//------------------------------//
// East Abyss 
// Story: The Order of Koaxia 
// by HellRyden 
//------------------------------//

This is the continuation of the story of six mares who have yet to realize their own destinies.

Rarity has fallen. Rainbow Dash is now missing beyond the borders of the Everfree, lost in a haze of pain and fury as her power rages beyond her control.

The others, caught in the face of these events, find themselves lost and confused as they are faced with complete unknowns. They know that they have to find her, but none of them know how to even begin dealing with forces beyond their comprehension.

Meanwhile, Shining Armor, the captain of the Thirteenth Royal Guard Division, has departed from Canterlot early, having left the mobilization of his division to his Vice-Captain, Snow Dancer. Even now, the newly promoted captain is on his way to Ponyville, intent on protecting his sister, and her friends, from the mysterious forces that threaten them.

But even so, he might be too late to stop the latest attack, for the shadows begin to gather outside Fluttershy's home, preparing for the Bearer of Kindness' return...






“The Order of Koaxia”


Chapter 7


East Abyss


The air around him was fresh, clean, and crisp - a far cry from the stuffy, thready air that surrounded the capital. The wind in his face, a gentle breeze that caressed his cheeks softly, was a novel sensation - something he had hardly experienced during his time in Canterlot.

From afar, the sounds of birds chirping reached his ears, and Shining Armor cracked a small smile - such idyllic, peaceful lands were the trademark of Equestria, even if one could only find such a thing while out in the countryside, and not stuck in the comfort of one’s own home, as many Canterlot nobles in the capital failed to realize.

As he surveyed the lands before him though, he used more than just his eyes and ears - even as he cast his gaze about the scenery, his ears tuned for the slightest sound of disturbance, he spread his magical senses out as well, probing the Weave around him in an effort to locate any foreign or suspicious energies.

What he sensed was an utter disappointment.

The Weave surrounding the countryside around him couldn’t possibly have been more normal. The ambient energies were settled and peaceful, having seen little to no disturbance in the past several months - aside from the previous incursions from Nightmare Moon and Discord, but those events had been at least a year ago. Plenty of time for the ambient energies to settle down into their natural state.

Shining Armor frowned as he delved his senses deeper still through the Weave - this was not how the ambient energies should have felt when six powerhouses strong enough to throw up surges of magic huge enough to be felt all the way from Canterlot had been snooping around here for at least a few weeks.

There should have been at least a few traces of some kind. Shining Armor spread his awareness as far as he could, keeping his metaphysical eyes open for any trace of anything that could possibly have been amiss, and yet he sensed nothing.

Any foe that could conceal itself from even the Princess’ sight was not to be trifled with - this much the young captain knew. As he continued his sweep of the general area and still ended up with absolutely nada, his consternation at the situation grew.

His sister was up against forces that could give the Princesses a run for their money, and he couldn’t even sense when or where they might strike next. If he didn’t step in to take a more preemptive hoof in matters soon, things were going to get real ugly, real fast.

This was bad. Real bad.

Shining Armor closed his eyes and sighed, weighing the options within his mind. He could either attempt to discreetly gather more information before making his move, and risk not being in a position to act and defend his sister and her friends should anything untoward happen to them before he could react...

… Or he could immediately make his presence known in Ponyville to Twilight and the others. And thus loudly announcing to their mysterious assailants that a new, dangerous player had entered the game, instantly putting them on guard against him.

There was not much pondering to be done, though - between the two options, there was no contest on which one he would pick. Within seconds, the young stallion came to a decision.

His eyes opened again, orbs of azure having turned hard as steel. In a flurry of movement, the captain disappeared from his perch atop a bluff overlooking Ponyville, his sudden departure accompanied only by a distinctive whisper of wind.





“So, Captain Armor, what’s this we’ve got on our hooves now?”

Vice-Captain Snow Dancer was a petite little thing. Short and thin, with a coat as white as the winter’s snow, her slight build did little to accentuate whatever intimidation factor she had as a Vice-Captain of a Royal Guard division. Still, there was no hiding the determined glint of steel in her violet-hued gaze; anypony who got a good look into her eyes would have known that this was a mare not to be trifled with.

