//------------------------------//
// A Dark and Stormy Night 
// Story: Rebirth of Magic: In the Mists 
// by JimmyHook19 
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It is said that in times of danger, heroes will come together to face the rising tide of evil, and fight back to preserve the light. These heroes can come from the strangest of places.

This is the story of one such hero. Although she appears to be Misty Brightdawn, you may be surprised to learn her true origins...

AAAAH! When did you get here?

Sorry, I just get nervous really easily. It's not easy being nervous, you know. Am I right? Heh.

You probably have no idea who I am. Very few ponies do. I'm used to it. I've been ignored most of my existance, but the truth of the matter I haven't been here all that long, you know.

Sorry? You've heard other stories like this, about us not being from here? Really? Cause that sounds a bit odd.

Oh. I see. All of those uploaded on this page, where a person becomes a pony and travels to Equestria and has an adventure or something like that. Well, I must say this is a bit different to all of that. My story doesn't involve the same sort of peaceful start that so many of them do, and people talking at length at how much they love My Little Pony.

Seriously, there was that one guy who stuffed loads of How to Train your Dragon stuff into the chapter which could have been condensed into one paragraph! I am aware we're going the same direction, huh. I'd probably get started before I keep rambling on.

My story begins not with a quiet morning, or a sunrise, and a relaxing day. Rather, it begins with a bang.

Let me rewind a bit from that. The story starts with a man called James. James lived somewhere in a faraway country- I forgot the name a while ago, so can't tell you what it was called- and he was travelling along in a metal machine called a car. They're rather like the streetcars you see in Maretime Bay, only a lot smaller and less hard to drive. They can also go wherever the driver wants rather than being stuck on rails.

It was a dark and stormy night. The moon hung high in the sky as this particular man drove along the road on the coastline. The wind howled, and the rain poured. Thunder and lightning was booming all around. It was very, very frightening. But I'll have to stop that chain of thought because I don't want the copyright police on my tail. That would be rather annoying, and would prevent you from learning more about me.

He noted the weather was bad, and was wishing he hadn't needed to go out in this weather, but the circumstances of his life had left him no choice on that front. A family member of his had been left seriously ill in a recent incident, and he had needed to go into hospital. Urgently.

This had been why he had been driving at this hour, in order to convey them to the hospital. But somebody needed to keep an eye on the house, and as such he needed to drive back the same night in order to keep an eye on it. It would help nobody (and yes, that was the word that was used back then) if somebody broke into it. So he needed to keep a close eye on it.

The windscreen wipers continued to flicker back and forth as he drove along, barely able to cope with the volume of rain on the windshield. The car rumbled forward, the engine rattling like a diesel locomotive owing to its age and lack of maintenance.

Soon something else would cause him problems. Suddenly, the bang I alluded to earlier happened. But this bang wasn't the sort of bang from an engine, or from electrics, or from anything else (most certainly not from a haunted Porsche). Instead, the bang came from one of the tires, which left James rather concerned, as with a flat tire it was not safe to drive.

So he took the only course of action he had available, and had to pull off the road before his car sustained any more damage along the way. He switched on his emergency lights and pulled off the highway, before rolling into a parking lot and stopping inside the covered space within a lot, looking around to see if anybody was there.

He took a look at his phone and sent out a call. "Hello, is this breakdown recovery? My car's got a flat and needs a new tire. I might need some support to get a new one."

There was a moment of silence, then acknowledgement. "Understood sir, sending a breakdown truck to your position now. Hang tight, and seek cover from the storm."

Jimmy got out of his car and sprinted through the rain to the building. It was then he saw it in full. The building was a giant castle which seemed to defy gravity with how it rose into the air before him. It seemed like something out of a horror film.

"Well, he did say take cover from the storm," he said. "It would probably make sense to take cover in there. It's probably some roadside attraction haunt."

He pushed open the doors and walked inside, noticing the corridors were lit and full of things, as if somebody lived here still. He walked through and up a staircase, noticing the steps creaking below him. "Whoever lives here likes blue décor and low mood lighting," he said to himself, trying to offset the sense of dread he was feeling as he made his way up the building.

Finally, he seemed to arrive in what resembled a normal room. It was very large, with a vaulting roof, and offset blue lights. A large throne sat against the back wall, and the center of the room was dominated by a large pool of liquid filled with some glowing water. Some ethereal substance was floating on the top.

"Well, beggars can't be choosers," said a voice. "We need somebody to be Number Four."

"Excuse me?" Jimmy asked. "Is somebody there?"

The pool began to shimmer, and energy began to bubble out of it. "Arise, brave hero! Take her place!"

Jimmy had no opportunity to react before something pulled him into the pool. As he landed in it his clothing was torn away, and he seemed to be falling into a pit that had no top or bottom. It simply seemed to go on forever, but the liquid in the chamber was sucking him downwards.

Or should I say that he wasn't he for too much longer, as something got pulled inwards to replace. "ARGH! THAT HURT!" was her response as her voice rocketed in pitch.

Her hair turned to strands of blue and turquoise green, before being pulled over to one side as her legs snapped apart and were bent backwards to form equine rear legs at around the same time as her hips widened. Much of her feet shrank back to create hooves in the process, which based on her face was pretty painful.

Speaking of his face, it was soon lacking a lot of the features that we would look for in a human face. His mouth and nose seemed to be moving forward, soon merging into a muzzle that was quite short. Even so, breathing and talking might be a challenge thanks to the wider tongue.

After that, her body seemed to shrink down before her chest and barrel began to shift in size, with her neck craning back, giving the look of a giraffe. Her ears slid up her head and became pointy, before they were turned to being upward. Luckily, the magical substance wasn't flooding into them.

Her eyes turned greenish as a horn erupted out of her forehead, the bottom of which was blue and the top pinkish. Finally, a tail the same colour as her mane appeared as well as something grew all over her skin.

The thing seemingly done, she emerged out of the well of liquid and dragged herself along, coughing and spluttering. "That was awful," she said to herself.

Or rather, I said to myself. I stopped. My voice was all wrong, and I tried to find some glass to look into in order to try and figure out what was going on. I looked into a mirror to see a turquoise pony looking. I opened my mouth. The pony did the same.

The pony was me!

I, quite understandably, screamed. "NO! THERE'S NO WAY THIS IS HAPPENING!"

I ran round the room in a panic, not looking where I was going. I was running randomly and not thinking straight at all. I weaved back and forth between objects before at last finding my way around the back of the throne. It was there I bashed into something, and all went black.

It would soon turn out that being an anthropomorphic equine would be the least of my worries.