Vanished

Chapters

Susque Deque
Amentia
Exordium
Aurelianus
Pereant
Gravis abscondito
Oculos aures
Tracto is
Ego vos feci vertendumque
Latin got boring
Coruscant

Susque Deque

Chapter 2: Susque Deque

I had been wondering around for what felt like hours, but couldn't tell. I couldn't see past the thick trees and mist to get a glimpse of any sort of moon or sun. I felt like I had been walking around in circles, though all the trees look the same and there still isn't enough light to make out any decent details. After walking around a few more trees I see something leaning up against one, and got closer to look.

When I was only inches away. *snap* I stepped on a twig and froze. I didn't freeze because of the twig, I had stepped on dozens of them. It was what I heard afterwards; a low growl. The kind a big dog would make after being awoken from their sleep. But it wasn't a dog....or not one I've ever seen, its eyes had a dim yellow glow to them, and its fur was instead..bark?

Just met our first life form?

Yep.

Going to run away screaming?

Most likely.

Bring it on.

"FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

POV change: Twilight Sparkle

Twilight had awoken a few minutes earlier and had gathered the elements and was at Fluttershy's cottage outside the Everfree, all present then asked why.

"Something strange happened last night and we're going to go and investigate" Twilight stated. Rainbow Dash was the first to respond.

"But why do you need all of us, you're the egg-head here couldn't you just do it?" she said. Next was Applejack.

"Dash has a point Twi, what could be so important that you need all the Elements?"

Twilight's eye twitched a bit at the 'egg-head' comment but replied. "I don't know what it was last night and neither does Princess Celestia. I'm bringing all of you because if it's dangerous we may need to use the Elements of Harmony. And besides, the Everfree forest is dangerous to begin with."

"It's alright Twilight we got you covered!" Everypony present then turned to Pinkie Pie, who had been naked a second ago was now wearing what appeared to be a ponyfied Sherlock Holmes outfit while holding a magnifying glass in her hoof over her eye. "We're on the case!"

Twilight stared at Pinkie for a second wondering how she put it on so fast and where she had gotten it, but quickly placed the thought in the 'Pinkie' file and continued. "Yes...well....lets get moving." Twilight said as Fluttershy whimpered at the back of the group, making her dismay known.

POV change: Thomas

"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" I shouted as the timber wolves trailed me. Yes, plural as in more then one. I had thought it had just been one......until I decided to turn around. Which if you've watched any horror movie would seem like the stupidest idea to do at a time like this. Though against my brains wishes in the back of my head I turn around and got a sight of the 3 pairs of glowing eyes trailing me.

"HOLY SH-" before I can finish the phrase that labeled this moment perfectly.....I hit a rock, not a stone that I would just stub my toe on, but a boulder, and man.....last time I checked I wore my nose on the outside of my face.

Earth, Y U NOT OUT OF WAY?!

I fall over gripping my, most likely, broken nose as the wolves closed in. Their mouths oozing saliva and their eyes piercing me, with there anger and hunger clearly visible in them. The largest one, who is no doubt the alpha, steps closer, remaining only about an arms length away from me, never breaking its predatory glare. It dashes at me, mouth wide open. I raise my arm up to guard, which its jaw then clamps down on.

I would have screamed but my body was in to much shock, and combined with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, it made quite the shit-storm cocktail. All I did was stare horrified at my arm as it started flowing red rain into the wolf's mouth and out onto the ground. I try shaking it off but only accomplished make the wound worsen. Panicking I flailed my free arm across the ground looking for something to smash its head in with, but found nothing. Not wanting to die without even knowing where I am or how I got here, I struck the wolf in the jaw with all the force I could apply, with a audible crack and whimper following afterwards. The wolf let go and passed out laying in a pool of my blood with a thoroughly shattered jaw. Going by survival instincts alone, I got up and ran, I ran and ran and didn't look back or slow down, despite the dozens of branches and thorns.

After a good four, five minutes of constant sprinting, I stopped. Too tired to even stand, I fell onto the grass beneath me. I had several cuts and scrapes from the obstacles, which tore my hoodie and shirt apart and my arm still heavily bleeding. I saw nothing but black, dark nothingness and openly welcomed it, I was too weak to care. I had no dreams.

POV change: Twilight

The six of them had just made it into the forest a few minutes ago and still all remained silent. The Everfree was always a strange and foreboding place, and it only got more dangerous as you went deeper. All but Twilight and Pinkie, who were looking for 'clues', were on edge, none of them have had any 'good' history with the dark forest and try to avoid entry as often as possible. But something always seemed to pull them back in. Was it just bad luck, destiny, or something.....darker, even darker than the forest they find themselves in....................probably just bad luck.

"Nothing over here, nothing over there." Pinkie said as she looked up trees and under rocks. "Ah ha!"

"Did ya find something?" questioned Applejack.

"Nope, just a rock that looks funny." Pinkie says going in to a fit of giggles afterward.

"PINKIE!" "Be serious, this is important!" Twilight exclaimed. "We have to find what made that strange light."

"Sorry" Pinkie said apologetically still recovering from her laugh attack.

Rarity spoke up. "Twilight, how do you intend to find this.....light?" "I think I speak for everypony when I say I don't particularly like the thought of wondering around blind in this horrid place."

"Ya Twi, it might be good to have a direction" Applejack said, agreeing with Rarity.

"The light had appeared somewhere around the west-side of the forest, near Zecora's I think."

POV change: Zecora

Zecora had just been collecting supplies for different potions and elixirs when she spotted a strange creature sprawled out in the dirt with a large open wound on its left arm. She had taken the creature back to her hut and healed the creature to the best of her abilities, but the rest was a process that would take more time and more than just herbs and bandages. The wounds in its arm were deep and would most likely not fully recover, and it had several other lesser wounds on it's torso and right arm, but it would survive.

"Quite the strange being, the kind one sees only dreaming." Zecora rhymed to herself as she continued making different mixtures and solutions.

POV change: Thomas

I had been out for about three to four hours from the graveness of my wounds and the extent of my exhaustion. I attempted to move to no avail. I remained still.

..................?

Brain?

404 - file not found

Fuck.

I try to move again, and fail. I try to open my eyes, which also fails. My entire body felt numb and paralyzed, I couldn't hear except for some muffled noises, a voice. I couldn't make out the words behind the voice clearly, in fact I don't think its English, but I could hear what sounded like.....hoof steps?

Where am I know? And why can't I move? Uhhg, my head feels like its been swimming in a vat of vodka.

"Ah, you have awoken. I feared your will had been broken." said a deep yet definitely feminine voice.

I try to speak but my mouth wouldn't move.

"You have been inflicted by a disease, I have supplied a antidote to ease." "Your wounds are deep, and for them to heal you must sleep." the voice said rhyming all the while.

I try to speak again, but all that escapes is a faint sigh.

"Your wounds will take time, but with a little rest you will be fine."

I slowly began to drift off back into unconsciousness as the owner of the voice continued mending my injuries.

Dafuq have I gotten myself into?

POV change: Twilight

Twilight and the others have gone pretty deep and have made a course for Zecora's, all the while keeping an eye out for anything odd.....well....odd for the forest anyway.

"Twi, ya sure there's anything in here, besides trees and critters?" Applejack asked. "What if ya just imagined the thing?"

"I'm sure of it, and how could I have just imagined something like a giant red flash?" Twilight ask quizzically.

"Maybe Luna accidentally let one of her stars explode." said Rainbow Dash, making Twilight give her a look.

"What?" "It could happen." Dash said defending herself.

As that conversation progressed they continued on their way to Zecora's, and on the way they say something which made them all freeze. Before them lay a dead timber wolf, atop a pool of blood with a broken jaw.

Everypony stood there silent not knowing what to say to the sight before them. Fluttershy shook in place teary eyed at the image. Rarity looked the most horrified and Rainbow looked ready to chuck.

"It's horrible!" shouted Rarity looking away from the scene.

"Wha....what happened?" questioned Applejack.

Twilight, eyes wide at the creature, looked at the sight more clearly; it didn't look like the blood was from the wolf, but from something else. There was no open wounds, just a deformed jaw. There was blood on the wolf's teeth meaning it probably got into a fight with something, and whatever it was it hit the wolf. Hard.

"I don't know...." Twilight spoke in a serious tone. "...But we're going to find out!"

Fluttershy, still shaken up a bit, spoke. "But-But what i-if it's dangerous, w-w-what if it does t-that to us too?" she said, fear making her studder.

"That's why we have the Elements, we'll be fine if we stay together." Twilight said trying to reassure her friends, which worked somewhat.

"I'm with you all the way, Twilight." Rainbow Dash said confidently.

"Same here, we can't let this hurt anypony." said Applejack.

"Yeah!" Pinkie shouted.

"This is being awful on my coat." Rarity complained.

While everypony made there way to Zecora's, a small 'squeak' of dismay escaped Fluttershy's lips as she followed after them.

POV change: Thomas

I had slept for an hour or two before waking up once again. Though this time I found I had feeling in my body and I could move, if only a little.

Brain?

Sup.

What's going on?

It would appear we have been taken in by some sort of native to these land, got nursed to an acceptable health, and then drugged to suppress movement so we don't reopen our wounds.

Seriously?

Yep, oh and did I mention she's also a zebra?

Oh......wait....WAT!

Ya, shit went down.

No. I mean. She.....she's a zebra?

Oh. That. Ya, no surprise that's what you was referring to.

And how do you know that she's a zebra?

What?

*I, you said "And how do 'you' know she's a zebra?" instead of "And how do 'I' know she's a zebra?"

You refer to 'me' as 'you' so why do 'I' have to refer to 'you' as 'I'?

........Bitch, I'm fabulous.

*sigh* Well, enough of that.

Tired of arguing with myself, I try and sit up, which was not the best idea. Pain shots out through my entire upper body; mostly around my left arm. So I instantly fall back down, causing a 'thud' which alerted my zebra rescuer of my consciousness.

"You still have not healed completely, and should take it easy." Zecora said rhyming once again.

"Where am I?" I say, finding my voice.

"In the Everfree Forest I find my home, the forest in which you have so treacherously roamed"

"Have I gone insane?"

"I do not believe it is my place to say, but you do not appear to be anyway."

"Well, where I'm from zebras don't exactly.......talk." I state, believing myself to indeed be insane.

"I do not know where you hail from, but where I hail we talk a moderate sum."

"Well....umm.....thanks for helping me." "I'd repay you, but I don't really have anything."

"There is no need, you were on deaths door, it would be immoral to not help in your time of need."

"Th-Thank you." I say, finding it oddly kind, doctors back home would charge you a pretty hefty sum for saving your life.

"You are welcome." Zecora said, breaking her rhyme chain.

"I....I'm Thomas."

"Nice to meet you, Thomas." she says. "I wish we could have met under different circumstances."

"Ye-yeah.....same here" I say. "What's your name?"

"Zecora."

"Well thanks for saving me, Zecora."

With nothing else needing to be said, I lay there staring at the ceiling drifting back into the realm of dreams; still wondering how I got here, and what to do now.