Not that Shining Armor was even affected by it in the slightest in any way. The young captain outstripped his lieutenant by at least five or six times when it came to sheer presence and raw power.  Still, Snow Dancer had a talent for weaving together combative spells in the heat of battle with incredible finesse. Combine that with her razor sharp intellect and her uncanny ability to think up tactics and strategies while on the fly, and Shining Armor had learnt to value his lieutenant's capabilities.

Still, it didn’t stop the irritated scowl from spreading over his face as he picked up on the unnecessary inflection she had placed upon his rank.

"Oh, cut it with the 'captain' crap, Snow," Shining Armor grunted as he strode into his office, shutting the door behind him. “You and I have known each other for too long for that. Anyway, we’ve got a new assignment from the Princess."

“You don’t say?” Snow Dancer arched an eyebrow at him, genuinely surprised. “The division hasn’t received any orders from the Captain-Commander since Captain Flowing River retired and you took over. It’s about time we got something to do.”

Shining Armor raised a hoof to stop his lieutenant. “Hold up there, Snow. Hear me out first, because this one is going to sound pretty boring, but if we do run into anything, things are gonna get mighty interesting mighty fast.”

That piqued Snow Dancer’s attention, and she leaned in closer, listening intently. “I’m all ears.”

The newly-inaugurated captain laid out the situation for her, and soon enough Snow Dancer’s eyebrows had disappeared into her dark black mane. In the brief moment of silence following Shining Armor’s explanation, she brushed out the single stray bang of hair that stubbornly hung between her eyes. Then she began to speak, her tone incredulous.

“So what you’re saying is that Princess Celestia knows we’ve got six unknown presences sneaking around the countryside surrounding the Ponyville province, possibly looking for the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and she wants us to simply go down there and stand guard?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Shining Armor nodded as he pulled a map of the Ponyville province out from his desk drawer, surveying the mass of green of the countryside as he began memorizing the lay of the land. “They’re the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Snow - as things are right now, they are very prominent and valuable political and strategic targets. The Elements of Harmony are extremely powerful magical artifacts, as you know, and the Bearers are the only ones who can use them now. If any agents from a foreign power try to nab them for their own purposes, Equestria is going to be severely weakened.”

“That, I can understand.” Snow Dancer’s eyebrows furrowed. “But to mobilize the entire division to defend six mares alone? Surely just a handful of seated officers would be enough for this.”

“Not enough, apparently.” The captain gave his lieutenant a wry grin. “Remember that huge lightning bolt a couple of days back?”

“The one that came straight out of the Everfree?” Snow Dancer gave a slow, suspicious nod. “I felt that one all the way from inside the barracks. Why? You know what caused it?”

“No, but what I do know is that whatever caused it is one of the things that are snooping around the Ponyville countryside right now. Princess Celestia wants our entire division down there because she wants us to have eyes and ears on every bit of land in the countryside in case anything fishy happens, and that’s a lot of land to cover. A handful of seated officers won’t cut it,” Shining Armor said grimly as he turned away from the map and strode towards a rack that stood at the side of his office, the one that held his personal broadsword and kite shield.

Picking up his broadsword, he slid it partially out of its sheathe and inspected the blade for any blemishes or other imperfections, not even taking his eyes off the blade for a second as his voice lowered to a grave mutter. “Not to mention that my sister’s out there.”

Snow Dancer held back a gasp - the unspoken message was there, clear as day. Her captain’s younger sister was in grave danger, and if there was one thing she knew about Shining Armor, it was that he never took things lightly when the safety of his loved ones were at stake. “I’m sorry, Armor. I hope she’s safe.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shining Armor said off-handedly as he slid the sheathed broadsword into his harness, and clipped the kite shield onto his back. “It’s why I’m heading out there myself right now, ahead of the rest of the division. I’ll leave its mobilization to you.”

“You’re headed- what!?” Snow Dancer’s eyes widened in surprise, before she sighed and shook her head resignedly. “Well, I guess I should’ve seen this coming. You never were much of a stickler for rules anyway. I guess that’s why my brother doesn’t like you that much.”

