Lightning Strikes Equestriaby Tardy the Man PonyChaptersA Small Crash LandingIntroductions Are In OrderCausing More ProblemsPrologueA Small Crash LandingA Small Crash Landing Shadow was shaken out of his Zen-like preparation state by his brother’s voice, “You ready yet porcupine head? It’s taking you forever to ‘warm up’.” Shadow just looked to his brother and laughed, “Of course Grave, if I didn’t warm up I might get a cramp. Heh heh.” Grave started chuckling at his brother’s stupid joke. “Plus if I screw this up it could destroy the Earth, you know electromagnetic fields shouldn’t be messed with and such.” “Well yeah but you’re aiming it at me” Grave replied with a sly grin. Shadow grinned back at Grave, “You ready for this bro?” “Since the day I was born. Hmm, that’s a little cliché, can we do it again?” Shadow just laughed at his brother and prepared to raise himself into the air. One day Shadow was watching the Mythbusters tornado episode and wondered how much power could a tornado could generate. This thought left Shadow to wonder how much power he could harness from a tornado. He figured that he could probably kill the Shadow Lord, destroy the planet, or both. Shadow then flew up into the clouds while thinking, ‘I hope Grave is really ready for this, It could kill him, I have to make sure I hold back’ he started spinning faster than a centrifuge used to train astronauts. He had at least forty-one g’s of pressure on him but Shadow was a lot tougher than your average human. Eventually the vortex had formed around Shadow and he knew it was now or never. He started flying down, the sound barrier just now catching up to the supersonic speed at which Shadow was travelling, sounding like millions of bombs going off at once. Once Shadow was nearing the ground he stopped spinning and rode with the power of the tornado, forcing all the energy into his palm. Shadow then sensed something was wrong, his vision started to go black, his legs felt like they were about to be ripped off, and his palm felt as if it was going to be burned away. Before Shadow could stop however there was a giant boom Shadow felt something hit him from behind, his unconscious body was left falling. Grave was watching Shadow fly down and started preparing himself for the hit that was coming. During the last couple of seconds he felt something wrong but just brushed it off with his usual recklessness. Grave then closed his eyes and tensed up as much as possible preparing for the punch. Ten seconds after Shadow should have hit him he still felt nothing. He opened his eyes and Shadow was gone, seemingly vanishing. ‘Where’d that bastard go?’ Grave thought, staring at the space Shadow had occupied before he had closed his eyes. Shadow was blacked out and falling fast, his momentum from his experiment aiding in his quick descent. As he was falling a line of smoke trailed behind him, some of the inhabitants of this world that happened to be staring at the sky thought he was a Wonderbolt. Shadow then crashed into the ground, sliding for twenty feet before his now slightly charred body came to a rest. Shadow’s impromptu entrance caused much confusion for the inhabitants of a nearby town. They knew a Wonderbolt never crashed unless something was seriously wrong. Shadow woke up in a strange place and looked around. He thought he could hear voices and quickly quieted down as he looked to make sure his sword was still hanging from his belt. He heard a feminine voice that slightly resembled the Doc’s, with that southern twang of hers. This must be the newly refurnished room Flames had told him about, it was a lot more rustic than he would’ve thought. Not to mention the bright green and brown color scheme. He stretched and walked out saying, “Hey Doc, got any pills for my headache?” He then looked around the room but only found two horses. ‘Seem too small to be horses though’ their mouths were hanging open at him in surprise, and Shadow’s was left slightly ajar upon noticing their colors. One was a three to four foot tall light orange colored horse with a honey yellow mane wearing an old Stetson, the other was a four to five foot tall horse that was bright red with an orange colored mane, and he was wearing what looked like a harness. The both of them had bright green eyes and strange marks on their flanks, both concerning apples. “I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.” Shadow said while laughing at his own stupid joke. He smiled and looked around the room looking for the owners of the home. All he saw was pictures of ponies, and then the orange one turned to the red one and simply stated, “Big Mac, I think it’s awake.” Shadow recoiled slightly, his confusion obvious to the horses, of course they probably weren’t horses, judging from the fact they could talk. “So, you can talk. That’s just great, what the hell did the Doc do to me after I blacked out?” Shadow muttered to himself under his breath. “Um hun, are you okay?” asked the creamsicle colored one. Shadow just stared at her not sure if she was joking or not, “Yeah, I’m just great. I have no clue where I am and not to mention the fact that I am speaking to A HORSE!!! I’m more than likely hallucinating due to some crazy new drug she’s testing.” Shadow buried his head in his hands and sighed loudly. “We ain’t no horses stranger, we’re ponies.” said the red and obviously male pony. Shadow looked up at the pony, “Oh yeah that makes perfect sense, ponies that can talk.” Shadow said with the most sarcasm he could muster at this time, which was quite a lot considering his current mental state. “Well ya don’t have tah be mean about it.” said the other pony, it seemed like he had gone a little too far judging from her tone but he didn’t care, he just continued on. “Well let’s see how you would react if you woke up not knowing where the hell you were or how the hell you got there!!” Shadow raged at the orange pony, only adding to her irritation. Shadow then saw something metal flash forward and hit him in the face, surprising him. He jumped back and had his hand on his sword in fractions of a second. “Watch your language! That’s no way tah be speakin’ in this house.” said the pony who had just hit him in the face. “What? I can’t cuss?! That’s bullshit! And why the hell did you hit me, I don’t even know what the fuck is going on?” Shadow yelled at the orange pony, anger flaring at her audacity. “Stranger if you don’t settle down Ih’ma have to make yah settle down.” The larger red pony said to Shadow. Shadow looked at the red pony with curiosity and anger flashing across his usually guarded expression. “You don’t know who the hell you’re talking to buddy.” Shadow said, wanting to test the strength of these ponies. Shadow knew he could take both ponies in a fight without even drawing his sword. That orange one was pretty strong and no doubt the red one was stronger, but neither as strong or fast as himself. Shadow sighed, why couldn’t things ever go right for him? Why couldn’t these ponies leave him to his own tendencies? Did they have to annoy the shit out of him? The red pony regarded Shadow with his own look of anger and opened his mouth to probably tell Shadow off. Before he could however, the door blew open and a small yellow pony with a red mane and a dark pink bow in her hair stood there beaming. “Applejack can I meet the alien?” the small pony said, not even noticing the tension in the room or the fighting stance that Shadow and the large pony had taken up. He stared dumbly at the tiny figure of, “Applebloom! I told you to wait in your room!” the orange pony yelled angrily. Shadow’s anger dissipated at the thought that came to mind. Shadow grinned wickedly and decided right then and there that what he was about to was stupid and was probably gunna get him chased out of town, but goddammit he was going to do it. “Ooh I see you brought me dinner. I was starting to get hungry, thank you for your hospitality.” Shadow pulled it off perfectly, even getting the evil maniacal laugh down. There were three distinct smacks as all three ponies’ jaws hit the floor. Shadow just stood there with the best evil grin he could muster watching the scene unfold in front of him. The two ponies he had been talking to, the orange one Shadow assumed was Applejack, and the red one jumped in front of Applebloom. Applebloom was quivering in fear behind her assumed siblings, “Yur not gunna lay a finger on my sister you evil beast!” ‘Score one for me!’ Shadow thought, always keeping a tab on when he was right. Shadow sat there trying his hardest not to laugh his ass off, not exactly obvious to the ponies who were waiting for him to make a move. He took a step forward and they flinched. He couldn’t take it anymore. Shadow was suddenly on the floor laughing harder than when he played that Slenderman joke on Aqua. He had tears streaming down his face and his sides felt like they were gunna explode, it was like laughing gas times ten. Shadow calmed himself down to giggles but one look at the ponies’ faces and he was back on the floor rolling around like a Magikarp. After a couple of minutes Shadow had reduced himself to snickers while the three ponies stared at him with a look of severe contempt, “You done yet mister?” coming from the Stetson wearing pony. Shadow sighed loudly, one of those happy sighs though, like when something is so awesome or funny you can only sigh. It helped calm him a little more, “Why yes in fact I am. That was some of my best work yet, I’ll be here all week ladies and gentleman.” The ponies stared at him incredulously, “Applejack did he just say-“ “Yes he did Applebloom, go to your room now.” Shadow wasn’t exactly sure what he did wrong, besides threatening to eat the smaller pony. Maybe it was the ladies and gentleman thing ‘I do suppose ponies would be called something else.’ The small pony backed out of the room staring at Shadow the whole time. “I get the feeling I did something wrong, I thought that I was still allowed to make smart-ass comments. I mean that’s what I do all the time.” the gathered ponies stared at him as if he were talking about his plans to summon the Flying Spaghetti Monster, may all be touched by His Noodly Appendage. Applebloom decided to not go to her room and instead peer into the room from right outside the door. This was just too interesting. “You said ladies and gentleman, do you mean fillies and gentlecolts?” the brother asked Shadow, looking only slightly stunned. “YEAH! Shadow wins again. Stop looking at me weird, you know at least one time in your life you talked about yourself in third person.” Shadow gleefully yelled at the stunned looking ponies. Applejack and her brother gave each other an unbelieving glance. Shadow simply stared at the two, waiting on them to say or do something. He only had to wait a few moments, “What in the hay are you talking about?” “Oh it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Truly don’t, you’ll just get a headache and I don’t need anyone going on about their head hurting too much because of me,” Shadow was pretty bored by now, nothing in this conversation could compare to the hilarity of the joke he had pulled. The ponies were starting to doubt this strange creature’s sanity, “So are you gunna try and hurt any of us?” Applejack asked with a look of concern and skepticism clear on her face. Shadow smiled and considered screwing with them some more but the serious part off his mind told him it was a seriously bad idea. He shook his head thoroughly before answering, “Not unless one of you intends to hurt me. And I am an adult, I have the right to speak as I wish, which includes cussing if I damn well please.” Both ponies sighed in exasperation, “If ya want tah curse like a sailor pony that’s up tah you but I don’t want ya doing it in my house, understood?” this Applejack was pretty adamant about him not cussing wasn’t she? ‘Wait did she say this was her house? Brain can’t handle information, time to take a break.’ Shadow just stared at the ponies as they stared back, expecting him to speak. After several moments of awkward staring Applejack cleared her throat. ‘Alright, vacations over. Time for Brain to work again.’ Shadow tilted his head upwards, “Did you say it was your house? As in you own it?” he asked surprise in his voice “Well yeah. Ah’ll introduce us. Ahm Applejack and this here is mah brother, Big Macintosh. The little pony sittin’ outside the door is Applebloom.” Shadow was surprised by the tone of friendliness in the pony’s voice considering the fact that he was about to beat the living shit out of her brother and that he joked about eating her sister. This pony was tough… or stupid. Author's Note Laughing Jack here, if you don't like the story leave some constructive criticism. Just wanted to thank my editor, Osmosis he's a pretty cool guy. Introductions Are In OrderChapter 2 Sometime later when it was dark out and nobody was in the streets Shadow had learned a couple of interesting facts. Like how cows and pigs could talk after he had asked Applejack when he would get his five star steak dinner. “Uh, did I say something wrong?” Applejack just stood there for a couple seconds, a horrified look plastered on her face, “Yur jokin’ right? Please tell me yur jokin’.” Shadow realized that he just screwed up, big time. ‘Oh shit, are the cows and pigs like sacred animals or something?’ “So, no eating cows, or pigs, or any sort of meat I’m guessing?” “Uh no. Do you do that where yur from?” Applejack had a seriously worried tone in her voice which Shadow found a little funny. “Why yes we do. What’s so wrong with it here?” Shadow asked incredulously. “Well here in Equestria the animals‘re intelligent, they can talk just like me and you.” Applejack said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Shadow just stared at her with a look of dumbfounded horror slowly drawing on his face, realizing what he just said. ‘Oh shit, they think I’m like a cannibal or something! Not to different from earlier except I’m serious.’ Shadow was starting to become worried himself, “Oh well where I’m from animals don’t really think or feel. Will I be chased out of the town with pitchforks now?” Shadow said while giving a slight nervous laugh. Applejack obviously didn’t get the joke, “Uh, no. Why would ya be? And don’t tell Fluttershy about that.” “It’s nothing, just a joke back where I’m from. Oh and what’s a Fluttershy?” Shadow said while walking along with the creamsicle colored mare. Applejack just gave another weird glance, “That’s a pretty weird joke, and Fluttershy is another pony. She’s a real good friend of mine.” A couple minutes later they found themselves at what appeared to be a hollowed out tree. To Shadow it looked kinda like a weird tree house. Like a literal “tree house” It looked like no tree he had seen before though. Not even those he saw on his short tour with Applejack. There were also balconies sprouting haphazardly all over, some didn’t even look like you could get to them unless you could fly. “This here’s Twilight Sparkle’s house! She’s one of the most powerful unicorns in all of Equestria.” “Unicorns? What do you mean by that exactly? And why are the balconies all retarded?” Shadow asked while Applejack knocked on Twilight’s door. “All unicorns are magicians she’s a very powerful one, I don’t really know about the library, it was built when my grandma was just a little girl.” Shadow kinda looked at Applejack with a stupid look on his face. “Magician?” that single word literally forced out of Shadow’s mouth. “Don’t ya’ll have any unicorns where yur from?” Shadow’s face was still looking a little dumbstruck. “Uh n...no. I mean some of the stuff I can do is like magic but still, magic.” Shadow said in a revered voice. “We don’t even have magic on our world, that’s how crazy this is to me!” Shadow tried to convey his awe to Applejack. “How does yur world work without magic? Actually wait until answerin’ that.” Applejack really wanted to know but she figured Twilight would too. Right when Applejack was done talking a two to three foot purple and green scaly thing answered the door. “Is that Twilight? ‘Cause if so that looks more like an alligator than a unicorn.” Shadow whispered to Applejack. “No! That’s Spike, Twilight’s assistant. He’s a baby dragon.” Applejack replied, obviously annoyed by Shadow’s stupid question. Shadow stared at Spike in awe, the small dragon returned with a gaze of his own. Spike then turned and called into the library, “Uh, Twilight! Applejacks here with a guest!” Spike invited the both of them in prompting Shadow to look around at his surroundings. While Shadow was looking around five ponies started coming down the stairs. One was a lavender unicorn with a dark blue mane that had pink and purple stripes down it. Then there was a white unicorn with a purple styled mane? After that there was a bright pink pony with a slightly darker puffy pink mane. Then there were two pegasi, one a cyan color with a rainbow mane and the other a light yellow with a pink mane. The yellow pegasus seemed to be trying to hide behind the lavender unicorn. ‘DEM WINGS!!’ Shadow couldn’t help but mentally shout at himself. “Oh it’s awake! Applejack you should have told me!” Shadow just kinda stared at the horn on the two unicorns. “Aw shucks hun, he wanted to look around and learn a little bit about Equestria.” Shadow was wondering how all these ponies knew he was here. “Uh hey, I’m Shadow Elements.” The ponies looked a little shocked to see him talk, he didn’t think they actually heard his name and they were instead just trying to get over him talking. “Uh well everypony this is Shadow. Shadow that’s Twilight Sparkle, that’s Rainbow Dash, that there’s Pinkie Pie, the prissy one is Rarity and the pony hiding behind Twilight is Fluttershy.” Applejack pointed at each pony as she said their names and when the hoof was pointed to Fluttershy a small “Eep!” could be heard. “It’s ok to come out you know, I won’t bite.” Shadow said the sarcasm not even sounding in his voice. Everypony’s eyes were glued to the scene when the yellow pegasus came out slowly and saw Shadow smiling warmly, “H...he..ll..o, I..I’m Fl..u..t..ter...sh..y.” this came out as a barely audible whisper but with Shadow’s enhanced senses he was able to hear her quite easily. “Well hello Fluttershy, it’s very nice to meet you. In fact it’s nice to meet all of you.” Shadow still carrying that same smile, it was so convincing nobody except his brothers would’ve thought it was fake. “Anyway Applejack we were just having some tea, would you care to join us? Shadow you’re welcome too.” Shadow hadn’t had tea in a while; his brothers were more the soda and Monster type. “Sounds great Ms. Sparkle.” Shadow said while starting to follow the six ponies up the stairs. “Well, I actually have some questions for you. And Twilight’s fine.” she said with a slight blush. Before Shadow was even fully up the stairs he was bombarded with questions. Most of them being what you would expect, “What are you exactly?” “I’m a human being, we’re descended from apes. The process that gives you me took millions of years though.” “Hmm interesting, so you’re saying you’re related to monkeys? Lyra never said anything about that.” “Yeah our DNA is something like ninety percent the same. And who’s Lyra?” “Never mind about that, uh where are you from?” “Planet Earth, the United States of America, Atlanta Georgia.” “Do you have a princess?” Twilight asked all these questions with barely controlled excitement evident in her voice. Shadow started laughing while the assembled ponies glared at him. Not even feeling the effects of their gazes he calmed himself and answered, “Why no, we haven’t had kings or queens for thousands of years. Except for England and Canada, I don’t really know what they do though. I think they’re really just there for tradition.” The gathered party was shocked at how casually Shadow talked about kings and queens, like they were nothing. He acted like he didn’t even care about the queen of “England” or whatever it was called. Rarity was the first to break the dumbfounded silence, “Do you not even care about these kings or queens though? How can you be a proper gentlecolt without having a king or queen to honor?” Shadow sighed and prepared to give the ponies a history lesson, “Well actually my country is democratic, we fought for independence from a corrupt system of kings and queens. You see King George wanted to tax us when we barely had enough money to even support ourselves. Basically he was a dick so we killed his soldiers until they surrendered and we became our own country.” The ponies stared at Shadow in shock and awe. Not just from the fact that Shadow was completely emotionless telling the story but that he said that these humans were killing each other. Everypony in the room was surprised when the pale yellow pegasus spoke up, “That’s just terrible, I couldn’t think of a reason something would want to kill something else.” Shadow gave a grim sigh, “In my world that’s the only way to survive, there’s bad people who just hate everyone else and want to cause them pain. I don’t like it at all, I personally think that my world is shit.” Everyone except Applejack cringed at the language, her having gotten used to it after being around Shadow most of the day. Everypony just decided to ignore it though and continue to question Shadow. “Are all humans exactly like you?” asked Pinkie Pie. Shadow found the question slightly amusing, smiling as he answered, “No, humans come in all different colors and sizes. I’m actually more different than most humans though, I have special powers that were given to me from my father.” Twilight perked up at the mention of special powers, “What kind of special powers are you talking about, do you mean like me and magic?” Shadow grew slightly nervous, Twilight’s questioning making him feel kinda like a freak. “Well my brothers and I are called the Elements, we were each born with the ability to control a certain element from the Earth, hence the name. All our powers were given to us by our Dad, he wanted us to join him and rule the world but we rebelled. The things he did were too terrible for us to even consider joining him.” Twilight wouldn’t be satisfied with an answer like that and asked, “So Shadow what element do you control?” Shadow sighed and nonchalantly said, “My father gave me the element of weather, lightning being my specialty.” “No way! Only a pegasus can control the weather!” Rainbow Dash shouted at Shadow. “Is that a challenge?” Shadow asked with a sly grin. “You can bet your hooves it is!” Dash replied with anger in her voice. “I don’t have hooves, I’m a human. I got hands.” Shadow wiggled his fingers about to emphasize his point. “Doesn’t matter, you’re challenging Rainbow Dash here! The fastest flyer in all of Equestria!” Shadow just laughed at her cockiness. “Alright let’s go outside then.” Shadow said with practiced ease. After some time, the other weathermares had managed to gather up some clouds. The two challengers got prepared for the contest. Rainbow Dash turned to Shadow, “Ready to get creamed Shadow?” “No, I’m more ready to be winning. Heh, Charlie Sheen.” a grin coming to Shadow’s face thinking about the crazy old bastard. “Alright,” the referee called. “Get ready. Get set. GO!” Rainbow Dash took off; hitting every single cloud she came near. She took a glance at her friends and their amazed faces told her that she was winning. That is until she had two more clouds left and the ref shouted, “TIME!” She looked over at Shadow and saw all his clouds were gone, she hadn’t even seen him move! Dash just sat there and stared at him with an open mouth while Shadow grinned at her. He wasn’t one to talk about his powers but displaying them was a different thing altogether. “Wow Dash, you’re real fast. Almost as fast as me.” Dash was still staring disbelievingly at the human when suddenly she flew off as fast as she could towards her house, tears streaming behind her. She was already too far to hear her friends calling to her. “Did I do something wrong?” Shadow asked the assembled group, feeling more than a little guilty. “No she’s just too competitive for her own good.” Rarity said, judging from her tone she still partially blamed Shadow. “Well I’m going after her, I feel too damn guilty.” Shadow said while staring after the cyan blue figure. Just as Shadow was about to take off Rarity called to him, “But darling you can’t fly, I mean you don’t have wings.” Shadow looked back at the ponies and prepared to jump into the air. He left the group simply stating, “You don’t always need wings to fly.” As Shadow flew through the air a white pegasus could be heard yelling in the distance, “YEEEAAAAHHH!!!” Author's Note Thanks for the support, it's a lot more than this fic originally got. I would also like to thank my editor Osmosis, he gave me the idea to put in that last bit. Updating will be sporadic because of school and such thanks for sticking with me. Causing More ProblemsCausing More Problems As Shadow neared the rainbow maned mare’s house he called out to her. “Uh Dash, Rainbow Dash!” “Just go away! You’ve already caused enough problems!” Dash was obviously not in the mood to talk anyone, especially Shadow. Shadow flew up to her house and landed on her doorstep. When Dash heard a knocking on her door, she thought immediately of her yellow pegasus friend. She opened the door and was surprised to see Shadow standing there. She immediately tried to slam the door shut but was brusquely interrupted by Shadow’s foot. “Wait! Please hear me out.” The cyan pegasus let the door creep it’s way open, “I’m here to apologize.” Shadow announced very anticlimactically. Dash was in fact a little shocked, she had thought the human only came to gloat some more.. “What d’ya mean