POV change: Twilight

The six had finally made it to Zecora's after following the path......and the blood.

"It leads straight to Zecora!" exclaims Rarity. "I do hope she's alright."

"Well lets find out" said Rainbow Dash as she zooming up to the hut's door and knocking sternly. There was a moment of silence which was then followed by hoofsteps leading up to the door, which opened to reveal the zebra in question.

"Yes?" Zecora asked simple.

Twilight spoke first. "Hello, Zecora, we were wondering if you've seen anything.....strange." Next was Rainbow. "And we noticed this 'trail' leading up to your house" "Are you ok?"

"To answer your first question, I make a suggestion." she rhymed. "Come, maybe you have seen a being such as this, for I myself have not."

Twilight instantly became interested in the subject and wondered why that didn't rhyme. The six of them followed Zecora inside and beheld the creature before them, it slept silently on some layers of cloth placed across the floor.

"What is it?" asked Twilight.

"I never questioned the creature, but its appearance doesn't match any others features."

"Where did you find it?"

"It was passed out in the forest covered in its blood, I have brought it back here and have done all that can be done" "Its wounds are severe, but it will survive"

"The poor thing. It looks like its had a horrible time." Rarity exclaimed sadly, seeing all the bandages around Thomas' body. "We should bring it back to Ponyville, and tell Celestia about this as soon as possible" said Twilight

"That would be wise" "It is far too dangerous here with its injures" said Zecora, wishing the best for Thomas.

Moments Later

The six had made it back to the library and put the strange biped on the spare bed Twilight owned. Spike had gotten pen and paper out and was ready to write down the letter to Princess Celestia. While Twilight was ready recite her message.

"Dear, Princess Celestia

Today the Elements and I ventured into the Everfree Forest and discovered a new creature. We aren't sure if this creature has anything to do with the light I saw last night, but we will investigate further when it's awake. I will send another letter later when more information is gathered.

Love, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle"

Amentia

Chapter 3: Amentia

Brain?

*Uhhhg* What now?

Where are we?

In the magical land of 'SHUT THE FUCK UP!'

Now why don't you get off your lazy ass and find out yourself?

Ouch

After that internal comment, I decide to just that. I'm in what appears to be a tree. Zecora's place was in a tree too I think, but this place looks...more....'tree-e'. The place looked like it finely cut out of a large oak tree, and the tree still looked very much alive. I was laying in an actual bed this time(not that I don't enjoy sleeping on the floor), there was a small door to my left and a large semi-circular window to my right that reached from the floor to a few inches from the ceiling. The place looked pretty nice and despite being inside I felt like I was outside.

Feeling too awake to stay in bed I got up and looked out the window. Outside there were a few trees, dirt paths, birds, and some houses, also I could really see the sky now. You under appreciate the little things until you don't have them; walking for hours without sun, moon, or even clouds can make you admire them a bit more. This sky kind of reminded me of how the sky looked before I left my house.

After a few more moments of staring off into the sky, I finally caught on to something. I'm not at Zecora's right now.

Did I get dragged off to an unknown location......again?

Appears that way

What am I, luggage?

At least we're not in the forest anymore, and we didn't even have to walk

Well there's that, and the place looks ni..........Is that a plant over there?

Yo dawg, we heard you like plants, so we put a plant in yo plant, so you can embrace nature while you embrace nature

Enough memes, getting of track

Pulling myself away from the foliage, I headed for the door I saw to my left before and reached for the handle, but hesitated when I heard muffled voices. Getting down on my knees, I placed my ear to the door and listened, and find out the voices are talking about me.

Twilight and the others had gotten back about 3 minutes ago and had begun asking the questions about me they wanted to ask, but didn't want to ask until safely out of the Everfree.

"What if the things dangerous, Zecora said she used a tranquilizer on it." said Rainbow Dash feeling the most untrusting of me. "We don't have anything like that, so what are we going to do if it tries to hurt somepony?"

"It doesn't look that dangerous, if anything it looks rather harmless." whispered Fluttershy, hardly loud enough to be heard.

"Ah don't know if ah believe it to be harmless, but it doesn't look like its anything we couldn't handle." said Applejack. "The thing looked rather tall, but not very strong."

"Whether its dangerous or not, we need to watch it and find out where it's from and why it's here." said Twilight, seeing me as more of a 'study-the-new-descovery' thing than a 'question-the-alien' type thing. "We also need to keep it a secret as to not bring too much attention to it, we don't want all of Equestria going and harassing the thing."

"Awww!" Pinkie whined, having wanted to through a party for me. "But it would have been so much fun throwing a party for it and helping it make new friends, and asking it what its like being a story book character!" Pinkie said at ludicrous speed. "Eh.....what.........never mind, the point is to keep it hidden and to see why its here." stated Twilight, wanting this to stay on a 'need-to-know' basis. "Well how do you suppose we do that?" asked Rarity. "I don't think it will be easy to hide such a thing, Twilight."

"I've already sent a letter to Princess Celestia about it; she can decide what we should do"

"And what do we do until then?!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "I don't think we should be trusting it here."

"It hasn't done anything to make us believe it's a threat."

"Ah think the timber wolf might disagree with ya."

"That was in self-defense, and it almost died doing it!"

The discussion continued, but I had removed my ear from the door, having heard enough. I got up, walked over and sat on the bed. I sat there and thought about all the questions I had.

How did I get here?

Why am I here?

What do I do now?

And who's Princess Celestia?

What's going to happen to me here?

I sat there for what felt like hours, running the same questions through my head over and over, an uneasy felling began to form in the back of my head. After awhile I got into another talk with myself

It doesn't matter why or how you got here, but what you do now that you are is where it will count

But, what do I do?

I'm in a world I know nothing about, in a place I've never been, with people I've never met

Isn't it obvious?

What?

Not anything stupid, that's what

*sign* Whats my first move?

Well first, don't make any enemies, because you don't even have any friends to back up yet, so until further notice the big red button labeled 'asshole' is off limits

Okay....

And second, try and learn as much as you can about this place, if we're going to be stuck here long term, you'll need to get as much information as possible in order to survive in this world

And finally, don't make any wrong moves towards this 'Princess Celestia', we don't know anything about her or how she treats aliens, so try and be formal or follow somebody else's lead

Well, out of the voices downstairs it seems like two of them already don't like me, one thinks I'm 'harmless', one wants to throw me a party, one wants to watch me, and the last one's thoughts on the matter are a bit vague

Mission objective: Befriend all targets

Challenge accepted

I seemed to be encouraging myself pretty well, which is odd; I've never been confident in making friends.....or whatever this would be called. I usually let them make the first move, most of my friends are people who didn't like me being so silent all the time and tried to lure me out of my socially awkward shell. Not many succeed in that field and just make me feel more socially awkward, especially if they are taller than me, smarter than me, or of the opposite sex. Mostly the last one. One time a girl at party (which I was persuaded into to going to by best friends) tried to get me to dance. You can imagine where that escalated to. I think I literally stopped breathing.

Having thought over it enough, I got up to for the door again. But was stopped by a pain in my arm. It caught me of guard, and I wondered why I hadn't noticed it until now. But all the same, it hurt like a bitch. Letting out a short shout of pain, I fell to the floor. The impact bring attention to my other less major injures along my upper torso and right arm, which were a series of cuts and bruises. The pain was even worse than what I would have expected, even with the graveness of my injuries, it was like when I first got here and tried to get up. Everything was distorted and colors jumped all over the place. I imagined it was what having an acid trip would be like, but accompanied by an agonizing pain.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the door open and colorful blurs enter afterwards. I heard voices, it was too hard to make them out with the ringing in my ear. No, I don't think that's ringing, I think that's me......screaming. There was a purple flash and I began to black-out, everything started leaked out of my vision like water on an still wet painting. Just as everything was about to fade to pitch black, I felt.....cold. And I suddenly felt a fear that made my very soul shudder to the core.

Day to night, dark to light

POV change: Twilight Sparkle

Twilight had no idea what just happened. One second they're discussing what they should do about the creature upstairs, and the next the creature is on the floor flinching and roaring extremely loud. All ponies present had ran up stairs and didn't exactly know what to do. Even Fluttershy was frightened and didn't know how to help, having no experience with this kind of creature.

"OH my you poor thing, WHAT DO WE DO!" screamed Fluttershy, tearing up.

"I...uhhh" stammered Twilight.

Twilight didn't know what they should do, the thing was definitely in pain, but it might attack them if they get to close. Its eyes were leaking a pitch black liquid and so was its mouth. So, not having thought of anything better she used a spell that was normally used just to help somepony relax. She didn't know if it would work on something in this much pain, but it was the only thing she could think of. Quickly she began charging up for the spell, gathering energy at the tip of her horn, then released it.

The spell hit it right in his bandaged arm, at first nothing happened, but after awhile its roars of pain began to die down and it started to look calmer. It appeared to have started to lose consciousness, but just as it did Twilight felt a very dark feeling. She didn't know what it was, but she let herself forget about it. It was probably nothing.

"What the hay happened?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"I think its injures are a lot worse than they look" answered Twilight.

"Well what ever it was at least its asleep now, nice thinking Twi" said Applejack.

Fluttershy, before any of them had even said anything had already got it back on the bed, had cleaned of the black liquid and was inspecting its injures to make sure it hadn't hurt itself further. All the while have a serious look of concern; feeling very protective of the creature, as she did for all her animals. Even though It wasn't actually an animal, but nopony knew that yet.

"I think he's okay, but he really shouldn't move too much for a while." Fluttershy said softly. "He?" questioned Twilight. "How do you know its a he?"

"He just looks like a he." answered Fluttershy. "He just looks more male shaped to me."

"Well, whether its a he or not, we've got to take better care of it." said Twilight "We can't have it hurting itself like this again."

"I'm just glad its done screaming, how can it even be that loud?" said Rainbow Dash rubbing her ears from the sonic assault.

"And what's the stuff that came out of its eyes?" asked Pinkie with genuine concern, eying the cloth Fluttershy used to clean the creatures face. "Was it crying?"

"Umm.....I think it may have been......blood" answered Fluttershy, shuddering at the thought.

"Blood...bu...but it was coming out of its eyes!" said Rainbow Dash. "And its black!"

"I think something very strange is going on." Twilight thought aloud "And we need to find out what it is."

POV change: Thomas

Everything hurt. Head to toe, everything hurt like I fell out of bed onto a conveyer belt of hot coal which proceeded to drop me into a lemonade pool of razor blades and stock knives, yeah I was having a bad day. Well, I couldn't tell if it was day or night really, I still had my eyes closed. I kept them closed because everything felt hot, I felt like if I opened my eyes they'd burn. I tried moving, which oddly enough didn't hurt. Still moving, it felt like I was in water, but there wasn't the same resistance you'd get while in water. Taking the risk of searing them, I opened my eyes to see where I was.

It looked like I was in an ocean, but everything was pretty clear. Though the water was a clear wine red, instead of a clear blue. There was no ground and I could see light shimmering from the surface of the water, so I started swimming up there. It wasn't getting any closer, if anything it looked farther away.