“Don’t remind me.” Shining Armor’s scowl returned as he thought of his lieutenant’s adoptive elder brother - the aloof, snobbish stallion of a noble who had never bothered to acknowledge his advancement through the ranks and his initiation as a Captain. The two of them had always butted heads, but at least there was still a grudging acknowledgement of comradeship between them, in homage to the horrors and hardships they had faced side by side during their time in the Royal Guard.

Still, there was that time they had almost killed each other while duelling to prove Shining Armor’s worthiness to be a captain... but that incident was something that Shining Armor preferred to remain in the past.

“Well, I guess I can hold the fort down here and get the rest of the division to the Ponyville province myself.” Snow Dancer shrugged as she picked up the arming sword that lay next to her. Slipping it into her harness, she prepared to leave the office and address the rest of the division in the barracks. “You go make sure that your sister is safe - you’ll move much faster without the rest of the division slowing you down.”

Shining Armor’s scowl lightened at that, as the slightest hints of a grateful smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Thanks, Snow. I really appreciate that.”

“What would you ever do without me, Shining?” His lieutenant gave him a knowing smirk as she walked out through the office doors. “Say hi to Twilight for me.”

The door shut itself, closing off Snow Dancer from view, and Shining Armor looked down, shaking his head and smiling. 

Time to get moving.

Turning around to face his office window, Shining Armor sparked his horn, opening them and letting in a cool mountain breeze. The young stallion placed one hoof upon the window sill, almost as if preparing to leap outwards... and then he suddenly disappeared from sight, accompanied by only a slight whisper of wind.





The man sat cross-legged, enshrouded in darkness. Tendrils of shadow snaked out from all around him, spreading outwards like the many strands of a spider's web, and here he sat at the epicenter of it all.

Every tendril that extended forth reached out to the world around him, feeding him information on everything that happened in his midst. So far everything had been calm - aside from the disturbance Balthazar had created with his... 'exit', there was nothing else that he sensed disturbing the lagoon of tranquility that was Ponyville.

The town was still peaceful, its atmosphere undisturbed. Aside from the few spots of anxiety that echoed from the Chosen, which were to be expected, he felt nothing else.

Plenty of time to put together a comprehensive plan.

He had sat there for several hours on end, his mind deeply immersed in thought, when one of the tendrils around him suddenly shuddered violently. Abruptly, the man's eyes shot open; had anyone been around to see them, they would have immediately shrunk back in terror from what they beheld.

'So, a new player has entered the game.' The man calmly considered the new, overwhelming presence that had just entered his sensory range. Its magnitude was staggering - for all intents and purposes, it was practically a fountain; a massive font of power that leaked excess energy everywhere it went, a giant neon sign that simply screamed notice me!

But it wasn't just the size of the font that surprised him - it was just how tough and weathered it was. Whoever this mana signature belonged to was no newbie - he was probably a seasoned veteran of countless battles, and was certainly a force to be reckoned with.

The man considered this, and realized that this unexpected arrival had thrown a monkey wrench into his plans.

'Well, I suppose I might have to accelerate them somewhat then.'

The man simply closed his eyes again, lost in focus. Seconds later, a handful of the dark tendrils connected to him suddenly detached themselves, snaking outwards and disappearing into the shadows that surrounding him.





"Are you sure about this, Fluttershy?"

"Absolutely, Twilight. If it's a way to help Rainbow Dash, I'm more than willing to go through with it."

“All right then - I have to warn you, this will tingle quite a bit...”

Fluttershy shuddered slightly as the scanning spell roved over and through her body once more, but she held herself firm. Though she was slowly getting used to Twilight’s magic, the sensation of her innermost energies being poked and prodded was still undeniably disquieting.

It was the latest try in a long string of attempts to locate the lost Rainbow Dash, still missing beyond the borders of the Everfree Forest. The lavender unicorn had reasoned that since the energies in the gems they had first come into contact with had been part of a set, they must have been connected in some way. Thinking that she could use that connection to find out Rainbow Dash’ current location, she had attempted to use her own signature of light, only to find its soothing, soporific effect too tempting to resist once she had delved into it.

