//------------------------------// // Rough Landings, and Rougher Meetings (2.0) // Story: Equestria meets the Vasto Lorde. // by Phoenix Archangel //------------------------------// "Darkness....Where am I... Who am I?" ================================= It was the time of year for Nightmare Night once more, and all the little colts and fillies were out gathering candy while others played naughty little tricks (Rainbow Dash, particularly). Twilight Sparkle was at her library looking through her telescope since Celestia had told her that Luna was going to create a meteor shower for them all to enjoy. While Twilight waited, she noticed Spike was getting irritated. "Hey, Spike, is something wrong?" asked a semi worried Twilight. "Well, Twilight, I actually kinda wanted to get some -" Spike was cut short by a sudden meteor shower. Twilight immediately shushed Spike and continued to watch in amazement by the beauty of the shower. However, something was off, that something being a blood red meteor that was going towards the Everfree forest. The colour didn't interest her, but the fact that its landing was in that specific area had given her the idea to go study it, despite the dangers that the forest contained. "Spike grab some scrolls and quills, and pack some gear, we're going to the Everfree!" she exclaimed excitedly. "But, Twilight..." Spike whined. "No buts. We can get some candy when we come back." "You promise?" He asked eagerly. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." She responded while going through the motions, before turning to a nearby quill and parchment to write a quick note to her friends should they stop by. "Oh, boy!" Spike exclaimed while grabbing the equipment. __________________________________ ‘What’s… happening...? Why am I warm.... and it's windy...,’ I looked to see that I'm falling with a strange red aura around me. Why I was falling is something I don't know, or how I was supposed to deal with this situation. ‘Maybe I should just-‘ *KR-KSSHHH* Those were my last thoughts before I plummeted into the ground, a crater framed by smoke marking the ground. I got out of said crater and noticed that I was in a forest. "Might as well explore, I guess…" I glanced around the demolished area around me as I wandered, and noticed a sword, black as onyx with a short chain dangling from the pommel, stuck in the ground not far away. I reached out to grab it and was surprised as the blade just flew, spinning, straight into my right hand. Upon closer inspection, the guard comprised of four prongs that angled to form some kind of a slightly broken square or diamond. The hilt was wrapped in a cloth as black as the blade, which shone slightly in the moonlight shining through broken trees. I was so interested in my blade that I didn't notice the wooden wolves surrounding me until I heard a sudden growl and looked up. I just looked at them in curiosity until one jumped towards me. Completely by instinct, I reached up and out to my right before swinging my sword down and back to the left, slicing it in half. The corpse of the once live wolf lay still on the ground behind me, with sap splattering in all directions and small little glowing insects flying out of the dead corpse. This seemed to have caught most of the wolves by surprise, since they have most likely never seen one of their comrades killed so effortlessly. When I looked back at the wolves, they growled and barked, poised to attack. I wasn't having any of it. So I promptly obliterated them all by swinging my blade back the right. I didn't even need to move from where I was standing, as with that one single swing not only were the wolves destroyed in a big wooden sappy mess, but the land around me was a mess and the trees in a 15 meter radius were either uprooted or sliced in half. The results were… satisfying, for some reason and I probably would have smiled but I didn't know if I could, as somehow, without knowing, I had a mask on which seemed to act as my face. As I looked upon my handiwork, a sudden, deafening scream echoed out, causing me to spin around to identify what it came from, and to see if I could tell it to shut the hell up. When my eyes met with that of the voice's source, I stood paralysed in shock; some kind of horned, big eyed, purple equine was staring horrified at me. 