It Is Always Best Forgotten

A grand stallion stood proudly at an edge of a cliff, his cape swaying in the wind, and sunset looming over the sky in its bright presence, dark clouds forming quickly. His sky-blue mane swayed gracefully in the wind, his white coat lighting the encroaching night. Multiple blood-red shards on his flank all facing away from each other, their ends pointing to the center, making a sharp pointed circle as a cutie mark. His heavy looking gold armor battered and cut. He wore a grin of certainty.

Beyond the cliff, darkness reached out, trying to get to the stallion, an entire valley misplaced by the two timeless rivals. A grand Ali-corn stallion facing his rival. Its coat dark as night, and its mane as bright as day. A Solar eclipse as its cutie mark. It eyed his rival with an anticipating look.

The cutie mark of the illuminating stallion started spinning endlessly. An unnatural force began to form around him. The Ali-corn's solar rim burned. Their cutie marks as active as their energy. Their muscles stiffened.

Then the two disappeared instantly. Leaving no trace of an existence in their wake.

Thunder boomed the dark clouds became illuminated by multiple flashes of white, then different colors. Red, Yellow, Green, Purple, Blue, Pink. The bright colors beautifully swayed endlessly fighting the white flashes. Then the clouds burst. A giant white circled encased the illuminating stallion. The Ali-corn dashed with its entire might, making a tremendous crackling of lightning, a great rainbow thunder forming at its back. The speed was too much... thousands of crackling booms filled the valley as the heavy force rushed towards the light shield.

When it struck, a massive sphere of a rainbow including white circled the area, spiraling madly and destroying great portions of the land. Then it shrunk from little to nothing, the two ponies falling fast to the ground. The earth split as the two fell, causing craters and fissures. The illuminating stallion stood up slowly, walking over to the defeated Ali-corn. He stood in front of him. Panting and smiling with a victorious grin.

~~~~~~~

A small and young Ali-corn ran through a meadow, her dark celestial mane bouncing off her night black coat. Her panting showed her worry. Too hard at breathing, it seemed she was in a hurry. The small mare stumbled on her legs when she heard the crackling boom of lightning. She desperately looked up for signs of anything. Dark clouds began to show many colors, a beautifully dreadful scene.

She stopped forcefully as she reached the edge of a hill, going down into a big valley. She slid down the edge wanting to get closer to the spectacle. Before she knew it, the clouds split, a pure white sphere circling the sky.

She screamed with all her lungs to the Ali-corn stallion who was building up force and speed, causing thousands of booms as he trailed. Then she sunk into despair as he hit the white sphere dead on. No regrets. A sudden light of different colors and white of tremendous forced quickly gaining distance to her. She tried running but it was too fast and too sudden, it encircled the small Ali-corn. The pressure felt like a thousand supernovas going off in front of you. It was too much... then a rainbow colored light started glowing from the chest piece and helmet she was wearing. It bursts, leaving no trace of it.

Then the light stopped, it shrunk back to where the white sphere had been, two ponies fell heavily to ground, causing a powerful fissure to shred the Earth beneath them, making the small Ali-corn flinch back. Then without hesitating, she ran towards the defeated Ali-corn.

~~~~~~

The White stallion's cutie mark now contained an enclosed circle to the spikes. Every spike faced the defeated Ali-corn.

The illuminating stallion looked down towards his defeated advisory, his victorious grin showing no signs of pity. He raised his hoofs, ready to give the last blow, but he was interrupted by a small black Ali-corn. The young mare cried her heart out as she threw herself to his rival.

"Out of the way girl. I won't hesitate to destroy you too." he said to the young mare sharply.

"P-p-please d-don't k-kill him!" she cried out, stuttering from the weeping.

The bigger Ali-corn painfully coughed regaining his consciousness. "Get away from here" it struggled to say.

The young mare looked at him, tears rolling down her face uncontrollably. "D-dad.N-n-no. I w-won't l-leave you!"

The stallion Ali-corn put his hoof to the young mare, a purple celestial fire burned into her horn.

"Oh, giving your power to that pathetic kid to save your legacy are we? It's just too fun. I guess I'll have to kill the girl as well." the stallion snarled out, approaching the young mare.

"Run..." the defeated Ali-corn said, pushing away his daughter. She obeyed, running as fast as her legs could carry.

A pure white fire sprang in front of her creating an impassible wall. She flinched back, dropping to her back, the stallion slowly walking towards her. She closed her eyes as he stood in front of her, his intentions visible in his yellow golden eyes.

Then, he shrieked in pain. The small mare quickly opened her eyes to see her father, his horn sunk into the illuminating stallion's coat, taking him by surprise at his blind side. Then a purple flash burst all three of them apart.

