Chapters Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Music Link
The sounds of a terrible war rang throughout a large open field outside of a large castle on a cliff side where peace and harmony once existed. Terrible sights of armored ponies hopelessly defending their homes against countless enemies of two other envious nations, the griffins and the changelings. The sounds of swords and spears banging against each other were constant and nerve wracking along with battle cries and screams of pain. A purple alicorn princess was staring at the sight before her in shock and fear. Every where she looked there was the sight of something she would have never imagined; the fall of Equestria. The sky was filled with dark clouds that had a red tint on them.
No matter what direction she focused her gaze upon she could only see fierce fighting that had taken hold of the land, she looked to her left in panic and she saw a pony stab a griffin in the chest then proceed to decapitate a changeling followed by being shot several times with arrows from griffin archers. She then quickly glanced to her right and noticed a two pegasus ponies fall from the sky at high speeds then crashed to the ground before being finished by several changelings who trampled them. She even looked up to see that even the sky was filled with this carnage. Pegasus ponies littered the skies armed with crossbows and some with large arbalests while the griffins in the air had bows and there were even more of them, along with changelings covering the sky. Countless arrows and crossbow bolts flew aimlessly across the sky and every few seconds or so she could see one or two of the combatants fall out of the sky.
End of Music
Music Link
What felt like hours have passed for the purple princess when she had gazed upon the aftermath of what she had just witnessed. The field was covered in blooded and lifeless bodies of ponies, changelings, and griffins. The site of the carnage was now silent, the sky was now even darker than before and it began to drizzle lightly and smock was rising vertically off the ground from several craters that had been made during the recent onslaught. Several vultures were circling and picking at the corpses that lay in the dirt. Many were the brave ponies who selflessly gave their lives to defend the land that they called their home, but none of the defenders were left alive after this atrocity committed by their foes and there were still a few griffins and changelings occupying the sky some checking for any ponies that may still be alive and ending them by stabbing them in the heart or slitting their throats. Some even cut off the horns of the dead unicorn ponies or the wings of the dead pegasus ponies for trophies.
There was even the dead body of another pony who was a white unicorn with several cuts that almost made him unrecognizable. It was the brother of the purple princess and he was holding a flag that symbolized peace and harmony that had been torn several times and one of the tares had nearly went across the flag from top to bottom with the top still not separated and was now flowing with the wind as if it were two. He was also surrounded by the corpses of two pegasus ponies, one with a rainbow mane and another had a light pink mane, two earth ponies, one with a blond mane and a hat in her hoof and the other with a curly pink mane, and a unicorn with a purple mane. All of them were her dear friends which were very important to her and each one of them wearing a golden necklace with a gem stone in the middle of them and each were a different color and shape.
She shed a tear as she came to speak to herself with strong emotions. "No.......No" she began to tear up even more, "How could something as bad as this happen?.....Why would anyone do something like this...??" After asking those questions she immediately began to sob uncontrollably for having seen such a fate befall upon her home.
"Twilight......Twilight!" Her ear perked up at the sound of her name. (sniff)"Who's there?" she turned to see no one was there. "Twilight!" was heard again by that same voice.
"S-Shining Armor?" Twilight said recognizing the voice, then immediately looking toward the dead white unicorn holding the flag who was surrounded by the other five ponies but were all still lying on the ground motionless.
"Twilight! Wake up!"
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A white unicorn stallion with a blue and teal mane stood at the side of the purple princess's bed holding her hoof in his as he begged her to awaken from whatever she was experiencing. Twilight's eyes burst open and she instantly started to hyperventilate from the shock she was in from the magnitude of her nightmare.
"Twilight!" the stallion said clearly worried about his sister's well being, "Are you alright?" he asked.
"Shining?" Twilight sighed out in relief, "It was nothing, just a terrible dream." Twilight answered giving Shining a light smile, but wasn't receiving the same smile from him.
"Twilight ever since a month after you became a princess you have been having these nightmares. Please tell me what they are about because Zecora told me that if they are recurring, then they may be visions of fate." Shining said in a concerned tone.
Twilight lowered her head and spoke, "My nightmares.....they....they keep coming.....and....I don't know what they mean but,...."
"Yes?" Shining interrupted.
"Every one of them.....are unbelievably unbearable...." She began to cry lightly as she remembered what happened.
"Twilight, please tell me what happened in your dreams!" he pleaded, fearing for his sister.
Twilight nodded and continued, "Each and every one of my dreams are of a long and dreadful war between Equestrians and an alliance between the changelings and the griffin kingdoms and...and the end result...... is always the same!"
"What is the end, and what is the result of this war, who wins?!" Shining questioned.
"The end result is.......the fall of our home...... Equestria, everything was destroyed, even the castle couldn't withstand the war and Princess Celestia and Luna were overpowered and unable to stave off the attacks." After hearing that story, Shining Armor stayed by his sister in stunned silence.
End of Music
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Music Link
"What? Visions of war and disharmony in Equestria? But how?", questioned a large white alicorn, who was sitting on a large throne in a large room with several columns lining either side of the room, large colorful windows behind the throne and also on the wall in the side of the room, a large red carpet that lay on top of the marble floor from the entrance at one end of the room to the throne at the other end, and a large white chandelier over the middle of the room and was lighting the room along with torches on the columns.
"I don't know but we must do something about it to insure the safety of Equestria, I have organized for ponies to be drafted into the Equestrian armed forces and with your permission, we could begin the draft right away. "Shining said to the princess in front of him.
"No, that will not work!" exclaimed the voice of a pony entering the throne room.
Both shining and the white princess quickly turned their heads towards the source of the voice then and noticed Twilight walking in.
"What do you mean that won't work? It's our best hope of defending our home if your dreams become a reality!" Shining exclaimed.
"But that's just it! This is exactly what happened in my dream!" Twilight explained in a somewhat worried tone.
"Then what would you suggest that we do Twilight?" asked Princess Celestia in anticipation.
Twilight motioned for both of them to follow her to the royal garden.
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On their way to the garden they met up with Princess Luna, a dark blue alicorn almost as large as Celestia and had a sparkling blue flowing mane, who had been aware of the nightmares before she was awakened by Shining Armor. They continued to the garden with the dark blue princess.
The garden was beautiful and was filled with countless plants and small animals and the day was flawless with the sun high in the sky beaming its light down upon them. When they reached the garden Twilight began, "I've been reading up on this new spell from olden times that is supposed to summon legendary warriors from another dimension." the birds and other small animals in the garden go about their business, not noticing the four ponies that had come.
"And how, do you suppose, we summon these 'legendary warriors'?" Shining asked while emphasizing the last two words. Celestia looked at Twilight curious to what her answer would be.
"My friends and I will use the elements for the summoning and we will just have to hope it works, cause if we really are going to be at war with the griffin kingdom and the changelings, then we are going to need all the help we can get." Twilight replied worried about what the future may hold.
After the four ponies planned the summoning, Twilight Sparkle set out to Ponyville to gather her friends while Celestia, Luna, and Shining Armor headed back into the castle to carefully assess their situation and plan out the best possible strategy in case a war did break out. All of them knew that to ensure that they had a fighting chance to save Equestria, they would have to keep a close eye on the changelings and the griffins.
They were going to need allies no matter who or what those allies may be.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Music Link
Princesses Celestia and Luna sat in a meeting with Shining Armor discussing what should be done to protect Equestria if an attack was inevitable. The room was large with a large rectangular table with a map of equestrian and its surrounding nations. The three of them sat close to each other since no one else was involved in the meeting.
Celestia stared at the map of her home. "Why would they want to attack us? We haven't done anything wrong, and the griffins have been friends with us for the past hundred years! Why in the world would they want a war with us?" she said questioning the loyalty of the griffins.
"I don't know Princess, but we need to remain calm and carefully asses our curent situation. Also we don't know if my sister's nightmares are visions or just bad dreams. For all we know it may just be a spell from Chysalis ment to scare us over nothing, but even so, we must not take any chances with the survival of our home." said Shining Armor in respons to the white princess who stared at the map in dispair.
Celestia fell silent and for a few seconds, it was silent, but the silence did not last long as Shining looked at the map again. "If they do attack, they would probably start from here." he said pointing a hoof at the border lands north of them and close to changeling territory, then pointed at another portion of the border lands, north west of them where the Griffin/Equestrian borders were located." he finished.
Luna looked up at him when he finished. "Yes, that does look rather probable, but what if they attack from elsewhere, completely different from where you predicted? What must we do then?" she asked him.
Shining was looking back to her then turned back to the map."Chances are, they don't even know that we have obtained this information. They will almost certainly attack, staring from this general area, raiding several small towns on their way to Manehatten, giving them a key foothold in Equestria, then launching another attack on two highly populated cities, Fillydelphia and Los Pegasus, before heading out to Cloudsdale, taking out the wonderbolts and our weather teams and also giving them an advantage over the skies, acting as an airial base or reconossence and air support, and Ponyville, home to five of the six barers of the elements of harmony and tightining their grip on Canterlot until finally, they attack us in Canterlot, bringing about the fall of Equestria as we know it." he said, pointing at the border lands, then at the cities that he mentioned, in order.
"Princess, this is the worst possible fate of Equestria, should we discover Twilight's night mares be true. Because of this, wish to personally investigate the borderlands near changeling territory, to search for any signs of a coming invasion." Shining requested, eager to find and report any threats.
The sisters looked at each other for a few seconds then back towards him and nodded in approval.
"You may go to the borderlands, but be careful. Don't let yourself be caught off guard. Even if they don't intend to start a war, the changelings are aggressive and will attack you on sight!"
"I'm well aware of that and I'll be fine, but I'll need some guards to come with me, if that's okay with you ." Shining said while turning his head towards Celestia.
"Yes, you may take some of my guards with you. How many do you need?" Celestia asked giving a warm smile.
"Thank you your highness, I'll need twenty earth guards, ten unicorn guards, and ten pegasi guards for this operation. Are you okay with this many going to the borderlands with me?" Shining asked his princess already knowing what the answer would be.
"Why of course, I trust that you of all ponies would make wise decisions when it comes to these types of situations. Take them, and please, make sure you come back safely with as many of them as possible." Celestia requested, confident the captain’s ability.
"I promise, I will not let you down." Shining left the room to gather the ponies he had requested and the two princesses continued the meeting without him.
"Luna, I need you to check up on him in his dreams, keep us updated so that we can have more time to react to any strange activity in the borderlands." Celestia said wanting to make the most of her sister's ability to visit the dreams of any Equestrian individual.
"Leave it to me big sister." Luna replied "But what of starting a draft into thine legion like Shining Armor hast suggested? It may be the best way to give Twilight Sparkle and her friends the time they need to use the elements to summon yon warriors, should Equestria be attacked."
"I'm not sure if I am willing to draft any of our subjects, rather, we should let them volunteer to join instead of forcing their hoof." Celestia replied wanting not to force her subjects into such a dangerous profession.
"Yes, perhaps thou are right about that." Luna agreed.
After their meeting the two of them left to announce that any pony willing to join the legion was going to be accepted and that their military training would begin immediately at Canterlot castle.
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{Ponyville}
Twilight met up with her friends in the middle of Ponyville at the town hall. Her friends showed up in glee that Twilight was back in Ponyville after being in Canterlot for nearly a year.
Twilight was greeted by her friends as they led her inside-
"SURPRISE!!!!!!!!"
-only to nearly jump out of her skin.
"What the-?!...Pinkie Pie." Twilight said to herself slightly annoyed with her surprise yet, some how knew that Pinkie Pie would have thrown a welcome back to Ponyville party for her. Twilight, seeing as she hadn't seen her friends in awhile, went along with it.
"We were so glad to hear that you were coming back to Ponyville, Twilight, we couldn't help but throw you a party." Her friend Rarity explained.
Twilight smiled and told her friends that she was here on a matter of great importance and that they were needed to help out on the matter, but she didn't tell them what it was until the party had ended and all the ponies, except the six of them, had left to go home.
"Girls, I had a wonderful time with you and I wish it hadn't ended, but now that every pony has gone home, I must tell you that Equestria is on the brink of a disaster worse than any other we have ever faced." Twilight said explaining their current situation to them.
"What do you mean? What kind of disaster?" questioned Rainbow Dash.
"I've been having these nightmares about the end of harmony as we know it." Twilight said while receiving a few concerned or annoyed looks from her friends.
"So you came all the way over here, from Canterlot, to tell us about a few bad dreams?" asked an orange earth pony with a cocked eyebrow.
"No Applejack that isn't it at all!" Twilight replied a bit disturbed with her friend's question, "I’m here because in my dreams Equestria was attacked by the griffin kingdoms and the changelings simultaneously and eventually Equestria would be swept into the abyss of history, metaphorically speaking."
"Yes Twilight, but these are just dreams are they not? Surely such a thing will not happen." Rarity said trying to calm her friend down. "And besides, what would they have to gain by attacking us?"
"I'm not sure, but my dreams are recurring and my brother said Zecora told him recurring dreams may be visions of what the future holds." Twilight took a moment to recollect her thoughts then sighed, "And even the elements of harmony alone wouldn't be enough to save us from this catastrophe."
"Oh my...then why did you come to us if even the six of us couldn't stop it?" a yellow pegasus asked in a low voice.
"I came to all of you because we may be able to use the elements to summon allies from another dimension that may be strong enough to save us from this war Fluttershy." Twilight answered in a confident tone. "But the summoning will take days to perform and a very large amount of energy."
"Which is why we use our elements? To meet the need for all that energy?" Applejack asked now a little worried about their future.
Twilight gave her a slight smile, "Yes, the energy output from the elements would probably be enough to perform the summoning, but we must not summon these allies unless we actually do end up going to war." Twilight said trying to keep her friends on the same page as her. "However, we must be ready to use the elements and perform the spell in response to an invasion, so you will all be staying in the castle with me."
Twilight’s friends all agreed to go to the castle with her. They trusted Twilight with their lives and knowing that they played a key role in the survival of Equestria, they gladly complied to their friend's request. At the time they were hoping that a war was just a dream and nothing more, but Twilight had an uncanny feeling that a war was inevitable and that their potential enemies were already acting against them.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
{Canterlot Castle}
Music Link
In a large barracks in the Canterlot castle, Shining Armor was briefing the thirty-five guards, he had requested, on the reconnaissance operation he had told Celestia and Luna about during their meeting earlier. He had asked if there was any pony who wasn't willing to leave with him to neutral territory. When none of them had said anything, he began, "Alright ponies, listen up! We are in danger of going to war with the changelings and the griffins, so I'm going to need all of you to pay attention! I'm leading a reconnaissance operation in the borderlands near changeling territory, so stay sharp and don't let me catch you slacking off! Our mission is to look for any signs that point to a coming war. This includes the movements of changeling troops in the borderlands, any strange activity involving the changelings, and any rumors that hints towards an attack or invasion. Remember, the changelings are an aggressive race, especially towards ponies so be on your guard. Are there any questions that any of you would like to ask about the operation?" he asked looking around the room. When a unicorn guard raised his hoof, it caught the attention of their captain.
"What should we do with any ponies that are acting or behaving strangely?" the guard questioned, knowing all to well the changeling's ability to change their appearance to match that of any individual they come across.
"Good question, well as you know, the changelings have the ability to disguise as a pony at will. So any ponies you find acting strange, you bring to me. I have learned a spell from my sister, Princess Twilight Sparkle, that compromises their transformation spell." Shining said answering the guard's question. "Are there any more questions?" he asked, receiving no further questions. "Very well then, we will take our leave in an hour, report to the front gate then. Dismissed!"
Two days later Shining Armor and his team where well into their march and were nearing the borderlands, they were trotting down a dirt road towards the borderlands and it wouldn't be long before the sun would start to set into the horizon and they would set up camp. A few minutes later Shining Armor decided to set up camp for the night and just as they finished setting up, one of the pegasus guards could hear a faint scream come from the direction they were heading in and notified their captain. "Captain!" The guard called out.
