//------------------------------//
// Chapter One: Beginning of a new life 
// Story: In the Eyes of Death 
// by HydeYmir 
//------------------------------//

“Vitals are normal… doesn’t have wings, so not a Pegasus… obviously no horn… but not an earth pony?” The man mumbled to himself as he looked over Clay’s unconscious form that was strapped to a table. Taking down mental notes as he studied him. “I don’t understand… just what are you?” After saying that Clay’s eyes opened up and he began to thrash around. “Whoa, there take it easy.” He said to the human who was trying to break free.

“Hmmphdm!” Clay tried to speak but couldn’t because of the cloth in his mouth. 

“Hang on, let me get that.” The man said as he fiddled around and pulled the cloth out of his research subjects mouth. Claytons capture then walked over and grabbed a container from the cabinet and gently placed the cloth gag in there.

Clay took a deep breath before speaking calmly. “Who are you? And where am I?” However something was off. “What happened to my voice?” He questioned himself in a much quieter tone. 

“Now I don’t know what happened to your voice, but I can tell where you are.” Clay watched as the man opened his arms wide and adorned a big smile on his face. “You are in my laboratory! And my name is Starswirl.” Clay was about to speak up but was cut off by the pony. “And before you ask, yes I’m blind,” Starswirl said as he pointed to his eyes. They were light blue and looked like the most beautiful crystals that were shattered. 

“Ok... not what I was gonna ask, but—”

“Before you start talking I have one question.” Starswirl walked over to clay and placed a hand over his heart. “What are you? You don’t have any magic so you're not a pony.” He began to use his other hand to examine other parts of Clays body, searching for abnormalities. Always keeping one hand on his heart.

“Magic? There is no such thing.” Clay said in protest and disbelief, still unable to grasp the situation he is in. This caused Starswirl to explode into laughter. After he calmed down he shook his head and motioned clay to continue. “And pony? Both me and you are human by the looks of it.” Clay said, confused. He noticed the horn on Starswirl's head but just assumed it was just a mutation from his quirk which is quite common. 

“No such thing. Look around you fool! Everything you see is made up of magic, and everything uses magic to function! Magic is what breathes life into each and everything on the planet.” Starswirl motioned to the room around him. After his exclamation, Starswirl grabbed Clay's right hand and loosened his restraints to get better access. Then brought it up to his face to get a closer look. “You don’t have any magic but you have this peculiar gem embedded into your hand, which seems to be leaking some sort of miasma... it is a type of unknown enegry unlike anything I've ever seen.” Starswirl said as he used magic to inspect the unknown energy source embedded in Clay's hand. 

Looking over to what he was talking about Clay noticed that on his hand laid the gem he bought. It was embedded in hand held by some sort of jewelry.





(The purple is black jade)


With Starswirl absorbed in the endless possibilities that come with Clay's new fashion piece, Clayton took the opportunity to yank his hand out of Starswils grip, startling the blind pony out of his knowledge obsessed trance. Within the second he freed his hand, Clay, quickly ripped the restraints off of his other arm. Then just ask quickly undid the restraints on his legs. Starswirl managed to begin to cast a spell, however his glowing horn gave him away causing Clay to grab Starswirl by the collar and slam him into the nearest wall. The wizard struggled a little bit before passing out and falling to the ground. Clay didn't notice that the wizards horn only went out after he had fallen unconscious. After looking over his unconscious capture he dusted himself off. "I need to figure out where the hell I am. And what the hell is going on?" Clay said to himself as he started at the gem on his hand in confusion. "I need to get the fuck out of here before i can figure any of this out." He stated plainly and left the room.   

Clay now stood in the hallway of the basement under what appeared to be some type of laboratory/research facility. He heard what sounded like armor clanking coming from the left so he ran to the right. Luckily he found a staircase that led to the main floor. Unluckily for him in the room the staircase led to there were approximately twenty fully armored guards, armed with spears. In front of them was a red-headed woman wearing a crown and a horn. She had a golden breastplate with the symbol of an ink and quill in the middle of it. Beautiful white wings adorned her back and underneath she wore a white tunic with brown boots. On her waist laid a longsword in a jewel-encrusted sheath. 

‘Shit. I could at most take ten before going down. And that seems to be the only way in and out. I could test my luck and see how many guards are behind me.’ Clay thought to himself as he peered around the corner scouting out his opponents before dismissing the thought. ‘The woman seems to be the hardest to deal with. It’s all or nothing here.’ He thought as he gripped his scarf. 'I should have at least practiced with this thing..." He thought before he resolved his nerves. 

Sprinting from around the corner he used his scarf to grab the redhead woman’s hand. Yanking it back to him the woman flew towards him. Unexpectedly managed to react to Claytons suprise attack and used her wings to readjusted herself mid air. With her new angle in the air she flapped her wings causing her to change at Clay with an extraordinary amount of speed he had never see before. Without thinking, Clay let go of the scarf and tried to close the distance in an attempt to cushion the attack that the redheaded monster was about to unleash on him. He knew he had to act before she could draw her sword. 

