along with my sister, Princess Celestia, it is within our bounds to sense dreams and all that they contain." She explained as a look of realization finally crossed Shingo's face.

"Wait a minute..." he thought, suddenly recalling the history tests he'd graded earlier that day, "if Celestia is her sister then that means..." He looked up at the mare in shock, "you're Princess Luna."

"Ah, so thou hast heard of us?" The princess asked, seeming visibly surprised by his revelation.

"Well, enough to know that as far as talking ponies go, you and your sister are pretty darned powerful." He replied, suddenly gulping nervously as he truly realized who he was going up against. The mild praise made Luna give a soft giggle before smirking at him.

"We take it that thou may hath reconsidered our earlier offer to do combat?" She asked, having a cocky tone in her voice.

"Nah, in fact, considering all the strong fighters I've faced, this actually makes me even more excited to face you!" Shingo said as he grinned back at the princess. After hearing his response, Luna chuckled to herself and gave him a smile for the first time, no longer feeling as if he was an enemy that needed to be apprehended.

"Well human, I suppose thine appetite for battle will have to be satiated." She called out, before planting her hooves in the dirt beneath her and taking a ready stance for battle.

"Well then Princess Luna, I, Shingo Yabuki, first (and currently only) student of Kyo Kusanagi, would be honored to challenge you." He recited before getting into a battle stance of his own.

Shingo made the first move as he tried to catch Luna off guard by quickly charging at her before doing a dodge roll to fake her out. He managed to successfully get behind her, leaving the window of attack open as she slowly turned to face him. "Kurai!" He yelled as he twisted his body around, putting all of his momentum into a punch that was headed straight for the princess's unprotected face...until it was stopped short by an unseen force. "What the heck, my punch was blocked?" he thought in surprise as he tried to break through whatever invisible barrier was hindering him.

"What's the matter human?" Luna asked nonchalantly as she gave him a friendly smile, "I thought thou desired to engage in combat with me? Could it be that thou art forfeiting the contest already?" She gave a small smirk as she said this, indicating that she was basically mocking him. Shingo, who by now realized the severity of his situation, tried to back away from the alicorn to give himself some distance, but found immediately that he was unable to move any part of his body until he felt himself being lifted up in the air and get thrown away..

"Well I kind of walked right into that one honestly..." he mentally sighed, but kept trying to break free of Luna's invisible grip on him. His efforts were fruitless however, as he saw Luna was once again approaching him in the same calm manner. "Alright think...what would Kensou do in this situation..." he closed his eyes as his mind began to summon forth a mental version of his friend, who took a look at his situation and shrugged.

"Well man, it looks like you're screwed on this one." The mental Kensou told him.

"Ok never mind!" Shingo sighed as he pushed away the image of the Dragon Spirit wielder and tried to think of someone else, "okay how about someone more wise, like Terry!" He gave a smile of satisfaction, surely the Legendary Hungry Wolf, who had participated in every King of Fighters tournament and taken down an entire crime mob in his hometown, would provide him with something. He then saw the image of Terry come into focus, and the man gave him a concise, well thought out, and to the point statement.

"You dead."

"...I'm questioning whether or not my brain wants me to win here..." Shingo thought annoyed as he again conjured up an image, though this one was of one of the lessons that Kyo had taught him during one of the training sessions.

"Alright Shingo, one thing to remember in battle is how to control and channel your inner energy, or chi as we've been calling it thus far." His master and friend told him as he assumed a stance that differed slightly from his battle pose. "As you already know, all living things have chi within them, and use it in pretty much everything we do. However, trained fighters like us know that chi can be manipulated in so many different ways. Take for instance MAX mode," he then paused as he let his energy level skyrocket, causing an ethereal white glow to surround him, "you already know that MAX mode is using our chi to enhance our body's sense of movement, reflexes, and basically pushes our body past its normal limits, which is why move cancels are made possible."

As Shingo was about to affirm his master's statement, Kyo then continued, "however, there are a couple of other ways that we can push our body's limits as well. The first one, I will show you today." He then led his student over to the courtyard of his house, otherwise his father would most likely yell at him for endangering the house. Once they were there, they stood side to side, and the flame-wielder spoke once again, "Alright, now I need you to close your eyes and envision your chi flowing outward, Shingo did so both in memory and in reality, which piqued Luna's curiosity as she decided to wait and see what he was up to.