Shining Armor focused his attention to the guard who called out to him, "Shock, what is it?" Shining asked a little on edge about his sisters visions and the risk of war.
"I think I heard a scream coming from down the road in the direction of the borderlands." The guard named Shock replied with a hint of concern in his voice. "Should I check it out, sir?" he then asked.
Shining looked around to see what other guards were around and saw two earth guards pass by. "Smith, Zak, front and center!"
The two looked at each other briefly then trotted to their captain. "Sir!" the two of them said at the same time.
"Shock heard a scream coming from down the road over there, I want you two to go with him to where he heard the scream to investigate, and id like to remind you that we are close to the borderlands so I want you to be on your guard and look for anything that may be out of the ordinary. Can you do that for me?" Shining asked not wanting let any strange activity go unchecked.
"Yes sir!" the two saluted their captain before following Shock down the road where the scream have been heard from.
The three guards were about half an hour into their search when they came upon a gruesome sight, a small village was burnt and several dead ponies littered the site. "What happened here?" Shock asked, ironically in shock.
"Probably an attack, we are close to changeling territory." Zak said with disgust towards their potential enemies as he was looking around for any survivors. "Smith, go into that large round building, sword at the ready, check for any pony that may have survived."
"Good idea, we could get some information from them, and report back to the captain with conclusive evidence of a war." Shock commented, feeling sorry for the ponies here. "After words, we must burry these poor ponies, they didn't deserve such a fate."
Zak and Smith both nodded and checked the houses while Shock kept look out from the sky.
A half an hour had passed when they decided to end their search, but as they left, they noticed one of the ponies on the ground was leaning onto a building, and that he was breathing. "Hay you over there!" Smith said while walking over to the said pony. He was brown with a black mane and had a stab wound in his abdomen.
The three guards soon figured out that he was out cold so they just bandaged him up and took him back to their camp to be treated and questioned.
Hours later back in the camp, he woke up in a medical tent and was tended to by the camp medics. "Who are you? And Where am I?" the pony asked the pony who was standing next to him. "I'm Shining Armor, the captain of these ponies. My guards found you among the dead in a small village near here. Could you tell me what happened?"
After over an hour of the interrogation Shining found out that an attack was launched by the changelings and were lead by a griffin by the name of Gilda, and they had also brought what appeared to be a human with blood red eyes and had muttered what sounded like something about them being in his way of revenge.
After a week of investigating the borderlands, Shining and his team had also discovered that an alliance treaty was signed by the griffin king and Queen Chrysalis of the changelings. They headed back and Luna confirmed they were already at war and that now was the time to summon their allies
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
{Canterlot}
"Twilight, come quickly!" called Celestia, alarmed about Shining Armor's discovery of an alliance between the changelings and griffins. "The elements of harmony are needed, please come quickly!"
The bearers of the elements of harmony rushed to the throne room, each fearing the worst.
"Yes princess, what is it? Why are we needed?" Twilight questioned still in a daze from just waking up. "Wait, don't tell me....." Twilight said coming back to reality.
Celestia looked at her former student with a disheartened look in her eye.
"I'm afraid.....we are at war. Your brother's reconnaissance in the borderlands has lead to the discovery of an alliance between the changelings and the griffins, and they have already attacked several small villages near the borderlands."
"Then we have no choice," Twilight said wishing this was just another nightmare. "Girls, it's time to perform the summoning." she stated to her friends as they nodded in agreement.
A few minutes later they retrieved their respective elements and put them on. "Now what?" Rainbow asked Twilight, hoping that she would know how and where to preform the summoning.
"We will preform the summoning in the court yard, then we will have plenty of room," Twilight answered her cyan friend. "We will also need to concentrate because this spell will take approximately three day and nights."
After telling her friends this, they gave her surprised looks in response to the amount of time they would need to preform the spell.
"Three days! Are you kidding me!?" Rainbow commented not wanting to do one thing for that much time. "I mean I know that it's important that we save Equestria and all but isn't there a different way?" She then asked desperate to avoid that time being spent.
"Not that I know of, but there is no time to look for a different rout, so we will just have to deal with it," Twilight said losing her patience with Rainbow despite expecting such a reaction. "Now get into position," Twilight directed as they formed a perfect hexagon. "Is every pony ready?" Twilight asked as they began to levitate off the ground.
"Ready as we'll ever be," Applejack said, confirming Twilight's question.
Right after that last statement, their eyes started glowing white and their elements shot out separate beams into the center of the hexagon they formed. All the colored beams collided and powerful wind encircled the six of them. After a few minutes a massive white beam of bright light shot up into the sky from the center of the hexagon, where the colored beams had collided.
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{???}
"Hurry up, Hidan!" Called a large man with a mask that covered his whole head except the upper portion of his face and a large black cloak with a red cloud pattern on it. "We need to meet with the others back at the hideout," he said to his partner in annoyance.
Hidan was wearing the same cloak as him and had white hair and holding a very large, three bladed, red scythe in his right hand. "Will you shut up already Kakuzu! I'm in the middle of a ritual over here!"
"I don't care for your rituals, we are already late as it is! Just hurry up, or I'll kill you."
"Oh come on Kakuzu, not that stuff again," Hidan said while pulling the rod out of his chest. "Really, I wish that someone would kill me!" he said putting his scythe behind his back and putting away his rod. "But, unfortunately, I'm stuck here, so deal with it! He taunted, walking to Kakuzu's side. Kakuzu and Hidan started walking into a forest in the direction of their hideout.
After the long, arduous walk through the forest, they finally reached the side of a very large cliff.
"We're here." Kakuzu said to his partner while half expecting an outburst from him.
Hidan looked at his partner thinking he was playing him like he was a fool. "What? Seriously!? This is our hideout!? You have got to be-"
"Shut up Hidan! The hideout is behind those rocks you idiot," Kakuzu pointed out to him while becoming even more annoyed with his partner. He then used an earth style jutsu to move the rocks long enough for the two of them to walk in.
"Your late!" called the voice of an orange haired man with several piercings, a ripple pattern on his eyes, and a cloak that matched Hidan's and Kakuzu's.
"Yes, and I don't like to be kept waiting." stated another voice from a large hunched over man with a mask covering his mouth. "Now, why have you called us here? Deidara and I were chasing after the nine tails after he had rescued the one tail!"
"The tailed beasts can wait, we have to discuss an other, even more important matter." The orange haired man said as he lead them into a room with one woman and five other men all wearing the same cloak as the others."Now that everyone is here we shall begin the meeting." he then said looking toward a man that was black on the right side of his body and white on the left side of his body, with green hair, and had what appeared to be a very large venus fly trap growing from his shoulders.
"Right," the half colored man then said in two different voices while nodding. "We have discovered a strange light coming from near the hidden sound village around two weeks ago with an extremely vast amount of energy, but has subsided after an hour of its appearance," he said in a single but deep voice. "But another one of these lights has appeared close to our location with over ten times the energy as the previous light near the hidden sound and hasn't subsided yet," he the explained in a higher pitched voice.
"That's quite interesting, isn't it Itachi? Come to think of it. Didn't your brother, Sasuke, disappear about two weeks ago?" a light blue skinned man with gills on his cheeks, dark blue hair,carruing a very large bendaged up weapon on his back, and slightly larger than Kakuzu said to an average sized man with blood red eyes, long raven hair, and showing no emotion standing next to him not responding to his question.
"Isn't that guy Itachi's brother, yeah? I remember him he was the one with Orochimaru that looked kind of like your partner Kisame. Hmm," A blonde haired man with a long trail of hair going over his left eye said in response to Kisame's question. "Speaking of Orochimaru, Sasori, my man." he called to the man hunched over. "Wasn't he the one I'm taking the place of?" he questioned.
"Pein, I believe it would be in the best interest of the Akatsuki to try and capture some of that light Zetsu was speaking of." the woman in of the group with long blue hair in a bun, orange eyes, and an origami flower on a bun in her hair suggested to the orange haired man who was silent while the others were discussing other matters that had almost nothing to do with their meeting.
Pain nodded in agreement but had also wanted let the others know something that he knew would come as a surprise to most of them.
"Enough! We are going to try and obtain some of the energy from this strange light as Konan suggested. But before we go, there is someone who will be joining us from now on." he finished as he took a step to his side.
As Pain stepped to his side another man walked into the room with long dark hair, snake eyes, and white skin followed by another man with short black hair and an orange mask with a vortex pattern and an eye hole at the center of the vortex to the side covering his whole face. They were also wearing the cloak that everyone else in the room was wearing.
"Well look who decided to come crawling back,” said Sasori, wanting nothing more than to turn him into his art while receiving a grin from the new comer.
"It has been a while hasn't it...Sasori? Still hiding in that Hiruko puppet of yours, what a pity," the snake man taunted.
"Orochimaru, what are you doing here? Hmm?" the blonde man questioned, not noticing the masked man who was walking toward him. "If you weren't brought here by Pain then I would have already tuned you into my art by now! That is, unless my man, Sasori here reached you first.”
"How about that Deidara? Looks like I'm your new partner from now on. We are going to work well together, the two of us," The masked man said in a lighthearted tone to the blonde artist, receiving surprised looks from him and Sasori. "I'm Tobi by the way and I'm very pleased to meet you," he then said as Deidara and Sasori both looked over to Pain, wanting an explanation.
"What is the meaning of this," Sasori asked Pain in disgust. "And why is he here,” he growled, pointing at Orochimaru.
"Orochimaru is rejoining the Akatsuki and I am assigning him to be your partner, just as he had been in the past. And the reason for this is the fact that you are the only one here with any experience working with him, Sasori," Pain said.
After their meeting, the Akatsuki left their hideout to go find the strange light Zetsu had found and attempt to capture as much energy from it as possible. They all rushed toward the strange light for nearly half an hour before reaching it. When they looked at the source of the light, they saw what appeared to be a world that was completely different from their own.
"Alright, we are going to use the sealing jutsu that we use on the tailed beasts, and we will not stop until the light his dissipated,” Stated Pain. "Zetsu, I need you to keep an eye out for anyone near our location with your jutsu, use the one with the longest range.”
Nearly an hour had passed when the light had suddenly expanded, giving the Akatsuki members no time to react to the expansion of the manifestation they were absorbing with their sealing jutsu. After engulfing them however, it had completely disappeared along with the Akatsuki members, leaving not even the faintest signs of their existence behind.
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{Canterlot}
The Akatsuki members knew they were caught by the light and they all knew that they were not going to end up as they started out when they found the light. Eventually an undefined amount of time had passed for them and the whiteness of the mass they were in had faded and they found themselves in a crouched position in what appeared to be the courtyard of a large stone castle, and were surrounded by a number of small multicolored horses.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 5: Friends? Or Foes?
After nearly a full three days have passed, the light of the spell Twilight Sparkle and her friends were preforming with their respective elements had finally began to dim and the six ponies started to slowly fall beck to the ground beneath them. When the light had subsided enough, eleven strange creatures had appeared in a crouched position in the area invisible to the surrounding ponies just moments ago. All of them were wearing matching black cloaks with a red cloud pattern, as if in uniform. Finally, when the light had gone completely, several guards, including Shining Armor himself, were approaching the creatures.
When the Akatsuki members had taken notice of their surroundings, they stood up, still confused from what had just happened to them. They then saw the armored ponies approaching them and Hidan was the first to speak. "What the hell!? We got stuck in that weird light and now we are surrounded by a bunch of some damn horses wearing armor!?? For Joshin's sake!"
"Shut up Hidan!" Kakuzu finally said, not wanting to hear his partners thoughts, even though he was thinking almost the same thing. "This may just be some sort of genjutsu. Otherwise, it is probable that we wouldn't be seeing what we are seeing." he said taking his eyes off Hidan and onto one of the ponies that surrounded them.
"No, this is not an illusion." Itachi said calmly to the other members. "What we are seeing, is real." he then said to them in an assuring tone. "They may just be curious as to how we got here." he then thought to himself. He along with Kakuzu noticed one of the ponies walking up to another pony who wasn't wearing a helmet and had a horn coming out of his forehead and whispered something in said pony's ear.
"Itachi." Kakuzu said to his red eyed comrade while staring at the two said ponies.
"I know." Itachi said " That one may be their leader or captain." he said staring at the same two ponies then narrowed his eyes when the pony stopped whispering into the other's ear and turned to them.
After that the other pony spoke. "So you can speak, that's good." he said to them while glancing towards Celestia, who was looking in his direction as well and gave a slight nod. He then nodded back in response and turned his head back to the eleven beings in front of him. "I have some questions for you."
Hidan just stared at the pony who had just talked to them in shock and was about to say something about it but Pain had motioned for him to stay silent and then he spoke. "What kind of questions?" he asked narrowing his eyes.
Shining Armor looked at him, not surprised that he would be on edge since they were brought to an entirely different dimension. "We need to know who you are, what you are, your abilities and background information." he then explained to them.
Pain then made a hand sign and telepathically told the other members to leave the area as soon as he gave the mark then he replied to the armored pony's second statement. "And if we refuse to answer these questions?" he said while receiving a disturbed look from him.
"We're not giving you a choice." he said, signaling the surrounding guards to draw their weapons. "Please, answer these questions, for both our sakes. We don't want to hurt you." he finished.
"Scatter!" Pain yelled, giving the order to leave the area. Immediately after giving the order the armored ponies rushed toward the Akatsuki members. "Almighty push!" Pain then yelled, putting his hands in front of him as an invisible shockwave stopped the ponies and even made them fly back, hitting the surrounding walls with great force as well as leaving an indention in the ground were he was.
Shining Armor, who was also caught in the shockwave was now in a daze, shaking his head furiously then looked up to see that they were all gone. "What, how did they get away so quickly without me noticing!?" Shining said to himself then remembering the shockwave that caught him. "They must have gone when he got us with an unseen force." he thought to himself. "Is every pony okay?" he then asked then noticed that Rainbow Dash was, who along with her friends unconscious, had gone missing. "Oh no" he then said realizing that one of them must have taken off with her." How am I going to explain this to Twilight?" he asked himself regretting the approach he decided to go with.
Hours later, after the Akatsuki members had left Centerlot, they disperced into their two man cells. Hidan and Kakuzu were traveling down a paved road to a town called Ponyville according to the sign and Hidan had taken a Pegasus pony with a rainbow mane from Canterlot and had her over his shoulder. "That was smart thinking back there Hidan, grabbing that rainbow one as a hostage. For once, Hidan, you made a wise decision." Kakuzu told his partner while keeping his eye out for any pony that may be in following them.
Hidan grinned at hearing Kakuzu say that until he realized something. "Hay what the hell do you mean 'for once'!?" he then yelled to his partner, at a very loud volume.Hidan yelling at Kakuzu caused the Rainbow pegasus on his shoulder to come to.
Kakuzu replied to his partner's response in a somewhat annoyed tone. "Exactly as I said, idiot!" he exclaimed in his regular voice, not noticing that the pony on Hidan's shoulder was now awake. "Anyway, we could use this flying horse for a ransom." he then suggested.
At that point Painbow was listening in on their conversation, in fear. She, however took this to her advantage and kept listening so she could get as much information from these starngers as possible. She wanted to know who they were and why they took her.
Hidan just gave him a dirty look and face palmed at hearing that. "There you go again Kakuzu. It's always money with you. Disgusting! Trading one's body for profit." he finished as Kakuzu stopped. "Hmm? Hay Kakuzu, why the hell did you stop." he asked the noticed that he turned to look at the pony.
"No" he then answered, "the reason I took her along was so that we could maybe get some answers from her about how to get back or how and why we got here. But if we can't get back, ill just teach these pony heathens that way of Jashine." Hidan said, unaware of the fact that the pony was now awake.
"I've stopped because," he then pointed at the rainbow mare. "she is awake." he then confirmed. causing her heart to speed up wanting desperately to she fly away as fast as her wings would take her, but was frozen from the terror of the situation he had found herself in.