apologize?” she asked, a suspicious tone in her voice. “I realized how much my bragging hurt you, and for that I sincerely apologize.” Shadow sighed and continued on, “If you wanna hit me or something go ahead.” Rainbow Dash could see the look of regret plain on the human’s face. She punched him lightly in the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it porcupine head.” Shadow couldn’t help but give the mare a grim laugh, “You know my brother always says that same thing to me.” Behind his eyes, Rainbow Dash could see the look of sadness he was trying to hide, “Which one?” she asked curiously. “Grave, he’s the one I’m closest to.” there it was again, that same hidden sadness. “What’s up with the moping?” Shadow had hoped she wouldn’t notice, he had to start taking acting lessons or something. “It’s just that,” Shadow sighed, “I may never be able to see my brothers or the Doc again. Anyway, do you think I could come inside? It’s a little cold out here.” Shadow said trying to change the subject. Dash wondered what her neighbors would think but then decided she didn’t quite care, “Sure, come on in. I didn’t know that you could walk on clouds though.” “Thanks, the whole cloud walking thing comes with the whole being given insane amounts of power.” Shadow said, just realizing that he could easily spark her anger at him with the wrong choice of words. She didn’t seem to notice and so Shadow walked into a beautiful house made entirely out of clouds, excluding the furnishings. The house was fairly large with a couch and guitar on the other side of the room. There were clothes scattered all over the floor which Rainbow tried to discreetly move under her couch. By the couch were a couple of books Shadow took a quick glance at, “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone.” Looked like a Indiana Jones rip-off to Shadow. Rainbow Dash started to walk towards the stairs which had a pillar at the base along with a swirly screen to the right. Shadow was kinda shocked something made out of clouds could be this sophisticated, he had experimented with making shapes out of clouds back home but this was something else entirely. Shadow gaped at the screen granting him a giggle from the mare. “If you’re that interested in my stair screen wait till you see the rest of my house.” she said, stifling giggles. Shadow awkwardly cleared his throat and looked up at Dash as she ascended the stairs, “Why um yes, I’ll be right with you.” Shadow popped his back and then headed over to look at the guitar, it was a Griffon brand guitar called a Less Paw, the irony of this was not lost on Shadow and so he allowed himself a small chuckle. He picked up the guitar, which was like a child’s guitar, and proceeded to play a few chords. The sound came out of nowhere, considering the guitar wasn’t attached to an amp. The sound was also quite loud making Shadow cringe, he quickly turned down the sound and played a few more chords. He started the chorus when it came around, “She was sixteen and six feet tall, in a crowd of teenagers comin’ out of the zoo. She stumbled started to slip and fall, teeter tottered on her diamond patterned red leather shoes. I happened to catch her and said ‘Maybe theses ruby shoes are a little cumbersome for you, maybe for you.’ ahhhhh.” Shadow stopped singing when he heard hooves slamming into the ground, coming towards the staircase from upstairs. The pony who was responsible showed herself at the bottom of the stairs, “What the hay do you think you’re doing?!?” she shouted at him. Shadow slowly shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Playing a quick song.” Rainbow Dash ran up to him, grabbing the guitar out of his hands and then proceeding to yell at him, “You don’t just go to people’s houses you just met and touch their stuff in your world do you!? You have no idea what this means to me!! I might be ok with it if it was one of my friends but I just met you and the only thing you’ve done so far is ruin everything!!” Shadow stepped back and let the cyan mare rage on for a minute or two, trying his best to ignore her ranting, lest he himself get angry. After she seemed slightly calmed down Shadow asked in a controlled voice, “So then, don’t touch the guitar, got it. You could have just asked instead of throwing a fit you know.” Shadow then noticed the mare seemed to be sobbing, “Are you crying?” he asked warily. He started to walk toward her when she turned around suddenly and tried to hit him while screaming at him, “GET OUT!! JUST GET OUT!!” Shadow grabbed her hooves and held her there. Dash tried to break his grip for a couple of seconds but then collapsed into Shadow, surprising him. He simply stood there as she cried into his shoulder, “I miss him.” she whimpered. Shadow was shocked for a moment but quickly regained control of himself, he started rubbing the mares back in what he assumed was a comforting way and spoke softly to her, “It’s alright, everythings fine.” After a few minutes Dash pushed Shadow away and turned away from him, wiping her eyes in the process. She started to speak, “The guitar was my dad’s. He left it to me when he...passed.” Shadow placed his hand on his chin and stared at the pegasus, “Well that sucks. Since you’re being so honest, so will I, both my parents are dead. My father killed my parents, he may have been my father but he wasn’t the one who raised me.” The pony stared back at the human and saw he was telling the truth. She couldn’t even begin to think of something like that happening. She tried to speak but found no words to offer the human. “It’s fine, I have enough pity of my own to drown in,” Shadow said as he pushed himself off the floor and started to head for the door, his cold anger hidden in the humorous tone of his voice. “Wait! I’m sorry.” the rainbow maned pegasus yelled after him. With his hand on the doorknob Shadow turned around, “What is it that you want exactly?" he said coldly. The mare sighed in frustration, “I just don’t want you to be sad like me,” she finally said. Shadow laughed, it was a cold laugh nearly devoid of emotion, “You think I’m sad? That’s a goddamn joke, sad doesn’t even begin to describe it anymore. You have no idea what I’ve been through, so don’t try and pretend I'm in any way the same as you. None of you can relate to me, you live in a goddamn fantasy land where nothing bad ever happens to you. If you lived in my world for one day you’d probably go insane,” Shadow said with cold anger, giving his voice a sharp edge. Shadow opened the door and slammed it shut as he left, the shock reverberating throughout the house. Dash ran to the door to catch him but by the time she got outside he was already gone. ProloguePrologue This world is not as it should be. There are many dark forces that work to control the world from beyond the shadows. The leader of this dark movement is known as The Shadow Lord. This vile man has mastered the art of dark magic, humans can learn magic but only after years of hard work and dedication. One day when studying darker tomes, The Shadow Lord discovered a way to imbue living things with the power of the elements. The only drawback was that it had to be done to a newborn baby, each having a different mother who was to be sacrificed during childbirth. And so The Shadow Lord set out to have the children that would help him rule the world. When The Shadow Lord was done he had performed five rituals and in turn had five sons. He only kept the one boy who he could train, Grave. The others were all left on the doorstep of the nearest orphanage. When each of his sons turned eighteen their parents were killed and they were sent a letter telling them who they really were and how to find their father. Each of them in turn rebelled, Grave even running away after being told the truth. All of them except for Shadow had gathered together, plotting against The Shadow Lord. A couple of days before Shadow’s eighteenth birthday he ran away to his old orphanage where he learned his parent’s had been killed. He flew into a blind rage and destroyed the town where the orphanage was located with his powers, also finding the necklace that would transform into his sword. He woke up outside the wreckage of the town with a letter from his brothers instead of his father. He then went to join his brethren in the fight against The Shadow Lord. And so the story begins… Author's Note First fanfic, I posted this once and got terrible reviews so I went and heavily edited it. Me and my editor, Osmosis, think that it's alot better with the prologue and such. Constructive criticism and such is always welcome, please don't just post hate comments. It doesn't help anyone.
