//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: In Chains // by Dino Days //------------------------------// The train travelled through the night, hidden by the dark clouds that blocked out the moon’s light. The trees of the forest grew wild around the train track, the periodic broken boards indicating that the track had been unused and poorly maintained for quite some time. The train itself was a black thing, nearly invisible in the darkness. A jet black plume rose from its smokestack, blotting out the sparse few stars that managed to peek out from behind the clouds. It trudged on in the night, uncharacteristically silent for a train. A bright green light flashed in the air behind the train, propelling a dark figure who soared through the sky. The light would flare up every few seconds, bright enough to blind anypony who may have witnessed it, keeping pace with the train. A few quick blasts later, the figure caught up with the speeding mass of metal. Without warning, the dark figure flared up with a crimson glow, and a spear of red light lanced out from it, impacting the tail end of the train’s caboose. It ignited, an eye-burning explosion of flame ripping out from the caboose, which rocked with the impact. Someone on board disconnected the flaming caboose from the rest of the train, and it started to fall behind. The dark figure landed on it, the fire illuminating it, unconcerned about the tongues of flame licking at it. Those on the train would later describe her as a devil, a dark creature of anger and vengeance and wrath. They would say her eyes pierced their very souls, judging them, laying their true selves bare for the devil to see. Her white coat, they said, was at odds with the darkness of her heart, and her black, ponytailed mane a void of darkness. Some of these ponies managed to break free of the paralysis of fear and flee before the next blast hit the train car, rendering the metal apart and obliterating all who remained. The car lurched into the air before crashing into the dirt. The derailed car pulled the rest of the train off the track and onto its side, the individual train cars piling up. The burning mare jumped off of the caboose just before it collided with the rest of the train, further demolishing the machine. She deftly landed on the ground beside the tracks, a few meters from the engine. She stood on her hind legs, an odd and awkward stance for her equine shape, only working to make her look more unnatural. She watched as a single being extricated himself from the wreckage of the train. He stood up on four shaky legs, his brown eyes seething with rage as he looked at the mare in front of him. His long, wild black hair waved in the wind created by the inferno behind him, his black stripes contrasting strongly with his white fur. To the zebra, the mare wasn’t nearly as demonic in appearance as his underlings had thought. Their minds had been clouded by fear, yet his was filled with only rage, and he saw the world around him crystal clear. The two stood there for a few moments, sharing no words. Nothing needed to be said. They knew each other well, and both knew what would come next. It was only a matter of who would make the first move. The zebra moved first, a brown staff materializing in front of him. He jumped forward and grabbed it with his forelegs, taking up the traditional zebra fighting stance that the mare he now fought had already assumed. He lunged at her. His staff swung in a wide arc. She sprung forward, rolling underneath the strike, and released a powerful buck from her hind legs as her forelegs hit the dirt. The buck impacted with the zebra’s back. The zebra was sent rocketing into a tree, but he managed to right himself in midair and hit the tree with his legs, jumping off and towards the mare once more. He swung his staff again, and the mare rolled underneath it once more. What the zebra lacked in raw power, he more than made up for in skill. He turned quickly and aimed the point of the staff at the mare. The tip fired off with a loud bang and flew towards her. It hit the mare in the back of the head and she stumbled before she could release her second buck. The projectile was pulled back onto the staff by the chain that was attached to one end, and the staff was whole once more. The zebra took advantage of the mare’s stumble. He hit her with strike after strike of his staff, pummeling her into the ground. Dirt flew up from the site of impact as she was hammered into the earth, forming a crater. The mare wasn’t out of the fight yet. A flash of green light exploded outward from the crater, knocking the zebra off his hooves and sending him flying into the sky. The mare quickly followed, a blur of white against the blackness of the night as she flew up into the air from a powerful jump. She caught the zebra as he started to fall. Green energy gathered at her hooves and was released, impacting with his chest and sending him flying into what remained of the derailed train, too quickly to be visible. The train jerked as he tore through it, his body making a rut in the ground as he exploded out of the other side. The zebra shakily lifted his hoof from the crater as the mare landed beside it. He looked up at her as she approached him, unable to attack or defend himself. He spat in her direction. “Devil,” he hissed. She picked up one half of his broken staff, which sat by his side. She examined the spiked, splintered, broken edge before glancing at him pointedly. She plunged the staff into his torso, a spray of blood misting the air above them. The staff completely penetrated his body and pinned him to the ground below. She fled, jumping into the sky and launching herself forward with a blast of green light.