"Who are you? And what do you want with me?" She questioned in a fearful tone of voice as she quivered on Hidan's shoulder.
Hidan was now amused with the frightened pegasus and chuckled as he spoke to her. "Heh, what's the matter? You scared? Cause you should be." he taunted giving her a sinister grin.
"Shut up you idiot. Those guards from that castle are probably looking for us, keep it up and I'll kill you." he threatened, annoyed from his constant talking. He knew that in anyone of the ponies from earlier were following them, Hidan's voice would give them away.
"Hay who the hell do you think I am, Kakuzu!? I'm not an idiot and maybe I want them to find us! I'll do what ever the hell I want, and you being a bitch isn't going to help anything!" Hidan replied in a loud and angry manner.
Hearing him yell, along with his use of cussing, made Rainbow wince. Then she remembered Hidan's previous taunt as she flew only a few meters into the air then went into his face. "Hay, what the buck was that supposed to mean!? I'm Rainbow Dash and I'm not scared of anything!" she said as she brought her hoof to his face.
Hidan had blocked the incoming hoof with his scythe. At this point he was amused even farther. "Man, you got mad faster then I normally do, and I get mad fast. But you have to much confidence my colorful friend because when people, or in your case, ponies start giving me tough talk it starts to get me annoyed, and when I get annoyed, pretty soon I get mad, and when I get mad, I LOOSE MY TEMPER!" he finished making the pony back off, surprisingly in a way that showed that she wasn't fearing him. "What, no fight?" he then commented in disappointment. "Common I haven't gotten a good warm up in since we got here! Now your going to deprive me of a good fight!?"
Kakuzu stopped and stared at Hidan and Rainbow for several seconds grabbing both his and Rainbow's attention. "Hmm? hay, why did you stop?. he asked, still receiving a cold glare from him.
"I sware, one of these day...I'm going to kill you." Kakuzu said in a cold and threatening way. After saying that, Hidan had face palmed, Kakuzu turned back and continued walking, and Rainbow just stared blankly at Kakuzu while following Hidan.
"For Lord Jashine, I can't be killed, you should know that better than anyone!" Hidan exclaimed while turning and staring at Rainbow. Which caused her to blush lightly but Hidan hadn't noticed. "And why are you still here? I thought you would have tried to fly off by now. Tell you what after me and Kakuzu got to this town called Ponyville to get some supplies you answer a few questions for us and then I'll let you go."
"Hidan, I expected that you would have sacrificed this pony to your false god by now. You haven't developed feelings for this talking horse already, have you?" Kakuzu taunted in amusement, causing Rainbow to blush even farther. Hidan glared at Kakuzu, about to say something in response but was stopped. "That.....would be even less likely than you death." he then said to his partner. Suddenly Kakuzu and Hidan both looked off into the direction to the left of them. "Did you hear that?" he then said as the two of them stared for a few moments.
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{Some time earlier}
Tobi, Deidara, Sasori, And Orochimaru were all walking down a long dirt road until they eventually came across a fork in the road. They decided to separate into two man cells, of Deidara and Sasori going on the road to the left and Tobi and Orochimaru taking the other road despite Pain's assigned partners.
Tobi and Orochimaru were heading to a town known as Ponyville, the two of them talked now that the artists of the group were gone. "Zetsu has informed me of a war between these ponies and two other populations." Tobi said in a far deeper and colder voice than when he was first introduced. "And, he had also informed me of a presence of chakra that didn't belong to anyone in the Akatsuki in this world." he then explain catching an interested look from Orochimaru.
"We beleave that it belongs to Sasuke Uchiha due to his disappearance over two weeks ago at the same time a strange energy similar to the one that brought us here along with the fact that a presence of chakra that doesn't belong to any of us. And it appears that he is on the side opposing these ponies.
Orochimaru only grinned then he spoke. "Hmhmhmhm, well it appears I will be reunited with my dear Sasuke after all. And what should we do about the Akatsuki?" he then questioned the masked man.
"Kisame and Zetsu, along with the two of use will leave them soon enough but for now we must keep up the act. Also we will find Sasuke and tell him that his brother is here. After hearing about his brother's arrival in this world he will immediately become an enemy of the Akatsuki and we can take down the Akatsuki from there."
"...And when I get mad, I LOOSE MY TEMPER!" came a voice from their right that was oddly familiar. After hearing the voice Tobi and Orochimaru hid and Tobi had pointed to their left.
Orochimaru looked in the direction Tobi was pointing and noticed that they were not as far from the other members as they had anticipated. "Hmhemhem, well it looks like the zombie pair has a friend." Orchimaru said noticing Hidan and Kakuzu walking down a road with a flying rainbow pony.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 6: Painful Memories
{Borderlands}
Music Link
On a long, old dirt road was a boy with dark eyes, long raven hair and a long black cloak that covered his body. He was accompanied by a female griffin and a very large number of other griffin and changeling troops marching behind them. The place was gray and lifeless, with almost no vegetation growing there. They were at the foot of a mountain and heading to a valley at the center of the borderlands which was almost as gray as the mountains around it and a light fog was situated on the valley floor.On the other side of the vast valley before them was a huge mountain range, like the one they were currently on, and on the other side of it was where Equestria was located.
"Sasuke, it's only a matter of time before we show those namby pamby pony losers who is boss! We, along with Queen Chrysalis and her changeling followers will take them down and bring upon the fall of Equestria!" The griffin said to the boy while wanting nothing more than to kill as many ponies as possible. Sasuke ignored her as he kept walking, receiving an annoyed glare from her. "Hay, are you even listening to me!? I'm talking to you!" she then said now angry at him.
Sasuke started talking but wasn't phased by her temper and kept his eyes on the road. "What do you want with these pathetic ponies? They have never done anything to you except a small group of them who set off a few pranks, am I correct?" he said flatly making her blood boil.
"Shut up! That was the worst day of my life! Rainbow Dash, who I thought was cool, turned out to be just another lame pony just like the rest of them!" she screamed, causing Sasuke to turn to her with a very displeased look on his face.
"That was your worst day? If that's all you have against them then you wouldn't even come close to understanding what I went through!" he exclaimed to Gilda with a cold glare directed toward her. "Your worst day was nothing! My entire clan was all killed! My mother, father, aunts, uncles, and cousins. All taken away from me in one night by my own brother! How can you say that you hate these ponies for something as petty as a few pranks when I was forced to go through all that!?" he then yelled increasing the intensity of his glare as his eyes turned into a blood red color with three black comma shapes surrounding each pupil. "Well? Answer me!" he then unsheathed a long and narrow sword and was now poking her neck with the tip of it, causing her to come to a sudden stop, not replying to him as she stared in surprise and was now scared at what may happen in the next few seconds. At that moment, her pupils shrunk to the size of pin heads as sweat started to run down the side of her forehead.
Several seconds passed after pulling out his sword when numerous griffins noticed what Sasuke was threatening to do and they had drawn their weapons and surrounded him. Gilda just stared at Sasuke a grimmest at the current situation until a few more seconds passed when Sasuke put his sword back into its sheathe, turned around, and stared walking down the road again, passing up some of the surrounding troops who had been frozen in fear after looking into his eyes that were now blood red. He continued to walk for a few seconds before stopping again and asking them, along with Gilda, who was also stunned from fear. "Let's go. We've wasted enough time here as it is. I want to get this over with as soon as possible so you could send me back." he then said, a memory from what he called 'that night' flashed before him. A man in a light metal chest plate, black pants, and a head band with a leaf symbol, his brother, standing over the corpses of their mother and father in a fairly dark room. He was staring right at Sasuke with the same red eyes that Sasuke had glared at Gilda with. "Then I will have my vengeance on him."
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{Canterlot}
Music Link
It was a beautiful and prosperous night in the Equestrian capital, Canterlot. The stars twinkling in the sky, along with princess Luna's moon, which had outshined all the stars in the sky. The shadow a man appeared amongst the stillness of one of the back roads and was approaching the castle. It was Itachi and he was alone, in a city that the Akatsuki members were wanted, and he knew it. He was sent to this place to find out what the ponies had wanted with them, as well as how to get back to their own world. Kisame was also assigned the mission but said he had other things that needed his attention involving Tobi so he hadn't came with his assigned partner to the pony capital. Itachi was walking as he normally does, steady and cautiously, examining every crack and corner.
Little did he know, he had already been discovered by Luna, who had been stalking him from behind, "It's one of those creatures from the summoning. I don't believe it. He's..... a human!" she thought to herself as she flew closely behind him. "But why is he here? And why is he heading to the castle?" she asked herself as she noticed him stop dead in his tracks. She was hidden behind a few crates at that moment and not making even the slightest movement or sound. "Why did he stop?" she then asked herself in a low whisper to where even she could barley hear it.
"How long do you plan on following me?" Itachi asked, not receiving a single reply. "Please, come out from behind those crates, I know you're there, and I will not hurt you." he then said calmly as if nothing was happening. Luna sat still, in shock and asked herself how he knew she was there, she was still unwilling to respond and now sweating, unsure of what she would do. she then felt a hand come into contact with her right shoulder. "I merely wish to speak with you." Itachi said to her, catching her by surprise as she turned to him slowly, seeing that the man was now right next to her.
"What the! How did you..." she said to him in a surprised tone while turning to where he was and saw that he was still there, but also right next to her at the same time. Then the one she was previously following had turned into ravens and flew away in several directions.
As she looked back to the real man she noticed his red eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness of the ally. After that point she couldn't move, and everying around them vanished into a red mist, even the ground wasn't there any more, and the only thing that was there was herself along with the man she was following. "Who is thou, and what does thou wish to speakist to us about?"
Itachi's eyes narrowed, then went back to their previous position as he spoke. "I am Itachi Uchiha of the Akatsuki. We believe that one of you had summoned us to this world, but we need to know what you plan to do with us and your reason for this course of action from you ponies.
Luna tried her hardest to move, but couldn't, no matter what the extent of her efforts were, she could not break free from what ever he had done to her. The then stopped squirming, lowered her head, lifted it back up with her eyes closed, then opened them, they were glowing white as she was attempting to counter this by visiting his subconscious to see if he was playing her or not, either way, she wanted the upper hand in the matter so he couldn't try anything on her.
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{???}
Music Link
Luna opened her eyes, and found herself laying in shallow water in a dark room that she had never been in. The room had only one door way, which lead to a very long, and ominous looking, hallway. The place was also in a state of dead silence, the only thing that could be heard was water as she lifted herself off the ground. She began to walk out of the room, into the hall slowly, hesitating to explore this strange place, she had found herself in, only moments ago. As she walked, light splashing sounds came from her hooves for every step she had taken and small ripples in the water could be seen spreading out from where her hooves would meet the water. A few minutes had passed since she found herself here and the whole time, she had proceeded with caution, examining every crack and shadow in the dark hallway.
A few more minutes later, she had kept up her slow and steady walk down the hall when eventually, she came across a glowing red orb, she stopped, blinked, and even rubbed her eyes to make sure she was seeing correctly, but after all of this, the floating object was still there. She walked closer to the strange manifestation and noticed that there was an intersection in the hallway. when she come to about 6 meters of the orb, it started to move away from her, then stopped in the center of the intersection. She was then startled by the sudden movement, and took a few steps back until she saw it stop. She then took a deep breath then started forward towards the orb again. When she came close to the intersection, the orb had moved to the hallway leading to the left, as if it were trying to lead guide her. She then saw this and fallowed it, she narrowed an eye as she began to follow the orb down the left hallway, when she rounded the corner the orb sat still once more and then shot off into the darkness of the hallway.
"Wait!" she pleaded to the manifestation, but to no avail. At this she spread her wings and flew after the orb, wanting to find out what it may be trying to tell her. several minutes had passed as she chased the orb down the hallway, taking several turns as her frustration began to grow. Finally, the orb had stopped, and Luna had landed right next to it, walking up to it slowly, not knowing what to expect. When she had come close enough, the orb had dispersed into smaller orbs and all shot into the walls that surrounded her. She looked at her surroundings to find herself in a large circular room, the walls lined with columns, and between each column, except for where she had entered the room, was where the smaller orbs had shot into. Luna was disheartened at the sight of nothing happening after that.
She then noticed the areas that the orbs had vanished into, began to glow, each one glowed a different color. Images began to emerge from the spots between the columns. All of them were still. Luna didn't know what to do up to this point. She examined each picture. One of them was one of the human she had been following that had claimed his name was Itachi Uchiha up until the moment she had found herself in this place. Another was of a man who appeared to be older than Itachi, with black, short hair, an ex shaped scar on his chin, and bandages covering his forehead and right eye. He was wearing a white, long sleeved shirt and a black cast holding his right arm. He was also holding a wooden cane on his left hand and had two men in matching dark outfits, one on each side of him. Yet another one with a man with an uneasy expression on his face, blood red eyes, and short, black hair. And the last one being of a boy, who looked similar to Itachi but was smaller and younger than him, he was in a dark room with a hopeless look on his face and was crying with his eyes open and his head up.
End of music
After seeing these images, Luna was unsure of what she was seeing and turned back to the first one and tried using her magic on it. She then saw a beam come out of her horn and enter the image leaving the picture to move as if it were liquid, but was still on the wall. She then walked toward the picture and walked into it. She had found herself in a small room with the man from before. He was looking at himself in a mirror. "Itachi, dear, it's time for supper." called a feminine voice from outside the room.
"I'm coming mother!" Itachi said while turning toward the door where the voice came from. He then turned back to the mirror, sighed, then looked down to a cloth with a symbol on a metal part attached to the cloth, that Luna couldn't make out. He stared at the metal a grimmest, then put it down on a desk, next to the mirror he had been looking into, then walked to the door, opened it, left, and closed it. Luna had followed suit to find him kneeled at a very low table with three other humans, one of them being that same boy from two of the other images, and the other two which she had assumed were his mother and father. The four of them were eating their food that had been on the table. The young boy, Itachi's brother, along with their mother were both smiling as they dined. Luna saw Itachi eating his food and she could tell that he was forcing a smile.
After about half an hour they finished eating and the younger brother spoke. "Hay Itachi?" he called, catching his older brother's attention.
"What is it, Sasuke?" he then asked his little brother.
Sasuke smiled and asked, "Do you think you could help me with my shurrican jutsu now?"
Itachi closed his eyes and thought, then opened them and motioned, with his hand for him to come closer. When Sasuke had come closer to his older brother, he was lightly gabbed in the forehead by his index and middle fingers. Sasuke flinched from this and rubbed it after that. "I'm sorry, Sasuke. Maybe next time, okay?" Itachi told his younger brother. After that, Luna found herself in the center of the round room once again. She had realized that these were his memories.
She then looked at the second, wondering what this next memory my hold what experiences Itachi has want though. She was going to use figure out what kind of person Itachi was. She looked into the next image and cast the spell to go into the next memory.
When Luna walked into the image, she saw Itachi kneeling. He had his head facing toward the floor and he was wearing metal armor covoring his chest and arms. His hair drooped downword as he held his head down and was holding himself up with his left arm, his left hand in a fist was the only part of his arm in contact with the ground. "You....wished to see me......Lord Danzo?" He asked.
The man before him was the same man as was an the image she had just walked into. His only visible was closed, but he had opened his eye to what appeared to be a sqint and he was now staring at Itachi. "Yes Itachi, due to the fact that you yourself are from the Uchiha clan, that makes you our greatest, and posibly our only link to the Uchiha." The elder said, going straight to the point. Itachi remained silent as he continued. "You know what they are planning, don't you?" he then asked.
"Yes, Lord Danzo. I know." Itachi replied while keeping his composure infront of his superior.
"Well, if their plans continue, then the village will enter a state of civil war. Thus, causing our strangth to dramatically decrease due to the fighting that will take place within our walls." Danzo then explained to Itachi. "Sooner or later, our neighboring nations will take notice of our rapidly declining military stangth. Most of them would probably take advantage of our crisis and attack our village. This would, in turn, be the end of the Leaf."
