Shadows of Darkness

by BloodHive1998

Shadows

Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes slowly, only to jump back and cry out as she beheld the ground she had been laying on. The grass wasn't like normal grass, it was nothing but flames in the shape of grass. Thankful for the fireproof bubble she had around her (and too shocked to question where it had come from), the Alicorn examined her surroundings. The green fire that was the grass wasn't alone. All around her, Twilight saw that the trees that made up the forest she was in were made of flames as well. Brownish-red pillars of flowing lava made up the trunks while green, and some yellow-green, fire made up the leaves. A single fiery leaf falling from a tree was proof enough that the flames were the leaves.

Twilight landed carefully on the grass and started walking, unsure of her location or of how she got there in the first place. As Twilight walked, she could have sworn that she heard whispers from different points around her, whispers so faint that she thought of the whispers heard when performing Necromancy, faint and unintelligible, but sharp and twisted. The only difference was that the whispers she heard had what seemed to be crackling fire laced into each word and lacked an echo (unlike Necromancy whispers). The forest was large too, which would leave her walking around for quite a while. Twilight found a lot of things over the next hour including a variety of fire or heat based plants, several signs of life (including some paw and hoof prints), and some traces of intelligent beings (mainly bits of buildings made of a black stone).

After a while, Twilight found what she had partly been looking for, a village which was made up of black stone and had several... demons (at least, that was the closest thing she could think of to describe the sight) living in it. The creatures varied greatly. There were creatures that had dragon-like scales, or multiple thin tails. Some had several heads, of which a few were arguing. Some looked like normal ponies, only with fire for manes and tails (and wings for the Pegasi, Bat-Pony, Changeling, and Alicorn like ones). Twilight walked through the village with care, unsure of what she'd find. Luckily, nopony seemed to be paying attention to her. Twilight soon found a sign proclaiming two useful bits of information. The village's name, Cordis, and the name of the forest it was in, Ignis. Twilight shivered at the name of the forest. Ignis was the name of a forest near Tartarus, that was indeed rumored to be made of flames.

"How am I even in here?" Twilight asked herself, then yelped as she felt an odd sensation go through her, causing her to jump and stay airborne with her wings. When Twilight looked down, she found a stallion-like creature with eight tails and spikes down its back standing exactly where she had. Slowly, Twilight landed, but she misjudged and tripped, falling through the creature, which only left her more disoriented. At first she thought the creature wasn't solid, but that changed when she saw it hug sompony else. Her head hurt afterwards as she processed the reason she, for she was positive that it was her, wasn't solid. The only reason thinking of this made her head hurt was because she had been able to touch the various plants she had found, but she couldn't touch these creatures. The fact that she wasn't solid did make some sense though. After all, she wasn't sure of the consequences of physically touching any of these creatures, nor of them hearing her. Even without them seeming to be able to see her, she felt like prey. Either way, it wasn't something to dwell on at the moment, especially since she suddenly realized that there still seemed to be a pull towards protecting the Everfree in her, the magic of that place was definitely not something she wanted to learn too much more about.

Unseen by others, a pair of glowing eyes had watched everything and soon stalked off, continuing to follow Twilight.

---

unknown location #2

The place had black walls with a glowing green gel woven with intricate designs through them. Aside from that though, it looked almost like any other castle, with plenty of furniture and the residence buzzing around, completely oblivious to Rainbow Dash' presence. The place was a Changeling Hive, and while she hated the fact, Rainbow knew exactly which one. She remembered the black halls of the castle that was hidden in a mountain all too well. She knew that five doors ahead and then three meters in was the throne for the corrupted queen of the hive, and she knew just who that queen was. Dash rounded into the throne room, paying little mind to the Changeling that walked through her in the process, sitting in the throne was someling she had never wanted to see again. Queen Chrysalis, Queen of the Venom Hive, sat in the throne, four Changeling guards around her.

While three of the Changelings were unknown to her, she recognized the fourth (since she was out of her combat form) instantly. The nymph had a cyan coat with a blue saddle carapace, her mane and tail were yellow (both being curly and long), her wings were ruby, and her slitted eyes were blue. Her name was Crystal Wing, which Rainbow confirmed by checking her Cutie-Mark, a red crystal heart. She actually did it. She actually got into the guard. Rainbow thought with a smile. Her smile faded though when she felt a familiar energy attack her mind, though she easily took it down.

"Someling knows I'm here." Rainbow observed angrily, before growling at herself for using that particular term. The Pegasus spun around casually and walked off, heading for the training arena. After only a moment, she took flight and continued forward. There were no hoof-steps or wing-beats behind her as she flew, short of those coming from the Changelings that weren't paying attention. This did tell Rainbow one thing though, her pursuer was an infiltrator (assuming it was a Changeling in the first place), that wasn't good. The infiltrators were masters of both disguise and stealth, a skilled infiltrator could walk right through a crowd of ponies without a disguise and still be left unnoticed, they could take on a disguise and perfectly emulate the pony they're disguised as in personality with only a few bits of information to go off of and about three minutes of observing the target. Most infiltrators were also at least Alpha-level spell-casters, which was the second highest form of magical skill. For a Changeling, an Alpha-Level had enough power to change both general form and even size, they also had access to some of the stronger magic spells. There were only a hoofful of Gamma-levels in the infiltrators of the Venom Hive, with one notable one being Night Shade, a female Changeling who had gained a huge reputation for being the youngest infiltrator and the strongest as well. Rainbow knew that Changeling all too well, of course, she was positive that it couldn't be that Changeling.