Am I sinking?

The thought was oddly loud, which was odd within itself; seeing that its a thought. It echoed in every direction, like hundreds of demons mocking me. I tried swimming faster, it didn't help. I was getting frustrated, but also terrified. My thoughts continued to echo back and forth mocking me.

SHUT UP!

This thought was bone shaking, my head pounded and the ocean rippled. With all my pent up rage, I swam in the direction the echoes were the loudest. Straight down.

I swam at a speed that shouldn't even be possible, but I wasn't thinking about that, I wasn't thinking about anything. I just wanted that accursed voice to...shut...up! Now swimming even faster, I found everything was getting brighter. I look up and the light from the surface was closer. I then thought back to the demon's voice.

Dark to light

Having thought of the way out, I dived down, and as I thought, the light was getting closer and brighter. I could make out the sky when I looked up. I kept on swimming down and.....I hit the surface. And what I saw can't be described with mere words.

The sky was like a sea of fire and magma, balls of fire falling from it into the red ocean I myself was in. Or had been in. I was falling, I......hadn't been in an ocean, I had been in the sky. A blood red sky, which now had long charred arms and hands reached out grasping at the air. I looked to where I had fallen out and saw three bright red eyes, which quickly faded away into the bloodied sky.

Bringing my attention back to the ground, which I was really close to now, I saw that the fire came from burning bodies, and the magma I saw earlier could now be seen as rivers flowing around stone ruins.

Where.....am I?

That is your choice

WHAT!? WHO'S THERE!?

I turn around in mid-fall and looked to my 9 o'clock. There I saw a dark figure, cloaked in a black robe with dark ember colored runes inscribed on its left arm and right shoulder. The figure had a humanoid shape, but even though I couldn't see its body or face, I could tell it wasn't human.

Who are you?

I go by many names, but you can call me Tenebris

What am I doing here? And where is here?

You are in the blood moon

The.....blood moon?

The blood moon is an illusion, a dream created by time

Why am I here?

You are needed

Needed for what?

That depends what path you take

Path?

Three paths are laid out before you, which to take is your choice to make

What are these paths?

The path of creation, the path of destruction and the path of sacrifice

You may only take on one path in the end, but which path you remain on as of this time can change

You said what this place is was my choice

That is correct

Is this what happens I choose the path of destruction, a world is destroyed?

This is if you choose the wrong path

But which ones the right path?

That is your choice

But-

Right and wrong are ever changing, it is up to you to choose what is right and what is wrong in the end

But, why me? Why is it up to me if a world gets destroyed? There had to have been a better choice a...a better person, I'm just......me

You do not see it yet

See what?

You will in time, but for now you must leave, rejoin the waking world

Wait

What is it?

What was that thing? The three eyed beast

Obcasus, an entity of death, his third eye gives him the vision of the afterlife

Why was it after me, and what stopped it?

That was I, you are not ready to face such a creature, so to save you from its reach I had to pull you to the world you find yourself in now

The one with the talking horses?

The proper term is 'ponies', but yes

I believe this world will prepare you for what is to come, for what you must face

Now go and return to that world, remember what I've said, but speak it not in the physical world

I still had so much to ask and so much to say, but I could feel myself fading, I looked at the ground below. It had stopped burning and was now nothing but darkness.......I felt a stabbing pain in my arm.

Getting real tired of your shit Tenebris

Exordium

Chapter 4: Exordium

Did I ever mention I hate waking up? No? Well I do, and getting out of a demon induced coma isn't a cake walk either.

Errrrrhh, my feels....

Get up

Fuck you, I'm tired

Only when ends have been tied, do you have my permission to sleep

Uhhg, even my normal days become abnormal with you around, Brain

I try

My head hurt. I can't explain the feeling I have right now. One does not simply grade their headache. But all the same......it....hurt. And the 'me hating mornings' thing doesn't help, it actual seems to only intensify this.

I've always had an eternal friend by my side, pain. Whether it be emotional, mental or physical. It was always their to say 'Yo dumbass, you're doing it wrong' or 'stairs are for your feet, not your face' or sometimes 'I have no reason to be here, but I felt like hanging out'.

Pain +9

Intelligence -4

Stamina -3

Charisma -1

Shut up

Fucks Given -9001

Slowly, I start to open my eyes. My vision is blurry, but I would be able to read the first 4 rows of an eye chart, so good enough. I look around half expecting to be someplace else again. I let out a sigh of relief when I see I'm still in the tree house, but I have been moved back into the bed.

I try to get up from the bed and find it very difficult. I look down under the covers and see that I am now tied to it. My legs and arms are free, although there is still some rather thick coils of rope tied around my abdomen; encircling the width of the bed.

I pull at the ropes, they're pretty tight. I look for the knots in the rope, but they weren't in sight. They were probably at the side or underneath the bed. I swear under my breath and try to tear the ropes off.

"Hmph!"

"Ge!"

"Ha!"

"Ffff-"

The ropes hold firm. "Damn." "I was hoping making Link noises would help." *sigh* "Guess I'll wait till someone comes in." I say giving up with the ropes.

*eeEEee*

I freeze. Having heard step from the other side of the door. "Well that didn't take long." I thought as the steps got closer.

"I don't understand why we don't just take it to the hospital." said Rainbow Dash "There's definitely something wrong with it, and it shouldn't be here where it could....infect us or something."

"Rainbow, ah don't think them doctors have ever cured 'bleedin' black blood from yer eyes' disease." retorted Applejack.

"Yes, and I need to find out what it's doing here as soon as possible." said Twilight. "And I can't do that with them testing it for a sickness it may or may not even have."

"Fine, but keep it away from me, I can't be getting sick and risk lessening my awesomeness."

Okay that one has a little to much pride......and smugness. Just the way she says 'it' gives me the feeling she looks down at me, way down. But I won't let that bother me, I need to get on their good side, act harmless and forgiving.

The door opens up and the three I heard walk in, followed by another three. All who begin to stare at me, like they didn't even expect me to be there. The rainbow-maned one speaks up.

"It's awake." she simple said.

Good job stating the obvious there, skittles

There was I short silence, but it felt pretty long to me. Afterwards, the purple one with the pink streak in her mane stepped towards me, causing her to become the center of attention.

She went up to the side of the bed and looked me in the eyes. Which I did NOT like. I quickly averted my eyes, looking at the end of the bed. I still feel her eyes on my though. Next the yellow one spoke up.

"Um......Twilight.....I..I think you're making him nervous." she said, looking at me with bright forest green eyes. And she was right, this purple one is making me nervous. I think I feel some sweat on my brow.

"Oh....sorry, I was just checking something." the purple one said, which I now know goes by the name Twilight.

"Well if yer down checking, it looks rather calm now.....so I think ah'll untie the ropes." said the orange one wearing a stetson. Which I'd have to say looks rather ridiculous.

The ropes are untied and I rub the place they once were. "Thanks." I quietly say, making the whole room seem to jump.

"It can talk?!" the rainbow-maned one half shouted, looking very surprised.

I couldn't help but take offense to that. They believed I couldn't talk? What, were the clothes not an indication? I then proceed to notice that they're all naked.

I have a feeling that might come up in future conversation at sometime......awkwardly

"Um......yeah...I can talk." I say a bit hesitant.

"Oh thank Celestia, that will make this a whole lot easier." said Twilight "I have so many questions I need to ask you."

"Oh....um....o...okay." I say, now even more nervous than before. "Wha...what do you want to know?"

"Well first, what are you?" Twilight asked

"A-a human." I answer.

"A human?"

"Y-yes."

"Okay, where are you from?"

"Um.....On-Ontario."

"I've...never heard of the place, is it nearby?"

"Uhh....no......it's really really far away."

"How really far?"

"Uhhm...........you could walk for a million years and never even get to the half-way point."

"That far!?" I nod.

"How did you get here?" she said continuing.

I open my mouth to answer, but remember what Tenebris said.

"I......I don't know." I say with a bit of genuine sadness in my voice. And it wasn't like I was lying, I didn't know how I got here, I just know who caused it.

"You...you don't?" I nod again in agreement.

"Do you know how to get back?" I stay silent, still not meeting Twilight's gaze.

I hadn't really thought about it until know. How will I get back, will I ever go back. Tenebris may have said I needed to be sent here, but he never said if I'd get to go back home. I start to think of everyone back home. My mom, my dad, my brothers, my friends. I may never see them again, and they won't even know where I've gone. They'll be searching for me, but....they won't find me. I feel something wet stream down my face, I'm crying a bit.

I've never cried, not since I was little. Tears from pain and lack of sleep don't count, those are physical tears, not emotional tears.

I just sat there and silently cried, hardly breathing while the reality of this sinks in. There wasn't a lot of tears, but they were there. I really didn't even feel that sad, but if anything......that just made me feel worse. I should feel sadder, I should be full out crying with what I've just lost. I didn't just lose my home, I lost my life.

POV change: Twilight Sparkle

Oh no, what did I just say?!

Twilight felt horrible for making him cry, she felt horrible for being so insensitive. She hasn't even learned his name yet and she goes and asks all these questions. Now she felt like crying.

I shouldn't have asked these questions so soon, I should have waited longer

"I....I'm sorry....I-I shouldn't have said anything.....I..." Twilight began, not knowing what she should say.

"No, I'm fine." he said in an emotionless tone. "My thoughts would have come to it sooner or later, it's....better they get out of the way now."

Twilight didn't feel any better with him saying that. Whether they would have or not, she was the one that brought them up. She caused this by not being patient enough.

"I...I...umm." Twilight stammered.

"What she means to say is we'll try and help you." said the one with the stetson. "Twilight here is real good with magic and maybe she can find a way, and if that don't work we can see if Celestia can help ya get home."

Twilight hadn't thought of that. If this was caused by magic than maybe she could reverse it. And if she can't they could always see if Celestia could. But Twilight still felt a bit angry at Applejack. Putting his hopes up could just make matters worse. What if they can't send him back, what if he's stuck here.

"I don't know if that would work." he said.

"Huh?" all ponies present said in unison.

"Even if there was a spell that could send me back, how would you aim it?" he said "How would you even know where to look, let alone get me there."

He had a point. Even if the magic used to bring him here left a trail, he said it was really far away. And if it's as far as he let it out to be, the trail would be spread far too thin to follow. The only way to get him back is if they knew the exact spell that was used and the method.

Twilight was a bit surprised at how quickly he overruled Applejack's idea, it didn't even look like he had to think about it to know it wouldn't work. Either it was obvious to him, or he thinks very fast.

POV change: Thomas

Damn, since when do I think that deeply that fast. I didn't miss a beat and shot down the idea while it was still spinning in the air. Though it's not like I should be happy I shot that down, at least I would have had some hope.......even if only for a while.

"Be that as it may, Twilight is astounding with her magical talent and could still get it to work." "Right Twilight?" said the pearl white one that had remain quiet till now.

"I....I don't know......maybe." Twilight said solemnly.