A Small Crash LandingA Small Crash Landing Shadow was shaken out of his Zen-like preparation state by his brother’s voice, “You ready yet porcupine head? It’s taking you forever to ‘warm up’.” Shadow just looked to his brother and laughed, “Of course Grave, if I didn’t warm up I might get a cramp. Heh heh.” Grave started chuckling at his brother’s stupid joke. “Plus if I screw this up it could destroy the Earth, you know electromagnetic fields shouldn’t be messed with and such.” “Well yeah but you’re aiming it at me” Grave replied with a sly grin. Shadow grinned back at Grave, “You ready for this bro?” “Since the day I was born. Hmm, that’s a little cliché, can we do it again?” Shadow just laughed at his brother and prepared to raise himself into the air. One day Shadow was watching the Mythbusters tornado episode and wondered how much power could a tornado could generate. This thought left Shadow to wonder how much power he could harness from a tornado. He figured that he could probably kill the Shadow Lord, destroy the planet, or both. Shadow then flew up into the clouds while thinking, ‘I hope Grave is really ready for this, It could kill him, I have to make sure I hold back’ he started spinning faster than a centrifuge used to train astronauts. He had at least forty-one g’s of pressure on him but Shadow was a lot tougher than your average human. Eventually the vortex had formed around Shadow and he knew it was now or never. He started flying down, the sound barrier just now catching up to the supersonic speed at which Shadow was travelling, sounding like millions of bombs going off at once. Once Shadow was nearing the ground he stopped spinning and rode with the power of the tornado, forcing all the energy into his palm. Shadow then sensed something was wrong, his vision started to go black, his legs felt like they were about to be ripped off, and his palm felt as if it was going to be burned away. Before Shadow could stop however there was a giant boom Shadow felt something hit him from behind, his unconscious body was left falling. Grave was watching Shadow fly down and started preparing himself for the hit that was coming. During the last couple of seconds he felt something wrong but just brushed it off with his usual recklessness. Grave then closed his eyes and tensed up as much as possible preparing for the punch. Ten seconds after Shadow should have hit him he still felt nothing. He opened his eyes and Shadow was gone, seemingly vanishing. ‘Where’d that bastard go?’ Grave thought, staring at the space Shadow had occupied before he had closed his eyes. Shadow was blacked out and falling fast, his momentum from his experiment aiding in his quick descent. As he was falling a line of smoke trailed behind him, some of the inhabitants of this world that happened to be staring at the sky thought he was a Wonderbolt. Shadow then crashed into the ground, sliding for twenty feet before his now slightly charred body came to a rest. Shadow’s impromptu entrance caused much confusion for the inhabitants of a nearby town. They knew a Wonderbolt never crashed unless something was seriously wrong. Shadow woke up in a strange place and looked around. He thought he could hear voices and quickly quieted down as he looked to make sure his sword was still hanging from his belt. He heard a feminine voice that slightly resembled the Doc’s, with that southern twang of hers. This must be the newly refurnished room Flames had told him about, it was a lot more rustic than he would’ve thought. Not to mention the bright green and brown color scheme. He stretched and walked out saying, “Hey Doc, got any pills for my headache?” He then looked around the room but only found two horses. ‘Seem too small to be horses though’ their mouths were hanging open at him in surprise, and Shadow’s was left slightly ajar upon noticing their colors. One was a three to four foot tall light orange colored horse with a honey yellow mane wearing an old Stetson, the other was a four to five foot tall horse that was bright red with an orange colored mane, and he was wearing what looked like a harness. The both of them had bright green eyes and strange marks on their flanks, both concerning apples. “I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.” Shadow said while laughing at his own stupid joke. He smiled and looked around the room looking for the owners of the home. All he saw was pictures of ponies, and then the orange one turned to the red one and simply stated, “Big Mac, I think it’s awake.” Shadow recoiled slightly, his confusion obvious to the horses, of course they probably weren’t horses, judging from the fact they could talk. “So, you can talk. That’s just great, what the hell did the Doc do to me after I blacked out?” Shadow muttered to himself under his breath. “Um hun, are you okay?” asked the creamsicle colored one. Shadow just stared at her not sure if she was joking or not, “Yeah, I’m just great. I have no clue where I am and not to mention the fact that I am speaking to A HORSE!!! I’m more than likely hallucinating due to some crazy new drug she’s testing.” Shadow buried his head in his hands and sighed loudly. “We ain’t no horses stranger, we’re ponies.” said the red and obviously male pony. Shadow looked up at the pony, “Oh yeah that makes perfect sense, ponies that can talk.” Shadow said with the most sarcasm he could muster at this time, which was quite a lot considering his current mental state. “Well ya don’t have tah be mean about it.” said the other pony, it seemed like he had gone a little too far judging from her tone but he didn’t care, he just continued on. “Well let’s see how you would react if you woke up not knowing where the hell you were or how the hell you got there!!” Shadow raged at the orange pony, only adding to her irritation. Shadow then saw something metal flash forward and hit him in the face, surprising him. He jumped back and had his hand on his sword in fractions of a second. “Watch your language! That’s no way tah be speakin’ in this house.” said the pony who had just hit him in the face. “What? I can’t cuss?! That’s bullshit! And why the hell did you hit me, I don’t even know what the fuck is going on?” Shadow yelled at the orange pony, anger flaring at her audacity. “Stranger if you don’t settle down Ih’ma have to make yah settle down.” The larger red pony said to Shadow. Shadow looked at the red pony with curiosity and anger flashing across his usually guarded expression. “You don’t know who the hell you’re talking to buddy.” Shadow said, wanting to test the strength of these ponies. Shadow knew he could take both ponies in a fight without even drawing his sword. That orange one was pretty strong and no doubt the red one was stronger, but neither as strong or fast as himself. Shadow sighed, why couldn’t things ever go right for him? Why couldn’t these ponies leave him to his own tendencies? Did they have to annoy the shit out of him? The red pony regarded Shadow with his own look of anger and opened his mouth to probably tell Shadow off. Before he could however, the door blew open and a small yellow pony with a red mane and a dark pink bow in her hair stood there beaming. “Applejack can I meet the alien?” the small pony said, not even noticing the tension in the room or the fighting stance that Shadow and the large pony had taken up. He stared dumbly at the tiny figure of, “Applebloom! I told you to wait in your room!” the orange pony yelled angrily. Shadow’s anger dissipated at the thought that came to mind. Shadow grinned wickedly and decided right then and there that what he was about to was stupid and was probably gunna get him chased out of town, but goddammit he was going to do it. “Ooh I see you brought me dinner. I was starting to get hungry, thank you for your hospitality.” Shadow pulled it off perfectly, even getting the evil maniacal laugh down. There were three distinct smacks as all three ponies’ jaws hit the floor. Shadow just stood there with the best evil grin he could muster watching the scene unfold in front of him. The two ponies he had been talking to, the orange one Shadow assumed was Applejack, and the red one jumped in front of Applebloom. Applebloom was quivering in fear behind her assumed siblings, “Yur not gunna lay a finger on my sister you evil beast!” ‘Score one for me!’ Shadow thought, always keeping a tab on when he was right. Shadow sat there trying his hardest not to laugh his ass off, not exactly obvious to the ponies who were waiting for him to make a move. He took a step forward and they flinched. He couldn’t take it anymore. Shadow was suddenly on the floor laughing harder than when he played that Slenderman joke on Aqua. He had tears streaming down his face and his sides felt like they were gunna explode, it was like laughing gas times ten. Shadow calmed himself down to giggles but one look at the ponies’ faces and he was back on the floor rolling around like a Magikarp. After a couple of minutes Shadow had reduced himself to snickers while the three ponies stared at him with a look of severe contempt, “You done yet mister?” coming from the Stetson wearing pony. Shadow sighed loudly, one of those happy sighs though, like when something is so awesome or funny you can only sigh. It helped calm him a little more, “Why yes in fact I am. That was some of my best work yet, I’ll be here all week ladies and gentleman.” The ponies stared at him incredulously, “Applejack did he just say-“ “Yes he did Applebloom, go to your room now.” Shadow wasn’t exactly sure what he did wrong, besides threatening to eat the smaller pony. Maybe it was the ladies and gentleman thing ‘I do suppose ponies would be called something else.’ The small pony backed out of the room staring at Shadow the whole time. “I get the feeling I did something wrong, I thought that I was still allowed to make smart-ass comments. I mean that’s what I do all the time.” the gathered ponies stared at him as if he were talking about his plans to summon the Flying Spaghetti Monster, may all be touched by His Noodly Appendage. Applebloom decided to not go to her room and instead peer into the room from right outside the door. This was just too interesting. “You said ladies and gentleman, do you mean fillies and gentlecolts?” the brother asked Shadow, looking only slightly stunned. “YEAH! Shadow wins again. Stop looking at me weird, you know at least one time in your life you talked about yourself in third person.” Shadow gleefully yelled at the stunned looking ponies. Applejack and her brother gave each other an unbelieving glance. Shadow simply stared at the two, waiting on them to say or do something. He only had to wait a few moments, “What in the hay are you talking about?” “Oh it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Truly don’t, you’ll just get a headache and I don’t need anyone going on about their head hurting too much because of me,” Shadow was pretty bored by now, nothing in this conversation could compare to the hilarity of the joke he had pulled. The ponies were starting to doubt this strange creature’s sanity, “So are you gunna try and hurt any of us?” Applejack asked with a look of concern and skepticism clear on her face. Shadow smiled and considered screwing with them some more but the serious part off his mind told him it was a seriously bad idea. He shook his head thoroughly before answering, “Not unless one of you intends to hurt me. And I am an adult, I have the right to speak as I wish, which includes cussing if I damn well please.” Both ponies sighed in exasperation, “If ya want tah curse like a sailor pony that’s up tah you but I don’t want ya doing it in my house, understood?” this Applejack was pretty adamant about him not cussing wasn’t she? ‘Wait did she say this was her house? Brain can’t handle information, time to take a break.’ Shadow just stared at the ponies as they stared back, expecting him to speak. After several moments of awkward staring Applejack cleared her throat. ‘Alright, vacations over. Time for Brain to work again.’ Shadow tilted his head upwards, “Did you say it was your house? As in you own it?” he asked surprise in his voice “Well yeah. Ah’ll introduce us. Ahm Applejack and this here is mah brother, Big Macintosh. The little pony sittin’ outside the door is Applebloom.” Shadow was surprised by the tone of friendliness in the pony’s voice considering the fact that he was about to beat the living shit out of her brother and that he joked about eating her sister. This pony was tough… or stupid. Author's Note Laughing Jack here, if you don't like the story leave some constructive criticism. Just wanted to thank my editor, Osmosis he's a pretty cool guy.
Introductions Are In OrderChapter 2 Sometime later when it was dark out and nobody was in the streets Shadow had learned a couple of interesting facts. Like how cows and pigs could talk after he had asked Applejack when he would get his five star steak dinner. “Uh, did I say something wrong?” Applejack just stood there for a couple seconds, a horrified look plastered on her face, “Yur jokin’ right? Please tell me yur jokin’.” Shadow realized that he just screwed up, big time. ‘Oh shit, are the cows and pigs like sacred animals or something?’ “So, no eating cows, or pigs, or any sort of meat I’m guessing?” “Uh no. Do you do that where yur from?” Applejack had a seriously worried tone in her voice which Shadow found a little funny. “Why yes we do. What’s so wrong with it here?” Shadow asked incredulously. “Well here in Equestria the animals‘re intelligent, they can talk just like me and you.” Applejack said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Shadow just stared at her with a look of dumbfounded horror slowly drawing on his face, realizing what he just said. ‘Oh shit, they think I’m like a cannibal or something! Not to different from earlier except I’m serious.’ Shadow was starting to become worried himself, “Oh well where I’m from animals don’t really think or feel. Will I be chased out of the town with pitchforks now?” Shadow said while giving a slight nervous laugh. Applejack obviously didn’t get the joke, “Uh, no. Why would ya be? And don’t tell Fluttershy about that.” “It’s nothing, just a joke back where I’m from. Oh and what’s a Fluttershy?” Shadow said while walking along with the creamsicle colored mare. Applejack just gave another weird glance, “That’s a pretty weird joke, and Fluttershy is another pony. She’s a real good friend of mine.” A couple minutes later they found themselves at what appeared to be a hollowed out tree. To Shadow it looked kinda like a weird tree house. Like a literal “tree house” It looked like no tree he had seen before though. Not even those he saw on his short tour with Applejack. There were also balconies sprouting haphazardly all over, some didn’t even look like you could get to them unless you could fly. “This here’s Twilight Sparkle’s house! She’s one of the most powerful unicorns in all of Equestria.” “Unicorns? What do you mean by that exactly? And why are the balconies all retarded?” Shadow asked while Applejack knocked on Twilight’s door. “All unicorns are magicians she’s a very powerful one, I don’t really know about the library, it was built when my grandma was just a little girl.” Shadow kinda looked at Applejack with a stupid look on his face. “Magician?” that single word literally forced out of Shadow’s mouth. “Don’t ya’ll have any unicorns where yur from?” Shadow’s face was still looking a little dumbstruck. “Uh n...no. I mean some of the stuff I can do is like magic but still, magic.” Shadow said in a revered voice. “We don’t even have magic on our world, that’s how crazy this is to me!” Shadow tried to convey his awe to Applejack. “How does yur world work without magic? Actually wait until answerin’ that.” Applejack really wanted to know but she figured Twilight would too. Right when Applejack was done talking a two to three foot purple and green scaly thing answered the door. “Is that Twilight? ‘Cause if so that looks more like an alligator than a unicorn.” Shadow whispered to Applejack. “No! That’s Spike, Twilight’s assistant. He’s a baby dragon.” Applejack replied, obviously annoyed by Shadow’s stupid question. Shadow stared at Spike in awe, the small dragon returned with a gaze of his own. Spike then turned and called into the library, “Uh, Twilight! Applejacks here with a guest!” Spike invited the both of them in prompting Shadow to look around at his surroundings. While Shadow was looking around five ponies started coming down the stairs. One was a lavender unicorn with a dark blue mane that had pink and purple stripes down it. Then there was a white unicorn with a purple styled mane? After that there was a bright pink pony with a slightly darker puffy pink mane. Then there were two pegasi, one a cyan color with a rainbow mane and the other a light yellow with a pink mane. The yellow pegasus seemed to be trying to hide behind the lavender unicorn. ‘DEM WINGS!!’ Shadow couldn’t help but mentally shout at himself. “Oh it’s awake! Applejack you should have told me!” Shadow just kinda stared at the horn on the two unicorns. “Aw shucks hun, he wanted to look around and learn a little bit about Equestria.” Shadow was wondering how all these ponies knew he was here. “Uh hey, I’m Shadow Elements.” The ponies looked a little shocked to see him talk, he didn’t think they actually heard his name and they were instead just trying to get over him talking. “Uh well everypony this is Shadow. Shadow that’s Twilight Sparkle, that’s Rainbow Dash, that there’s Pinkie Pie, the prissy one is Rarity and the pony hiding behind Twilight is Fluttershy.” Applejack pointed at each pony as she said their names and when the hoof was pointed to Fluttershy a small “Eep!” could be heard. “It’s ok to come out you know, I won’t bite.” Shadow said the sarcasm not even sounding in his voice. Everypony’s eyes were glued to the scene when the yellow pegasus came out slowly and saw Shadow smiling warmly, “H...he..ll..o, I..I’m Fl..u..t..ter...sh..y.” this came out as a barely audible whisper but with Shadow’s enhanced senses he was able to hear her quite easily. “Well hello Fluttershy, it’s very nice to meet you. In fact it’s nice to meet all of you.” Shadow still carrying that same smile, it was so convincing nobody except his brothers would’ve thought it was fake. “Anyway Applejack we were just having some tea, would you care to join us? Shadow you’re welcome too.” Shadow hadn’t had tea in a while; his brothers were more the soda and Monster type. “Sounds great Ms. Sparkle.” Shadow said while starting to follow the six ponies up the stairs. “Well, I actually have some questions for you. And Twilight’s fine.” she said with a slight blush. Before Shadow was even fully up the stairs he was bombarded with questions. Most of them being what you would expect, “What are you exactly?” “I’m a human being, we’re descended from apes. The process that gives you me took millions of years though.” “Hmm interesting, so you’re saying you’re related to monkeys? Lyra never said anything about that.” “Yeah our DNA is something like ninety percent the same. And who’s Lyra?” “Never mind about that, uh where are you from?” “Planet Earth, the United States of America, Atlanta Georgia.” “Do you have a princess?” Twilight asked all these questions with barely controlled excitement evident in her voice. Shadow started laughing while the assembled ponies glared at him. Not even feeling the effects of their gazes he calmed himself and answered, “Why no, we haven’t had kings or queens for thousands of years. Except for England and Canada, I don’t really know what they do though. I think they’re really just there for tradition.” The gathered party was shocked at how casually Shadow talked about kings and queens, like they were nothing. He acted like he didn’t even care about the queen of “England” or whatever it was called. Rarity was the first to break the dumbfounded silence, “Do you not even care about these kings or queens though? How can you be a proper gentlecolt without having a king or queen to honor?” Shadow sighed and prepared to give the ponies a history lesson, “Well actually my country is democratic, we fought for independence from a corrupt system of kings and queens. You see King George wanted to tax us when we barely had enough money to even support ourselves. Basically he was a dick so we killed his soldiers until they surrendered and we became our own country.” The ponies stared at Shadow in shock and awe. Not just from the fact that Shadow was completely emotionless telling the story but that he said that these humans were killing each other. Everypony in the room was surprised when the pale yellow pegasus spoke up, “That’s just terrible, I couldn’t think of a reason something would want to kill something else.” Shadow gave a grim sigh, “In my world that’s the only way to survive, there’s bad people who just hate everyone else and want to cause them pain. I don’t like it at all, I personally think that my world is shit.” Everyone except Applejack cringed at the language, her having gotten used to it after being around Shadow most of the day. Everypony just decided to ignore it though and continue to question Shadow. “Are all humans exactly like you?” asked Pinkie Pie. Shadow found the question slightly amusing, smiling as he answered, “No, humans come in all different colors and sizes. I’m actually more different than most humans though, I have special powers that were given to me from my father.” Twilight perked up at the mention of special powers, “What kind of special powers are you talking about, do you mean like me and magic?” Shadow grew slightly nervous, Twilight’s questioning making him feel kinda like a freak. “Well my brothers and I are called the Elements, we were each born with the ability to control a certain element from the Earth, hence the name. All our powers were given to us by our Dad, he wanted us to join him and rule the world but we rebelled. The things he did were too terrible for us to even consider joining him.” Twilight wouldn’t be satisfied with an answer like that and asked, “So Shadow what element do you control?” Shadow sighed and nonchalantly said, “My father gave me the element of weather, lightning being my specialty.” “No way! Only a pegasus can control the weather!” Rainbow Dash shouted at Shadow. “Is that a challenge?” Shadow asked with a sly grin. “You can bet your hooves it is!” Dash replied with anger in her voice. “I don’t have hooves, I’m a human. I got hands.” Shadow wiggled his fingers about to emphasize his point. “Doesn’t matter, you’re challenging Rainbow Dash here! The fastest flyer in all of Equestria!” Shadow just laughed at her cockiness. “Alright let’s go outside then.” Shadow said with practiced ease. After some time, the other weathermares had managed to gather up some clouds. The two challengers got prepared for the contest. Rainbow Dash turned to Shadow, “Ready to get creamed Shadow?” “No, I’m more ready to be winning. Heh, Charlie Sheen.” a grin coming to Shadow’s face thinking about the crazy old bastard. “Alright,” the referee called. “Get ready. Get set. GO!” Rainbow Dash took off; hitting every single cloud she came near. She took a glance at her friends and their amazed faces told her that she was winning. That is until she had two more clouds left and the ref shouted, “TIME!” She looked over at Shadow and saw all his clouds were gone, she hadn’t even seen him move! Dash just sat there and stared at him with an open mouth while Shadow grinned at her. He wasn’t one to talk about his powers but displaying them was a different thing altogether. “Wow Dash, you’re real fast. Almost as fast as me.” Dash was still staring disbelievingly at the human when suddenly she flew off as fast as she could towards her house, tears streaming behind her. She was already too far to hear her friends calling to her. “Did I do something wrong?” Shadow asked the assembled group, feeling more than a little guilty. “No she’s just too competitive for her own good.” Rarity said, judging from her tone she still partially blamed Shadow. “Well I’m going after her, I feel too damn guilty.” Shadow said while staring after the cyan blue figure. Just as Shadow was about to take off Rarity called to him, “But darling you can’t fly, I mean you don’t have wings.” Shadow looked back at the ponies and prepared to jump into the air. He left the group simply stating, “You don’t always need wings to fly.” As Shadow flew through the air a white pegasus could be heard yelling in the distance, “YEEEAAAAHHH!!!” Author's Note Thanks for the support, it's a lot more than this fic originally got. I would also like to thank my editor Osmosis, he gave me the idea to put in that last bit. Updating will be sporadic because of school and such thanks for sticking with me.
