Within the heart of the Everfree, a great evil was stirring. Deep below the tainted dirt that glowed a corrupt purple sat a figure bleached in darkness. It bore an armor belonging to a life long gone. On the chest showed a symbol too faded to be identified to any faction. Pieces of the suit would flicker purple, if the batteries were charged it would glow strongly for eons. The figure opened his eyes to look down at one of his many spawns. It bowed so deeply that its head bled from the broken shards on the ground.
"Speak." The spawn shuttered and kept at its position.
"My Lord, a platoon of your stalkers were found destroyed. One near the outskirts of your domain and the rest four miles inland..." If the being forged from darkness could gulp, it would. "Our scouts have concluded this is the result of the parasite that plagues your power."
It raged internally. Of course it was the Hunter, it was always the Hunter. 'Every day I regret more and more not ripping that echo of Unity to shreds! The spawn was still here. "Leave me." And so it did in a flash, to do what he did not care.
The demon rose from his throne. He had not moved in over six hundred years. Every bone made horrible cracking noises and the armor screeched from the rust that managed to further taint the once magnificent Villicrum plates.
Promptly he began yelling and trashing around his chambers, destroying anything in sight. Even the walls were crushed as if it were sand in a very weak hit. This would last over an hour until he sat back down and screamed. "WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME LORD TALEK!? I AM WORTHY OF YOUR GRACE!! I DESERVED BETTER!!!" The caverns shook violently causing many catacombs and chambers to collapse, killing thousands. Of course the Overlord couldn't care less.
Enough was enough. For far too long he, the most powerful living being in this dimension, has been stuck in a forest. The whole bloody place had a barrier installed by the blasted old gods that forced his DNA inside. Only the most dilute and weakest of his creations could escape and all would be destroyed by the local inhabitants. But his most pure spawns?
The first demon raged once more at the memory. "Every single time!" All of his creations would be killed with little effort when they came too close to the barrier. Even the purebloods didn't stand a chance to him. 'That blasted shadow would fail just as pathetically as their first encounter. If only I could find him...'
"HALAS!" Few moments passed when one slightly more respectable spawn walked in. It bowed deeply. "How goes my weapon?" He asked with anticipation. The last time he checked it was still in charge, surely eighty-seven years have given a few good shots in it.
"My Lord, your device should be able to fire one full-powered shot." The spawn suddenly felt fear. It looked up to see the Overlord's eyes glow a powerful purple.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Everything inside his being wanted to kill the bearer of this bad news. "LEAVE ME!" The blood spawn hurried off.
How could this be? After so long he at least expected ten shots. "The fucking nova crystal must have been damaged in the crash." He concluded, all those years wasted with no payoff. This enraged the demon. Another punch to the wall caused another earthquake that killed many. "I will wait no longer, I will escape this world and I will kill everything within..." At this, the Overlord began to scheme a plan.
All with suffer before him, that much was a fact.
___
For the rest of the week, Spines scoured the library looking for any information she could on the creatures she encountered. For hours she would read books about strange and mysterious events but all of them were duds or nothing close to what she was looking for. Most books only contained things completely unlike the monsters she witnessed or just flat-out lies. Not even one contained anything about a white-faced creature or the nightmare. She expected as much since the Everfree was too dangerous to study extensively.
Sighing, Spines threw the book across the hall into a pile of more monster books. "Well this was a waste of time..." She thought about other libraries but this one had the most knowledge since Dusk was so eager to be the owner of the greatest library in Equestria. She scratched her cheek. "I wonder if the Black Market is a viable resource to look for information..." Before she could further in the idea she stood up suddenly.
It was cold. As in extremely cold now. The inside of her scales burned and she felt nauseous. The area where her healed wounds were felt as if they were tearing apart. The pain was so bad that Spines couldn't scream or even stand as her body collapse.
Everything went black.
___
Spines awoke sitting with her legs crossed. In her claws was a rather ancient-looking black book. She gasped and dropped it. The pain was gone but her vision blurred. She still felt nauseous as a strange crawling sensation made her shiver. She felt tainted. Nothing was correct anymore, everything was wrong.
She took in a sharp breath to calm herself. "Why do horrible things keep happing to me?" She felt a presence pull her to look at the vaguely familiar black book. She frowned in confusion. "I remember this thing..." She slowly touched it as if she were afraid it would jump out and attack her. She knew of the old legend it told but what was odd is that she felt she had looked over every book in the whole library and not once did she see such an old and pure black cover. The cover was so faded that the title could not be read.
Without thinking much about the oddity that now was she opened it to see the same black substance from before. Yet this time it seemed to shimmer at her presence. "Huh..." Once more, Spines felt drawn to the stuff, she felt the urge to touch it.
Yet once she came close to doing so she noticed her whole arm was black. Frightened, she dropped the book again and looked down to see most of her left side had become a deep black. The source seemed to come from her stomach area where the nightmare attacked.
Now panicked, Spines formulated a plan. It was almost sunrise and her brother would be up soon. No way could she tell him about this since then she would have had to tell about the demon encounter. For a few minutes, she thought about her options and no real answers came to her.
Looking down again she could see the infection slowly creep around her form. What would happen if it fully encompassed her? Spines was shaken by the thought of it. One idea did come to her but it seemed also like a good way to get her killed. 'I need to see that guy again...maybe he can help me like back then.' Although the white face may be the reason this was happening. She shook her head, time was short and all her options led nowhere but this.
Spines left the black book on the floor but took a saddlebag and took any book she could find on Equestrian language, she had to find a way to communicate with it, it was her only hope. She left her home silently, praying to Solaris that she would be home before Dusk got worried...that is if she ever did come home after this.