"A maybe's not a no yet, and a maybe could still be a yes." said the pink one with the poofy hair. "So, turn that frownie upside down aroundsie and have a 'make me feel better' cupcake!" she then proceeds to pull a blue and pink frosted, chocolate cupcake out of nowhere.

"Uhhhhh......I think I'll pass on the cupcake." I say, not really feeling like eating at the moment.

Or eating law defying, anti-depressive baked goods for that matter

"But its really really good, and there's even chocolate inside the chocolate." she says trying to lure me in with its obviously chocolaty goodness.

Yo dawg, I heard you like chocolate

Not now, Brain, talking with ponies

If we were in any other place right now, I would have rage quit on the spot with what you just said

"Anyway." said the rainbow-maned one, speaking up again. "We'll try and help you."

"Nopony deserves to lose their home." whispered the yellow one.

"We'll help ya through this, partner." said the stetson pony "But we should start off by introducing each other." "Ah'm Applejack, so what's yer name?"

".....Thomas." I have the feeling this is going to be a fun/scary/insane ride.

Well here's chapter four. I was going to take the cliche and make it that I'm all happy and excited to be in a world of magic with talking horses and sad stuff is thrown in between, but decided against it. I think it's better that moments like this are out of the way, so 'fiction me' doesn't progressively get sadder and sadder and have an emotional break-down in the future.

Azure Steel

Aurelianus

Chapter 5: Aurelianus

Well, I now know their names. The rainbow-maned one is call Rainbow Dash, I chuckled a bit when she said it. The pearl white one, with the violet mane, is Rarity. The one who had untied me earlier was Applejack. I was confirmed of Twilight's name. Pinkie Pie was the one who offered me the cupcake. And the quiet yellow, pink maned pony who had remained by the door was Fluttershy.

Twilight looked kind of depressed, probably from our previous conversation, and refused to make eye contact. The others had either looks of either skepticism, concern or a mixture of the two. Rainbow Dash was mostly skeptic. Fluttershy had the most concern in her eyes, or at least I think it's concern. She was eying me nervously and when ever we made eye contact she would look away rather quickly.

Twilight at the moment was looking through some books on the shelves around us. It was quite an impressive library. There were books on almost any topic, and they were very well organized, everything looked like it could be easily found as long as you knew what you were looking for. Helping Twilight was a baby dragon with purple primary scales and green secondary scales, I heard Twilight call him Spike, he hasn't said much to me, but Twilight is keeping him pretty busy. Twilight has her nose(or would it be muzzle?) in a book titled 'Realm-shifting and Mana-bridges'. I'm not sure what a mana-bridge would be, but it sounded like it's what we'd want.

"Okay, I think I have a spell that might work." Twilight said, finally breaking the silence.

"Ya sure?" asked Applejack.

"The spell says it will connect our two worlds together, using Thomas as the guide."

"Uhh, what does it mean by 'guide'?" I ask

"Since you haven't been here long, you should still have a connection to your world. The spell uses that connection and follows it."

"Well then lets try it." said Rainbow Dash.

Twilight, remaining where she was, began preparing the spell. The tip of her horn was dimly glowing a pale white. The light got progressively brighter and streams of prismatic colors began flowing down along her horn. There was a bright flash then everything went quiet.

I open my eyes and look at myself then around the room, nothing seems different. But I do feel a bit weird so I know that something happened, though as far as I can tell, everything looks the same.

"D...did it work?" I ask.

Everyone just looked at me with faces of surprise, Rarity looking the most surprised.

"Uhhh.....Twilight?" Spike asked. "Was that supposed to happen?"

"Ummm.....no." Twilight answered, who was now making eye contact.

"What?" I ask, wondering what happened.

"Why.....don't you have a look." Rarity said, levitating a small mirror to me.

I look at myself and almost everything looked fine, almost. My left eye was now a bright, blood red and my right a cool sapphire. They appeared to even be glowing dimly. But it wasn't just the color that came to me as strange. When I looked in my left eye, I felt scared, I felt angry, I even felt sad. And when I looked in my right eye, I felt safe, calm, and a bit happy. It was weird, it was like all my negativity was in my left, and my positivity in my right. It was as if my soul got cut in half.

"Oh." was all I said at the sight. I felt very conflicted. One side of me wants to run up and hit Twilight for messing up the spell, and the other wants to reassure her that I'm fine and not mad at her. I felt......wrong.

"Oh, this was not supposed to happen, I'm so sorry." said Twilight, looking at me apologetically.

"Are........are you alright?" asked Fluttershy with concern in her voice.

"I.....don't know, I don't feel right." I say abruptly while putting the mirror down. "I......feel like two separate halves fighting." "One furious, and the other cool and collected." I say holding my head trying to calm down.

"Ummmm, maybe I can fix this." Twilight says look back at the books.

I sigh, my eyes closed in thought. Thinking all this over, trying to clear my head.

One thing just leads to another here

It.....would appear that way

Is something wrong?

I.....feel a disturbance in the Force

Uhhh....what?

Duuhuude......

Holy Shit!

Dah Faq?

Duuude, how do you think magic even, like, works?

What the hell did Twilight do?!

It would appear our mind has split into separate personalities

Another one?!

THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!!

What theactualfuck?!

Okay, okay we need to calm down

YOU CALM THE HELL DOWN!!

Damn, who deleted your WoW account?

Oh god, this is not happening

I think I'm becoming schizophrenic

I think I'm developing phonophobia

SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!!

"Um......Thomas?"

"Huh, w-what?" I say nervously, snapping out of the fucked up train of thought I had found myself in.

"Are you feeling alright, you were mumbling and...um....twitching a bit." Fluttershy said in her seemingly always quiet voice.

"Uhhhg.." I grumble shaking my head. "Twilight, if your going to fix this, please hurry." I say with a bit of fear in my voice. "Otherwise I think I'll be driven insane soon."

"I'm trying, but I can't seem to find out what went wrong." answered Twilight. "It was supposed to link things together, not break them apart!"

It happened because YOUR A STUPID BITCH!!

"Ow..." I say holding my head. For a thought in my head, that was loud.

"What's wrong?" asked Twilight, looking even more concerned

"I have a voice in my head right now yelling insults at you." I say in a way that makes it sound normal.

"What?!" they all said in unison. How the fuck do they do that?

"I think you gave me a split personality disorder."

Told you

"Oh this is bad, I'm so so sorry Thomas, but I'll fix it!" stated Twilight, sounding even more apologetic.

Dude, we should so go give her a hug right now, I mean dude, she is freaking out

Are you sure that's wise with our current mental state.......and with Rage all up in here

Dude, I have never been so unsure in my life

I.......see a table, take it.........and SHOVE ITS LEG IN HER EYE!!

Rage, your not helping

But.....proving my point

Oh god, why?

Indeed

"Alright, this spell might work, its suppose to-"

"Don't tell me what it does, just do it." I interrupt.

"Umm...okay.."

She once again started charging up a spell. With this one, it matched her aura and was a swirling ball around her horn that got darker then brighter and then dark again. The ball grew about three times its original size then flew at me. I close my eyes as it hit me, and was quite surprised when it actually hit me.

I got thrown across the library, hit a shelf, and landed back on the floor, next Rainbow Dash, with a pile of books on top of me. For a moment I felt paralyzed, but it passed quickly. I sit up from the pile, kicking a book or two, rubbing my head; which probably soon have a welt.

"Oh my gosh!" shouted Twilight. She helped me up with her magic and moved books out of the way. "Are you okay, are you hurt?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." I say trying to move, and wince when I do. "My chest is a little sore though."

"Are you sure?" Twilight said concerned. I flex a bit and nod. "Why is this happening?!" "I've tried two spells, and they both didn't do what they were supposed to do."

"What if he's magic resistant...you know, like a dragon." said Spike.

"That.....that...could be the reason....." Twilight quietly said. "Or maybe you're just interfering with it, causing the spell to do something else."

"But if ya can't use magic on him, how are ya gonna get this ta work?" asked Applejack.

"Um, Twilight?" I say quietly.

"I'm not sure." answered Twilight.

"Twilight......?"

"Maybe we can try a bunch of different spells until we get one that works." Rainbow offered.

"..........Twi.......?"

"I don't believe that will solve anything, Rainbow Dash." said Rarity.

"Twilight!" I shout.

"What?!" Twilight shouted concerned.

"I don't hear the voices in my head anymore." I say calmly.

"Wait.........so.....it worked." Twilight asked sounding a bit skeptic.

Either that, or the fall made us so insane we don't even know we've become more insane than we already were

"Well, I don't hear my head telling me to hit you with a table, sooo.....I'm gonna say it worked."

Who says I don't want to hit her with a table?

Shut up, Brain

"There was one telling you to hit her with a Table?!" asked Rainbow Dash

"There was also one telling me to hug her, but then another one said that would have been a bad idea due to the situation of me being partially insane at the time." I say far too calmly.

"Sooo...no more voices now?" asked Twilight, who seemed to have disregarded my previous statement.

"Besides the one that's supposed to be there, no."

Twilight sighs. "Well, that's good." she says. "But it still doesn't explain why the spell through you across the room, or why the other spell had a different effect." Twilight sounded frustrated, which I can relate to, I get pretty pissed when there's something I can't figure out.

*Knock* *Knock*

Suddenly, someone was knocking on the door. Everyone present jumped at the sound. Spike went to go see who was there. After opening it partially, he opened it all the way to allow another pony to walk in. This pony was quite different from the other six. She had a bright, white coat and a multicolor mane and tail that appeared to sway in an invisible wind. Her presence felt comforting, but also intimidating. She had both a set of wings and a horn, and she was adorned be regal golden accessories as well as a crown, so if I had to guess, this must be-

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight gasped, before running up and nuzzling her ruler, while everyone else respectfully bowed. I sat there not moving or speaking (or breathing for that matter), not that I really had anything to say at the moment.

"Twilight, it is good to so you." Celestia said in a soft voice. "I believe this is the creature you were referring to in your letter." she said turning her gaze to me.

And moments later, a brick was shat

POV change: Obcasus

He was in a dark room, surrounded by images of stars, planets, and realities. He had been very close, so very close to obtaining his prize. Then it was pulled away from him, put into a light he himself could not enter........for now.

"Obcasus." said a voice from behind him.

Obcasus turned to view its source. Behind him was a familiar draconequus. To which he paid no mind and returned to viewing his vision.

"Awww, is that the hello I get for coming all this way to see you?" said Discord, sounding disappointed.

"We haven't spoken in millennium, and you expect me to believe you aren't here for something." Obcasus said unamused. "The last time we spoke you were asking me to help take over a world."

"Hey, I like what I like."

"And why you chose a single world is beyond me."

"It had the least chaos, and the most harmony." Discord retorted. "Why wouldn't I want to mess all that up?"

"And where did it lead you?" Obcasus asked.

"2000 years in stone and counting, but it's just a minor set back." said Discord. "And not why I came here."

"If your going to continue to annoy me until your done, then I'm listening."

"I was just flying around minding my own business, being a spirit, Then out of nowhere BOOM, there's a human in Equestria."