Danzo blinked and the gaurd on the right of him came forword and whispered in his eye. Danzo was looking in the direction of his subordinate that was whispering to him, but did not turn his head. When the guard finished and went back to his origional position, Danzo refocussed his attention towards Itachi. "I must go now." he said to his kneeling subordinate as he stood up from his chair. "But, you will ensure the peace and even the survival of the Hidden Lead Village, Itachi."
Itachi was still kneeling with his head down as he responded to Danzo's previous statement. "Yes, Lord Danzo. I will do what must be done..." he told his lord and recieved a nod of saticfaction from him as he lft the room with his two guards close behind. Itachi stood up after Danzo left and he stood there by himself as he stared out the door that the three men walked through.
For a second time, Luna had appeared in the circular room with the images. She was unsure of what to think of that last memory, however, that only made her want to see the other three memories even more. She stared at the next picture in anticipation as her horn began to glow again, all the while she had a bad feeling.
Luna's surroundings, as she saw it, had shifted once again into the area in which the next memory took place. She was now outside, in the middle of the night and a full moon was shining in the sky above some of the surrounding roof tops. She looked around and eventually noticed two men that were staring at each other down in a ditch a below her. It was Itachi and the man depicted on the memory. Luna stared at the two anxiously as a drop of sweat trickled down from her forehead to the bottom of her neck before falling to the ground.
Eventually the man who was unknown to Luna broke the silence. "Itachi, my dear friend....You and I both know what you must do." he then said to Itachi, his eyes were dark at first. He closed then opened his eyes slowly, revealing the red eyes as seen in the image. After a moment, however, the pattern on it shifted into what looked like a star with four points that were slightly bent, all four in the direction in relation to the pupal which was a black dot surrounded by a narrow red circle. Itachi remained silent as he spoke again. "You must kill me, Itachi, and obtain the power of the Mongekyo Sharringan." he demanded, catching Luna by surprise as she continued to watch in shock and worry. He then tossed a small, black, and sharp object that was held on one end, like a knife. Itachi cought it with easy but then looked down at it. His face was as blank and calm as when Luna had been discovered by him. He looked up at the other man before him and began to slowly pace himself toward him. After only a couple of steps tears began to run down his cheeks, and was the only indication of his emotions, as his facial expression was still blank. Eventually Itachi came very close to the other man, as Luna heard the sound of the blade come into contact with his flesh and quickly looked away, forced her eyes shut, and began to cry herself, now fully realizing the situation in this memory. After a few seconds, the man coughed up blood as it began to run down his chin from his mouth. He had been stabbed in the chest, just missing the heart but still mortally wounding him. He began to collapse to the ground but Itachi cought him and gently placed him on his back. Itachi was holding the right hand of his friend that he had killed. He was breathing heavily as he spoke. "Farewell,,,,,,,,Itachi Uchiha....., my dear friend........Please....take my eye........and.... use it.....if need be...." Itachi stared at him, still firmlly gripping his hand. "And.....please.....take care of yourself....." his final words sounded as his breathing and movement slowed to a stop.
Itachi watched his friend die before his eyes as he listened to his final words. "Farewell...Shisui." he then replied after a long pause as he placed his hand over his friend's still open eyes. "I will always treasure the bond we had." he finished, moving his hand down his dead companions face, closing his eyes.
The third memory ended there and Luna was standing, then collapsed, in shock from what she had just witnessed. "His life has been too hard on this poor soul." Luna thought to herself, still sheding tears from the experiance. Moments later, she rubbed the water from her eyes as she stood and faced the next image, already knowing it wasn't going to be easy to watch such memories. She took a deep breath then her horn was glowing once again as she walked into the image.
Yet again, Luna found herself outside in the stillness of night, but this time, she was in the air, and above a few houses. She saw Itachi, and he was standing still and staring at a man who had just walked up to him rather upset, as he appeared to Luna. The man started to attract attention to them when suddenly, Itachi had pulled out a small blade and slit the other man's throught before he even had time to react. Luna gasped in horror, widening her eyes as she had seen this happen before her. Some of the people that had stood in disbeliefe at what Itachi had just done. Some ran off, scattering in several directions seeking help from the rest of their clan. The rest had confronted Itachi imediatally , only to be cut down by him just as quickly as the first man. The sound of the men screaming in pain as they collapsed to the ground and squirming. Itachi only stared at the men who were on the ground in pain then finished them by throwing a kunii knife in their chests.
Luna watched in terror as she witnessed this man take them out like they were nothing, and for seemingly no reason. "Why is he doing this!?" she asked herself. "What had these people done to him?" she continued. "Wait, was this what they were talking about in that dark room? Is this what they ment by 'what must be done'?" she finished, remembering the second memory she had visited. At that point, she saw several more people come from the surrounding houses and charging Itachi. After watching a battle between hundereds against Itachi. She stared at the site in shock. the whole site was covered in corpses, blood, and shurrikin and kunii knives that were either stuck in the walls of the buildings, the ground, or just unused and laying on the ground. There were even pieces of shurrikin, kunii knives or other weapons that had been broken off and scattered about, also littering the area. Itachi was the only one still standing, and to her surprise, he hadn't even gotten a single scratch on him. He was, at the time, on a tall wooden pole, and watching someone running down the street. Luna couldn't make out who it was, but later recognised him as the younger brother of Itachi, Sasuke.
Sasuke ran down the road leading to his house, he was late but he noticed that the lights were not on in the surrounding houses. "That's odd." he said to himself, slowing to a slow walk. "It isn't late enough for every one to be in already." he finished while looking up to a tall pole that a man had been sitting on top of, only to notice that no one was their. "That's strange, Icould have sworn that some one was up there." he said rounding a corner. What he saw stunned him and instantly put him into a state of confusion mixed with shock. He had discovered the site of a sloughter. Every victem being a dead clan member. "What? How could this happen!?" he questioned as he ran straight to his house and walked into a dark room to see his parents both on the floor motionless. Itachi was standing over them, and Luna recognised this as being what was on the image. "Mother! Father!" Sasuke yelled, already begining to cry heavily. "Itachi, who did this? And why would they do this?" he said to his brother in fear as Itachi had thrown a shurrikin at Sasuke, and purposly missing, but leaving a scratch on his brother's cheek, causing him to instantly silence himself as Itachi just stared him down. "What?..You did this? But why?" he asked him.
Itachi stared at Sasuke with his red eyes and replied. "To test my abilities."
"Really? You did all this...just to test your abilities? YOUR OUT OF YOUR MIND!?" Sasuke finished, yelling at the top of his lungs as he charged Itachi. When he got close enough, however, Itachi punched him hard in the gut and he fell to the ground, then slowly got back up and looked into his older brother's blood red eyes. Moments later, Luna had noticed that Itachi was using the same thing on Sasuke as he did on her before she had gone into his mind. Everything, to Sasuke was turning red, but this time, instead of Itachi just talking to him, he showed him the masicure of their clan. After only afew seconds in reality, however, Sasuke was now breathing and sweating heavily as he slowly backed away from Itachi, who was still staring at him.
"No...no...I don't wanna die!" Sasuke then yelled while running out of the room with tears flying off of his face to run into Itachi again. He stubled to the ground, now on his knees, from seeing Itachi once again in front of him.
"Foolish little brother, as you are, you can't win. But I will not kill you because you are not even worth killing. If you wish to one day defeat me, then you must foster your hatred towords me, despise me." he told his brother while his eyes began to to shift, connecting the commas with the pupal. "This is the Mongekyo Sharringan. One day, when you have eyes like mine, find me, seek revenge for our clan. But to unlock the power of the Mongekyo, you muct sever the bond with you best friend. Kill him." Itachi finished.
Sasuke lowered his head and closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, they were as red as Itachi's, but there was only on comma shape in each eye, in a vague circle surrounding the pupal. He charged him again, throwing a few shurrikan in his direction. Itachi easily evaded the incoming projectiles as he fled, leeping over the roof tops with Sasuke close in persute. Eventually Itachi landed on a roof top and jumped back, kicking his brother in mid air, causing his head band to come loose and fall to the ground along with Sasuke. When he reached the ground, he was now on his side, in a daze, but still was focusing his gaze upon his older brother, a grimmist. Itachi had landed on his feet and retreived his head band. He grabbed the head band and put it back on with the metal facing to the side, but after he did so, Luna saw Itachi stare back at his brother, also a grimmist as a trail tears began to flow out of his eyes and down his cheeks.
After that the memory was finished and Luna was no not in the circle room again, as she had anticipated, but in the dark ally where Itachi had discovered her. Itachi was standing next to her as he stared at her in disbelief. His mouth was slightly a gape as the two stared at each other in dead silence. The only sound then was of the wind.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 7: Getting Aquanted
{Near Canterlot}
Music Link
Pain was sitting on the edge of a cliff in front of a cave and was staring at the city of Canterlot, some distance away. A cool morning breeze was blowing lightly on his cloak. It had been a few days since Itachi went to the pony capital. Pain had expexted Itachi to be back by now, but he was still gone. Daidara, Sasori, Hidan, and Kakuzu had walked up to Pain from behind. Pain spoke, still staring at the pony capital. "Daidara, Sasori." he said, the two being completely silent while Hidan and Kakuzu watched and waited. "As you know, Itachi was sent to that location." he continued.
Deidara looked to where Pain was staring and smerked. "So it seems, our man, Itachi was captured by those talking horses. Hmm." he said closing his eyes as his smerk grew. "What a shame, to think that he would get cought, well, I'm surprised that such talent from the Uchiha would get cought. Hmm." he finished.
Sasori briefly gave a cold glare to Deidara then turned his attention back towards Pain. "What do you want us to do?" he asked but already had an idea of what he was about to say.
"He was told to let himself be captured if necissary, but it has been a few days. I want you two to go find him, and take him back hear. But do not kill any of the inhabitents of the town." Pain said in response to Sasori's question.
Sasori nodded and Deidara stuck his hand into a pouch full of clay, "Fine, but if the attack us then I will injure them with my art. Hmm." he said while pulling his hand back out, revealing a mouth in his palm that was chewing on clay that had been in the pouch, then it spit out the clay in the shape of a bird. He tossed the bird to the ground then he made a hand sign as the bird grew in a cloud of smoke. They both jumped onto it and put on matching straw hats that had long strips of white cloth comming down from both sides and the back of them as the giant bird streched out its wings and began to flap them, lifting off of the ground and flying off in the direction of Canterlot.
Kakuzu was still staring at Pain but Hidan was about to walk off when Kakuzu put his arm in front of him, stopped him in his tracks. "As for you two." Pain said causing Hidan to turn to him. "You are to follow them and take your prisoner back to that city, then you will help them find Itachi if they havn't already done so." he then finished as Kakuzu nodded and Hidan rolled his eyes. They left to get Rainbow Dash and then started their walk down the cliff side and to Canterlot, all the while Hidan was complaining about how Deidara left them to walk.
End of Music
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{Canterlot}
After a few minutes of flight, Deidara and Sasori were now nearing the front gate of Canterlot. They landed infront of the gate and jumped off the two of them jumped off the bird and onto the ground. Two guards were stationed at the gate, one on each side. Both recognised the uniform that Deidara and Sasori were wearing, as they walked forword, passing the guards as the guards stared at them. After they passed, one of them left his post to inform their captain about their unexpected guests.
The the city, Deidara, along with Sasori, that activity in the city was similar to that in a large village in their world. The streets were busy with buiness ponies, shoppers, and some guards hear and there. They were walking to the Castle on the other side of the city. Eventually, they noticed that half the guards they passed were following them, but they acted like nothing was happening as the continued to walk to the castle. When they reached the castle, however, there were even more gaurds at the front gate of the castle, as if they were anticipating their arrival at the castle. One of the guards in front of them walked up to them, along with two other guards.
Soon enough the armored ponies surrounded the two Akatsuki members. The two of them looked to their sides without turning their heads then Deidara made eye contact with the pony in the middle of the three that were in front of them. "What seems to be the problem, sir? Hmm?" he asked the one he made eye contact with.
The pony cooked an eye brow then replied. "Good evening, gentlemen, I am captain Shining Armor, and unfortunatally, you are going to have to come with us to meet the princess." he said to them sternly.
"Well I hope you aren't planning to just throw your guests in the brig, cause we are on a mission to find Itachi Uchiha and unlike my partner here, I don't like to be kept waiting and I don't like to keep others waiting." Sasori explained in an irritable tone, narrowing his eyes at the last few words.
Shining scanned the both of them for a second, "Don't worry, I asure you, this won't take long. Now please, follow me. I will take you to the princess. She wishes to speak with your leader." he said them. "As for your friend, he was only willing to speak to princess Luna, and is staying in her room." the three of them began their walk into the castle. Most of the guards going back to their patrols in the city or their posts while the others followed behind Deidara and Sasori,, keeping a close eye on the two who were right behind their well respected captain.
As Deidara and Sasori entered the throne room, they noticed a white pony that was easily larger than any other pony they had seen. It also had the horn of a unicorn and the wings of a pegasus. She looked up and noticed the two who had been following Shining Armor. She then put a disarming smile on her face as they came closer to her. About half way across the two Akatsuki members noticed the guards behind them had lowered the front of their bodies in respect and when they finally reached the foot of the throne, Shining had also positioned himself as the guards did. "Welcome to my realm, I am Princess Celestia, and I am very pleased to meet you two." the white pony said to them.
"The honor is all ours." they took off their hats and looked up at her. " We are, after all, two mere artists in the presence of a royalty. Hmm" Deidara replied with a small grin.
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Hidan and Kakuzu had finally arrived at Canterlot's front gate with Rainbow Dash, they were also wearing the same straw hats as Deidara and Sasori. As they walked up to the front gate, the guards stationed there were surprised to see even more of them had come. They noticed the rather large scythe on Hidan's back and stopped them. "Halt!" One of them said to them causing them to stop in their tracks.
"Hm? What do ya want?" Hidan replied. "We have no time for this, why don't you just let us pass already so there won't be any problems, alright?" he continued in annoyance. Rainbow just stared and wanted to see what would happen. She had seen royal guards before and she knew they were not the kind to mess around, yet she also witnissed Hidan's temper here and there.
The guard looked and pointed at the scythe on Hidan's back. "We are going to have to confiscate that weapon, they are strictly forbidden here in Canterlot." he said coming closer to take the scythe.
Rainbow looked back up to Hidan. "Oh no. This can't be good." she thought to herself, half expecting the guard to be killed in the next few seconds.
When the guard reached for it, he was instantly met with resistance. "Hay, what the hell do ya think you're doing!? Don't put your filthy hooves on my scythe! No one touches it but me! Got it!?" he said, forcfully gripping his hoof then pushing him back. "Kakuzu, common were wasting time here. Lets get moving already before I put a curse on them!" he continued as he walked right passed the gate followed by Rainbow, who was surprised, but relieved that all he did was push the guard.
Kakuzu just stared at the guards, then fallowed Hidan right after muttering. "Idiot...". After that, they both stared into the city, through the gate, then at each other. They both nodded to each other as the guard that tried to confiscate Hidan's scythe had took off into the air to report, for the second time, to Shining Armor.
After a few minutes had passed, Hidan decided to stop and take a break for a few, while Kakuzu wanted to continue to the castle. They were in the middle of Canterlot, and the streets were busy with activity. Many, if not all of the city's inhabitants were staring at them as they passed by. Kakuzu was still heading to the castle, while Hidan glanced to his left and saw a bench. Hidan had walked over to the bench and took the heavy scythe off his back and placed it to the side of the bench. It was leaning on the bench with the handle up so that he could grab it quickly if need be. He sat down on the bench resting one of his hands on the back of the bench, and his other hand on the arm rest that the scythe had been leaning on. He let out a sigh as he sat, then looked up, into the deep blue sky.
Rainbow saw Hidan sit on the bench and staring into the sky. She wanted to go find her friends, but for some reason, she found herself walking toward the bench and then, sitting on it next to Hidan. Hidan looked at Rainbow, a little surprised about how she hadn't made a break for it yet. "You okay?" Rainbow asked.