With the slack gone the woman went to draw her sword, but Clay had other plans. He kicked her with in the stomach as soon as she got close enough then used her face as a springboard to spin in the air, brining an axe kick down on her head. However, that didn’t stop the monster. Jumping a few steps back, she unsheathed her sword and went for a horizontal slash. It was too quick to avoid so Clay used his scarf to try and parry the blow. 

The sword hit the scarf and luckily didn’t pierce him, but the blunt force of the blow was still received. Jumping back as far as he could, Clay ended up surrounded by the group guards in the room. Ten appeared to be the horned kind, five were winged and the other five looked to be normal humans.

With a smile on her face, the woman wiped some blood from her mouth. “What’s your name?” She asked curiously, as she had not had this much fun in a while.

Clay let out a chuckle. “How rude of you... you're supposed to introduce yourself before asking for someone else’s name.” Saying this got a laugh out of the woman. ‘Good. This little talk is letting me catch my breath.’ Clay thought. 

“How rude of me.” She said sarcastically. “My name is Lauren Faust, however, you may have the pleasure of calling me Faust.” She said as she stuck out her hand. 

Walking up to her Clay took a knee and grabbed her hand and brought it up to his face. “My name is Clayton Crow. You can call me Clay.” With a smile on his face, Clay pulled her hand down catching her off guard, causing her to fall towards him. With his left hand, he uppercuted her with enough force to send her flying backwards. Using the shock of the guards to his advantage he jumped up and did a backflip. While in the air he wrapped his scarf around one of the guards throats and used him like a domino knocking down the rest of the guards with him. Landing on the ground he saw Faust looking at him with a crazed grin on her faces and the amount of bloodlust emanating off of her had caused her eyes to glow red. 

Using two hands she grabbed her sword and held it above her head. Her horn ignited with a light blue aura. “It’s been a while since I used this move, I hope you survive!!” She spoke in a bloodthirsty state. 

Clay’s own bloodlust filled the room as well. With the amount of pressure being emitted from the pair all of the younger guards fell to the ground unconscious. Clay's eyes began to glow red and his hair started to float upwards. “Bring it on, Faust!” The gem on his hand started to emit a dark green light, and energy spread all through his body empowering him. 

The room turned red, and Faust flipped her sword from the flat to the edge. Her magic turning a sickly red that resembled blood. “Blood Moon!” Her sword, coated in a red aura came down on Clay.

Clay's scarf seemed to float around him and moved at his thought. Using his hand he directed his scarf and wrapped it around Faust sword redirected the slash. The slash cut through the ground and left a huge hole in the back of the building. Using this to his advantage, he ran up to Faust and kicked her in the stomach. Launching her to the wall. Not giving her time to recover he used his scarf to grab her arm and pulled her back to him. Their eyes locked and a shiver went down his spine. Her eyes were still glowing red and her smile reappeared on her face. 

He blinked causing his quirk to deactivate, he didn’t even know he had it activated the whole time. He let go of the scarf causing it to go slack, hoping it would give him enough time to formulate a plan. However, Faust used her wings to launch herself at him once again. Coating her fist in the red magic aura she plunged it straight through this stomach. Ending the fight with the move that started it. 

“AHHH!” Clay screamed as she plunged her fist through his stomach. He vomited blood as the red tint in the room vanished and went back to normal. All of the guards at this point were unconscious.

Faust ripped her hand out and looked down at him then to her hand. “That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, Clayton Crow.” She walked out of the building flying back to her castle. ‘Hopefully, Star will heal him. He could be useful…’ She thought as she made her way back to the castle. 

Starswirl came up from the basement of his laboratory and found Clay’s body. 

“You're not dead… YES! You're alive!” Clay coughed up some more blood which snapped Starswirl back into reality. “Oh dear, you're alive but barely.” He cast a healing spell that stopped the bleeding. The blind pony hoisted Clay on his back and brought him outside. After a couple of minutes of running through the forest, he made his way to a cave. In the cave, there was a natural spring that had green water in it. “Huugrh!” He grunted as he threw Clay into the spring.

“Phew… now I just have to wait for him or get up. Hopefully, Faust won’t yell at me for using the Healing Spring on him.” Starswirl said as he waited for Clay to be healed. 

After waiting for around half and hour Starswirl fell asleep thinking  ‘A little power nap won’t hurt anypony!’ After falling asleep it only took another ten minutes for the water started bubbling violently as Clay rose from it spring and walked out. His clothes were fully repaired and all of his things were still on him. He looked over and saw Star sleeping. ‘I need to find the nearest town… thank you Starswirl.. and goodbye.’ He thought as he walked out of the cave leaving Starswirl sleeping peacefully.