//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: By the Borders 
// by Rakoom 
//------------------------------//

"The problem now is two things: One of ya will steadily become him, while the other will steadily become yerself," he said. All of us tilted our head in confusion. He let out another sigh before explaining further. "Look, to get a body of his own he had to copy you first. Then he could steadily change it. But he wouldn't wanna make it too easy now would he? I think he tainted the real you just to make us run blind, n' think that the wrong pony is changin'," he said. Now all of us understood; either of the two of us could be the Shadow, but we wouldn't know! "So what do we do? Wait it out?" Breeze said. We were indeed at a halt here; we didn't have a clue as to what we should do. "I'll go with ya wherever ya go. The Shadow can lead me to the real thing, n' he n' me have a score to settle," Dice said. Acorn's grandmother went into the house and brought back a map she rolled out on the ground. "There is one you should inform this to. The Shadow is a looming threat; it nearly destroyed a grand capital city a long ago," I (or... we) hoped this would go where it did go. We looked at each other and then expectantly on the map. "Princess Celestia needs to hear about this," I and my counterpart yelled out IMEDIATELY after she finished her sentence. "AAAAAWWW YEEEAAAAH!"  Then everypony just looked at us with the strangest of looks for MANY awkward seconds.



Breeze was the one to break the silence. "Riiight, I'll go with you as well. I need to get back home before my vacation wears off and I'm needed again. And if we cross Ponyville first then I can go the rest of the way by my own from there," he said. So I (/we), Dice and Breeze was going. We looked at Acorn, who in turn looked at her grandmother, who smiled softly at her. "Don't worry Acorn, I'll be fine," she said with a soft voice. "You need to explore the world, and these friends will need your potions in the future," she said. "Oh right! The potion!" Acorn remembered, suddenly becoming stressed. "Don't worry dear, you won't need it now. But I can make it into something else before you leave," her grandma replied. So it was all set. We were ready to go. Then we just needed the final detail. "So where do we go from here," we said. "Oh it is far away, but it will just take a few days of galloping with resting. You see you should cross Ponyville," she said while pointing it out on the map. "And Ponyville isn't too far away. It is right next to the land of Riverdale. And we are right here," she pointed. "By the borders."


"Great, lets go," Breeze said. Seemed like he was anxious to get going. He grabbed his handy bag™, and walked a few steps. "Come on guys," he said. "Heh, excited as ever aren't ya," Dice said with his usual 'slightly-more-tired-than-you' tone. "Don' get ahead of yerself now. Not everypony's got wings ya know," he said before following after Breeze. "Wait! Acorn," Acorns grand-mother said. "I don't think I need ALL the bears here," she said. Breeze and Dice stopped and turned around, and all of us looked curiously as the 'most' brown'ish of the five (the others had slightly colored fur) stood up on his hind legs. Now we noticed how it had a big circle on his stomach with a symbol inside. The bear itself was easily six ponies high when standing. Dice had an uneasy look on his face, Breeze looked in awe, I and me looked in awe and Acorn smiled. She went over to her grand-mother "Thank you grandma, I'll be back soon. I promise," she said while giving her a hug. It was a pretty strong "d'aww" moment. I and me & co. hid away the tears that moment brought us. "But will he slow us down," Breeze asked. "Oh no, he isn't as slow as a normal bear! In fact, he can speed up your journey a little since his enchantment allows him to keep on running for ages," she said. The bear went down on all four again and let out a growl to show off his fierceness (not that it was really that necessary at all considering he could fill an entire room alone...). 



"Yay," Acorn said. Jumping up and taking a seat on the bear's back. "Come on Dice," she said cheerfully. But he still had that uneasy look on his face. "No thanks, I feel better when galloping myself," he said. "Safe travels," Acorns grandmother said while waving goodbye. Acorn waved back "Bye grandma," she said. Suddenly the bear burst into a pretty damn impressive sprint (for a bear that is). Acorn sqeeled in joy as they charged through the woods. Dice was appalled. "W- wait a sec," he said as he set off to catch up. "Well I'll be damned," Breeze said in sheer amazement. Haha, this will be quite the interesting trip! See you by the finish line guys," he said before shooting off the ground. I coughed a little due to all the dust. My other me didn't get so much dust in his face, and so he thought what I would have thought if I didn't get so much dust in my face (I know it's confusing). He stood in front of me. "Is it okay if you're named Stale?" he asked with a slight smile on his face. I grinned. We needed to get seperate names sometime. "Sure, and I'll call you... eh... Mate?" He burst into laughter "Sure! And together we are," he paused to let me join in. "STALEMATE!" we yelled before both of us burst into laughing. "Oh shi- the others are probably way ahead now!" I said as I remembered the others. "Well then there is only one ting to do," Mate said. "Stale! Grab my tail," he said as he held out his tail to me. We were both thinking the same, because I would have done that if it wasn't for all the dust in my face earlier. I bit his tail and held on. We both jumped into the air and flew away as Mate yelled "ADVENTURE!" It was glorious.