".........what." Obcasus said

"Since I know humans aren't supposed to be in Equestria I assumed it had something to do with you and Tenebris, but I guess I was mistaken." said Discord smiling.

"Quite an odd place for Tenebris to have sent the Anima.........for now though I can not journey there." Obcasus said turning to Discord

"Soooo you want me to watch him, maybe even give him a little push." Discord said grinning.

"The Anima soon will be within reach." he said, giving a devilish smile towards the world of Equus.

Pereant

Chapter 6: Pereant

Why do I feel scared? I shouldn't be scared. So why am I scared?

I kept asking myself as I stood in the presence of Celestia. It seemed her intimidation factor outweighed her comfort factor. Its only been a few seconds, but my heart is going through its motions like a strobe light. I should probably say something,......or at least stop staring blankly. That would be a good start.

"I am Princess Celestia, what do you call yourself?" she asked, looking at me with those eyes.

"Uhhhh........"

"His name is Thomas." Twilight answered in my place, giving me a look. "Don't mind him, he's been through a lot today."

Tell me about it

Have you seen my jet-pack by any chance?

Same place I stored my fucks to give

"Well I hope you haven't run into too much trouble upon arriving here." "Twilight has explained to me the situation, and if you have any questions, you need only ask." Celestia said, giving a soft smile.

"Uh....t-thank you." I say.

Any reason why I see the troll face when she smiles?

Dude.....magic......the holy grail of troll physics

I think her mane is giving me a soft-core seizure

"We will see if you can be returned you to your world, but until then, my student and the other Elements will watch over you and teach you to survive here in case we fail to send you home." "Do you understand this?"

"Y-yeah, I understand."

"Then I will take my leave." she said as she turned to Twilight "Report to me on any new developments, Twilight."

"I will, Princess." Twilight said giving a small nod. Celestia returned the gesture, and in a flash of light, she was gone. With Celestia gone, Twilight turned to me and gave a disapproving look. "What was that?" she said in a equally disapproving tone.

"What was what?" I say staring blankly, confused.

Rarity decided to answer for Twilight. "That was a rather rude way of meeting the Princess."

Like I give a fuck

"Sorry, but I'm still adjusting to where I am.....and I've also never met royalty, so I wouldn't know what would be the correct way to act around them.....and I've never seen prismatic hair that sways in an invisible wind before....or even a pony for that matter until just recently........I still think I may have just gone insane.......well....more insane then I would have been considered before coming here." I say, my voice getting more of a 'as-a-matter-of-fact' tone to it with each sentence.

"You were considered 'insane' before getting here?" Rainbow said it like she was surprised I haven't attacked any of them yet.

"I'm sane enough that I can interact with society, but I'm insane enough that I often talk to myself."

You really don't know when to stop talking when you're freaking out

"What's so insane about talking to yourself, I do that all the time, it helps me remember things." Pinkie said with a quizzical look and a tilt of the head.

"Yes, but, do you get an answer." I retort. They stare at me, like I just eat my own hand.

Twilight responds. "I thought you said all the voices were gone?!"

"No, I said 'besides the one that's supposed to be there', I never said they were all gone." I say, still retaining my as-a-matter-of-fact tone.

"I thought you meant your own thoughts."

"When someone says 'I have a voice in my head' they tend not to mean their own voice." Is it weird that I'm having fun with this debate on insanity.

"That's different."

"In what way." I say raising an eyebrow.

"It....it just is." she said having no response.

Quit trolling her thoughts on logic

There are no brakes on the Troll Train!

That's not even the right quote from the meme

You mad?

NO!

You just mad at my genius

In meme-talk, 'genius' has another meaning

I say that took a rather hasty exacerbation north

"I believe I was victorious in that debate, if you so desire my presence I shall be found making residence in the room I awoke in only moments ago, for I am in need of rest." I say as they all are surprised at my gentlemanness. I make my way upstairs and still can't hear a response. I close the door behind me and.......swan dive into the bed. I wasn't kidding when I said I wanted to sleep.

Like a sir

Shut up, Brain

It would appear......something is wrong. I don't know what it is but something was frighteningly wrong. I was in a room that looked to have no detail. The walls were plain white; no visible texture or indents. The floor was the same but black, making it look non-existent. The ceiling was the only thing that looked to have any detail. The ceiling looked like something you'd see in an insane asylum. There were claw marks and carvings covering the whole of it, blood stains followed several of the marks, bringing to mind the one who made them had bleeding fingers. The longer I stared, the stronger the cold feeling in me got. I pull my eyes away, looking all around the room; for any sign of an exit.

I look again at the walls and at the floor for any sort of door or window. They were still the absent, texture-less barriers of white and black they were before. I look back at the ceiling and........my heart stops.

On the ceiling, all the carvings were still there, same with the blood.......but.......in the center of the ceiling........was me.....just standing there......defying gravity. I was mangled. My skin had more carvings then the ceiling itself. My left arm torn to shreds, hardly any skin was left and the bone was visible. I had barb-wire like chains sewn around and through my body, starting at my right leg and spiraled up to my chest. My right arm was covered in a black metal armor with a faint red glow coming from the openings, along with black smoke, which was no doubt my skin burning. My head, strangely unlike the rest of my body, appeared untouched. My hair even looked clean, although still unkempt.

My head moved, and stared down at me, letting me see my eyes. My eyes were soulless, no emotion, no pain, anger or even sadness, but that's what frightened me. They were blood red and faintly glowing, not unlike my left eye. He opened his mouth and spoke.

It's nICe To sEE YOu, LiGhT

His voice was a lot like mine, but his was double toned and had no feeling to it. It was unnerving. Seeing myself, but being right here, hearing myself talk without my words.

Who are you?

I aM EVerYtHiNG YouR Not, LiGhT

That still doesn't tell me who you-

I HavE AlWayS BeEN BESide YOu, yeT alWaYs ouT of ReaCH

I KnOW EvEryThIng AbOut YoU, Yet We'vE neVeR MEt

I AM sOmeWHere In ThE LIGHt, bUt NoWherE iN tHe DARk

EverYthInG wE do, We Do TOgeTher, BuT WE aRe AlWayS SeperAtE

WhO aM I, LiGhT

I think about what he just said. What does he mean. How can he know me, yet we've never met before. And how is he nowhere in the dark? What is he, a ninja? We do everything together, but we're always apart. How does that work? If this is supposed to be a riddle, it really sucks. A ghost? A robot? A me that just came 'Back To The Future'? Why does he have to be trolling me and leaving it all in the sha...............dows. Shadows. He's a shadow. You can see a shadow in the light, but not in the dark. Anything you do it will copy. Everybody has one, but no one can touch them. They know everything, because they're always there. That's why he keeps calling me light. I'm the light, and he's the shadow. He's MY shadow.

Shadow

You're Shadow

Something clicked just then, like a veil being removed. The air grew hot, and the floor cold. The entire room shifted and warped. The claw marks on the ceiling disappeared and reappeared on the floor. The walls then had markings added to them. Everything lost it's previous absent look and gained detail.

I was in a room of stone and metal. What looked like meaningless carving were now readable. KILL. KILL. FREEDOM. BLIGHT. SHADOWS. FEAR. PAIN. KILL. FIGHT. DESTROY. TORTURE. BLIGHT. FREEDOM. BREAK. SUFFER. KILL. PAIN. FIGHT. SHADOWS. FEAR. SUFFER. The same words repeated over and over all along the walls and floor.

I feel a chill down my back. I know there is something behind me. I don't want to look, but I know it may be the only way out of this nightmare. I slowly turn around to the wall behind me. And......in..big...blood.....coated..letters.

DAY TO NIGHT, DARK TO LIGHT

Gravis abscondito

Chapter 7: Eximius Amet

I wake up. I was petrified. Too scared to even scream. What was that about, did I just have a talk with my dark side. If that's the case, my dark side is one bad-ass mothafucka.

Passing it off, thinking it was just a nightmare, I get out of the bed and look out the window. It was still bright out, so I probably wasn't asleep for long. I don't hear anything coming from downstairs, everyone has no doubt left by now.

I make my way to the door, reaching out to open it, when I notice something. My arm......my left arm......had no pain. I take a closer look at it, still covered in bandages. I try moving and stretching it, and still no pain. Thinking it must have been healed by Twilight's magic or something, I begin to unravel the bandages. My arm looked completely fine. No scar, no scab, no sign it was ever injured in the first place, but on my hand there was something new.....a mark.

On the back of my hand, spanning about 3 inches long and 3 inches wide, was a four point, red star. I touch it with my other hand, and it felt hot, it even looked like it was glowing. On each point of the star there were different colored tips. The left was blue, the right was orange, the bottom was red like the star itself, but darker, and the top was green.

When the fuck did that get there?

After staring at it for awhile, I finally open the door, and head downstairs. After I reach the middle of the stairs I call out. "Twilight?" I wait a second, and get no response. "Spike?" No response either. "Hello?" Were they out with the others? If that was the case, I'm surprised they'd let me be alone. You tend not to trust someone you just met with your house....er tree......library? Anyway.

With no one here, I decide to take a look around. And I am now certain this is a house. It has a kitchen, living room, a bedroom with a balcony, a bathroom and a basement........lab. Okay, it's one thing to have a lab, but it's a completely different story having a lab in your basement. I mean seriously. I'm now relieved I didn't wake up strapped to a chair with all types of wiring attached to me head-to-toe.

Now with my self-given tour of the house done, I go back to the star on my arm. What the hell is it? I remember seeing tattoos on the.....flanks?....of the ponies, maybe it's something like that. Did they give it to me in my sleep? If I do get back home, my mom is gonna be pissed. How would I even explain this? 'Hey mom, I'm back. Oh this? That's just a tattoo that magical horses from another universe gave me, cool right?'. No. There would be hell to pay, cushion wall covered hell.

I don't think it's a tattoo.

And why's that?

Unless they mixed the ink with hot fudge, it shouldn't have a temperature difference this big.

Oh, so your saying you know what it is? Please tell me how a scolding hot emblem appeared on my hand.

Well first off, you basically being condescending to yourself. And second, are you a dumb-ass? You're in a world with 'magic', maybe it's a sign you have your own magic now.

Seriously? I'm not saying that isn't awesome, but seriously? This feels like this is something that would happen in a cartoon, a book, or an anime.

Yeah, but, you like all three of those things.

..........True, but it still feels like it's too good to be true, if this is going to turn into one of those things, shit is going to get serious.

Hopefully you end up more like Ichigo than Naruto.

Why? They're both bad-asses, and could kick just about everyone else's ass, so why is Naruto bad?

He basically has a demon spirit in his body that when agitated could destroy a whole country.

So does Ichigo.

Yeah, but that was added to him later on, Naruto got it right after he was born and had very little control over it.

He learned to control it.

After his childhood.

I'm not a child.

But, you still just got the power and will obviously have little control over it, just like when Ichigo first met his hollow self.

And what exactly am I supposed to do with this information.

Use you power wisely. With great power comes great responsibility.

Don't quote Spider-Man.

It's not from Spider-man, it's just in Spider-Man.

