//------------------------------//
// Courage in the Prophecy: part 1 
// Story: Brothers of Prophecy 
// by Sonic Rainboom Dash 
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It was a cold Tuesday night. I managed to get my brother to come to a costume party with me since he usually worked long nights at his job. It took four weeks for him even to agree to take a day off and join the party a co-worker of his was throwing. Though, granted, it was a bit of a lame costume party. We dressed up as scientists, with a twist. We didn’t go as pure nerdy scientists, no we went as the experimenter kind. The ones that be called to test out new medicine on mice or something, before moving to the human guinea pigs. We made the lab coats, as well as the science gear we were using, but the one thing we were missing was the experiments. Well, that was a lie, we did have them, but they had been just food colored water we were going to drink to the party and pretend that they gave us superpowers, but my klutzy self-bumped into the table where they were stored and upended the project. Lucky for me, a friend of mine showed, my this exciting website, saying that the powers it gave were genuine.

Curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I checked it out. It turned out the supplier had only two vials left of his best serums. They even glowed in the gif image of them. One glowing a bright blue, with the other gleaming a dark pink. Thinking nothing of it, since he stated that, yes they were just water and food coloring he also added something extra that made the glow look real. They were sealed with corks to look like were actual serums, I placed an order in for those final two plasmas. They only set me back $10, as they were made with precision in mind.

After we arrived at the party, my brother and I did a few minutes of goofing around, saying that we had the next best thing in human evolution, really exciting the crowd, even hamming it up to show we were making it look real. Eventually, we revealed the two vials of our supposed ‘Super Serum’ guaranteed to make you a better you. After a few chuckles and looks of awe at how the glowed, we drank both serums, I was getting ready to ham it up that they were duds when I felt a sharp shock rush through my system. Looking over, I could tell my brother was going through the same thing. Before i could even yell for someone to call 911, I blacked. A few seconds later, still drifting into unconsciousness I heard a *thump* besides me, telling me my brother blacked out as well.




It was a frigid Tuesday night, and my brother had managed to get me away from my work. It had taken my brother over a month just to convince me to take a couple of days off work finally. And then it took him another couple of days before he convinced me to go to a costume party on one of those days off I took. Don’t let him fool you when he said it took less than a month. I’m one stubborn person, and it takes a lot to make me budge. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment. You see the party was being thrown by this co-worker of mine who I didn’t know all too well. He had invited everybody from work and any relatives of those workers that wanted to come. It turned out that the party was going to be a costume party which was slightly refreshing.

My brother and I both decided that we’d dress up as scientists for the party. And no they weren’t the typical nerdy kind that kids dressed up as on Halloween or for career day. No, we went ahead and dressed up as specialists in biology. It took us about a week to craft our costumes and the gear we were going to use for the party. It was all enjoyable to do, but then my klutzy brother just had to go and ruin our project. What was the plan you ask? Well, the project was a couple of vials that had water, food coloring, and a few other ingredients in it to make it look like we had concocted the serums that would give us superpowers like the x-men.

After my brother ruined the project, I couldn’t help but mope around in my room when I wasn’t at work. That plan had taken a lot to make and do, and he’d just ruined it even if it was by accident. It was a couple of days later after he wrecked the project that he came to me and snapped me out of my pity party by telling me he’d ordered a couple of vials of “serum” online from some website. I asked him just what website it was, but he didn’t want to show me because he wanted it to be a surprise he said.  I went along with it at the time, but I can’t help but wish that I had pressed further to make him show me the website. Not that it would have changed anything I guess.

So we got to the party all dressed up in our costumes. The both of us were having a good time just wasting time and playing up the whole scientist roles. We managed to excite the supposed serums that we had created by acting all nerdy and scientific and just goofing around. The crowd started to get excited and antsy as we excited them up more. Finally, around an hour into the party, we showed off the vials of “serum” which made the crowd gasp in awe. To them, it looked cool, and they wanted to know how we got the glowing effect to our serums. Of course, we just played it off as not wanting to give away our secrets, and we excited the crowd up some more. Finally, we uncorked the serums and drank them. The serum my brother had given me was a pink color which I wasn’t too happy about because pink is such a girly color. Still, I went with it and drank it. As I drank it, I had been expecting to goof-off and then act like I had superpowers. But boy was I surprised when I felt some chill run through my system. I ended up clutching my chest at the coldness and looked at my brother in shock before I completely blacked out into unconsciousness a couple of seconds later. Just before I completely lost my senses, I could barely make out the sound off a phone being dialed.




Twilight stared in awe at the two crystal statues in front of her. It was two weeks before her entrance exam to ‘Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns’ and Twilight begged her parents to see the sculpture garden. After five hours of constant puppy dog eyes, plus the constant ‘please can you take me, please, please, please.’ finally broke through the barrier that was her parents. Exasperated by her constant begging, her parents took her to the garden after finally giving in. Once there, Twilight looked around the area at all the sculptures before her eyes settled on a pair of big crystal statues. One of them was twice the height of a regular full grown pony, while the other was bigger than that standing at about 2 and a half times the height of a full grown pony. One of them looked like a hairless minotaur with pale skin and long arms that ended in hands. That figure was wearing what looked like a modified suit of crystal armor. It covered the whole body of that character and it was also holding a crystal staff that the figure had used when manipulating gravity.

The other figure that Twilight saw was far different from the hairless minotaur. This character seemed to be some large warrior. The character had a head that was covered in a metal helmet which ended in a horn right at the tip. There were triangular slots for the eyes, and one could see that it was powerfully muscled. Black armor ran over its arms and legs. The armor for the arms ended in gauntlets that had very sharp, sharp claws on the ends. And the being’s feet also ended in sharp claws. It stood bipedally like the other figure, and it had a sort of gray armor going on black that ran down its chest with what looked like threads running through it. It also had some strange loincloth that covered its waist. And on its back were what appeared to be two halves that formed a full shield. But they were split apart on its end as if they were acting as wings of a sort.