"What did you do?!?!" the white stallion angrily screamed out.

"I sealed your fate with mine." he said, making the white stallion's eyes shrink in more fear and shock than pain. "My only regret.... is that I couldn't have been a better father." he looked over to the small mare, looking at her father with dreadful expression.

Then the Ali-corn's horn started to shine powerfully, illuminating the entire valley in a purple light. A huge wave of powerful magic burst, tossing the small mare away. When it was over, the two ponies were gone.

"Daddy!!" the young mare screamed over and over. "Why!!" she screamed until she lost her voice and cried herself to sleep on the ruins of the valley that once was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Illuminous quickly woke up, goose bumps still clearly noticeable from the vivid vision. His hoofs were shaking, yet he couldn't stop it. His emotions were filled with complete dread.

Who were they? That white stallion looked like himself..... Yet the shards on him were blood red. What happened?

He started to wonder endlessly why he was having these constant visions. He feared going to sleep now, all of them seemed so.... dangerous.... and so troubling.... every single one seemed to somehow be connected to him.

Illuminous looked around, spotting a yellow Pegasus. His heart calmed down, and his mind cooled off. He smiled seeing Fluttershy peacefully sleeping. So cute. He lied back down. And before he could shut his eyes, he heard a familiar voice, cracking like it usually did.

"Hey, I found them!" the rainbow colored Pegasus called out from the sky.

He rolled away farther from Fluttershy and stood up. Surely enough, the gang of friends appeared from the trees, relieved to see them both.

"We we're all so worried!"

The gang of mares hugged him, emphasizing their previous statement. He blushed a little, still not being comfortable around mares, especially if there are 5 of them hugging him at once.

"Don't wake Fluttershy yet, she is still recovering." he said seriously.

"Why what happened?"

"We got attacked, I was able to fend them off, if it wasn't for Fluttershy though." he explained, keeping his abnormal power on the down low.

"Attacked?!" The group of ponies all said alarmed.

"I can't explain now, the best thing to do is keep going and reach the safety of Canterlot. If it has any."

"Oh...okay, Princess Celestia's guard will protect us no doubt." Twilight said, making Illuminous flinched. He didn't know who to trust... all he knew was that he couldn't trust himself, that power.... last night.... it overtook him... that wasn't him....

Illuminous kept walking until he reached the road again, the trailing ponies all looking worriedly at Fluttershy who was being carried by Illuminous + his baggage and Fluttershy's. He had surely become stronger.

No one said a word until Twilight pointed out something. "Your cutie mark... its different now!" she exclaimed.

He turned to stare at it. Two shards we're now facing against each other, like the arms of a compass. This frightened him deeply for an unknown reason, closely related to last night's vision. The fear must have shown in his eyes.

"Is something wrong Illuminous?" Twilight asked.

He shook his head in reply. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just worried about Fluttershy."

"Could you please tell us what happened? Maybe I could help..."

Illuminous stopped to stare the purple pony. "She'll be alright, there wasn't any harm done to her, she just needs a good rest." his tone dead serious.

"Oh... alright." The purple pony shyed away.

Fluttershy woke up right when he wanted her to, he didn't like being firm, it was bad for his image, and he didn't want his friends to think badly of him. The yellow Pegasus opened her eyes slowly, taking in the view, and then finally realizing on whose back she'd been riding on.

Illuminous knew exactly when she woke up, even if he couldn't see her when looking ahead. Somehow... he was more connected her. He let her down gently and the group of mares hugged her like they'd done to him.

"Thank Celestia your awake Fluttershy, we we're worried that something bad might have happened to you," they said as they all looked at her, not having a single scratch.

"Well it was thanks to Illuminous, he saved me from some goons." she explained.

"Two acts of heroism already, you really are something." Rainbow Dash said with admiration.

Illuminous flushed as they all praised him.

"It was nothing really..." he tried countering.

"Oh but it was! He snapped me out of a trance that those meanies put me in." Fluttershy continued explaining, somehow, he knew she was trying to do it so that they would accept him more. But it really wasn't helping him. He just blushed even more.

Fluttershy walked next to him the entire way, staying close to him. He could feel the other ponies wonder about them. Which didn't really matter at this point but somehow it still felt rather uncomfortable for the poor colt.

When they exited the woods, the magnificent castle came into view. Its beauty outshone the mountain itself. It stood as a golden and marble beacon of glory and greatness. This truly was an amazing sight. It towered majestically over the land below. Whatever withheld the giant palace it must be a huge effort because no further logic could sustain something of that magnitude, but ever since he reached Ponyville logic hasn't exactly been on his side. Still though, it was an amazing sight to behold.

