My little pony: Soul of gold

by Zanaffer

Chapter 1

My little pony: Soul of gold

Chapter 1

Princess Celestia stood at the balcony of her room, after a long day of holding court, diplomatic mediations, dealing with the nobles and other princessesly duties it was now time to lower the sun and hoof over the management of the land over to her sister.

To many, the never-ending stream of petitioners, the literal tidal wave of paperwork and the daily dealings with the snobbish Canterlot nobles would grate their nerves and leave them exhausted both physically and mentally. But Princess Celestia had neither a tired or stressed expression on her face, in its place was a content expression, crowned with a warm smile.

For Celestia such things were a sign that everything was going back to normal. It had not been long since Tirek had rampaged across the land, stealing the magic of her little ponies, he had even attacked Canterlot castle seeking to steal the magic of the alicorns and finally to add insult to injury he had imprisoned her along with her sister and niece in Tartarus where she herself had imprisoned him previously.

Celestia shuddered at the memories of her time spent in Tartarus, no harm had come to them in their brief stay, but the oppressive atmosphere made her wary, it was as if they were being watched by a predator stalking from the shadows ready to pounce at any given moment.

Celestia banished the though, there was no point in brooding over past experiences, she had almost ruined her good mood by reliving the experience. Lighting her horn, Celestia prepared herself to lower the sun, while in the next tower Princess Luna lit her horn to raise the moon in unison with the sun, a warm smile once again adorned Celestia's factions.

“My dearest sister is once again with me, Equestria's foes lay defeated and my dear student Twilight Sparkle has ascended and is on her way to become a proper alicorn, this is truly the beginning of a new email of prosperity for Equestria, what could ever go wrong?”.

Suddenly, as if destiny itself had heard Celestia's challenge and immediately responded with a ironic “What indeed?”, a blinding flash of light illuminated the Canterlot skies, taken aback Celestia raised her wing to shield her eyes from the intense glare of the light, the golden glow was so intense, it was as if a second sun had appeared out of nowhere. Celestia strained her eyes to look at the source of the light but to no avail, before she could make out anything of the source, it broke out into several pieces and flew all across the skies like a meteor shower falling into the confines of Equestria.

“Sister”. The familiar voice shook Celestia from her stupor.

“Sister are you unharmed?” Ashe'd Luna as she landed on the balcony next to her sister, worry evident in her voice

“Yes Luna, I am fine, but I wonder, what could have caused that mysterious light?”

“We must investigate this matter immediately sister, we clearly saw how the closest of the fragments fell into the Everfree Forest, we must make haste.

“The Everfree?” Celestia considered her options and chose to fallback on the time tested tactic of let Twilight take care of the situation. “Perhaps Twilight and her friends can aid us in solving this mystery. ”

//////////

Deep within the Everfree Forest, in a clearing illuminated by the moonlight there was a crater marking the place where a star had apparently fallen, a golden glow lingered in the area like morning mist while in depth of the crater a glowing mass pulsed like a faint heartbeat until it receded leaving only darkness.

For a very prolonged moment nothing seemed to happen, until something in the bottom stirred, the ruling silence was broken by a pained groan as a lone figure crawled out of the crater into the clearing.

“What happened? … Where am I? …” Aioria asked out loud to no one in particular as he regained consciousness.

“Brother!!” Exclaimed Aioria as his memories caught up with him, he shot up to his feet but found that he was unable to maintain balance and fell forward, he stopped his fall by planting his hands in the ground in front of him and frantically began to look around looking for his brother, he found no one, not his brother, or the others.

Still confused Aioria's gaze fell to his hands, or would have if his hands were there when he looked.

“What trickery is this!!”Yelled Aioria, instead of the familiar arms, hands and fingers he was supporting himself on two hairy limbs that ended in a bonelike stump in the end.

“Hooves”. The name came along with the recognition of what these limbs were, inspecting himself further, he noticed several things, one his natural posture was now a four legged stance, two he was covered from head to… hoof with short brown hair, three he had a tail…, four he wasn't very far from the ground.