Twilight came closer to the statues, wondering just what these two beings represented. Instead of a plaque, that told what virtue they embodied; there were words carved into the base of the statues themselves. They spelled out, “In the darkness, find the light. If you’re afraid, then find courage. But when you are lost, call us, for we will be there to show the way.” underneath the plaque were what Twilight assumed were their names. “Adam Wheeler,  also known as BlackWarGreymon, or Grey for short, Guardian of Harmony!  Wildshadow Warlord, Fanatic Safeguard, and Protector of Peace, Isaac Clark.”

Twilight scratched her head about the names and what they meant but shook her head. They may have been ponies that had been alive at one point, but now that she was closer to the statue, Twilight could see that the beings looked like they had been in a battle. It soon became apparent to Twilight that this wasn’t just a statue, but a memorial.

A teacher was nearby in the garden giving a tour to a group of school children. She stopped near the two statues before she began to lecture her students. “Ok children. This here is the memorial of the Protectors of Equestria. They sacrificed themselves in a great battle to help Princess Celestia to restore harmony to the land. These statues show us what they supposedly looked like way back then. Legend has it that in the darkest days, these two beings showed up amongst a terrible battle. Its said that the two stood back-to-back, as they’re depicted here, and fought with spells and abilities that to this day, nopony has been able to replicate. But the biggest mystery was that nopony knew where they came from, nor how they could do the things they did, but the plaque that is on the base of their memorial was said to be their final words. Scholars took it to mean never to give up when darkness or fear take hold, and that there would always be someone to lend a hoof.” the teacher finished her lecture before asking her class to follow her to the next part of the garden where the statues of valor stood.

Twilight had overheard the lecture from the teacher, and it only made her more curious to find out more about these great beings. Surely there had to be some written record about them somewhere in some library. She looked up to her parents with an intense look of determination. She asked her mother determinedly, “Can we go to the library mother? I want to check some books out about this legend.” Her mother happily agreed to take her there as she wasn’t at all interested in sticking around the statue garden all that much. Even Night Light, Twilight’s father was in a bit of a hurry to get out of there. His nightly bingo game of the week was going to start in a  couple of hours, and he had to get ready for it.

Over the following weeks, Twilight spent most of her days, reading up on the legend of the two brothers, as she found out after looking for information on them. She learned that the smaller one was able to manipulate gravity to such an exceptional degree that he could fly without wings, while at the same time increase it to make even the lightest feather fall as fast as a boulder the size of Canterhorn. The larger of the two was said to have been able to heal wounds at an incredibly fast pace, even regrow lost limbs, but apparently, he could only heal others. He was also said to be able to empower those with abilities similar to his own, for a time that is, and used it to give others the power to heal or use magic. The books also said he had some other power but what it was no one could figure out. It was noted that at one time he’d been like the smaller of the two but has somehow become the way he was currently, but no one could prove it.

Twilight’s mind and heart were alight with the power of knowledge and hope as she read about these two strange warriors. She ended up thinking back to the words she had seen at the base of the statues. Could they perhaps actually be true? Could there be some grain of truth to those words? As she pondered them, she came to her conclusion, that until proven otherwise she would take the words literally and to be the truth. By the time Twilight’s entrance exam rolled around, Twilight was a nervous wreck, thinking that if she failed here than she would be a failure at magic. But before she could worry too much, she thought back to the plaque on the brothers memorial, ‘If you’re afraid, then find courage.’ That line seemed to resonate with her, telling her that it was okay to be afraid that to find the courage to push through the fear. Remembering what her foal-sitter, Cadence, told her to do if she ever started panicking, Twilight took a deep breath, moving her hoof to her barrel, waited ten seconds, and then exhaled, withdrawing her hoof. Unfortunately, when the examiners told her to hatch a dragon egg, Twilight’s new found courage slipped. She tried everything she could do to get the egg to hatch. She tried sitting on it, gnawing on it, waving her hooves at it like she was trying to cast a spell as one of the brothers. Eventually, Twilight slumped to the ground defeated. “I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she said, unaware that two beings had been watching her two weeks.

“Do you think you can help her brother?” the shorter one thought, speaking telepathically to his brother. Being encased in crystal for a thousand years really could do some one's mental capabilities.

The taller one remained silent for a moment before speaking only a few words, “Maybe. It depends.” With that, he went back to being silent as his mind moved beyond his body and he moved quickly towards Cloudsdale with his mind. He had been watching a blue pegasus filly for years now by himself. He felt that she was special and now might be the perfect time to help her achieve the impossible which in turn could help the poor sad filly. His mind stopped when it came to the camp where the Junior Speedsters course was being held. He saw that the little blue filly was currently racing against a couple of young colts, but the colts were playing dirty. He grinned as he touched the filly’s mind with his own and spoke two simple words, “Go faster.” With that one of his powers activated and gave the filly his speed in the current form that he was in.

With determination, The pegasus flew faster than she ever believed she could, causing one of the bullies that had been harassing Fluttershy to spin out. The filly approached the final ring of the obstacle course, unaware of the Mach cone forming around her, before turning on a dime after clearing the ring and releasing a massive shockwave of rainbow colors that spread out in a rainbow ring, setting in motion events that would lead to six ponies to be friends. Before they even met. Back in Canterlot, when the ring passed over the crystal memorial, the seal holding the two was shattered, finally allowing the two to finish healing. It would take another ten years for their healing crystal to release them eventually, but soon, the time will come when the two beings will walk Equestria once more, on the eve of the thousandth year.