Close enough.

Anyway, now, you should start learning to control it. If the wooden wolves and winged horses aren't an indication, this world is full of mythical creatures.

And?

And, that means many dangerous things. Take dragons for example.

Spike isn't dangerous.

According to mythology, dragons can live for thousands of years and their stages of age, like infant and child, last for years.

Soooo.....

So, Spike is probably a baby and-

The adults are probably huge.

Exactly.

Well, lets get started then.

So I started practicing, or, at least tried to. I didn't really now where to start. How does one go about using magic when you went most of your life believing it didn't exist. Well, my way was doing what most people did right after having a dream where they had telekinesis. I started focusing. On a single object in space. For a really long time..........or at least two minutes. I was focusing everything thing a had on a book in the library, trying to get it to move even an inch. It wouldn't.

I don't think it's working.

No, REALLY?! I thought I was moving the house for a second there.

Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way.

What d'ya mean?

What if we have magic, but just not something along the lines of telekinesis.

Good point............Wait! What if our magic is more like a mage's from Fairy Tail.

Maybe based around one or several elements.

But we still need to find out which element we have.

Well, the star on your hand is red, right?

Yeah.

And it's hot to the touch, right

Yeah.......

Maybe it's fire.

Like Natsu's?

Maybe not like Natsu's, his was taught to him by a dragon, but maybe still fire based.

So.......what? Should I try lighting something one fire?

Worth a shot. Try your hand.

My hand?!

It's your magic, the fire should be friendly to you.

Just because it is in an anime, doesn't mean it will be in real life.

Does the emblem feel hot on the hand it's on?

........no.

Then stop being a wuss, and light your hand on fire.

So I calm down, I relax and try focusing on my hand. I picture energy flowing from me into my hand and engulfing it in it's light and heat. My hand begins to feel warm, but not by much, and then the feeling vanishes. My hand returns to normal without me seeing even a spark, or even an ember. I try again, and get the same outcome. I feel my hand get warm and then cold again as I try to light it. With each attempt I get another failure, but I keep trying. With each try I get a little more impatient, and a little angrier with each failure. I had to have tried over thirty times before I just raged.

"WHAT THE FUCK, WHY WON'T IT WORK!" I yell, slamming my fist on a nearby book, which proceeds to burst into to flames along with my hand.

"Holy Fuck!" I shout as I get up and stomp on the book trying to put out the fire.

After a few hits with my shoe, the fire is out. The one on my hand went out a few seconds after the book was set aflame. The ends of the book's pages are charred and crumbling, the floor also has a noticeable burn mark. I look down at my hand and see no injury, no burns or blisters.

Well, I guess we found out how to get it to work.

Yeah, I just have to get mad.

But enough of that, now to the really problem.

What's that?

How are you going to explain the burnt book to Twilight?

..........................Well fu-

Oculos aures

Chapter 8: Oculos aures

"OH SHIT."

"OH SHIT!"

Calm the fuck down!

How the hell am I supposed to calm down?! I just torched a book that belongs to a magically talented unicorn from a different reality that could probably teleport me into a wall!

Or a rock, or the space between here and the sun.

Not helping!

Just calm down, I have an idea.

And what's that?!

Turn the book to ash.

Now how does that help?!

How will she find it if there's no book to find?

That plan...........could very well........BURN DOWN THIS WHOLE FUCKING TREE! ARE YOU INSANE!

You tell me. I'm you.

What ever. How about we use your idea. BUT. We use it outside.

Sounds like a plan. Lets go.

So I take the burnt book under my arm and make my way to the door. Just as I'm about to reach down to open it, my left hand gets warm and the emblem starts glowing brighter. "What the hell?" I take my hand away from the door and the glowing darkens. I bring it closer and it brightens.

Uhhh why do you think that's happening?

Dunno, maybe you're like Danny Phantom too.

What?

Your powers can sense other powers like and/or similar to your own.

What, so there's a spell on the door?

Maybe.

Well that would explain why they left me alone. They probably spell locked me in here.

Maybe you can break it

Yeah, 'cause breaking someone else's property is a nice way to get on their good side.

Not the door, the spell.

Besides how to light my hand on fire, I don't know shit about magic, let alone wards and barriers.

Well you gotta start somewhere. And besides, they probably don't think you can use magic, so they wouldn't use anything complicated. Maybe it's like lockpicking, but with your mind.

Well, I don't even know how to lockpick, but sure, why not try and see if it works?

I started by sitting down with my legs crossed, with the door in arms reach. I try touching the door, my hand growing hot as it gets closer. Just before my hand touches the door, and I feel a little resistance. Like when you try to touch the same sides of two magnets together. There is a violet glow forming in front of my hand that looks just like you'd think a barrier would look like. I press harder, trying to see just how strong it is.

After applying more force, I start to hear a quiet static sound. Not like static on a TV, but like the sound of a plasma globe. I push harder, making the sound grow louder and louder. I can now see little bolts of electricity jump around my hand and the barrier. My hand is feeling hot, like it's in boiling water, but it doesn't hurt. Using what knowledge of energy flow I've learned from all the anime I've watched, I try flowing my magic into the barrier.

I imagine I'm a big body of water, a river out in front of me. I watch as the water flows through the river and at a dam. I feel resistance as the water hits the dam, physical resistance, I take it as a sign I'm doing it right. I increase the current, making the water flow at the dam faster and faster. I feel the resistance weakening, as my force strengthens. Then there's a give.

I feel like a weight was lifted off me as the dam breaks. I see the barrier shatter like glass and fade out of existence. The heat in my hand leaves and the glowing stops.

Holy shit I did it.

And people say magic doesn't work the way you think it does.

Well those people can suck it.

I get up, now feeling a little tired, and reach for the door. No resistance. I open the door and I am met with bright light and colors with other ponies in the distance. I close the door. And think. How will I get past them? There's too many of them and I appear to be in the center of a village or town.

I run upstairs to the large window in my room and open it (after breaking the barrier). I look outside with unobscured sight, and have my thought proven right. I'm in the center of a town, near what appears to the town square. I see ponies of all colors trotting back and forth along the paved roads going up to stalls and doing their own business all around the square.

That's a lot of ponies

Nevermind the numbers, look at all the colors. I feel like I'm going to get a seizure just looking at them.

What's those marks on their asses?

Are they like the one on my hand?

From what we've seen, only unicorns can use magic.

We should ask Twilight when she gets back.

We still need to deal with the book.

Riiiiiiiight. Well guess we're going with the unaltered plan.

I run back downstairs, book in hand, and make my way into the kitchen. I look and find the trash can, take it and put it over the stove. Luckily the can is empty, so I won't have to worry about making the library smell like burnt garbage. I take the book and place it in the can.

I raise my hand over the book clenched in a fist and funnel rage into my hand. Don't ask me how I did it, I'm still a little skeptical on how it works. After I feel the heat in my hand reach it's peak, I open my hand and slam it down on the book. The book bursts into flames and almost appeared to explode. I break the barrier on a nearby window and let the smoke flow out.

Well that's done.

I wonder what the book was about, hopefully not anything important

If it was really that important, it shouldn't have been laying out in the open in the first place.

Once the fire was out, and the book was ashes, I emptied it out the window, closed it and made my way back into the main room. On the way I notice that I'm really tired again. Probably from using this much magic in such a short time. I am just a beginner after all.

Dragging my feet, I make my way back up to my room, close the window I left open and laid back in bed.

Well, my time here may have been short, but it has been pretty fun so far. Maybe staying in this world won't be so bad. I already have a place to stay, I've learned that I have magic and even have a good first grasp on using it. Even if I am actually insane, it doesn't seem like it will be getting too boring anytime soon. And I wonder how the rest of the locals will react when they find out about me. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Sorry for the chapters getting shorter, but this was why I never made a story sooner. As I get farther in the story all of you and I will have to deal with my writers block. Hopefully a can get past it and pump out chapters faster, and make them longer. Thank you for reading and I hope for your support in latter chapters.

Tracto is

Chapter 9: Tracto is

I wake up hearing voices down stairs. Twilight must be back. I get up stretching and make my way to the door and open it. Once I'm within their line of sight everyone stops and looks at me.

"What?" I ask.

The girls look at each other for a second before Twilight answers. "Was anything else in here with you?" I stop and think for a second. No one was in the house other than me. I even looked all around the house during my tour. "Not that I know of. Why?" I ask.

They all look at each other worried. "What? Is that a bad thing?" Twilight looks at me with more worry. "Well...I put a...barrier up...around the library, but...it's gone." I look at her, putting on my best poker-face I say: "Well I would think so. 'Cause I kind of broke it." She looks at me surprised and asks: "How did you do that?!"

I look down at my hand. Then back to her as I lift it to eye level. I then proceed to light my hand on fire. They all jump a bit. "That's how." They all look at me in astonishment. And a bit of fear, though that makes sense. If a guy I hardly knew, who lived in my house, could light himself with magic fire, I would be a little worried.

Spike speaks up. "You can light yourself on fire? How long have you been able to do that?" He says with curiosity. "I learned how to do it while you all were gone. And on another note, do you mind telling me what this is?" I say as I show them the emblem on my left hand.

"I think it's a cutie mark." He says with a completely straight face. I just look at him with a 'are you serious' face.

A what?

A what?

"Humans have those?" Twilight asks. I shake my head. "No, they don't. That's why I'm asking why it's there." Not that I don't mind the magic that comes with it, but I'd like to know the back story this thing has. Like, why didn't I have it when I got here? Why is it a star? Why is it blue? Wait....da fuck?!

Since when is this thing blue, it was red before. Hmm...odd. It's the same blue that's on the on the left point of the star. "OK, know I have more questions. This thing was red a minute ago, so why is it blue?" I say making Twilight's eyes perk up "What? But...cutie marks don't change. That can't be a cutie mark."

Oh thank God. I was worried for my masculinity a second there.

"Well that does make sense. 'Cause I may not know a lot about 'cutie marks', but I don't think they heal you." I say. "What do you mean?" Rarity asks. "My arm is healed." I respond, making they look at my arm. Fluttershy flies up to me and inspects my arm, noticing no scaring or any sign I was ever injured. "I was worried you wouldn't be able to use your arm right. It's a good thing it's healed now." It was my turn to be surprised. Until now, Fluttershy hasn't really said anything to me. And even when she did, it was very quietly. "But are you sure you're alright?" she says looking up at me.

This was the first time I've had a good look at her. She has big, bright, sapphire blue eyes. Her coat, which I previously described as just yellow, is a calming sunset color. And her mane and tail are a vibrant pink that reminds me of a lotus flower. Why the hell am I thinking about this?

I snap out of it in time to answer. "Y-yeah. I'm fine." Felling reassured, she glides back down to her friends, while my gaze follows her. Gah! Stop looking! Why am I thinking of this?! Well...she is pretty adorable Ahhhh! Stop it brain! I distract myself by looking at the emblem on my hand again, and freeze.

Now it's green. What the fuck is going on? I think. I look back to them, making sure not to look into Fluttershy's eyes. "This is really strange, but it could have something to do with the spells you were hit with." Twilight explains.