Hidan looked down slightly, then looked back into the sky, opening them as he looked back up. "I'm fine. Just a little annpyed is all." he replied, "Why the do you care? I'm the one who kidnapped you. I thought you would have been gone long before we even got here." he then said.
"Hay, Rainbow!" a voice called out. Rainbow's ears had perked up as she looked behind her, in the opposite direction Hidan was sitting. She stared wide eyed as she caught the attention of Hidan, who had consequently taken his eyes off the sky and onto her, in confusion, then he glanced in the same direction she was looking. He noticed five other multi colored ponies trotting to them. Each one of them wore a light smile. "We've been worried sick!" Twilight said, happy to see her friend.
Hidan sat and stared at the group of ponies. He then remembered them from when he kidnapped Rainbow Dash and assumed that they were her friends. He now paying little attention to the world around him and was staring at Rainbow. "Well....It looks like this is where we part ways." he thought to himself then noticed that the talking from the ponies had died down a bit and the six of them were now staring right at him. "What?" he asked.
"Oh, this is my new friend, Hidan." Rainbow said introducing him to them. "Hidan, these are my closest friends, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie." Hidan, stared at her, he didn't expect her to consider him as a friend, but he didn't deny it.
Applejack stepped foreword with a confident smile, "Well howdy partner? pleased to meet you." she said holding out one of her hooves in Hidan's direction. He grabbed her hoof with his hand and shook it, all of which was done slowly, as he was still adjusting to talking horses.
Right before they shook, Pinkie had started jumping up repeatedly, as she started. "Hi, you must be new here cause I haven't seen you before and if I haven't seen you before than you really are new here cause I know everyone here. Oh I know, ill throw you a party!" she said to him with much enthusiasm and almost to much speed for him to keep up with. Luckily for Hidan, she was stopped by Rainbow shoving a cupcake into her mouth. Hidan was shocked, he had never met anyone that could speak nearly as fast as Pinkie, he was staring at her with his mouth slightly open and his eyebrows furrowed.
Twilight was staring at her as well but quickly turned her attention to Hidan with an embarrassed smile. He then turned to her as she chuckled to herself. "Good afternoon Mr. Hidan was it? I'm honored to be in your presence. And because you are one of the first humans Equestrias have ever seen, you will probably receive a few curious looks from them." she explained, giving a disarming smile.
Rarity stepped up next, she stared at Hidan, amazed with the design of what he was wearing. "Why darling, this clothing, it's so very exotic, so graceful, and the quality of the material is just unreal!" she complemented as she scanned the cloak, admiring every detail, "Who designed it?" she then asked him.
Hidan, given a moment of silence, replied. "Oh this thing?" he said, grabbing the cloak over his chest with the tips of his fingers. "This is just the uniform for our organization. " he replied, answering Rarity's previous question. "But I'm surprised that Rainbow would call me her friend even after I kidnapped her." After saying that, all of them, except Rainbow stared at Hidan in disbelief. "But, the leader told me to bring her back, and truth be told, I like her, she has guts and she is hard to scare." Rainbow smiled and turned away, blushing heavily.
Fluttershy had noticed this and smiled and walked up to her from behind. "Do you have a crush on him Rainbow?" she asked.
Rainbow's face became redder. "No, I just umm. were just, well... umm. Promise you won't tell anypony?" she said in a low whisper and now covering Fluttershy's mouth with one of her hooves. She nodded in response as Rainbow put her hoof back to the ground. At that Fluttershy smiled to herself and flew off to meet Hidan.
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{Later that night.}
It was a beautiful night in the city, there were little clouds, and the moon was just above the horizon in a glorious crescent. The light breeze was cool and soothing to the ponies in the city. Luna, being the princess of the night, was up at this time and had just finished rising the moon for the night. She walked into her room and saw Itachi standing on the balcony. He was looking up at the moon and Luna had felt the need to talk to him. She walked closer to him and even ended up next to him on the balcony. She looked up at the moon that she had risen. It was peaceful for the two as they both endured a long moment of silence, leaving only the wind to make any sounds.
Luna decided to break the silence. "Is something the matter?" she asked him. Itachi was still staring at the moon, he was silent. She was having a sense of despair when around him, both of them knew what she saw in his mind, and both wish that she hadn't seen what she saw.
Moments later, Itachi had turned to her with a calm expression then turned back to the moon. "I'm fine." he said blankly. "It's just.....the world I'm from. Do you remember what things you saw in my memory?" he asked and she nodded.
"Well, things like this happen in our world." he then said to her.
"Our deepest sympathies Mr. Itachi. We've heard of a life in despair, but that was by far the worst torture we have ever laid eyes on. But I'm curious..... About your family...... and your brother...... what were they like exactly?" she asked him. "Why was your brother the only one to survive?"
Itachi still atring at the moon. He closed his eyes after a moment, then reopened them when he was looking at her. "My clan was called the Uchiha. The Uchiha was a strong clan with a long history of war and bloodshed." He began.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 8: The Will to Fight
{Canterlot}
Itachi was fast asleep in Luna's bed, her wing covering him as he slept. He lay still in the bed on his back with both hands at their respective sides. It had been quite the night for them both as he told her a long story about his family's history with his village, he also revealed to her that his little brother, Sasuke Uchiha, was far too important to him to kill. She was moved by the story and insisted that he sleep the night away, using her wing as a cover. Itachi didn't feel the need to pass up such an opertunity for a good night's rest and also felt that he could trust her for some odd reason. As a result, he complied with Luna's request. The lunar princess had noticed that the sun was rising and her shift was done. Itachi had awakened from his sleep. Luna felt him getting up and lifted her wing into the air and folded it back to her side. After getting out of bed, Luna smiled at him and Itachi had fixed his unkempt hair, all the while looking out of the door in front of the balcony. "Good morning Itachi. Did thou sleep well?" she asked him gently, still smiling as she asked.
Itachi looked at her, closed his eyes, and smiled lightly. "Yes I did, thank you, and good morning to you too princess." He was still smiling at her before looking out the balcony again. His smile disappeared and his eyes narrowed as he saw Deidara, Sasori, Hidan, and Kakuzu coming from the the air outside of the castle. They were on the backs of two of Deidara's large clay birds "I have to go." he said, quickly grabbing his cloak.
Luna stared at him as he put his arms into the sleves of his cloak and didn't like the idea of him leaving. She got out of the bed and quickly pointed a hoof at him as he buttoned his cloak. "Wait!" she called out to him. He stopped but didn't turn back to her. "Allow us to come with you." she then suggested.
"No, you must stay here. I, however, am needed elsewhere." he said in his usually calm voice. He then noticed that the other princess, Celestia, had slowly trotted into the room along with the bearers of the elements of harmony. She was giving off a small smile along with the ponies following her.
"Hay Itachi, what the hell is taking you so long, huh? Sasori's getting impatient over here, and so am I!" Hidan said, nearly yelling at him. Itachi looked back to the other Akatsuki members and walked onto the balcony, then jumped onto one of the clay birds.
Celestia looked at them and announced to them. "We will go with you as well. It would be nice to talk with your leader." She had explained to them. Deidara shifted his gaze to Celestia. The two silently stared at each other, causing him to close his eyes.
Deidara sighed. "Okay, fine, but only you and Twilight can come, your magisty. Our leader isn't too fond of visitors, but seeing that you are in charge of this realm, only you and your student. Hmm." he said as he made another large clay bird despite their ability to fly without it. "Well, hop on, we are heading out now. Hmm." he then said to them. Twilight looked back to her friends, all of which seemed to be disappointed that they were unable to go with them.
"Agreed." Celestia said. She then looked at Twilight and motioned, with a hoof, for her to go with them. "Come on Twilight, it's rude to keep them waiting." she said, still smiling. She looked back to her mentor then at the Akiatsuki members and finally, she complied. They flew onto the third clay bird and readied themselves for their flight to the current Akatsuki hideout. After landing on the bird, Deidara looked forward. "Well alright then. Hmm." he said to himself as the birds immediately took off in the direction west of Canterlot.
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{Akatsuki hideout}
After a flight that lasted only a good ten minutes or so, the seven of them soon found themselves landing on a cliff side that had an excellent view of Canterlot. Celestia and Twilight both looked back at the city they just come from. The four shinobi had already jumped off the clay birds and were now walking into a near by cave. Celestia took notice and turned back to her apprentice. "Twilight, we are here, follow them." she said to her. She nodded and followed them with Celestia by her side. They noticed Konan standing at the right side of the cave entrance. She let the two ponies pass then walked in herself.
The cave was dimly light, damp, and slightly cold inside. A few large gray rocks were the only feature to the cave. Pain was standing at the far end of the cave. He was staring at a symbol of peace, that he had carved into the wall as the other Akatsuki members, along with the two princesses, walked into the cave and were approaching him from behind. "You're late." He said as he stood still, not taking his eyes off of the symbol.
Deidara smirked. "Well, it took us longer than expected, but we found him within the castle. Surprisingly, he wasn't in the prison, he was staying with one of the princesses. Hmm." he explained to their leader. "Also, we brought along one of the princesses, she wishes to..."
"Silence!" Pain replied in a very cold manner as he turned to face them. His piercings could easily be seen by all of them and his eyes appeared to glow. "I told you to bring Itachi. We have no reason to bring them here." He was staring at the pony princess with a look of no emotion, tension almost literally radiating into the air around him.
At this, both alicorns felt a chill crawl down their spines as they stared back at him. Twilight was staring to have second thoughts about coming here with them and backed up a few steps. She looked back to her mentor, who was, at the moment, staring him down, and swallowed the lump that was forming in her thought. Princess Celestia was also beginning to feel the fear that her student was feeling, but she was on a mission to save her realm and subjects from the invasion that she knew was soon to come and she was determined to save them. " If I may introduce myself, I am Princess Celestia, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you this day." her regal smile radiated an equally powerful pleasant feeling to match the bitterness of his lifeless stare. Pain was silent, meeting one of a high rank that was pleased to make his acquaintance was uncommon to the Akatsuki along with one of their members being held in one of the princesses rooms rather than in a prison caught him off guard, still, he knew little about this land and, therefor, didn't know much about these ponies so he wasn't going to trust them so easily, they needed to earn his trust and they knew it. "Welcome to my realm, I would like it if you were to become our friends. Will you accept our friendship?" she then continued, now slowly going toward him.
Deidara stopped smirking at this point. "Uh oh." he and Hidan said in unison. Twilight noticed this and knew something bad was about to happen. One way or another, she knew that approaching him like this wasn't a very good idea.
Pain then held out his hand a in her direction, catching her by surprise. She took it as an invitation to shake his hand, but the instant he had stopped lifting his hand, she found it difficult to proceed as she slowed to a stop. "Almighty push." he said to himself. Twilight watched in confusion as to why the princess had stopped, but after the Akatsuki leader had said that to himself, Celestia's eyes widened as she flew back in a powerful shock wave several feet backwards before slamming into a wall with immense force, causing several large cracks to form where she appeared to hit. Fortunately, Twilight was able to teleport Celestia to her side while she was in mid air. After seeing that, Pain slowly dropped his hand back to his side. "Friends? What makes you so sure that it may even be possible to form a friendship with us? The Akatsuki's objective is not to make friends in a world which we are not from."
Twilight looked to her former teacher. "Princess, are you alright?" she asked her.
Celestia stood as she locked eyes with the Akatsuki leader for the second time. "Yes Twilight, thanks to you." she responded gratefully while still eyeing the man who had just sent her flying only a moment ago. "You certainly are quite the antisocial leader, but that look in your eye along with the way you're acting suggests that something has affected you in the past." she then said to Pain.
For a moment, he said nothing. He just stared at her in a way that expressed no emotions. "You wish to know what drives me? What makes me this way?" he finally questioned the white alicorn. "Fine I'll tell you, but after that, you must leave." he then said. Celestia nodded. "Very well then." he said, followed by him closing his eyes and reopened them after a moment of silence. "Pain," he said to them. Twilight and Celestia briefly looked at each other in confusion then looked back when he continued. "Pain is what drives me, Pain is what causes my behavior, and Pain is what made me grow up." he explained.
"What happened?" Twilight asked, "What exactly do you mean by 'pain'?" She finished.
"Back when I was just a boy, my parents were killed in a war." Pain replied, remembering the horrible event.
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(Flash Back)
It was raining heavily outside, the rain very audible from within the walls of a simple wooden house. There were three residents inside the house, all very quiet, not making even the slightest sound as they hid from two other people, wearing light green vests over long sleeved navy blue shirts along with headbands with the symbol of a leaf and among the three who hid was a man, a woman, and a small boy with red hair which covered his eyes.
"I'm going to distract them while you two get away from here as fast as you can." the man said in a whisper to the boy and woman, who were next to him. The boy was stiff and did not say anything.
"No, I won't just let you die, think about Nagato and me!" The woman instantly protested. Her protest was to no avail as the man got up and ran into the room with the two intruders. "Wait!" she then yelled, running after him.
After the man ran into the room along with the woman they were both killed quickly by the two other men, before those men realized that they were mere civilians and mistaked them for their enemies. "Wait, these people aren't the enemy, they're just civilians!" one of them said to the other as they laid the two on the floor and closed the eyes of the people they had just killed. The boy had crawled tothe doorway to see what had happened and was horrified by what he saw. He fell silent as a tear began to go down his cheek.
They then noticed the boy, Nagato, who was then starring at them "Oh we're very sorry kid" the other man said to him. The boy then yelled in anger revealing the odd pattern on his eyes that matched those of Pain's.
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(Present)
"I blacked out after witnessing the death of my parents and when I came to, both men were dead." Pain said still standing motionless before the two alicons. "I left my old home behind after that and went to a nearby village called the Hidden Rain Village, needless to say, I was orphans and grew up in extreme poverty."
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(Flash Back)
Hidden Rain
It was the middle of the day in a very large village. The buildings all looked alike at a first glance; gray, tall, and pointed at the top. Heavy rains fell upon the city which was normal for the village, hence the name "Hidden Rain". The streets were somewhat busy with pedestrians which walked about here or there, all which were wearing raincoats to avoid catching a cold or to simply keep the rain off of them. A small boy with red hair that covered both of his eye walked out on the streets of the town, like everyone else in the village, he wore a raincoat and he didn't have anyone with him. He walked aimlessly around the town, asking for food and a place to stay.
"Go away kid! We don't need another mouth to feed so go find some other place to leach off of" (SLAM!)
He stood at the door of the house that the man had just slammed. He was silent, cold, and hungry. ".......But...I don't have anywhere else to go....I....I've already asked all the people in the village...." he said quietly to himself. He lowered his head and turned to leave.
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(Present)
"It had only been but a few days in the village and at that point, i had given up all hope. I was alone, without anyone who cared, starvation was closing in and I had nothing to eat, and I was cold without a place to stay." Pain explained before pointing a finger at Konan. "But, just when all seemed lost, I met a girl, about my age named Konan who was with a bow named Yahiko.
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(Flash Back)
Nagato sat on the side of a road in the middle of the village. He sat by himself, many people contently passed him without even knowing he was there. He rested his head against the wall behind him as he sat there. All his hopes and dreams were coming ever closer to being crushed and so he sat and waited for the end of all his suffering.
"Hear, take this." Said a femanin voice.
Nagato looked up and to his surprise, there was a blue haired girl with amber eyes holding out a loaf of bread at him. At first he thought he was seeing things and rubbed his eyes in response. He then knew that he wasn't just seeing thing and looked to his left then his right before looking back to her and pointing at himself. "Me?" He asked.
"Yeah, take it, you need it more than we do." Another voice came from behind her as a boy with orange and spiky hair walked up to to them. Nagato looked over to the girls side to see him and turned back to her. He smiled and slowly reached up and grabbed the bread. After a moment or two of starring at his life saving gift, he took an enthusiastic bite. The bread didn't last very long but it ment a lot, the two who had just helped him both smiled as they watched him eat.
