Is Your Friendship Mistaken?

Five trials.  That’s all there was between the two.  The winner would send the other into the recesses of their minds.  If Blackheart lost, he’d lose nothing, what was left of Kyle was already dead.  And Nightwalker would just break out if he lost.  If neither had anything to lose, why did Blackheart feel so scared?  Something was wrong, for sure, but he never knew what until it was too late.

No.  Now was not the time for thought.  The first trial was a simple fight.  If it could be called simple; Nightwalker would probably win.  Having damn-near unlimited magical power would do that to you.  Blackheart had power, but not near as much as his so-called ‘creator’

Blackheart shrugged and ran.

His first attack worked, despite the futility of it.  He slammed his fist into the man-wolf’s gut, though it didn’t double over; then curb-stomped the thing’s left knee and forced it onto its knees, only to slam its muzzle into the ground.

No blood flowed from the wound, despite the fact the ground now sported and unnatural-looking dent.  The monster simply rose and took its previous position, one of relaxed standing.

This continued.  The wolf in a boy’s body attacked and attacked, yet no damage was inflicted.  Then, he got arrogant.  His mistake was in the form of a right hook.

It wrapped, large clawed hands around his arm, and shockwaves that felt like liquid lighting spread throughout the boy’s body.

Crippled, he hung limply, unable to move anything besides his eyes and lips.  Not the rest of his mouth, mind you, just the lips.  So, he couldn’t really talk.

“I believe that you’re quite done no?”  Nightwalker huffed in the other combatant’s ear.  No sound answered him.  “I suspected more of a fight from one of Us.”

As he finished the sentence, he repaired all the damage he’d done to his opponent.  He’d torn Blackheart apart on a molecular level, so it was a quick win for him.

Luna was staring at the paper, angry tears burning her, inside and out.  She’d read it over a thousand, thousand times.  It didn’t make sense.  All she could glean from it was a hard truth.  One that Kyle wasn’t stallion enough to admit to her in person.  And not straightforward either.

He didn’t love her.  That was all she could get from it.  And he was in trouble.  She couldn’t believe what she was being told.  Maybe… he was saying this from whatever was harming.  But there was only one way to tell.

She had to find him.  Get the truth.  Even if he didn’t love her, she had to do what was right, no matter how it hurt.  She could feel something.  A strange flux of power.  Probably him, she followed the power.

She didn’t waste any time.  She took the window, she needed to find him.  Within moments she was entering the Everfree Forest.  Zecora attempted to stop her, but she pushed past the zebra.  She came into a clearing, where a beaten and bloody Kyle, and standing over him, was a large… thing.  It measured to about eight feet, with a glowing crown, and was muscular beyond belief.  It looked like something from a nightmare, wicked, but beautiful, in its own way.

It turned, facing her.  “This… this is the one?”  It asked, approaching her.  She stood her ground.  It seemed to anticipate this, and picked her up by the throat, its long finger wrapping around her gullet completely.

“Pathetic.”  It observed.  “You aren’t deserving of THIS, then.”  It tore off her crown and threw it; it rolled to the broken boy.

He picked it up with shaking fingers.

“Don’t bother,” Luna growled out to Kyle, a psychotic smile on her face, “I need my hero.  Not you.  YOU SICK… BASTARD!  IT WAS NEVER ME.  IT WAS YOU… every moment… you.”

He looked up to her, wonder on his face but not at her words, but at her understanding.  “Yep.  Every… moment of suffering was all my fault.  I can’t make up for anything.  But… even if you hate him, he still loves you.  He was meant to.  That’s all he was here for.”  It was obviously difficult for him to breathe.

She looked confused.  So Blackheart explained.  From the beginning.  “Me...  And him.  We’re both Elements of Evil.  There are four of us.  The Nightwalker over there is Evil.  He is evil for the sake of being evil.  There is also the Evil of Deception, the Evil of Control.  And then there’s me.  I’m nothing.  I am the Evil of Almost.  I’m Evil because I’m almost everything.  Kyle was made by the combined Evil of the four of us.  And I became his dominant personality.  His life was filled with Almost’s.  He was almost normal.  Almost loved.  Almost real.”

“Really, I’m pathetic.  So I’m here to be almost evil.  I’m fixing everything I messed up.  Namely Kyle.”

Nightwalker turned to the dying boy, Luna still in his grasp, “SILENCE!  I’ll end you.”

He spoke quickly, “You can kill us by doing the opposite of what we are.”  He coughed up a measure of blood and continued while Nightwalker advanced on him.

He opened his mouth to speak once more, but Nightwalker’s nails extended into long, thin needles, which he jammed into Blackheart’s chest.

Over and over his nails entered the body’s chest.  Luna watched her hopes die with him.  Finally, he pulled the bloody appendages out for the last time.  His head rotated to face her.  He shoved the nails in front of her, blood and all.

“Look at my accomplishment.  I have saved myself.  Love from my creation cannot kill me anymore.”

She glared at him in defiance.  She had nothing left to lose now.

“Kill me now.  Take what you want from this world.  I don’t care anymore.  I know the truth now, and I love him.  He loved me.  Maybe we were meant to be together, maybe we weren’t.  But I can’t care less.”

“Indeed.”  Nightwalker said, surprise lacing his voice.  Then he stuck the bloody nails under Luna’s jaw and lifted.  They entered, and exited through the back of her skull.

From there, the world ended.  Nightwalker got what he wanted.  He had everything.  All he had done was find the Element of Deception, and use her power.  The Nightwalker was standing over his work, when a feeling coursed through him.

There, in front of him, was a horde of the dead.  All he knew.  These were people he’d killed and ruined.  At their front stood Kyle.  Not Blackheart anymore, Kyle.  The boy he’d feared since his existence.

Neither said anything for a while, then, Kyle said something.  The thing he’d thought he killed.  He turned to the people behind him and sentenced Nightwalker to death.  He said, “I love Luna.”

With that, everything was strangely fixed.

Love was the solution.  To everything.  The Nightwalker’s death meant all he had ever done was undone.  His murders, his words, and his sins all.

Only Kyle, the catalyst for all Evil and Luna, his saving grace, were allowed to remember.  Who knows who decided this?  Maybe it was one god or another, maybe it was Kyle, but maybe it just happened.

The two were standing in the clearing, alone, together.  The way it was meant to be.

He turned to Luna, and embraced her.  “It wasn’t a mistake.”  He sobbed, tears freely flowing.

She returned the action.  “We should go back… people will probably be worried about us.”

He let go, “yeah, we should.”

But they didn’t.  They sat in the forest, sitting in each other’s presence.

A\N: That’s it.  Now the choice is up to you.  A few original chapters.  Maybe a few episode-based ones.  Take your pick, or send me a new suggestion.  Oh yeah, there will be an afterward chapter too.  But I’m sure as hell not done with this story.  If you can’t decide, I will.