"Hm...he seems to be preparing something, but what?" The alicorn thought to herself anxiously as she continued to watch the human go through what looked to be some sort of buildup of energy. Off to the side, Applebloom and Scootaloo watched with interest at what their honorary "fourth crusader" was doing.

"Scootaloo, is it just me or do you feel like he has a couple of tricks up his sleeve?" The yellow filly asked her friend, who looked thoughtful.

"Well, knowing the stories he told us about some of his fights, I bet he does!" She concluded. With that, they turned their attention back to the battle in the orchard.

"Alright Shingo, the next step is to imagine all the chi that you've summoned literally cover you, as if it were a second skin." Shingo nodded as he followed the order from his master, and much to everypony's surprise, an intense yellow aura began to radiate from Shingo's body, making the fillies and Night Stalker's jaws gape in amazement, and princess Luna tense up at the new development. Inside his mind the student heard his master congratulate him, "awesome job Shingo! This is what we call Armor mode, in which you use your chi to form a protective barrier to protect against physical and chi-based attacks. Heck, not only is your defensive power ramped up, but you won't even be knocked back by other attacks trying to counter yours!"

"Wow no kidding!" Shingo yelled in amazement as he inspected the new glow that had gathered around him. "That's awesome!"

"Word of warning though," Kyo said in a serious tone, cutting Shingo's awe-filled rambles short, "remember, just because you don't feel the hits doesn't mean they won't seriously injure you, so don't mistake this for invincibility."

"Yes sir Mr. Kusanagi!" Shingo nodded, completing both his lesson and the memory as he opened his eyes finally turned back to the battle at hand, the yellow aura still giving off a sharp light. He then grinned and turned to Luna. "Ready to get back to the fight princess?" He asked, which snapped the mare out of her thoughts.

"Of course!" She answered confidently, however, her mind was still on edge by the energy that had surrounded her opponent, and she knew that she had to watch out for whatever it might do. She was surprised to see that the human was charging her head on once again, and she wondered if he had a case of short term memory loss, or was really that insistent on getting thrown by her magic.

          As he began to near her, her horn lit up as magical energy began to charge in preparation to pluck the rash human off the ground. She then began to direct her magic onto his body so that it could lock him in place. However, once her magic had surrounded her opponent, she found that when she reached out with her magic that she couldn't get a grip on him! "What trickery is this?" She thought in shock as she fruitlessly tried to grab him mentally, only for her magical grasp to slip right off of him each time. It was as if he was coated in butter or oil, no matter how she tried to grasp him, he'd simply keep on coming, not even seeming hindered in the slightest.

         "Having a little trouble there?" The princess jumped, startled by Shingo, who was now standing directly in front of her with a mischievous grin on his face. Luna gasped in shock and wildly fired a few bolts of magic at her foe. Shingo easily dodged the unfocused attacks and decided to counter with a short combo. He gave a light punch that stunned the mare enough to let him follow up with a light kick, then a leg sweep, and finally an elbow to her neck which was accompanied by a two handed overhead hammer blow, leaving Luna on the ground with a pained look on her face. However, she was far from done as she quickly got to her hooves and stared at Shingo with an impressed look.

        "Well human, it would seem that thou art more versatile than we originally thought." She praised with a kind smile, which turned into a smirk, "however, just because we art of royalty does not not mean we art not well versed in the art of hoof to hoof combat." She then surprised Shingo by teleporting directly behind him and readying a buck with her hind legs. The KOF participant saw this coming and tried to counter attack with a heavy kick, but still received much of the blow. Luna grinned triumphantly as she felt her attack connect, interrupting the human's kick. "Even the hardiest of my royal guards would be reeling from that attack! Surely-" She cried out as she felt a force collide with her side, knocking her back a few feet.

        "Nice try princess but you're going to have to try a bit harder than that!" Shingo teased, and stifled a laugh when he saw the shocked expression on her face.

        "B-but how?" She stammered, obviously intimidated by the fact that not only did he render her magic ineffective, but even her physical attacks seemed to be rendered useless, as the human barely even seemed to acknowledge that he'd taken a hit.