"By the way, I'm Yahiko and this is Konan," the orange haired boy said as Nagato finished his bread.
"We noticed that you were sitting here by yourself. Are your parents hear?" Konan then asked. Nagato looked down and didn't say anything. They then noticed a tear roll down the side of his cheek. It was then that they realized that he was an orphan.
Konan and Yahiko didn't have a way of realizing that he didn't have any parents, yet they couldn't help but feel bad for him as they lowered their heads in sarrow. "You too huh?" Yahiko asked.
Nagato looked up and whipped his cheek before looking up to them. "What do you mean?" He asked in response and to his surprise, they were orphans, just like him.
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(Present)
That was how we met. The three of us were the same, orphans without a home. We were forced to live a life of thievery just to survive. But one day, a few months after we first met, Yahiko became fed up with the way things were in the Hidden Rain and decided to become the god of our world. We left the village in persute of teachers in the art of ninjutsu.
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(Flash Back)
After leaving the village, the Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan had heard an explosion go off, it was loud and close by. The sudden sound caused the three of them to jump. It didn't take long for them to realize that they had ran into a battle site. They quickened their pace and continued as the explosions and the clash of metal continued to sound off. It had been about an hour when the sun had already set. They stopped and took shelter in a small cave to rest and to wait out the battle that was currently in progress. They all huddled up in the back of the cave.
Yahiko looked at his two friends. "Did you see those three from the Leaf?" he asked them. "Cause they were having it out with Hanzo." he then explained in admiration of those three who were currently battling Hanzo. He thought to himself, how could anyone even have a chance against Hanzo? As far as they knew, he had never been defeated in battle, few were even lucky enough to survive him. Nagato and Konan were also thinking this and oddly enough, knew what he was coming at. "I say we find them and see if they can teach us ninjutsu, then we could finally bring peace to the Rain.
Although the enthusiasm at which Yahiko was going his plan to learn from them, Nagato couldn't help but feel uneasy about his idea. He saw flashes of his parents and the two men who killed them right after Nagato said "leaf". He remembered very clearly seeing the crest on their head bands resembled a leaf.
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(Present)
"Yahiko wanted to train under those three shinobi who were strong enough to take on Hanzo. This seemed a good idea to him and Konan had agreed with his plan." Pain paused as he closed his eyes. A second later, his eyes slowly opened again as he continued. "I, however, didn't like this. For those who had killed my parents were of the leaf so the thought of having a teacher from the leaf was almost unimaginable for me at the time. But I didn't say anything and went with them to search for them. It took only a few days to find them hiding out in a small cave.
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"I pity these children, shall we put them out of their misery?" Asked a man with ghost white skin and long dark hair. His tone and expression suggested that he was serious and the man next to him gave him a quizzical look then switched to a look of disgust. He had spiky, long, and white hair along with a small line running from the middle of both bottom eye lids down to the center of his cheeks.
Yahiko was before them and, hearing the white man in front of him say such a thing in his presence, made him jump and become consumed in not only fear, but confusion. Why would he want to kill three orphans who asked for them to train them? And why say it infront of them? He thought to themself.
"Orocharu, that's enough!" Scolded the white haired man. "These poor souls have asked for our help and the only thing that comes to your mind is to kill them!?" He then said while glaring daggers at him.
A woman was also with them, she too looked dusgusted towards Orochimaru but at the same time, stared at the other one in confusion. "I also don't think we should allow them to live Jiraiya, but what can we do? We don't have the time to help these kids out." she told him.
Jiraiya look back at he with a look of determination. "I'll train them. We at least owe them that. They probably lost their parents because of this war. I'm going to train them so they can defend themselves if need be."
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(Present)
That was how we met Jiraiya Sensei. But, even after standing up for us that day, I still wasn't ready to accept him as my teacher until much later when I had subconsciously killed a man who nearly killed my friends. He had figured out about my rinnegan and became Sirious about our training. After only a few years, we finished our training and left him, we went back to the Hidden Rain, and Yahiko had founded an organization known as the "Akatsuki", an organization which seeked to bring about peace through any means necessary. And, for a time, the Akatsuki gradually grew in power and numbers as our reputation as an organization came to the point to where Lord Hanzo could no ignore us and formed a pact with us. However, dispite our pact, Lord Hanzo had betrayed us and I was forced to make an impossible decision.
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(Flash Back)
Yahiko and Nagato both stood several meters from a low cliff which was only a few stories high. Several men in grey padded armor, along with an older man who looked to be in his late thirties wearing a gas mask that covered only his mouth and nose standing in the middle of them. He held a kuni in his right hand up to Konan's neck as he shouted to Nagato. "Your friend over there is the leader of your organization, kill him now, or the girl dies!" He threatened. "Here use this to kill him." He then ordered as one of the men around him threw a kuni onto the ground right next to Nagato.
Konan stared at her to friends in disbelief as she desperaitly tried to free herself from him. Her attempts were to no avail, however. "Nagato, don't worry about me, you and Yahiko must get away from Hanzo and his men as quickly as possible!" She then demanded.
Yahiko looked at her then at Nagato. "No Nagato!" he said, strongly disagreeing with Konan's demand. "You must kill me so that you and Konan can live!" He then argued.
Hanzo grew impacent and spoke again. "This is your last chance, kill Yahiko or Or the girl dies! You have ten seconds until I kill her so hurry up!" He demanded bitterly. As Nagato slowly reached for the kuni.
"No Nagato! Don't kill Yahiko! Just get away from here now!" she then demanded for the second time.
The area grew silent, the air grew even tenser than it had already been, there was no way out of this, and all eyes were fixed on Nagato in anticipation of his next move. He slowly stood back up after picking up the kuni. He shook violently with hesitation from the moment he picked up the kuni. "Konan..." He said to himself as he looked up at her before slowly turning to his other friend. "Yahi-" (STAB!) But turned only to be interrupted by Yahiko slamming his chest into the kuni in Nagato's hand, which left a fatal wound. At this, Nagato widened his eyes in shock and horror at what he had just done.
Yahiko spoke his final words to Nagato as his blood began to trickle down his chin from the sides of his mouth. "Nagato.....you.....are the bridge......that would altimately lead to peace.......and Konan.... must live......she will be......puller that supports you......" He then finished as he collapsed.
Nagato grabbed him as he fell and gently layed him on the ground and sweeped his hand across his face from top to bottom, closing his eyes as he said to him, "I hope you can find peace where ever you are going....my friend.." He then stood, tears now forming in his eyes as he wiped them away and faced Hanzo. His expression darkened exponentially as he yelled out in a mixture of anger and despair. Shortly after he went into a frenzy as he formed a few hand signs before slaming his hand onto the ground after which, a very large and gray figure arose from the ground. After a second or two, it bacame clear the the object was in the shape of a man, but with eight eyes and several large rocks jutting out of the creatur's back.
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(Present)
The room grew silent. Princess Celestia and Twilight were both a bit shaken from the story they had just herd, both of them had almost broke out into a sob as Pain and Konan both stared. Just the memory of their dear friend Yahiko's death had even gotten to them. After nearly a minute of waiting in silence, Pain spoke again. "Yahiko truly beleived that I was the bridge to peace and that Konan and himself were pillors that supported me. He died for our sake and thus, died for the sake of peace. If you truly wish to keep peace in your realm then you should have no problem in fighting for it if you must, am I correct?" He then questioned skeptically.
Both princesses starred at Pain. They had a feeling that he was planning something. "Yes, we are willing to defend Equestria through means of force for the sake of peace and harmony." Celestia said with a rather serious expression.
Pain turned back to the wall. "Hm. Although your facial expression, tone, and posture strongly suggests that you aren't lying, I will not be swayed so easily." He said much to their disappointment. "You will receive aid from the Akatsuki only when you have proven that you are ready to fight and even die for peace. Go now, we have some important business to attend to." He then finished as the two princesses left the room disheartened.
After Twilight had left with Celestia, Pain shifted his gaze from the wall to Konan. "Inform the other members that we are to have a meeting here. There are two subjects we are to discuss including their promise to defend the peace in this realm along with the traders of the Akatsuki."
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
{Canterlot Castle}
"You wished to see me, Princess?" Shining armor said that while lowering his head in respect for her. He had been summoned to the throne room by princess Celestia for reasons he knew nothing of. He was almost never called up like this during his work and that being said, he would have been working on a strategy to use against the changeling and griffin invaders but instead, he was here. Twilight and Rainbow Dash stood next to him.
Princess Celestia's face had a grim expression, something bad had happened but what? Did the draft completely fail to produce any recruits? Did she have a mission that required his attention away from Canterlot? All he knew was that he wasn't going to like it. "Yes Shining armor, my most trusted friend. I am very sorry that I must bring upon this most unfortunate turn of events to you." She paused. She had something terrible to tell him but didn't know how to put it, however, to avoid waiting even more time, she went ahead and worded it as softly as she possibly could. "Last night...at the Crystal Empire...." She continued, Both Twilight and Shining's eyes widening at the mention of the Crystal Empire. "There was an attack lead by the changelings...and we haven't heard from Princess Cadence then...." The room grew silent. The guards around them also felt grief for the lost princess, although they were already aware of the tragic incident, they still felt a cringe of unease just from hearing it again.
After a few seconds of what seemed like an eternity of silence, Shining lowered his head. He grieved for the said princess. Who could blame him? She was his wife and friend for as far back as he could remember, babysitting his younger sister, Twilight, while he was working and courting with him on their free time. He felt not only disparity for his lost love one, but also, he felt a strong feeling that he had long forgotten, hatred. But how? He had not felt any hatred, even for the evil King Sombra, during his attempt to recapture the Crystal Empire. "How..." He muttered, barely audible to anyone else. "How would they have gotten there without me knowing?" He then asked. "My wife...and the Crystal Empire....they didn't have anything to do with the war!" He then yelled out. "Who lead the attack? I'll kill them!"
Celestia didn't approve of her most loyal guard captain's sudden change in personality but at the same time she knew this would happen and understood well why he felt this way. She felt nearly as bad when she was once forced to banish her to the moon. " According to what Captain Star Crystal of the Cystal Empire's imperial guard, the event lasted only an hour. And the last thing she remembered seeing after she had been given the order to inform us about the attack, was a large robed creature that stood on two legs."
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{Crystal Empire-yesterday morning}
It was morning in the place known as the Crystal Empire, the place was warm and prestigious with a vast amount of land, but only one major city in the region. A city which was, no doubt, the capital and had many homes and markets. The place shined as its residents seemed to glow as if made of crystals themselves. The most eye catching feature of the city, however was the gient castle in the center. It had many tall towers encircling the perimeter of the central tower which was almost tall enough to reach half way to the clouds themselves. Nearly the whole structure was a light blue color and sparkled like the citizens giving off an almost diamond appearance.
A few men along with an army of changelings stared at the city before them, among them was, Kisame, Tobi, Orochimaru, and Zetsu. Kisame grinned and spoke. "Well will ya look at that. For a bunch of horses they really do have a talent for building big castles. It's a shame we have to take them down like this." He said.
Tobi turned to face Kisame and spoke to him is a dark and cold voice. "Remember why we're hear. We are to kill the princess that dwells within that fortress and leave only one surviver to tell the tail of the Akatsuki's attack on them."
Kisame turned to Tobi and shot him a look of anticipation. "What are you planning?" He asked. "Why leave a surviver when they will just rat us out and make even more enemies? Wouldn't it be best for us to do the damage hear and let those repulsive creatures behind us to take the blame?"
Tobi stood still in silence for a moment as the wind picked up slightly, waving the robes that they wore. "The reason is quite simple." He suggested. "As you should recall, we have left the Akatsuki and are forming a new group, one dedicated to the end of the Akatsuki, or dawn, and their leader's petty dream of peace, the Koyoake, or anti dawn. Their are four steps in this process. Step one is already complete, it was to join the Akatsuki for just long enough to learn their abilities, habits, and weaknesses in battle, this would give us a slight advantage from there, given they are already aware of your abilities along with Orochimaru's and Zetsu's. The second step is to gain allies which we are already doing by going along with their plan to attack this place. This move will make us one enemy and two allies due to the pact between these creatures and the griffins, two at the price of one. Also we should focus on finding Itachi's brother, Sasuke, he should prove useful in getting rid of any Akatsuki member to stand in his way of revenge against Itachi. Step three is to give the Akatsuki as many enemies as possible thus making it difficult for any of them to move about or get supplies without conflict, making a three way war that will probably affect them the most and sparing one and only one rather than killing him would do just that for us since we are still wearing the Akatsuki uniform. And after all of that has come to pass we will start to overwhelm them, picking them off one by one until the Akatsuki has no living member left." He explained.
After hearing Tobi's plan in depth. His grin returned to him as he looked back to the city before them. "So that's what you're up to. Well that's easier said than done. The loyal Akatsui members aren't easy to play with in such a way." He suggested followed by a short moment of silence. "Still, that's quite the strategy, make sure you don't tell this to just anyone. They may be closer than you think."
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 10: The Fall of Crystals
After a few minutes of planning, the changelings decided to begin the attack on the Crystal Empire's capital. They were the first to charge forward and the newly founded Koyoake waited a bit later for the changelings to rile things up in the city. The changelings displayed heartlessness as they terrorized the towns ponies by means of burning their houses, killing the ponies, and even by destroying sacred artifacts of the Crystal Empire and to make matters worse, they were after the most precious artifact, the Crystal Heart.
The Koyoake were still waiting. They wanted to charge in after the city guards organized and started to resist and when they did, it only took about one or two minutes before which, they quickly began to sprint down to the city at an increadible speed. The changelings had already killed hundreds of ponies in their raid, but when the guards came out to resist them, things started to look a bit iffy for them, to their relief however, the Koyoake members had already made it to the city and were cutting down any pony they saw. Zetsu was the only member to not be caught in the heavy fighting, however, he did his part by keeping constant servalence of every part of the city and relaying the position of the pony defenders along with the cowering civilians. He also studied the every move of the changelings that terrorized the city. Zetsu used clones of himself to watch all of them and having literally being two people fuzed into one body, only made the task easier for him.
Tobi had over heard the changelings talking about the crystal heart and became very intrigued with the power that lies within it. He was slaughtering every inhabitant before him that was unable or unwilling to tell him where it was when three guards, one female and the others male, came up to from behind, one of the male guards slashed right through him with a sword. The sword had no affect on him, however. "What the buck!?" the guard said. It hit directly, but literally went through him as if he wasn't there but when he turned around he kicked the guard on his face, causing him to fly back into a building a few feet behind him, leaving several cracks along with a depression on the part of the wall that felt the force of the impact. Then he fell to the ground. He then attempted to get back up only to colaps to the ground as he watched his two comrades face off with the man who had taken him out in two seconds.
The two ponies came at Tobi, trying to finish him quickly but every attack was dodged, blocked, or just passed through him. One swinging from left to right with Tobi jumping into the air over the blade as the other reveled his wings and flew up with his sword and swung down knowing that he couldn't dodge this next attack. Tobi blocked it with his arm, catching him off guard as he quickly grabbed hold of the guard's hoof, took the sword away from him in mid air, and tightens his grip as he threw the guard at the other guard on the ground faster then either of them could react.
When the guard slammed into her comrade, they both suffered a lot of damage as one yelled out in agony from a broken leg and the other passed out from the force of another pony crashing down on him. "Well I must admit, for ponies, your team work and combat abilities are impressive, far beyond what I expected." Tobi said after landing on the ground next to the still conscious guard. "However, you still have no chance against me." He then grabbed him by the throat. "Now, where is the crystal heart is and ill may consider sparing you. And judging by your armor, you must be the captain of the guards, so chances are, you know exactly where the crystal heart is located and how to get there." He then stated.
The guard coughed up a small amount of blood. "If I tell you...then my life would be worthless anyway...you bipedal freak!" He replied, not fearing at all what would happen to him.