'When the hell did she get here?' ================================= As a Dragon Applebloom, Ninja Scootaloo and Alicorn Sweetie Belle happily raced around with a group of other costumed colts and fillies, Applejack, dressed as a knight, and Rarity, a nurse, followed at a more sedate trot towards the Golden Branches Library to trick-or-treat while chatting about the various costumes they saw. Upon coming to the Library, the foals all argued amongst one another on who should knock. They seemed to come to a decision just as the two mares walked up behind them, as Pipsqueak tapped loudly on the door with a large conical drill, while focusing on not losing the fishbowl on his head or the oversized saddlebags, a small grey filly doll with a light blue dress hanging over his shoulder. Stepping back eagerly, the foals waited for Twilight to open the door. And waited, though some of them were becoming confused or antsy about the door not opening. With a chuckle, Rarity levitated the note that had been stuck on the door, catching some of the foals attention. Reading quickly, Rarity's face fell into shock, before hitching a false smile on her face before reaching into the pumpkins on the left of the door and pulling out some treats to drop into the bags. Turning to Sweetie Bell as she did so, she said, "Sweetie Bell, I'm terribly sorry but we have to meet Twilight. Would you be alright on your own?" The filly in question nodded a bit too quickly for Rarity's taste, so she added, "And no troublemaking, am I clear?" Sweetie rolled her eyes before intoning a Pinkie Promise, "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. C'mon, let's go!" She shouted as she took the lead of the others in the search of more candy. "Alright, where's Twahlight gone?" Applejack asked exasperatedly the moment the children were out of earshot. Rarity sighed as she started moving towards the centre of the town before replying, "Well, we need the rest of the girls - Twilight's gone into the Everfree." ================================= Twilight couldn't believe what she saw; there was a huge, smoking crater, thankfully not too far into the Everfree, but that wasn't the problem. The fact that nothing was there was what was troubling her. On top of that, there were remnants of some odd type of magic that she has never felt before. She was going to tell Spike to record this, but was stopped by a very loud slicing sound followed by an explosion. *SSSSSSSHING-KIRRSSSHHHHH* "Wh-what was that sound?" Asked a startled Spike. "It seems to have come from the north somewhat deeper in the forest. Spike, go back home." "Okay, if you say s-so T-T-Twilight but please be careful, o-okay?" Spike said worriedly. Twilight led the way over to where she heard the sound, and what she saw through the trunks was horrifying: a large amount of the area beyond was completely destroyed. She'd taken a few steps past the tree line of the new clearing, before she saw it. It was a bipedal being with skin as white as snow marked with black lines, black claws on its strange, five digit hand, and red tufts of fur on its wrists, ankles, and neck. Its face was like a skull with long, pointed horns, with a mane of orange hair, and was wearing what appeared to be a black robe held at the waist by a white sash, and, most horrifying of all, a hole she was sure was a little bigger than her hoof lay in the middle of its chest that ran through its body. Whatever it was, it looked like it came from Tartarus itself; a being of pure death. Whatever it was, it was terrifying so she did the most logical thing she could think of. She screamed. When she stopped screaming the creature turned around and looked at her with its glowing yellow eyes, which only made her shrink back. The creature just stared, doing nothing else, so, just to break the silence, she said the stupidest thing in history of stupid things… "Um... h-hello, how do you do?" It just kept staring. "Um, what are you, uh, doing?" ================================= "Tell me again just WHY Twilight would come into the Everfree alone?" Rainbow asked, keeping a hoof on her pith helmet as she kept pace above her galloping friends. "Apparently, a meteor fell inta tha Forest," Applejack called back, having taken point, "So o' course Twahlight's gonna wanna study it." "I do wish that we didn't- Spike!" Rarity called, having caught sight of the purple dragon stumble out of the brush just ahead of her, the others having stopped at her call. "Um, Spike, wh-where's Twilight?" asked Fluttershy nervously, her eyes looking over the minor scratches on the dragons scales. "She's up ahead," panted Spike, out of breath. Looking up, his eyes caught sight of Applejack in her knight armour, Rainbow as Daring Doo, Pinkie, incredibly, balancing on a forehoof as a seal, Fluttershy as herself and Rarity... Rarity as a nurse. Images swam unbidden into his mind of her taking care of him sick, before he shook them away. Not the time, Spike, he chided himself, before explaining why he was headed back. At the part about the noise, Rainbow disappeared in the direction he came from, ignoring calls to wait. ================================= After hearing it talk, I was speechless since I didn't know that this equine could talk. "I don't know," was all I could manage to think of, and that was basically the pure truth; I didn't know what I was going to do, and I didn't know what to do. I was about to ask the little thing for some help, when I felt something tapping my back. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a cyan, winged equine, in some kind of costume, apparently punching my back saying something along the lines of, “Don't hurt my friend, you-”. With only a slight, but forceful, push of my hand, her face showing shocked surprise at it being on her chest, I sent her back a few meters into a tree stump, unconscious but otherwise unhurt. I felt like it should've been more severe but something about this place made me think otherwise. The lavender one quickly ran over the cyan equine along with four more differently coloured equines, in various costumes, that had appeared behind the first and immediately went to help their friend. 'Where did they come from?' "She's alright, just unconscious. Nothing seems to be broken, which is good," said the yellow one with pink hair, the only one not costumed. After making sure their friend was alright they turned over to me. The one with the armour was glaring at me for some reason. "What makes yah think that ya'll can go around hurtin’ mah friends," she continued, saying it wasn't a nice thing trying to hurt others, yet I really wasn't even trying; I just wanted her to stop hitting me. So I simply walked away, with the one speaking before saying something like, “you better run”, but I ignored it. I was about to exit the large circle I made, when a sudden bear-like roar the caused the equines to become startled and even scared. I looked over to see a bear that was about 7 stories tall and a bluish-purple. The thing was huge and the ponies seemed quite scared and were muttering something amongst them. All I could make out from the hushed conversation is that this thing was called an Ursa Major. I just stared at it, as it stared at the creatures with hunger in its eyes. Strangely enough, for some reason that look just made me irritated. It lifted a paw to crush the equines while they, for some reason, sat in a large group hug. As the paw came down, I sprinted at it, crossing the clearing in seconds before launching myself into the air with a kneeling jump just as I reached the group. I grabbed the end of the paw as I reached it, before swinging my sword back, upwards and across in a blur of black motion. The bear seemed confused as to what I'd done, until a line of blood sprayed from the fissure that angled across its whole left paw, causing it to roar at the sudden agony. Spinning to my left, I ripped the half of the paw I had a grip on off the main body, a small explosion of blood following the action, before throwing it at the bear itself. It collided with its face with enough force to send it back a few steps. I fell a few metres before landing on top of a tree in a crouch, before kicking off with enough strength to turn said tree to splinters as I charged back to the fight. The bear reacted faster than I thought, swinging its uninjured paw to swat me mightily to the right. Spinning wildly, I crashed solidly through several trees that were shattered then toppled in my wake before slamming into a cliff-side, a rock-slide to form from the stone fragments that resulted. Forcing my way out of the rocks, I bellowed in rage. Glaring at the huge bear rumbling towards me on three legs, I took off, causing another landslide as the already broken stone was pulverised. Sticking my sword across the small of my back, secured by the sash I wore, I slammed legs first into the shoulder of its damaged leg, breaking the bone if the loud crack and agonised roar following my landing was any indication. Pushing off and to the side, I slammed my right hand into it's jaw, digging my claws deep to ensure my grip. The bear bellowed as its head jerked to the side, followed by its body, into the air in a shoddy cartwheel. The moment its head slammed into the ground, I shoved my feet into the dirt and, exerting more pressure on my grip, braced myself before dragging its head, and its body into a circle before throwing it, letting it tumble into the air. As it flew its erratic path, I jumped once more, except a burst of muted static accompanied me and I instantly found myself above the bear. Despite minor confusion on what'd just happened, I kicked off the air into the chest of the bear, before slamming a fist into it that changed its flight path instantly into the ground. Landing on its chest, I leaned forward, horns pointing straight at the Ursa Major below me as red energy swirled from a small point in between them, into a large ball within seconds, accompanied by a warbling noise before releasing a large red beam that blasted into and through its chest, leaving a huge, slightly smoking hole. Striking the ground beneath the creature, the beam caused an enormous explosion that flipped the bear, with me on top several metres into the air. Pushing off the bear, I landed on the ground, bending my knees as the bear hit the ground more heavily, causing a small tremor. Looking around, I blinked when I saw that I'd, somehow, ended up back in the same clearing I'd begun this fight, with the ponies in the same spot, except with shocked horror in their eyes. I started walking towards the ponies and that's when they started to all stagger away, cower and hide behind their hooves, sobbing all the while. All I could see when I paused, however, was the faint overlying image of a white face framed by black with streaks of the same colour seemingly running down from yellow irises on green eyes.