“I’ve become a tiny horse-like creature”. He summarized. “A pony”. He said in resignation.

“Could this be a punishment from the gods?, it is very likely, when thinking of divine punishments the name Arachne comes to mind, the poor soul transformed into a monstrous spider all because of the jealousy of the goddess Ath~^§ELLIS!! YES ELLIS!!!, the evil goddess of discord, such villainy could only come from such a detestable being, never from the benevolent goddess Athena, surely, probably… maybe.

At the same time in another place a glowing golden apple intensified its glow, as if it were displeased maybe even angry with something, or someone, or somepony.

Back in the forest, Aioria’s frantic re-editing of Greek mythology was interrupted by a dangerous sounding growl, a growl that he was particularly familiar with, it was then that another possibility crossed his mind. “Samsara”. Shaka had once told him of this, the six paths of the weel of life, one of those particularly could be applied to this situation, the path of beasts, those who fell on the path of beasts would turn into an animal and be forced to participate in the never-ending fight for survival.

It felt weird, as a golden saint Aioria’s was already practically walking the path of Asura, and he was more than prepared for Hell having defied Hades himself, after all that being turned into an animal felt overwhelmingly… underwhelming.

There was no time to contemplate this as another growl called for his attention, turning to the source, Aioria could see two glowing eyes focused on him, the everlasting game of tag between predator and prey was about to unfold and judging by the lack of fangs and claws he was not the predator, that role belonged to the lion currently stalking from the shadows.

But, this little game would not go as nature intended, whatever form he had Aioria was still a golden saint and the golden saint of the house of Leo nonetheless, this would not be a predator taking its meat, it would be a fight between two lions. Aioria stood his ground and faced his foe with a look of determination, and then, the lion emerged from the shadows.

//////////

Twilight Sparkle galloped trough the lamp lit streets of Ponyville with a look of determination on her face.

“Twilight slow down.” called a canary yellow pegasus with a pink mane struggling to keep up her pace.

“We can't slow down Fluttershy, we have to go get Applejack so we can go investigate the fallen star in the Everfree Forest.” Twilight answers without casting a glance back at her friend.

“Can't this wait till morning?” said a polychromatic pegasus as she zipped trough the air next to Twilight.

“No Rainbow Dash this is a very important mission entrusted to us by Princess Celestia herself, it can’t wait.” Twilight immediately shot back.

“Darling, while I usually don't agree with Rainbow Dash in many things I do need my beauty sleep.” Said an alabaster white unicorn with a gorgeously styled purple mane.

“Ughhh.” Twilight let out an annoyed groan. “Girls take this more seriously, it's very important that we find out what fell in the Everfree, the Princess is counting on us.”

“B b but, going into the Everfree Forest at night, don’t you think it's a little too dangerous.” Flutters said barely loud enough for everypony to listen.

“Don't worry, we've done this before, it's nothing the six of us can't handle.” Twilight said confidently.

“Yeah we can take anything that forest throws at us” Rainbow Dash said boastfully as she made some shadowboxing moves in the air.

“Besides we can't wait till morning, what if it's gone by then?, what if somepony else finds it first?, Somepony evil, whit if “it” is evil, like demon or an alien, OR AN ALIEN DEMON!!.

“Twilight calm down.” Said a very pink pony that managed to get beside Twilight without her knowing. “You need to calm down and think rationally” Pinkie Pie said in a calm and composed manner witch managed to attract weird looks from the rest. “BESIDES!!” She piped up discarding her stoic façade. “it's not like whatever is there is going to grow hooves and run away.”

//////////

Aioria was running away as fast as his newly acquired hooves could carry him, while he was prepared for a fight he was not prepared for what was currently chasing him, instead of a full grown lion he found himself face to face with a creature from ancient myth, he was not wrong when he identified the growl as that of a lion, said lion however carried some extra features that identified it as something else, large leathery wings attached to its back and a scorpion stinger in place of a tail, a manticore.