"Thank God for Armor mode, that buck seemed like it would've downed me had it connected when I was normal!" Shingo sighed, relieved that his timing had prevented a serious injury, for now anyways. However as he prepared to charge Luna a third time, the yellow aura, much to his dismay, began to fade away before finally disappearing altogether, leaving Shingo with a look of fear on his face as Luna approached him with a smirk. "Well this isn't going so well..."

~~Another Like Me~~

        "Applebloom! Scootaloo! Sweetie Belle are y'all out here?" Big Macintosh sighed as he only heard silence linger in the air. He had been searching for the fillies for a while now, but his search hadn't turned up anything.He had already checked around the house, and the barn wasn't showing any sign of promise, so where could those three hooligans have gotten to? The stallion sighed once more and leaned on a nearby barrel, pondering on what to do next. "What in Tarnation!" his head snapped up as he heard a faint rustle in the stacks of hay in the barn. Wondering what sort of critter could possibly be roaming around, he crept over to the stack that seemed to be moving on its own. He put a hoof into the stack and rifled through the stack before his hoof finally felt a small form that let out an "eep" as it noticed he was there.

"Aw man you found me- wait Big Mac, what're you doing here?" Sweetie asked with confusion as she popped out of the haystack, expecting to find one of her friends or Shingo, but instead got Applebloom's older brother.

"I could ask you the same question! Now what were ya' doin' hidin' in there?" He asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Oh well Applebloom, Scootaloo, and I saw Mr. Shingo passing by after he was walking by and he decided to play a game of hide and seek with us!" Sweetie Belle said with a smile as Big Mac gave a sigh of relief that at least someone was out there probably looking for them as well, albeit for different reasons.

"Well do ya' happen to know if he found em' or not?"

"Well, I did hear some talking near where Scootaloo was hiding, so I guess he found her, and I saw Applebloom heading towards the apple trees to go and hide!"

"Alright, that's loads of help Sweetie, thank ya' kindly. Now why don't ya' head back to the house and get yerself somethin' to eat?" He suggested, which made her smile widen as she ran to the house after thanking the stallion, who shook his head and chuckled at how she was acting. "Well shoot, she may be the sister of some fancy fashion designer, but she sure has a lot of energy in her!" With that, he decided to head to the apple orchards since that was the only lead he had on his sister's whereabouts. His anxiety was thankfully lowered since he knew his sister and possibly Shingo would be around there as well, not to mention Scootaloo, so hopefully whatever it was that yelled so loudly earlier wasn't hostile. "Ah just hope that whatever this thing is is in a good mood..." He thought before entering the orchard, searching for any familiar faces.

~~Another Like Me~~

Applejack was worried. That much was certain. She hadn't found hide nor hair of her little sister or any of her friends, and this frustrated, annoyed, and scared her all at the same time. She wasn't one to mull over every little worst case scenario of a situation like Twilight would, but when it came to her family's safety she tended to...mentally prepare herself. In this case the preparation in her mind was something to do with timber wolves, a treed Applebloom, and Spike laughing evilly with a top hat and mustache all the while. "Wait, where'd that last part come from?" She thought, puzzled at where the extraneous detail might have been relevant.

"Kurai!" She jumped, startled by the outburst that came without warning. After she calmed down for a minute or two, she listened and her the sounds of scuffling hooves and what sounded like magic bolts firing, as well as a couple of voices exchanging words.

"Sounds like some kind of fighitin' goin' on over there..." she whispered to herself, before feeling a twinge of fear wash over her, "sounds like they're more than a mite powerful by the sounds of it..." Her eyes widened as she thought about the possibility of Applebloom and the others getting wrapped up in such an event. "Ah better hurry, no tellin' what could come outta' this." She then began to turn her trot into an all out gallop as she made her way towards the source of the clash and clamor.

~~Another Like Me~~

Shingo was once again wrapped up in Luna's magical grasp, and needless to say it could have been going better for him. Luckily he had managed to at least been able to charge his energy a bit before she'd grabbed him but unfortunately it looked like the alicorn was about to unleash a pretty big magical strike. Much to his surprise though, she dropped him, and he took this as a chance to charge at her again, thinking that she'd exhausted her magical supply of energy.