---

unknown location #3

Fluttershy walked fearfully through the lifeless, mist-filled, forest she had found herself in. The Pegasus yelped when she heard something under her hoof and shot into the air, stopping and looking to find... an apple that had been sucked dry. Slowly, she landed. The apple could mean that there was life, but that didn't really mean that that life was friendly. She landed timidly and, after looking around her for a moment, continued walking.

The forest she had found herself in was a lot like Everfree. Everything seemed to be working on its own. The place looked almost completely dead, with the exception of a few apple trees. There was a terrifying whisper that seemed to come from every direction at once. The most confusing thing though, was that the entire forest seemed shrouded in fog. Of course, this could make sense, if it weren't for the feeling the Pegasus got while walking through it. All Pegasi were taught to feel out the condensed water molecules that made up clouds (it was essential to being a weather Pegasus). This was something taught in grade-school. The strange thing about this fog though, was that it lacked that faint magical pulse Fluttershy knew from school (fog had the same effect as cloud) and in its place was something that (had it been physical) would have burned like acid. The mare shivered from the feeling. Scratch what she had thought before, this place was even less natural than Everfree.

She watched Fluttershy from a distance, never staying in one area for more than a few minutes. Her prey remained unaware of her presence as she flew silently overhead, ensuring her shadow never passed the Pegasus' line of sight. The creature landed on a tree not long after, Fluttershy's fearfulness was just making this chase boring. Absently, she grabbed an apple off the tree and proceeded to drain it.

"Your boring prey Flutters." she said. her voice, coming out calm and cold, sounded similar to Fluttershy's, but with the exact opposite tone and other vocal features that made identifying Fluttershy almost too easy.

She took off again soon after and used the mist, which didn't bother her, to keep hidden, it was midnight here so the creature wasn't really sure why she was even concerned about her shadow being visible at ground level. She actually knew why of course. Fluttershy was perceptive, kind of had to be to be an animal care taker. The creature knew the extent of Fluttershy's perceptiveness far better than anypony short of Fluttershy herself. This meant that she had to be careful as Fluttershy would be able to notice her shadow even if any normal pony couldn't. The creature was a predator after-all, she knew she had to be stealthy and know her prey if she hoped for the catch.

---

Dream Realm

She walked down the halls with care. She had dawned the armor of the Dream Guard, an odd lightish-blue armor that's pattern swirled and moved like waves to symbolize the very nature of the Dream Guard. I hope doing this will help she thought. She stopped in-front of an orange door with a purple outline and the dark-blue mist of a nightmare seeping out, more specifically, a Nightmare (as in the pony race of the same name). She nodded to her self before opening the door and entering.

Scootaloo cried out in fear as the Changeling in front of her approached, the blood of her recently killed parents dripping from the creature's mouth. The Changeling had jumped out of nowhere and Scootaloo didn't even have enough time to blink before the thing was over her parents. She was so scared, in-fact, that she had yet to notice the ambient dark-blue energy that was faintly flowing into the creature, or the other pony that had materialized out of nowhere. Right when the Changeling lunged at the Pegasus filly, however, somepony else shot across the room and slammed into the insect-like pony, who cried out.

Scootaloo, who had shielded herself with a hoof, slowly lowered it as she beheld the strangest of sights. Standing over the Changeling; with a sword that had a light-blue blade, black handle, and black bat-wing hilt; was a pony, one that looked shockingly familiar. The pony had an orange coat, purple mane that was styled exactly like Scootaloo's own, and had a Cutie Mark of a pair of black Pegasus wings that were on fire. Right before her eyes, the filly saw lightish-blue armor with a swirling pattern that also held a wave-like design appeared on the Pegasus that was holding the Changeling down. Actually, the armor literally blurred into existence. The sword in the Pegasus' mouth brought it slashing down with cackling cyan energy. The blade slashed clean across the Changeling and turned the thing into dark-blue mist.

"Whoa, who are you anyway? You look just like me." Scootaloo continued with several more questions before the Pegasus held up an armor clad hoof to quiet her down.

"I'm you, or rather an adult interpretation of you dreamt up from your mind to help you battle that nightmare." was the Pegasus' response.

"Wait, I'm dreaming?" the older Scootaloo just nodded, which led the real Scootaloo to go into a hover and smile. Her job done, the older Scootaloo spun around and started walking off, starting to blur out of existence, the last thing the filly heard before her older counterpart vanished was 'Have a good night.' Scootaloo failed to see the dark-blue energy entering her counterpart as the mare left.

The pony walked out of Scootaloo's dream calmly. Her brilliant blue mane tumbling down around her head since her disguise had fallen away the second she had left the filly's dream. She felt mentally worn out from having been in the dream plain, and outside of a dream, for so long. On the bright side, she had gotten a decent meal along the way. That was a notable feature in the four different 'nocturnal' races, they all fed off a form of ambient energy, except in one case (emotional energy for Changelings; Dream energy for Nightmares, which was tastiest when weaving their namesake; base magical energy for Bat-ponies, which was the latent magic in most living things and couldn't be physically accessed, loss of it also only resulted in minor sickness in living creatures; and ambient magic for Dracorns, which was poisonous if it was their own). She smiled a little, feeling full and noting how odd being a Nightmare was, before leaving the dream realm.

Author's Note:

Been a while huh? I'm back with a new chapter.

So, feel free to guess who/what the creatures stalking RD, Flutters, and Twi are. Feel free to also guess who/what the pony in the last part is. Hope you enjoyed.