Tobi tossed him back to the ground and turned around. "Well what about a trade." He suggested as he wove a single hand sign as a clone of himself came out of the ground. "The crystal heart....." He said as his clone vanished then appeared next to the other guard that had hit the wall earlier. "For yourself and your friends." He then threatened. The guard just paused, he had never seen someone hurt someone else so easily and without hesitation, he could tell that he wasn't bluffing and only had a few seconds to respond.
After a second or two, he remembered the ponies that he saw die today and had already reached his limit, he couldn't stand to see another one, much less two die infront of him. "Okay I'll talk, but if I do...do you promise to let us leave?" He said biting his lower lip at the thought of leaving the city behind.
Tobi's clone had grabbed the other guards neck and was ready to snap it. "Agreed." He then said. "And don't lie to me. I can tell when you're lying, Captain Star Crystal." He said.
The pegasus guard captain, Star Crystal, swallowed the lump forming in his throat. "It's under the largest tower in the very center of the city." He then said in defeat.
"Thank you for being honest." He then forced the guard's neck to the side.(SNAP!) Instantly killing him. The guard who had watched this stared in disbelief as his comrade was murdered infront of him, meaning that Tobi had broke the agreement they had made just moments ago.
The Star then tried to stand but soon after, fell back to the ground as he yelled out in pain again. "You...but why!? We had an agreement! I told you where the crystal heart is. Why did you kill him!?" He then questioned as tear flooded his eyes.
Tobi looked up and saw Kisame standing by and watching. "Because it is our mission as Akatsuki members to kill everyone who inhabited this city, including the princess within the palace and to take the crystal heart." Tobi then said to the guard captain. She then found her vision start to fade as she etched the Atatsuki into her memory along with the matching clothes that they wore. "Kisame if you would be so kind as to take this one with you to the castle and tell her that this pony had betrayed her before you kill her yourself, and make her watch as you kill her beloved princess." He then said throwing the guard at him and finishing the other guard who Star had smashed into earlier. "That would be nice, don't you think?"
Kisame smiled and caught the guard captain before placing her on his shoulder. "Do you want me to retrieve the crystal as well?" He said as Tobi nodded. Kisame stared at him with a grin on his face for a second longer before speaking again. "Right. Well, I hope their princess could at least put up a decent struggle. But what of you and Orochimaru?" He then asked.
We are going to finish off all the guards and civilians within the city limits, the rest are up to Zetsu." He explained followed by Kisame turning to the direction of the castle and taking a few steps. "That one you are holding." Kisame stopped to listen to Tobi again before heading out. "I've decided that she will be the surviver." He then stated.
Kisame stood there in silence as the sounds of battle, along with screams of terror and a giant snake the Orochimaru had summoned destroying buildings felled the air. "Right." Kisame then replied before jumping onto a building and making his way to the castle by jumping from roof top to roof top.
He soon found himself next to the crystal heart. He stared at the crystal heart as he grinned. "So this is the legendary crystal heart? It looks like a diamond to me but in any case..." He then grabbed it and stashed it away in a pouch under his robe and after he did so, looked for an entrance to the castle he stood directly beneath and when he found it he ran at it and smashed through it using his giant sword without slowing down.
He went through several halls and passed many rooms, knocking out every guard in his path. Eventually, he had ran up to the top of the tallest tower and stumbled upon a large double door that had been closed. Several guards along with Princess Cadence waited on the other side and he knew it. After a moment he reached for his sword and with one blow, the doors shattered from the crushing force of the large weapon. A cloud of smoke covered the area where the double doors once were. Kisame slowly walked into the room through the cloud and spoke as he did so. "Well it truly is an honor for me. It's not every day that I get to meet royalty." He then stated.
The guards along with their princess all glared at him as his figure showed followed by his whole body coming into view as he exited the smoke. He noticed that Princess Cadence was an alicorn and had pink fur with a pink mane and tail that had a yellow streak and a purple steak running down both of them. After a few seconds, the guards charged, all of which were taken out in a few seconds. "Why are you here, attacking my subjects in such a manner!?" She asked, demanding an answer.
Kisame didn't say a word, however, his grin became even wider. At that time the guard captain, Star Crystal, had came to and looked to her sides before wincing from the pain in her foreleg. Soon after, she recognized the room she was in and saw the Princess on the opposite side of the room from her along with several unconscious guards in between them. She also noticed that she was on Kisame's shoulder. "Oh, i brought this for you." He said to Cadence as he grabbed Star and tossed her onto the floor between them. "I'm feeling quite philosophical right now so ill let her leave this place alive if she leaves this place. Problem is, I doubt she is willing to leave on her own." He said as he put the tip of his sword to The back of Star's head.
Cadence stared at Kisame in shock, she didn't expect him to let the captain of her guards to leave the city alive. "Why would you let her survive?" She asked.
Kisame stared back at her all the while maintaining his grin. "Well you see, the we want the rest of the world to the world to know that we, the Akatsuki, aren't the type to mess around with. We want to be feared by all so that no one would ever dare go against us." He replied. "So what's it gonna be?" He asked. "Order her to leave now and come with me without any resistance, or she dies." He then threatened.
It didn't take long for her to make her decision, to her this was an easy choice. "Fine." She said flatly. "Captain Star Crystal of the imperial guard, you are to head to the Equestrian capital of Canterlot and report to them the incidents that occurred here today, and don't spare any details." She ordered while shooting a glare at Kisame. Hit horn glowed as some of Star's strength returned to her. She was trained to fallow her princesses orders without question but hesitated to leave her side despite the order. After about four seconds of hesitation, she finally shook her head and complied taking off into the air and exiting out of a window and stopped for a second to look back at Cadence before heading off to Canterlot.
Kisame grinned again as he began to lessen the distance between them. He gripped his sword as he approached as his grin into a sinister smile, showing off his shark like teeth as he came ever closer.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
It was late in the evening in Ponyville, most of its residents were in their homes, save for a few wondering fillies and colts who seeked to go about their time either causing trouble or foleing around with their friends. Just beyond the outskirts of town was a cottage situated on a hill and next to a forest. The resident of the cottage, Fluttershy, was busy tending to a few small woodland cretures such as rabbits, birds, and so on. She knew that an invasion was imminent so she knew that she would be called up soon to go back to the Canterlot castle.
"Hay Fluttershy!" Called out Rainbow as she flew in and landed near Fluttershy.
Fluttershy turned to look at her friend, letting her know that she had her full attention. "What is it Rainbow?" She asked.
"Bad news." She said, further catching her attention. "Remember those guys in the cool black outfits with red clouds that we summoned?" She asked. Fluttershy nodded. "Well it looks like they aren't going to help us out any time soon and also the Crystal Empire was taken by the changelings last night!" She then exclaimed in shock.
Rainbow then stopped as she looked grimmly behind Fluttershy. She saw Itachi and Tobi walking right into the forest but had no idea where he came from or even why he was going into the forest. "That's terrible! What are w-"
Rainbow tackled her and put her hoof over fluttershy's mouth. "Shh, look over there." Fluttershy looked behind her and saw what she was talking about. Rainbow then removed her hoof as she turned. "It's that one Luna was with before he left the castle. And that's another one of them with him." She said to her in a low whisper.
"But what is he doing going into the Everfree Forest? Dont they know that it's dangerous their!?" Fluttershy asked Rainbow in fear for the men walking right into the notorious forest.
Itachi and tobi had nearly entered the forest. Itachi was informed by Luna about an old castle deep within the ominous forest during his time in Canterlot and decided to find it and use it as a personal hideout. It didn't seem to be a bad idea considering it would probably be quiet there, along with the fact that wouldn't be disturbed often by any of the ponies who inhabited this world. Along with that, the ponies seemed to be afraid of the forest itself because of unnatural acurrenses there that happen to be natural in the world they came from such as the clouds moving due to wind rather than pegusi and the animals there were able to take care of themselves. But why would he bring along Tobi? He knew full well his plan to distroy the Akatsuki. Why would Itachi, a member outside of the coup against the Akatsuki, have him tag along? Was he planning to lead him into a trap and take him out without anyone to save him? Or was he somehow in
"Wait!" Upon reaching the edge of the forest, however, a voice had cought his attention causing him to stop and turn.
Three small ponies, one a white unicorn with a pink and purple mane, another yellow with a red bow over her red mane, and a orenge pegasus with a dark pink mane. Unlike almost every other pony he had seen, they didn't have a mark on their flank. " Oh no! What are they doing here!?" Said Rainbow fearfully.
They ran to the two Akatsuki members as fast as they could to catch up with Itachi and as soon as they reached him they came to a stop. As soon as they all caught their breath one spoke "Hay we haven't seen you before." The orange one said.
"What are you ponuhh...guys...doing over here outside of town like this?" Said the white unicorn. She didn't get a reply out of them, however, the two Akatsuki did look at each other for a moment before looking back to the two men infront of them.
Itachi took a few steps in their direction and leaned foreword smiling just enough for him to give off a warm feeling for the three young fillies "Hello there, where are your parents? Surely they must worried about you." he then said in a kind manner.
The three stared at Itachi when the orange pegasus looked at the white unicorn and said, "Ha! I told you they could talk, Sweety Bell! Now you owe me five bits." The outbust was ignored however as then stared at Itachi wide eyed.
Rainbow and Fluttershy watched the five of them as they talked, they wanted to know what was happening. Any information on the Changlings and the Griffins, and even the Akatsuki, would help to calm their friends nerves, however, Rainbow Dash and Flittershy were more interested in the Akatsuki because of Hidan, whom Rainbow was starting to fall for, is a member of the Akatsuki and Fluttershy wanted, more than anything, for her friends to be happy. So seeing those two brought them some relief but they had no idea what they were doing here and they wanted to find out.
"Hay Fluttershy, I can't make out a word they're saying. Have any ideas?" Rainbow asked.
"No, I can't hear them either." Fluttershy replied.
"Then maybe try putting your pet rabbit's ears to work for us." Rainbow then demanded, pointing a hoof at the rabbit next to Fluttershy, who's name was Angel.
The white unicorn, Sweety Bell, shook her head after a few seconds and turned her head to her orange friend. "Okay Scootaloo, but can it wait till tomarow? I don't have any bits on me right now." She then looked back to the pair of humans in front of her. " Anyway, who are you guys?" She then said.
Itachi had opened his mouth to speak again. "Oh exuse me, where are my manners? Hello my pretty friends, I'm Tobi and this is my uhh...partner Itachi. Yes we are members of a super cool organization called the Akatsuki. And Itachi and I and well... Everyone else is very cool if I do say so myself. But right now were going into that scary forest to find this mysterious castle but Tobi isn't scared, nope, not one bit!" But was interrupted by Tobi using a light hearted and seemingly innocent voice, fooling everyone around him except for Itachi, who had been well aware of his true nature for longer than his time as a member of the Akatsuki.
"Don't go in the forest!" Said Sweety Bell followed by the yellow earth pony saying, "yeah, bad stuff happens there! I heard that the animals could take care of themselves!"
"Yeah and the clouds move on their own!" explained Scootaloo fearfully.
Itachi stared at them, he expected this from them but living in a world where that is natural just seemed a little funny to him. "We are well aware of that. But never the less, we must go there. Besides, all of that happens naturally where we came from.
Angela's ears twitched as he turned and looked at Flittershy, making several gestures to her soon after. "Oh my. Umm Angel says that they are going into the forest to find that old castle that we went to during the Nightmare Moon incident." she then explained.
Rainbow looked at Fluttershy. She was unable to think of any reasons why they would go into the forest, much less to find the old castle, in which they visited so long ago. To make the situation even more confusing, she heard a disturbing military report that remnants of Nightmare Moon's energy was found there and still remains there. She had also ease dropped on one of Itachi's talks with Princess Luna a few nights ago and she could have sworn that she heard something about it strate from her that night during her conversation with the Akatsuki member. Rainbow didn't get much out of their conversation however, as she had the feeling that he was already aware of her presence when he looked at her, activating his sharringan as soon as his gaze met hers. That's all she remembered from that night, but that was all she needed to remember to feel a Derain emotion she hadn't had since a couple years back when she entered a competition for talented young flyers.
Rainbow looked at the two Akatsuki members, but hadn't said anything for a few minutes. Fluttershy had taken notice of her behavior. "Rainbow, what are we going to do?" She asked, receiving no response. She then poked her on the shoulder a few times to catch her attention.
At that, Rainbow shook her head. "Huh? What did you say?" She reacted, coming back from her trance. Fluttershy stared at her with a look of worry. Rainbow turned back to the small fillies. "Save it, right now we need to check this out." Fluttershy then nodded and turned back to them.
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{Canterlot Castle}
With the invasion already underway, and the attack on the Crystal Empire's capital supposedly being lead by the Akatsuki, Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Twilight Sparkle didn't know where to turn for help. Metaphorically the griffins and changelings were besieging them from all sides, and with the involvement of the Koyoake, things only got worse. Especially since they had information on a few members who had defected, they thought the Akatsuki was behind it and they had no idea of the Koyoake's existence. Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Twilight along with Captain Crystal Star, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and three guards from Shining Armor's platoon, Shock, Zak, and Smith, had shown up for a meeting. Captain Shining Armor hadn't come because he had taken a small army of Legionaries with him to combat the invaders and perhaps buy some time for the draft to recruit enough ponies into an organized military, which would be known as the Equestrian Legion, for them to have a fighting chance of defending e their home. When he had left, over ten thousand ponies had been drafted into the legion. The princesses, along with Captain Shining Armor, were surprised at the army that was already undergoing basic training, what came as an even bigger surprise to them was the fact that almost every pony that had been drafted went willingly and were even happy to take up arms to defend the very land they called home.
"Princess, if I may ask, what is going on and why summon us to this meeting?" Shock asked.
"You are here because you were part of Shining Armor's investigation of the boarder lands." Celestia explained to them.
"You three are some of the most trusted of his guards and he highly recommended that we allow the three of you into the meeting." She then said, giving of a gentle smile as she did so.
Applejack was the next to speak. "Um princess? What's goin on with the War that we should be hearin about?" She asked. "And who is this Captain Star Crystal pony? I ain't never seen er around these parts bafore." She then continued in her usual country accesnt.
"She is the head of the Crystal Empire's Imperial Guards." Replied Princess Luna.
Twilight gave Luna a look of confusion. "Then what is she doing in way out here?" she asked as she felt uneasy about her presence. It wasn't so much her being here that got her, but the reason as to why she had shown up at Canterlot in times of war, much less, why she did so with a broken foreleg.
"The reason I'm here...eh." She said, cut off from the pain that still run through her leg. "Because the capital of the Crystal Empire, my home, was attacked by the changelings and a few strange creatures that walked on two legs and wore matching black outfits with what appeared to be red clouds on them. The Akatsuki is what they called themselves." She continued, catching Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, and Twilights completely off guard. They thought that the Crystal Empire wasn't going to be targeted by the chanelings, what's more, their facial expressions turned grim at hearing the word, "Akatsuki."
"Now hold on just a pony pickin minute!" Applejack demanded as she slammed a hoof on the table. "You mean to tell us that those tall, two legged ponies went and attacked the Crystal Empire along with those slimy, disgustin, transformin monsters!?" She then questioned.
Star Crystal shot her an annoyed glare. "No, they came and played a friendly game of tag with the ponies and guards there." She then retorted sarcastically.
Applejack glared back at her because of this while Princesses Celestia and Luna just stared at the two, they expected such an outburst from Applejack and couldn't help but understand Star's reaction due to the attack on her home. "Really? You two are going to argue at a time like this!?" Twilight asked. "This isn't the time or place for any of that!" She then demanded.
Applejack and Star both stopped glaring at each other. Applejack then gave Star an awkward smile as Star turned to face Celestia. "When will I be able to go fight those freaks with my fellow Guar....Legionaries your highness?" She asked. She wanted not just to kill the changelings or griffins for invading without a worthy cause, but also to avenge her fallen comrades from the Crystal Empire including Princess Cadence.