"BE STILL!" He froze in mid-charge as her voice ordered, no, commanded his body to stay locked in place, and to his horror, no matter how hard he tried to fight it, he remained unable to break free of whatever she was doing to him. She smiled as she watched his futile attempts to break free, before her entire body began to glow a beautiful hue of midnight blue. She then to close her eyes as she tilted her head up to the sky and called upon the moon to give her a bit of its power.

"Crap, there's nothing I can do! She's got me trapped!" Shingo yelled to himself as he witnessed Luna's power increasing with each passing moment. Finally, after what seemed like a few minutes, Luna opened her eyes, which now radiated a pure, untainted shade of white, and looked at him.

"Feel the power of the moon encase you, LUNAR SPIRE!" She called out as Shingo saw himself get enveloped by energy that gave off the same silvery glow that the moon itself had. In fact, it reminded him a bit of how one of Kyo's desperation moves used a pillar of fire to start the attack, only a different color. As for how it felt...well let's just say it was similar in looks and power to how his master's attack was. Applebloom and Scootaloo, who had been glued to their seats by the fight so far, gawked at how much power the princess had at her call. Night Stalker simply shook his head, feeling pity for the poor human, for no one could possibly withstand an attack like that...right?

"Um...P-Princess Luna?" Scootaloo stuttered, still quite wary of the princess, both due to the Nightmare Moon fiasco, and by the display of power she had just shown.

"Yes my little pony, what dost thou need?" The princess asked calmly as she turned around, all signs of the power from before having left her.

"W-will he be...alright?" The small pegasus asked with worry.

"Of, course, that attack was meant to finish the fight, not destroy him!" The princess said, reassuring the orange filly, who promptly gave a sigh of relief that her friend was going to be ok eventually.

"Uh, p-princess..." Night Stalker stammered.

"Yes, what is troubling you Night Stalker?" The princess asked worriedly as she saw her guard gaping in amazement and pointing a hoof behind her. Her eyebrow raised as she turned to where he was pointing, and her jaw dropped as she saw Shingo still standing, pretty battered by the looks of it, but his look told her that the fight wasn't over yet. "Impossible..." She breathed out, remaining frozen in place as he approached her.

"Heh, funny, that's what I said too." The human chuckled as he approached her, and then held out his hand. "I think it goes without saying that you won this one princess." He gave her a smile, which she returned while reaching out with her hoof and shaking it. "Good match!"

"No, I think this match deserves to be called a draw fair human." The princess giggled as she saw him give a look of surprise.

"What, b-but why?"

"Nopony I know has ever been able to withstand an attack like that from me except my sister, and even then she is not as resourceful as you have proven to be, so I declare you an equal challenge for me as it was for you!" She said, watching as his face lit up in a grin.

"You know what this calls for right?" He asked her, laughing inwardly as he watched her grow puzzled. "No? Then let me show ya'!" (Please go to 2:39 in the video for this.)

"Um...what manner of tomfoolery was that?" Luna asked, a look of bewilderment on her face as she was trying to think about what had just happened.

"Oh heh, sorry, force of habit I guess." Shingo chuckled, the princess was obviously not used to post-match win poses judging by her reaction. Then again, the human figured that none of the ponies had probably ever experienced a tournament like the ones he was familiar with.

"Applebloom! Oh thank Celestia ya'll are ok!" A new voice called, making everyone turn around to find that Applejack had burst in, and promptly embraced the yellow filly protectively.

"Oh, hiya sis! What're you up to?" Applebloom asked innocently. This was the wrong thing to say apparently, as Applejack's left eye began to twitch, and an angry look came onto her face.

"What am I up to? I was worrying myself to death about ya'll three because I thought ya'll might be in danger!" The mare began to rant, with the princess and Shingo taking a step back from her as the two fillies present cowered underneath her gaze.

"Um...but Applejack we were with Shingo the entire time!" Scootaloo said, trying to appease, or at lease dampen the mare's disposition as she pointed at the human.

        "Wha-" Applejack followed the directory hoof, and found that indeed that not only was the human there, but so was Nightma- er, Princess Luna, who both wore, expressions of amusement on there faces, and Shingo even gave a small wave.

"Sup' Applejack?" He asked, giving, in her eyes, the most charming smile in existence, making her jaw drop only slightly while her face became a canvas for an artist who only painted in red. In reality though, Shingo had only given her a friendly grin and was quite confused about why she was turning such a scarlet hue. "Hm...she must have been running for a while if she's that exhausted!"