Everyone groaned when they saw the giant stairs they had to climb. Twilight shyly apologized since she was flown to Ponyville and had never seen the stairs much less had to make the long trek up. Conveniently, Twilight placed a spell on them that made them lighter. She was good at magic, which would explain her cutie mark. It made it so that they wouldn't be so tired when walking up, which totally made the difference, Fluttershy had decided to climb instead of fly like Rainbow Dash, sticking close to him like before. This brought him that hidden joy.

When they finally walked up the stairs, everyone was amazed and by the wonders of Canterlot, but no one was just as amazed as Illuminous himself. This was something he treasured, something he adored. A tear escaped his eyes; he remembered how his father wanted to come to Canterlot with his little sister, for his mother... This was... his dream, their dream. He only regrets not having his family at his side.

Applejack slowly came up to him. "What's wrong sugarcube?" she asked him worriedly to why he was crying, he turned to see her and realized everyone was looking at him with the same expression of worry.

"It's nothing, it's just... My mother always wanted to live in Canterlot, my father and my sister... we were supposed to come here..." his tone quiet and sad. This really did affect him heavily. But he was happy. He smiled, and laughed a little as the tears rolled down his cheek.

Everyone stared at him, with a look of worry and confusion.

"I do admit. This is great!" he said jumping around, going up to the golden street lamps and placing his forehead to see his reflection.

Everyone laughed and followed his blind lead. He went everywhere, to a local donuts shop, then to a big ice sculpture that never melted and accidentally placed his tongue on it curiously wondering what it tasted like since it was made of ice. This didn't turn out so pretty. Of course, he didn't know it himself but it seemed he saved the best for last. The Grand Castle.

"My dad you used to tell me of an awesome party called the grand gala that Princess Celestia would host sometimes." he said excitedly.

"Trust me, it isn't so great." Everyone said with a laugh.

Like a little filly, Illuminous ran up the grand castle's stairs with his eyes, only to fall back by the spears of two guards.

"Oh it's okay, we've come to see Princess Celestia, and she requested our presence." Twilight said pulling out the note from Princess Celestia herself and showing it to the guards.

They lowered the spears. "Please proceed" they said simultaneously.

Illuminous quickly turned to his filly self again only to be bumped back by Princess Celestia herself who stood waiting at the front.

"My pardons Princess." Twilight said for Illuminous as they all bowed.

Illuminous only stood staring at the amazingly graceful Ali-corn who stood before him, his eyes starry with wondrous joy and glee.

"And who would your new friend be?" Princess Celestia asked smiling warmly over at Illuminous, her voice sweet and gentle. Strong and firm. Everything that you'd expect from a thousand year ruler of Equestria.

"I'm... I-I'm Illuminous" he said, lost at words by the grand presence.

"You are not one of my little ponies. I've never seen you in Equestria before." Princess Celestia bellowed to him.

"Oh uh... well I didn't come from Ponyville or anything. I lived with my father in a quiet isolated forest not too far from Ponyville with my sister." he explained.

Princess Celestia stood quiet, examining this new pony in front of her. Her face turned grim when she saw his cutie mark.

"Your father... was he... Sir Levan?" she said, this being the first time in years hearing his dad's true name.

Illuminous nodded.

"He served as a loyal guard not only to me but to Equestria itself. I'm truly grateful for his services and he will be missed dearly." Princess Celestia said lowering her head in respect for a fallen.

This struck the deep levels of Illuminous. How did Celestia know that his father had....?

"If you don't mind me asking Princess... but how do you know about the events with my father?" he asked.

Without reply, Celestia looked over to the gang of ponies behind her. "I'm sorry girls but important matters have been raised. I'm going to have to cancel the tour of Canterlot until another time. But I will need your help."

"It's alright Princess, Illuminous took everyone for a ride of all Canterlot already. And what for?" Twilight responded for the group.

"Just follow me. I fear that dark times are upon us. And I'll need everyone of you," she turned to face Illuminous who she seemed to be including as well, her voice and expression dead serious.

There are many things you must know.

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(Author's note: Alright, I made a 1k word filler which was just the vision at the beginning, but since due to current events, I had to finish it up. Anyways. I hope you enjoyed. My fingers ache from the effort I've been placing on this lately. :3 Good aching. I had to reboot my computer and it took ages to update and install the things I wanted. So I finished this at the late of night. My computer kept crashing for some reason, but no more, which I'm glad for. Been listening to "Woodkid- Iron" this entire time. Such an awesome song. Till next time!)