That would make sense. We came from a world without magic. So, naturally, we'd have to be exposed to it before we can use it ourselves.

I don't think I ever told them my world had no magic.

Best you don't then, less explaining that way.

Yeah.

OOOoo, you know what would be troll?!

What the fuck?!

What the fuck?!

To end the chapter right here!

What...the...h-

Author's Note

Sorry for the abrupt ending, but.....writers block...you gotta hate it. I'm trying, but at the moment, am failing. But I will not give up....at least not yet anyway, I think I can push out a few more chapters before that happens......right?

Ego vos feci vertendumque

Chapter 10: Ego vos feci vertendumque

I feel very constricted. I can't see anything. And my own body feels foreign to me. Man I hate walking up. I open my eyes for the first time since I woke up from that weird ass dream. Well, it was pretty normal considering whats happened to me up to now, but...you know...dreams feel that way a lot.

I raise my hand to my eye and am 'happy' to see it not different colors. It is it's 'normal' red with three different colored points, the fourth being red to begin with. Next, I try lighting my hand on fire again, and the success of this attempt actually perked me up a bit. I may be in a fucked up magical world with ponies, but at least I still got some fire power of my own. Heh...fire power.

Aaaaaand enough of this.

I get out of bed, then proceed to almost fall over from vertigo. Once I'm stable I begin to head down stairs, where I (once again) hear noise.

I better not still be dreaming.

Otherwise the effort you put into getting up would be wasted.

Once the Library was in view I see what was making the noise. It was just Spike, nobody else was around.

"Hey, Spike." My call must have startled him, because he was now underneath the load of books he was carrying.

"Uhh, sorry. Didn't mean to scare ya."

Popping his head out from under the books he says: "You didn't scare, just wasn't expecting it." Yeah, riiiight. Anyway back to the task at hand.

"Where's Twilight and the others?" They don't appear to be here as far as I can see.

"Oh, Twilight is just out getting some things, she should be back soon." I don't know if I should consider that I good thing or a bad thing. "Everypony else is off doing their own things." Hmm, odd. They must be awfully trusting to leave me alone with a baby dragon... Then again, he's a 'dragon'. What am I going to do? His scales are probably like armor, and he can breath fire. Though I can probably do that too now. I wonder what fire tastes like?

I think you really have gone insane. Most people would be worried they'd burn their mouth. But you're just wondering what it tastes like.

Dude, shut up. You're me, you're wondering what it tastes like too.

It probably tastes like Hell, with a hint of raging inferno.

Well lets see if you're right.

Wait, what?

I take a deep breath and do what I usually did to bring out my fire. But, instead of having it build up and focus, I had it grow into a swirling vortex of energy in the back of my throat. Once I felt like I had enough to breath fire, but not burn down the tree, I released my breath along with the built up energy. The result was not what I was expecting, but still pretty cool.

Out from my mouth came a fist sized fire ball which, due to me not focusing the energy, dissipated a few feet in front of me.

"Whoa, what the heck was that!" Spike shouted.

I pause for a second before responding. "Hmm, so fire does have a taste." I mutter.

"How did you do that?!"

I shrug. "I'm a pyrokinetic." Spike just gives me a startled and confused look.

"Whats that mean, that you can breath fire?"

I tilt my head a bit. "Well yeah, but It also means my whole body can generate and control fire."

His face got less startled, but more confused. "Have you always been able to do that?"

I shrug again. "I dunno, maybe." Obviously a lie, the answer to that question should have been no, but meh.

"OK...then why did you do that? Shoot fire out I mean." He asks.

"I was curious if fire tasted like anything, and it does. Don't have anything to compare it to though."

Spike gives me a skeptical look. "Are you sure you aren't some sort of scaleless dragon? Because as weird as that sounds, it seems more believable." Que flashback... yep still human.

"No, I'm pretty sure I'm still a human, but I guess if someone doesn't believe me that I'm an alien from another world or I'm not allowed to tell them that, then that will be a good back story." Spike face...palms? Claws? Whatever.

"You want to try testing it?" The question catches me off guard. Test what?

"Huh?" I say, giving him a face that's only meaning can be: What?

"I mean test to see if you have any other dragon qualities." I think about it for a second. Natsu sometimes grew scales at really intense scenes, and even flew before. And there was that time he ate Etherion, which looked like gemstone and I'm pretty sure dragon fangs can break gemstone. Why not see if I'm like a dragon.

"Sure, I guess." This could be fun to try.

"Cool, lets go in the kitchen." Spike says whilst heading to said kitchen. The kitchen? Why there?

I follow Spike into the kitchen. He runs over to a cupboard while I wait by the table. He comes back with a, honest to god, bowl of assorted gemstones. I couldn't help but be surprised. This amount would cost a fortune back on Earth, and he had them sitting around in a kitchen. Either gems are very common in Equestria, or Twilight is loaded. Considering she lives in a tree library, I'm going to assume the former until further notice.

"Try eating one." He says it like he's giving me a damn cookie! Man I hope I don't break my teeth off these. I take one from the bowl, I can't remember what this gem is called. It's a bright yellow. I want to say topaz, but I'd probably be wrong.

I give it a once over, checking to see if it may be plastic or glass. I may not be an expert, but I think it's the real deal. With a small pause I through it in my mouth, an act that would make penny pinchers turn in their graves, and bit down. I hear a crack. OH SHIT, WAS THAT MY TOOTH?!?! I freeze for a second, waiting for the pain. Aaaand... nothing. No pain. No me screaming bloody murder. I am instead complimented with something else, something I really wasn't expecting. This shit tastes like fucking rock candy! But like... a hundred times better! I continue to chew then swallow. Holy crap, that's amazing. I can't believe this. I just ate a gemstone. Gemstones are among the hardest materials on Earth, and I just fucking ate one, and it was damn delicious too.

"Spike?" I say with no emotion.

"Yeah?"

"That was the single most delicious thing I have ever eaten!"

"I thought it would be." Wait a sec.

"Wait, you mean you knew I'd be able to eat that? How?" Can he see the future?

"Well, the reason dragons can breath fire without burning our insides is because of a magic coating. This coating is in our mouths, on our teeth, and on our scales, and basically our entire bodies. So, I thought that if you could breath fire without burning yourself, you must have this coating too." .....well that explains why my fire doesn't burn my hand, I probably have the coating on my skin too. Sweeeeeet.

"That is pretty awesome, if I have this I wonder what other dragon abilities I have." Not that I'm complaining about the ones I already have, but...you know.

"Well since you do have this coating, you should be able to stand in lava, and your skin should be really tough too."

Cool. "Awesome, how tough?"

He thinks for a second. "Well, you should be difficult to cut, but impacts still hurt." Note To Self: Blades good, Hammers bad. P.S. don't go jumping off cliffs.

"Since I really don't feel like cutting myself right now I think I'll just put that one as a maybe."

Spike rubs the back of his head before continuing. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

"So, Spike."

"Hmm?"

"You think I could have another one?"

Author's Note

Yes, finally got another one out. Sorry for nothing big really happening here, I'm still fighting through writers block. It's a losing battle so far, but this is a good start. I'll keep trying to push out chapters and I promise something will happen in the next chapter.

Latin got boring

Chapter 11: Latin got boring

I'm kind of sad right now. Damn it... I really wanted more gems. But spike said he wasn't even supposed to eat those, he only gave me one because he knew Twilight would have wanted to know if I could eat gems too. And he's probably right, but she may have been more up for testing the immunity to cutting thing, which I don't really want to try unless it's to save my life. Which it probably will. Oh well. Guess I'll just go practice my hellfire magic in a extremely flammable building. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

"Say, Spike?" He looks up to me. "Yeah?" "Don't suppose you know what Twilight plans for me to do while I'm here." The question made sense. I can't stay in the library forever, and the town's peo- er... ponies won't stay ignorant to my presents for long. Although, it would be kind of fun to try. Getting around town like a thief, or ninja. Or an assassin... Or maybe a thieving assassin ninja.

"Well, I think the girls want to show you around town. Though, they'll probably introduce you to the town first." Oh this is going to be 'fun'. I can see it now:

Aliens from other reality appears in Equestria, what will you do to prevent invasion?

I picture redneck ponies with shotguns.

How would they even hold the guns?

Better question; what would the guns look like?

I wonder if I can fly...

Maybe they- wait... what?

I'm just thinking. My magic can create fire, but can also break barriers. Who's to say it can't do other stuff, like flying.

Well, even if you can, that seems a bit far into to magic to accomplish. Farther than you've gotten.

Yeah I know, just a thought.

"Thomas?" Spike seems a bit worried. I wonder why. "Yeah?" He looks at me, but it does seem like he's looking AT me. I think he's looking at something else.

"Are you sure you're alright? I mean from Twilight blasting you." I feel fine, everything is where it should be. Physically and mentally. Does something look wrong? Do I have something on my face?! "Nothing feels wrong, why do you ask?" He gives me a funny look. "Cause your eyes are still messed up." What!

I run to the bathroom and look in the mirror. He's right. My eyes are still blue and red, but... I don't get the same feeling that I did before when I looked at them. I just see my eyes. No feeling of anger or calmness, of rage or sadness. I let my head drop. *sigh* "Well I guess that's one good thing." I look back at myself. It was the first time I got to just study my eyes. And I guess I looked pretty cool with one blue, and one red eye.

Still I can't help but wonder why my eyes are still like this. Was I wrong? Are the voices still there, but they're in a deeper part of my mind? A part of my mind I can't hear, or reach? Hopefully Rage won't be the first I meet again if they are still there, but I'll have to wait and see. No use thinking about it now, we'll wait for when that time comes. Then face it.

I go to leave the bathroom when I freeze. Not because I say something in the mirror, or a monster was behind me, or anything like that. More so, I actually froze. My hand felt like it was holding ice. I look at my hand's emblem, and it's changed. For real this time.

But this time it didn't change into any of the colors already on the star. It's a bright, white blue. It could easily be mistaken for silver. And the points of the star have changed to. The top was blue, the left was gold, the right was violet, and the bottom point is white. What was previously a dark, red star now looked like a bright, shimmering light.

What the hell happened to me now

Achievement unlocked: Blizzard fist

What, you think I have ice powers now?

Well, your hand is cold now, so why don't you try?

I focus one my hand again, and unlike with fire the 'ice' came out a lot easier. Though, if it is ice, it's not the ice of any liquid I've ever seen. It looks like a teal mist, it flickered like fire except it moved slower. At this point my hand was tingling, it was like pins and needles, but less uncomfortable. It had a dim glow to it with ribbons of light circling my hand and part of my forearm, making look like wisps were flying around my arm.

The sound made it seem like it too. The sound was like a bunch of quiet, drawn out cries. They didn't sound sad, or mad. It sound like they were speaking; speaking to me.

Well, guess I might as well see what it does

I point my hand at the floor and focus more of this... stuff into my hand. After I have a good amount. And by good I mean I couldn't see my hand anymore. I release it at the floor and, I didn't get what I expected.