Even tough he was at the service of the goddess Athena he never thought he would ever face such a creature. Even in his reduced form Aioria could tell it was many times bigger than a regular lion, he feared no enemy but in this case the circumstances were stacked against him, waking in a strange land in a strange body facing a strange foe, the best option available was to retreat and reassess the situation.

Running from the manticore as well as avoiding its swiping claws, clenching teeth and stinging tail aside from the benefit of avoiding becoming cat food was causing him to get accustomed to his new body, his sluggish and awkward movements were becoming sharper and more controlled.

“Just like training in the sanctuary” he thought, but just like training in the sanctuary one mistake could prove fatal, the manticore's stinger pierced the ground as Aioria jumped to the side successfully evading, but in that instant while he was still airborne the manticore unfolded its massive wings, while massive, they still couldn’t possibly lift the hulking creature from the ground, but that did not make them useless, flapping its wings at the moment it pounced the manticore instantly closed the distance between it and its prey, the manticore's clawed paw impacted Aioria full on his side sending him flying away until he hit a tree with such force it tilted.

For the second time in less than an hour Aioria let out a pained groan as he got back on his hooves, quickly regaining his senses Aioria jumped out of the way just as the manticore came crashing fangs first on the tree bringing it down completely.

Without a moment to waste Aioria got back on guard, it was then that he felt a pang of pain on his left side, glancing at his side he saw four red gashes across his side blood flowing, dripping to the ground, it could have been worse, Aioria's sharp sense of battle allowed him to twist slightly in the air avoiding the worse of the blow, the worse being those dagger-like claws.

Aioria turned his attention back at the manticore witch had just spat out a large chunk if wood and was once more on the prowl, or should have been… something was wrong, the manticore was not approaching instead it held its ground in a intimidating stance, a fighting stance, not a hunting stance.

“It makes no sense, it has all the advantage and it even injured me, it shouldn’t perceive me as a treat, then why?”

That question answered itself when a serpentine hiss directly behind him got his attention, slowly, not letting the manticore out of his sight he turned to the source of the hiss, apparently his previous leap from danger had brought hum close to a cave from where several pairs of yellow glowing eyes peered out from the depths of the cave, a giant serpentine head emerged from the cave, then another, and another, followed by a lot more. His escape efforts had brought him straight to a nest of giant snakes… no, not a nest, a lair, the difference lay in the actual number of occupants, witch became obvious as the snakes converged in a single body.

“Hydra” yet another mythological beast had appeared awoken by the commotion and the scent of blood, Aioria realized with no lack of urgency that he was now literally between 6 rocks and a hard place, the manticore roared and the Hydra shrieked signaling the beginning of a fight of witch he was the prize.

“Enough running!!” he exclaimed as he decided his next move, caution had backfired so now was the time to take action, as the two great beasts descended on the small wounded pony, the golden lion roared.

“¡¡¡BURN COSMO!!!”

Author's Note:

Here we go, this is my first submission ever and it took me forever to get it right.
Since this is my first work all criticism is welcome, you lked or disliked something grammar errors or my writing style, all is fair game as long as it`s constructive.
This will probably be a long project and just thinking of the number of characters i have to include the task seems titanic, but hopefully imm in for the long run.
Also i would like to mention that i am only borrowing the premise of "Soul of Gold", the story is all original and i already know how i want the ending, however i have no earthly idead how imm gonna get there.
I would like to thank shinigamisparda, Bucking Nonsense, Knight Breeze, the whole displaced universe and all the big shots as well es everyone else the contributes to this site for inspiring me to add my grain of sand.
with all said thank you and please comment.

Comments

[jvmontero]

interesting, I love Saint Seiya.

[Freddyfrijolero]

I'm delightfully surprised to see the saints in this site. I'm also very happy that you're not Doing a HIE story. The 1st chapter gives promise of good potential.