Celestia shook her head. "Not until you are fully recovered, be patient. In time, you will get your chance, I promise." She said. Star sighed.
Smith started. "It seems the attack on the Crystal Empire isn't the only thing the enemy plans for us." She suggested. At this, all attention had been focused on him. "Intel from Captain Shining Armor suggests that the Akatsuki are on the move, taking on two man cells, like the ones we saw here a few days ago." He said remembering a giant white bird with Deidara and Sasori standing on it.
Celestia tensed up when he mentioned the Akatsuki. Them being enemies of Equestria had a bitter taste. Almost too bitter for her, especially after witnessing, first hand, their Leander's ability to create a shock wave while only holding out his hand.
"And what's more, the invasion from the griffins and changelings are already well within our borders and and are inching their way to the city of Manehattan with their commanders being Queen Chrysalis of the changelings and Princess Gilda of the griffins." Zak then chimed in. " but unfortunately, that's not all. We have also received word of a vary large white bird that appeared to be following the Captain's platoon toward Manehattan. It may be the blonde Akatsuki member on rout to intercept and eliminate them." He then finished.
"From the looks of things, Captain Shining Armor and his legionaries are surrounded." Star said. Celestia and Twilight didn't know what to do at this point. Star remembered the Akatsuki that had attacked the Crystal Empire at that point. The cloaks they wore became embedded into her memory and just remembering the red cloud on the uniform made her tense up and grit her teeth.
Twilight was starting to feel sick just thinking about the dangers that faced her dear older brother. She had already lost a friend from her folehood and lossing her brother as well would be the end of her.
Star then slammed her good forehoof on the table as she began to tremble. "Why?" She asked vaguely. "Why the buck is it that we have to be undertaken by enemies?" She asked as she stared at the map. "As if those disgusting changeling freaks and the backstabbing griffin traders were bad enough, and now these Akatsuki basterds have to come in and make things even worse!" She then erupted. "Let me go so I can kill them myself!" She then demanded.
"Calm down captain." He said. "We must focus here and think of a statagy that we can all agree on." He then suggested. "However, the last say goes to the princesses."
Princesses Celestia and Luna stared down at the map. They knew something must be done. They had over ten thousand legionaries at their disposal, all of which were untrained and not battle hardened like the royal guards that were currently training them. "Big sister, we must go out and help save Captain Shining Armor." She suggested with Twilight seconding the notion the instant she finished.
Celestia sat in silence, thinking over if this was the best strategy to go with at the moment. Although they had better weponry and equipment, they were still outnumbered and their legions were not used to killing as their enemies were. After several pain staking moments of thought, Celestia looked up and nodded in agreement. "I will go personally to his aid." she then stated as she looked over to Shock, Zak, and Smith. "and if i may ask, will the three of you please come with me? I would like it if you were to stay with me until you get the chance to rush to his side." She then finished.
The three of them saluted in unison. "Yes ma'am!" They said.
Twilight stood. "I'm coming too." She stated followed by Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie standing themselves.
"We can't jus sit here when a friend needs our help so we're goin too." Said Applejack as Rarity and Pinkie both nodded.
"And I shall go as well, thine enemy hast gone too far and we will teach them not to endanger our home!" Luna said as she herself rose.
All of them were eager to save Shining Armor and his platoon from what seemed to be their definite end. At this, Celestia smiled as hope began to come back to her. "Thank you my friends." Celestia said. "But please, be carefully.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 12: The Legion of Peace Keepers
{Canterlot Castle}
Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Twilight Sparkle all stood on a rather large semicircle balcony that faced a very large open court yard. They were addressing a massive number of other ponies who had been suited and equipped for battle against their foes. All of them were somewhat talkative as they hadn't yet finished their training. They had quieted down in just a few moments when Princess Celestia had rose her wings. "Friends, ponies, Equestrians!" She began. "As you know, the peace and harmony that has existed here for many centuries and our very way of life has been threatened by our neighbors and we are now at war." She explained. "However, similarly threatening situations have presented themselves in the past such as the return of Nightmare Moon, an evil entity which once resided within my beloved sister, Princess Luna, and nearly brought about night time eternal." She continued. "And then there was the once terrible monster named Discord, the god of chaos who used his powers of disharmony on innocent ponies and the land for his own amusement and in an attempt to convert our realm into his own chaotic empire." She then mentioned. "And the attack led by Queen Chrysalis of the changelings who tried to feed themselves using our emotions during the royal wedding between Princess Meyamory Cadenza of the Crystal Empire and Captain Shining Armor of the royal guard. And another time during the revival of the Crystal Empire when a ruthless pony known as King Sombra, once an evil emperor who tortured his subjects and only brought pain and suffering to them, tried to retake the throne and attacked Captain Shining Armor and Princes Meyamore Cadenza to resume his tyranny over the crystal ponies. However, we came out of all of those victoriously and with our home in tact. This time, we are under attack by the changelings for the second time because Queen Chrysalis had became resentful towards us ever since their failure to take over and even worse, our once great allies, the griffins, have turned against us in a pact with the changelings after centuries of friendship between us. But unfortunatally, that isn't all. About 3 weeks ago a group of humans who call themselves the "Akatsuki" were summoned by the elements of harmony in an attempt for us to have some protection from our foes without having to begin drafting ponies into the legion. We have recieved word from a reliable source that they have attacked the Crystal Empire along side the changelings and unfortunately, Princess Meyamore Cadenza has been lost along with almost all of her subjects. Today the city of Manehattan is in danger of an attack from our foes with an army of thirty thousand battle hardened troops but the city's garrison of five hundred guards and watch ponies will receive reinforcements from Captain Shining Armor with a legion of two thousand ponies still leaving them horribly outnumbered and face impossible odds. Today I am going to set out to personally deal with the threat that plages our land and has the potential to destroy us and most of all, to help my friends and comrades in need of our aid. Every pony, I ask of you a lot and I understand if you may not wish to come with me, but for the sake of all of Equestria, I must ask. Will you join us in our march to Manehattan and help out our comrades?" She then asked as she instantly received the cries of what seemed to be every pony who wanted nothing more than to join their princess in defending their fellow ponies in Manehattan.
Twilight gave Celestia a warm smile then went to speak with the crowd briefly. "Every pony, I am very pleased to see so many who wish to protect our very way of life, it really warms my heart to have the opertunity to work with you all, be it either directly or indirectly. All of you will be divided into two divions, the Solar Division, led by Princess Celestia" Celestia stepped foreword. "And the Lunar Division led by Princess Luna" she then announced followed by Luna stepping foreword. There will also be a support team, giving you cover from the air and ingaging any of the griffin archers, luckily the wonder bolts had volunteered for the job. Their new captain, Rainbow Dash, will lead them and are currently in Cloudsdale, preparing for the onslaught. All of you will be assigned to one of the two divisions that I mentioned earlier, but for now, all of you will wait in your barracks, where you will await placement and further instructions."
About an hour had passed and placement for the legionaries was being decided by the royal guards along with a few special cases that were hoof picked by one of the two division leaders. A third division, led by Twilight, had already been made prior to the gathering, the intelligence core, made from the most brilliant minded ponies who were to keep the princesses in touch with one another using their magic. They also had a few of their ponies going with each of the two combat divisions, along with a pegasus who flew to the Wonder Bolts head quarters along with Shock, who was to report to Captain Shining Armor once he had the chance. All of these ponies had a special spell placed on them that would allow the intel core, along with several receiver ponies, who scattered to all of the major cities in Equestria, and would inform the ponies in those cities of the details of what seemed to be an unavoidable battle. This would allow for ponies to evacuate prior to the enemy's advance, should the legion fail to push them back. It was late ant the sun had already begun to set and Rainbow Dash had just arrived, having two guards at her sides as they walked down the central road in Canterlot to the castle. She was here to talk with the princesses about their plans. Little did she and the guards know, there was a figure on the roof tops to the right of them and was following them silently. Moments had passed as the figure continued to follow them and when he took a moment to stare at the ponies he has following, it became clear that it was Hidan. The three ponies continued to walk, easily distinguishable from the citizens of Canterlot, which still covered the streets. A moment had passed and Hidan walked over to the edge of the room he was on and was about to jump to the next one. Before he did so, however, he felt a hand come into contact with his shoulder. He turned to see that he himself had been followed. "Itachi. What the hell are you doing following me like that, did that leader of ours send you?" He asked, followed by turning back to the three ponies who were now nearly a block ahead of them.
Itachi stared at Hidan with his sharringan active and his usual blank facial expression, finally taking his hand off Hidan's shoulder as he did so. "I came on matters of a more personal affair." He responded. "Also I wanted to know what business you have here, as Pain did not give you any orders to come here." Hidan continued to stare at Rainbow. They were now starting to disappear from his sight from the distance between them. "Is it Rainbow Dash?" He then asked.
Hidan's eyes widened slightly and a drop of sweat began to make its way down the side of his head as he instinctively made his hands curl into fists. The air around the two grew bitter and tense as an ominous silence fell upon them leaving the only audible talking to the ponies below. A gust of cool wind fell upon the two, making their cloaks wave along side the now moving air. "What do ya mean....I'm just here to make sure they don't try anything. That rainbow one has nothing to do with it..." He lied trying to convince himself that she was just a pony from a different world.
"You haven't developed feelings for this talking horse already have you?" Hidan then remembered Kakuzh say that in the woods after kidnaping her.
Itachi narrowed his eyes. His sharringan fixed on Hidan as he did so. "I can tell when someone is lying to me." He told him. "Tell me, what do you see in her?" He then asked receiving no further response. The two waited again in bitter silence. The sun was already at the horizon and the wind had died down. "She feels the same way about you as you do towards her." He then told him. "Let's go." He then said as he jumped into the air.
Hidan waited a second later, still staring ahead oh him before finally following Itachi into the direction of the castle.
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 13: The Returning
{Crystal Empire}
In the heart of the once great Crystal Empire was a destroyed city filled with changeling. The buildings were burnt, crushed, and any crystal statue of pony royalty was demolished and replaced with statues made of copper of Queen Chrysalis. The ground was covered with bodies, ash, and the bits and pieces of weapons and armor as the air within and around the destroyed city was polluted with ash and red cinders that gently made their way to the ground as they fell in the direction of the wind. Most of the bodies had some ashes over them and quite a few of them lay there with their mouths and eyes agape as they seemed to still be terrified by their attackers. The new occupants of the city did a poop job of cleaning up after exterminating the population as they only seemed to be concerned with either honoring their Queen or collecting what they called trophies from the dead unicorns and pegasus ponies, which were their horns and/or wings.
Konan was walking into the destroyed capital as she saw the handy work and brutality of the changelings along with the former Akatsuki members. "So the ponies from before were speaking the truth." She said to herself. As she walked up to what seemed to be a large rectangular building that was missing more than half of its front end and with a cloud of smoke raising from where the roof once was. She walked further and noticed the head of a pony that still clenched his teeth with his eyes open. Konan stopped then bent down as she gently slipped her hand down his face, closing his eyes and mouth. She then rose, raising her hand directly at him. A moment later, small slips of blank paper formed from her arm and wrapped around the pony's body. Konan starred at the pony she had just covered. A tear began to form in her eye. "Such a terrible fate..."she said to herself. These poor ponies were taken by surprise and scattered to defend themselves......" The tear finally started down her cheek. "Even when all was already lost..." She then said as she remembered the former members of the Akatsuki that had attacked with the changelings. Konan closed her eyes as she gave a moment of silence for the dead pony, along with all of his comrades and innocent civilians and after that, her eyes shot open with a serious expression on her face as the outlines of squares started to cover her face and body. "Pain, I trust they have the same goals as us." Then the squares started turning into hundreds of small slips of paper as every slip folding itself into oragomi butterflies, all flying off in a random direction after folding.
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{Manehattan}
The city of Manehattan was composed mainly of stone and wood buildings that were, for the most part, two to three stories tall, with the exception of a few builings near the city limits. The city was situated near a river that separated a seemingly never ending grassland that had a few trees scattered about the area and lush green grasses that covered the land with several wildflowers that also covered the area, from a large mountain range that lay nearly a hundred miles or so with Manehattan being on the side opposite of the mountains. The day was littered with light grey clouds with patches of blue sky here and there. The river was about 40 meters long with many sharp turns and twists with green water, almost making it look like a snake that seemed to go on for hundreds of miles. By the time Captain Shining Armor and his legion reached the city, things already started to look serious. Although the land around them was calm and without any sign of the chanelings, some of the ponies were evacuating deeper into Equestria while others joined the local militia, taking up immediate basic training after doing so. When Shining Armor and his two thousand legionaries entered the city, they were greeted by the militia, who were few in numbers even after having new recruits, and having two thousand trained legionaries as reinforcements straight from Canterlot gave them a boost in moral. The legion marched through the streets into an incampment on the outskirts of the city right next to the river. The ponies had already set up a wall around the city and another wall built between the incampment and the actual city itself.
As Shining Armor walked into the encampment, he noticed that it was composed of several tents in rows and from where he and his legion marched into the encampment, they could see a tent that was quite a bit larger than the others and had two guards on either side of the entrence and right in front of it was a large camp fire with a few logs that lay close by which he assumed were used for seats. Shining Armor had dismissed his men to join the militia in guard and patrol duty and were assigned tents in groups of four to each tent, and with the tents anitially assigned by the militia one pony a tent added up to five ponies in each tent which was a bit cramped for them but seeing as the griffin and changeling invasion was already heading to Manehattan, this gave them very little time to prepare. With that they had to make due, even if overcrowding was an issue.
After dispersing his legionaries, he headed for the large tent, taking quick steps as he trotted past several other ponies that were either going about the encampment, on patrol, or just sitting around as they exchanged stories. A few moments of walking to the large tent he began to clench his teeth as he looked down, slowing his pace as he did so as he remembered his wife, who had aperently been killed during the fall of the Krystal Empire by the hands of the Akatsuki who fought along side the changelings. "Cadence......" He then shook his head as he continued to the tent to speak with the captain of the militia.
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{Old Akatsuki Hideout}
After Pain's meeting with Princess Celestia, he and the other Akatsuki had moved to another area to set up in order to stay hidden from any outsiders. Like the last one, this one was on the side of a cliff that overlooked Canterlot, but unlike the last one, this one didn't have any visible enterances, making it difficult for anyone to find it even if they knew about its general location. Inside the cave stood Pain. He appeared to be a holographic shadows of themselves with the clouds on their uniform in a rainbow like pattern as the only thing that was perfectly visible was his rinnegan eyes. "Kisame, why have you called me? You left the Akatsuki and attacked those ponies without my consent." He then stated.
Kisame was silent but grinned as he stared at him. "We'll for staters, during my time in the Krystal Empire, as they call it, I was with the former member of the Akatsuki." He said, still receiving a cold stare from Pain. "However, I didn't kill any of the ponies there, you see, I even brought you a gift to that may interest you." He then explained in a reassuring tone as he made a few hand signs before slamming his hand into the ground. "Summoning jutsu!"he yelled followed by a cloud of white smoke appeared from the ground that he hit.
After a moment, Kisame lifted his hand as the smoke cleared, revealing a pink alicorn with a pink mane with yellow and purple strips which was easily Princess Cadence. She was on her side with her eyes closed. Pain stared down at her and after yet another moment, her eyes shot open as she lifted her head to look around. "You again, but when did you...and how?" Upon seeing Kisame. When his grin became slightly wider, she continued to look around only to see the holographic image of Pain. "Wha....Who are you?" She then asked.
Pain then closed his eyes for a moment to think about how to respond. "I am Pain." He replied followed by him reopening his eyes. "I am god."
Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
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Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Red Clouds: The Strangers of Fate
Chapter 16: Troubling Affairs
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Chapter 17: The Siege of Mane-kind
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Chapter 18: Agression and Ambition
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Chapter 19: Overwhelming Hatred
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Chapter 20: Luna's Resolve
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