I was launched at the ceiling, not expecting the force that came out of my hand. It was like shooting a shotgun but with a lot more recoil. The floor now has a small, fist-sized crater in it, and the ceiling has a head imprint. Oh my god. That was awesome.

May the force be with you, young mage.

After I recover, shaking my head a bit, I try something else. I focus on an object in the room and try to reach out to it with my magic. Imagining my energy raping around it like a sheet. After a second or so, slowly, it rises with a light blue glow around it. It hold it's position for a bit and then I put it back down.

Sweet Jesus

You know, that looks familiar

Really? What does it look like?

It looks like when Twilight was levitating books around

Wait... so it's not ice, but arcane. My magic just got a lot more awesome.

Indeed it has

But, no I only have more questions...

I go back outside to the center of the library. Spike working around. I'm surprised he didn't hear that. Take a seat and look at my hands. Up to now I've just been winging it, just using my magic as it comes, not think about the how, why or when my magic works. If I am to truly live in this world, this world where fantasy is reality, I need to step up my game. It may only be my second day here, but best to start now instead of regretting it later. I decide to think on it. I close my eyes and try to get inside my own head. I'm a skilled lucid dreamer, and can very easily fall asleep when I want to. But this will be the first time I've tried to simply travel into my mind.

I imagine myself falling into a hole, it's dark and bottomless. It has no features, just a black void. I see myself get deeper and deeper into this void, removing myself from reality. I feel myself drifting off, my senses get foggy and my thoughts calmer and slower. At my last conscious moment, I think one word.

Magic

"Uuugh" I groan. "What just happened?" I get up onto my knees, still looking at the ground. "What the hell? Grass? Am I outside?" I stand up to my tallest and look around. "Whoa..." Everywhere I look it just massive, never ending forest. The trees are tall, couldn't see the tops, but I could see light shining down.

The forest wasn't very dark, it was very well lit. The rays of light being evenly spread out to illuminate the whole forest with a serine glow. The forest itself was equally serine.

The trees are wide and straight, their bark being not to rough and not smooth enough so critters couldn't climb up them. The trees were a light brown, and their leaves were a dark green. The light that shown through the leaves made them appear to shimmer, this also making the light around the forest ground dance.

I felt very calm here, I don't hear anything except for birds. And for the life I couldn't remember how I got here, or why for that matter. But I didn't really care, I felt at peace here. I was content with just standing here. Standing here forever.

My trance is broken when I hear a sound in the distance, greatly contrasting to the calm forest. "That sound..." I've heard it before, but I couldn't place the where. The name of who made it on the other hand, I remember. How could I not, she was a large part of my childhood. And a part of one of the greatest times in my life, a part were I didn't worry about things like money, or people for that matter.

"Saria?"

Coruscant

Chapter 1: Coruscant

I was sitting at home doing a lot of nothing just laying on the couch staring at the ceiling. Mom and dad have gone to a party and my brothers were out too. I was so BORED, I've channel surfed and checked if there was anything new on the computer to do, but I had forgotten that the computer had gotten I virus awhile ago, it was a worm or something so we had wiped the computer and shut it down, it still hasn't been restocked with all of it's software.

So with nothing to do I went outside, when I'm bored I tend to do the first thing that comes to mind to waste time, in this case go to FreshCo and buy something with the little money I got on me. I get my hoodie and start my way there.

On the way I notice that the sky looked different then normal; it looked colorful. I don't mean it was mindfucking me with rainbow colorfulness, colorful. But it was a deep sea blue that made the clouds look like islands, it would have been nice, if I had given a fuck. I've never been one to take in stuff like that, someone would say "it's a really nice day isn't it?" and I'd say "the sky is blue and the clouds white and the sun is in my face, yep quite nice" placing a good amount of sarcasm at the end.

I continue on my way to FreshCo through the back field, which is in front of my house oddly, and begin walking there via the trail between a couple houses and enter into the tall grass and buzzing bugs.

I'm about half way through when I feel like I being watched, you know the feeling, the feeling you get when something is staring at your back. But this was different, not the "someone's looking at you" feeling, it was a "someone's Watching you" kind of feeling. The kind that makes your skin crawl and make you turn around expecting a killer to be there. Only to see nothing there.

*sigh* Must be getting paranoid, why would there be a killer following me?

With that I continue on my path only to feel it again this time more intently. I spin around this time and say

"Hello, who's there?" I say, curiosity in my voice. Silence. "I know you're there, what do you want?" I say sounding a bit more annoyed. More silence.

I began feeling uneasy with this silence, I couldn't even hear the bugs buzzing or the wind passing through the trees anymore. It was like everything froze. And I felt very cold, too cold for Fall weather. It was as if the blood in my veins had been replaced with ice.

"Who ever..r..r you ar-"

Before I could finish suddenly I was cut off by a chilling voice. It was a four toned demonic voice, the air and ground shook beneath the force behind it while I felt myself tremble.

"Day to night, dark to light."

After that sentence was spoken the world began to fade out. The trees erupted into black fire, the blue sky was replaced with a dark violet haze and the ground crumbled away. Just as the cliff reaches me and I begin to fall into the dark, I pass out, but not before seeing three blood red irises staring at me from within the black void with a terrifying grin.

POV change: Twilight Sparkle

Twilight had been up all night studying about spells to reinforce her barriers to deflect, instead of block. She was determined to get better at battle capable magic since her and the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony lost against the Changling Army at Princess Cadence and Shining's wedding.

"Spike, give me Star Swirls book on energy regulation and concentration." she told the little dragon who for the umpteenth time had been buried beneath a land slide of how-to's and encyclopedias.

"Twilight, don't you think your over reacting?" Spike said while climbing out from underneath the literature.

"OVER REACTING, the Elements lost a battle that held the fate of Equestria, how am I over reacting?" Twilight said, sounding like she had been insulted.

"So you and everypony else lost a fight, big deal you can't win everything. And besides Cadence and Shining Armour took care of it and Canterlot is safe." Spike stated.

*sigh* "I suppose you're right."

"Then I can start putting ba-"

"But, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be prepared for when it happens again, what if they come back with even more Changlings and-"

"Twilight!"

"Fine." she groaned while she began in reshelfing the books that littered the library floor. And soon afterwards went to bed.

Later that night, with Spike asleep, Twilight went down to do some more reading on current flow and mana stability. She stayed up for another 2 hours before deciding to go back to bed, but before she did there was a bright red flash she saw out the window; over the Everfree Forest.

What was that?!

Was it a meteor?

No, no noise

OH NO, what if it's a Changling attack?!

"I need to tell Celestia." Twilight whispered.

POV change: Thomas

"uuhhgg" "Uhhh" I moan.

I try to move, but it feels like I'm full of lead. I open my eyes and see.....nothing. It was to dark to see anything. Either it's night with no nearby light source, or I'm where light can't reach me. The air is fresh, so I believe I'm outside. With that bit of information gathered, I try moving again.

"Uhhhh-AHH!"

My body is throbbing and burning, it felt like being tossed into a pool of lemon water with razor blades. I'm surprised I haven't passed from the pain, the only thing I can even compare it to was the time I fell off a bunk bed and hit my back off the corner of a table. Though that was just my back, and was pretty minor, this was my whole body screaming.

And just as quickly as it arose, the pain receded and, against better judgement, I decided to try again. Oddly enough I got up with little to no pain. I was bewildered at this change

Okay, how can pain that bad just vanish? Am I fucking Wolverine, or did I just die in the last 10 seconds?

I stood up and started trying to get rid of the pins and needles by shaking my limbs violently, which led to me hitting my hand off a tree full force. The upside; I'm know fully awake and can clearly see my surroundings, but even with my rediscovered vision there still wasn't much to see.

So it's just night-time. I think while rubbing my hand. Did I get knocked out? How long have I been here? And where am I?

I then remember the voice and the thought sent a shiver down to my core while my blood run cold.

What was that thing, and what did it want with me? I check all over my body for cuts and bruises and thankfully found none. And what did it do with me?

POV change: Princess Celestia

Celestia had set the sun a few hours ago and still had a few more before having to raise it. She had been resting comfortably in her bed until a scroll from a certain unicorn appeared before her. She caught the letter in her magic, unfurled it and began to read.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Tonight I have witnessed a strange event take place in the direction of the Everfree Forest. A bright red light shown from deep within the forest and I worry it could be a bad sign. It could be nothing, but I wanted your thoughts on this and whether or not it should be investigated.

Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle

It sounds rather strange, and there aren't any recordings on such a thing happening before, and it makes Celestia worry that it could be dangerous. Though she does think it should be looked into, so she went to find some parchment.

POV change: Twilight Sparkle

Twilight had been impatiently waiting for Princess Celestia's reply to her letter and felt sorry for having to send it to her so late at night. But she had to know if Celestia knew anything about this so she could understand what was going on.

With her train of thought still spiraling she didn't hear the little dragon upstairs stir.

Spike was sleeping soundly and was dreaming about a particular mare, but then he was awoken by the sudden urge that he got whenever Celestia sent Twilight a letter.

*belch* "UUUgghhh" Spike groaned while rolling out of bed. "What Now?" he said as getting up and picked up the scroll while making his way down to twilight.

"Twilight?" he asked making his presence know to the mare.

"Spike!" she shrieked, startled out of her thoughts by his call. Then realization hit her "Oh, sorry Spike I didn't mean wake you."

"What's this about anyway?" he said sleepily whilst rubbing his eyes.

"A question I had for Princess Celestia." she stated.

"And you had to ask it now, couldn't you have waited till morning, I was having a wonderful dream" he complained.

"No, this is important. Something strange just happened in the Everfree Forest and I need to check if Celestia knew anything about it and if it might be dangerous."

"Well then here." he said as he let the mare's magic envelop the scroll. "I'm going back to bed." he stated in a lowered voice.

Without a moments hesitation she unrolled the letter and began:

My Dearest Student Twilight,

I can't say that I possess any information on the matter of the strange light, but what a can say is that if it is a threat it hasn't made it seem as such and can be dealt with at a later time. For now I want you need rest so that you can inspect the sight with the other elements in the morning.

Love, Princess Celestia

Twilight felt a bit saddened knowing Celestia didn't have any knowledge on the matter, but that was soon replaced with anticipation when she read that she can go investigate in the morning. Giddy with the news she returned to here bed and fell asleep wondering what could have made the light and what it meant.

POV change: Thomas

I had been up for only a few minutes and already hated the place. There was hardly any light, bushes and low hanging branches were everywhere, scratching and clawing at me. And did I mention that it was dark, I hate the dark, always have. It doesn't scare me, I don't fear it, I just hate it.

God damn it, I hate walking, putting one foot in front of the other. Why don't we have wheels for feet?

How would that even work?

Shut up, brain. No one asked you.

I've always had some strange mental habits. I sometimes have hour-long conversations with myself that strangely can have meaning behind them, or just pointless dialog.

I responded to your question with another question. And by asking a question you technically did ask me errr... you

*sign* I have problems.

YOU DON'T SAY?

DAMN IT MEMES!

This was going to be fun.