"Ah, the Element of Honesty!" Luna cried out happily in recognition, "we have not seen thee and the other Elements of Harmony since my return!"

"Oh, um, hi there Princess Luna...how ya' doin'?" Applejack replied nervously as she tried to keep her composure. Recently she and her other five friends, who wielded the Elements of Harmony, had fought against Nightmare Moon, who was actually Princess Luna that had been overcome by jealousy of the fact that most ponies preferred the daytime, while squandering the time they had during the night because of sleep. Now even though she and the other ponies of Ponyville knew that she wasn't the evil darkness ridden pony she once was, that didn't stop them from getting antsy whenever she was around or in the area.

"Oh..." Luna's face dropped a little as she noticed the orange mare's tension as she had responded to her. "We knew that our subjects were skeptical of us since our return, but for even an element of Harmony to regard us with such fear..." she trailed off as she turned her back to the other, feeling dejected while Shingo and the others gave each other looks of sadness. Applejack felt especially guilty since she was the one that had caused the princess's depression.

"Aw shucks princess..." Applejack took her hat off and scratched her mane, "I didn't mean t' offend you in any way..."

        "Oh it is quite alright Honesty, we knew that our subjects would be slow to trust us after what we had done to them and our sister, I only wish that we had not behaved so rashly back then..."

        "Um, Princess?" Shingo hesitated a second before asking the question, wondering if he was prying into a sensitive topic, "what exactly did you do?" The alicorn was surprised at the way he asked the question, his tone didn't show signs of suspicion or needling for information, he genuinely sounded curious about what had happened.

        "I suppose there is no harm in telling you..." The princess gestured to the ground, indicating for him to have a seat on the ground. After he had gotten settled in the princess's horn began to glow once again, her eyes taking on the same bright shade of white as before. Shingo gasped as he saw the surrounding area fade away to nothingness.

       "Do not be alarmed!" A voice boomed from all around, which startled him. However, he soon realized that he recognized the voice as Luna's, and so he felt a little more at ease.

      "Hey uh if you don't mind me asking princess...what exactly is going on?"

      "I am simply using my magic to share what memories I had about a thousand years ago, which is where all of this started."

      "A thousand years???" He gawked at that number, and the giggle he heard told him that the princess was amused by his reaction.

      "Yes, now let us begin..." Luna trailed off Shingo then saw that the darkness that surrounded him was transformed without warning. What he saw astounded him. He looked at his surroundings and saw that he was currently in a huge building of the fanciest kind he'd ever laid eyes on. He knew that they had obviously spared no expense in decorating the place, because it was both enormous and beautiful.

     "Princess...what is this place?"

     "...This is the palace that my sister and I reside in. It was on this day that it all began..."

     "What began?"

     "The rise of Nightmare Moon..."

~~Another Like Me~~

     Kyo sighed. He sighed because Chizuru was busy looking into what exactly caused his student's disappearance. Since he felt that was more in her department of work, he decided to take a casual stroll around the city. Well, it would be casual anyways, if his mind could stop asking so many questions about what had happened. Kyo hated to say it, but he had actually grown a bit attached to his student. Sure he had been a bit annoying at first, being a very, very persistent fanboy that only served to get Kyo some free meals when he didn't have the cash to buy his own, but over time, Kyo learned to look past that and saw a fighter who was determined to put all of his effort, and then some into anything he did.

    "I need to clear my head of this stuff." He muttered, kicking a nearby can it of frustration. Figuring he had nothing else to do he decided to get something to eat, he hadn't eaten anything since this morning anyways so why not? He was casually making his way to a nearby fast food joint he knew of, until he realized something. He was being followed. However, the footsteps that mimicked his own made no act to conceal themselves, rather, they made sure he knew of their owner's presence, and Kyo knew only one person who would do this sort of thing. Kyo turned around and faced the person behind him, a smirk working its way onto his face when his suspicions were confirmed.

    "..." The man said nothing, and simply gave a cold glare to the leader of Team Japan.

    "You know," Kyo spoke, "normally I'd be pretty disappointed to see your face around here, but today I think a fight with you is just the thing I needed..." he grinned "so let's not hold anything back, eh Yagami?"

~~Another Like Me~~