Causing More ProblemsCausing More Problems As Shadow neared the rainbow maned mare’s house he called out to her. “Uh Dash, Rainbow Dash!” “Just go away! You’ve already caused enough problems!” Dash was obviously not in the mood to talk anyone, especially Shadow. Shadow flew up to her house and landed on her doorstep. When Dash heard a knocking on her door, she thought immediately of her yellow pegasus friend. She opened the door and was surprised to see Shadow standing there. She immediately tried to slam the door shut but was brusquely interrupted by Shadow’s foot. “Wait! Please hear me out.” The cyan pegasus let the door creep it’s way open, “I’m here to apologize.” Shadow announced very anticlimactically. Dash was in fact a little shocked, she had thought the human only came to gloat some more.. “What d’ya mean apologize?” she asked, a suspicious tone in her voice. “I realized how much my bragging hurt you, and for that I sincerely apologize.” Shadow sighed and continued on, “If you wanna hit me or something go ahead.” Rainbow Dash could see the look of regret plain on the human’s face. She punched him lightly in the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it porcupine head.” Shadow couldn’t help but give the mare a grim laugh, “You know my brother always says that same thing to me.” Behind his eyes, Rainbow Dash could see the look of sadness he was trying to hide, “Which one?” she asked curiously. “Grave, he’s the one I’m closest to.” there it was again, that same hidden sadness. “What’s up with the moping?” Shadow had hoped she wouldn’t notice, he had to start taking acting lessons or something. “It’s just that,” Shadow sighed, “I may never be able to see my brothers or the Doc again. Anyway, do you think I could come inside? It’s a little cold out here.” Shadow said trying to change the subject. Dash wondered what her neighbors would think but then decided she didn’t quite care, “Sure, come on in. I didn’t know that you could walk on clouds though.” “Thanks, the whole cloud walking thing comes with the whole being given insane amounts of power.” Shadow said, just realizing that he could easily spark her anger at him with the wrong choice of words. She didn’t seem to notice and so Shadow walked into a beautiful house made entirely out of clouds, excluding the furnishings. The house was fairly large with a couch and guitar on the other side of the room. There were clothes scattered all over the floor which Rainbow tried to discreetly move under her couch. By the couch were a couple of books Shadow took a quick glance at, “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone.” Looked like a Indiana Jones rip-off to Shadow. Rainbow Dash started to walk towards the stairs which had a pillar at the base along with a swirly screen to the right. Shadow was kinda shocked something made out of clouds could be this sophisticated, he had experimented with making shapes out of clouds back home but this was something else entirely. Shadow gaped at the screen granting him a giggle from the mare. “If you’re that interested in my stair screen wait till you see the rest of my house.” she said, stifling giggles. Shadow awkwardly cleared his throat and looked up at Dash as she ascended the stairs, “Why um yes, I’ll be right with you.” Shadow popped his back and then headed over to look at the guitar, it was a Griffon brand guitar called a Less Paw, the irony of this was not lost on Shadow and so he allowed himself a small chuckle. He picked up the guitar, which was like a child’s guitar, and proceeded to play a few chords. The sound came out of nowhere, considering the guitar wasn’t attached to an amp. The sound was also quite loud making Shadow cringe, he quickly turned down the sound and played a few more chords. He started the chorus when it came around, “She was sixteen and six feet tall, in a crowd of teenagers comin’ out of the zoo. She stumbled started to slip and fall, teeter tottered on her diamond patterned red leather shoes. I happened to catch her and said ‘Maybe theses ruby shoes are a little cumbersome for you, maybe for you.’ ahhhhh.” Shadow stopped singing when he heard hooves slamming into the ground, coming towards the staircase from upstairs. The pony who was responsible showed herself at the bottom of the stairs, “What the hay do you think you’re doing?!?” she shouted at him. Shadow slowly shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Playing a quick song.” Rainbow Dash ran up to him, grabbing the guitar out of his hands and then proceeding to yell at him, “You don’t just go to people’s houses you just met and touch their stuff in your world do you!? You have no idea what this means to me!! I might be ok with it if it was one of my friends but I just met you and the only thing you’ve done so far is ruin everything!!” Shadow stepped back and let the cyan mare rage on for a minute or two, trying his best to ignore her ranting, lest he himself get angry. After she seemed slightly calmed down Shadow asked in a controlled voice, “So then, don’t touch the guitar, got it. You could have just asked instead of throwing a fit you know.” Shadow then noticed the mare seemed to be sobbing, “Are you crying?” he asked warily. He started to walk toward her when she turned around suddenly and tried to hit him while screaming at him, “GET OUT!! JUST GET OUT!!” Shadow grabbed her hooves and held her there. Dash tried to break his grip for a couple of seconds but then collapsed into Shadow, surprising him. He simply stood there as she cried into his shoulder, “I miss him.” she whimpered. Shadow was shocked for a moment but quickly regained control of himself, he started rubbing the mares back in what he assumed was a comforting way and spoke softly to her, “It’s alright, everythings fine.” After a few minutes Dash pushed Shadow away and turned away from him, wiping her eyes in the process. She started to speak, “The guitar was my dad’s. He left it to me when he...passed.” Shadow placed his hand on his chin and stared at the pegasus, “Well that sucks. Since you’re being so honest, so will I, both my parents are dead. My father killed my parents, he may have been my father but he wasn’t the one who raised me.” The pony stared back at the human and saw he was telling the truth. She couldn’t even begin to think of something like that happening. She tried to speak but found no words to offer the human. “It’s fine, I have enough pity of my own to drown in,” Shadow said as he pushed himself off the floor and started to head for the door, his cold anger hidden in the humorous tone of his voice. “Wait! I’m sorry.” the rainbow maned pegasus yelled after him. With his hand on the doorknob Shadow turned around, “What is it that you want exactly?" he said coldly. The mare sighed in frustration, “I just don’t want you to be sad like me,” she finally said. Shadow laughed, it was a cold laugh nearly devoid of emotion, “You think I’m sad? That’s a goddamn joke, sad doesn’t even begin to describe it anymore. You have no idea what I’ve been through, so don’t try and pretend I'm in any way the same as you. None of you can relate to me, you live in a goddamn fantasy land where nothing bad ever happens to you. If you lived in my world for one day you’d probably go insane,” Shadow said with cold anger, giving his voice a sharp edge. Shadow opened the door and slammed it shut as he left, the shock reverberating throughout the house. Dash ran to the door to catch him but by the time she got outside he was already gone.
ProloguePrologue This world is not as it should be. There are many dark forces that work to control the world from beyond the shadows. The leader of this dark movement is known as The Shadow Lord. This vile man has mastered the art of dark magic, humans can learn magic but only after years of hard work and dedication. One day when studying darker tomes, The Shadow Lord discovered a way to imbue living things with the power of the elements. The only drawback was that it had to be done to a newborn baby, each having a different mother who was to be sacrificed during childbirth. And so The Shadow Lord set out to have the children that would help him rule the world. When The Shadow Lord was done he had performed five rituals and in turn had five sons. He only kept the one boy who he could train, Grave. The others were all left on the doorstep of the nearest orphanage. When each of his sons turned eighteen their parents were killed and they were sent a letter telling them who they really were and how to find their father. Each of them in turn rebelled, Grave even running away after being told the truth. All of them except for Shadow had gathered together, plotting against The Shadow Lord. A couple of days before Shadow’s eighteenth birthday he ran away to his old orphanage where he learned his parent’s had been killed. He flew into a blind rage and destroyed the town where the orphanage was located with his powers, also finding the necklace that would transform into his sword. He woke up outside the wreckage of the town with a letter from his brothers instead of his father. He then went to join his brethren in the fight against The Shadow Lord. And so the story begins… Author's Note First fanfic, I posted this once and got terrible reviews so I went and heavily edited it. Me and my editor, Osmosis, think that it's alot better with the prologue and such. Constructive criticism and such is always welcome, please don't just post hate comments. It doesn't help anyone.