Left with little other choice, she had resorted to asking the others if they were willing to contribute their own implanted signatures to her tracking efforts. Thankfully, the first one she had asked was Fluttershy, who was certainly more than willing to put forth her own contribution. Right now the two of them were seated within Twilight’s living room, attempting to use her signature of darkness to locate Rainbow Dash.

“Okay... that’s your natural leyline. Just need to move past it...” Twilight's voice lowered to a concentrated murmur as she trailed off, lost in focus.

The butter-yellow pegasus was unable to hold back a gasp as the arcane probe slid up her frame, like some kind of ethereal claw lightly dragging along her spine. In a matter of seconds, the probe reached her brain, where tiny little points of pressure began to press lightly against her skull, and Fluttershy winced slightly in discomfort.

“Hmm... It’s still there... and it still hasn’t grown any! Strange, everypony else’s signatures have gotten bigger, but something about your leyline system seems to be actively blocking this one out. I can’t get a good look at it - maybe if I just...”

“Umm, Twilight?” Fluttershy stammered nervously, “I-I think that might not be such a good ide- eeep!”

The timid pegasus let out a sudden squeak as she felt something inside of her snap open. It was as though a pair of mental floodgates had suddenly crumbled, unleashing a veritable flood of impressions that cascaded through Fluttershy’s mind. The unease that she had felt prior to Twilight’s examination soon gave way to unbridled fear, as unfamiliar thoughts and emotions poured into her.

The chill of a moonlight graveyard, her, or was it his, breath misting in the frozen air...

Cold, dry pressure pressing in from all around her, snaking over her skin and clawing at her heart, desperately seeking entry as she fought to repress her instincts, refusing to succumb to the killing intent that the shadow bore, refusing to let it into himself...

An emptiness that filled her, an absolute void, replacing her heart, his mind, their emotions...

“Tw-Twilight...”

As suddenly as it had begun, the surge began to subside, slowing to a mere trickle before finally coming to a halt. Though the... presence that had filled her mind was gone, its influence still lingered, and Fluttershy found her body drenched in an icy sweat. As the moments passed, she dimly realized that she had fallen to the floor, one of her wings painfully trapped under her side, and that now it was her physical form that was being poked and prodded.

“...utter....fluttershy...”

The cries seemed distant, as though they were echoing towards her from the far side of a long tunnel.

“...shy...fluttershy...FLUTTERSHY!”

Her eyelids flying open, the pegasus found herself staring up into Twilight’s worried face, just as the unicorn was preparing to shout out her name once more. 

“Oh, thank Celestia, Fluttershy!” Twilight quickly scooped up the fallen pegasus into a hug, bringing her back up onto her hooves. “I’m so sorry, did I hurt you?”

“I... I'm all right, Twilight," Fluttershy exhaled shakily as she got back up. "I just..."

The butter-yellow pegasus looked up into her friend's eyes, and realized that Twilight looked absolutely terrified.

“T-Twillight?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly, inching slowly towards the lavender mare. “I-I’m so sorry if I worried you, but I’m fine now, really!”

But to her surprise, Twilight shook her head, almost as though she was trying to dispel the image of something she had seen that had been burned into her brain. “No, it wasn’t you, Fluttershy. Yeah, you really worried me when you collapsed, but...”

The lavender mare shuddered suddenly, shutting her eyes tightly. “Oh, Celestia, those eyes...”

“Eyes?” Fluttershy gave her friend a strange look. “Twilight, what are you talking about?”

“Those eyes, they...” Twilight was visibly shaking by now - the poor mare was obviously scared out of her wits. “You didn’t see them? They appeared when I opened the blocks that your brain had placed on your signature. I think it must have opened a link to something else out there, because... Oh Celestia, they were looking right into me...”

Normally, Fluttershy was the one being reassured or comforted, at least when it came to times of crisis. Now, however, she slipped into the reverse role as she quickly set a steady hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, unwilling to let her friend suffer through her fear alone. “Twilight, it’s all right. It’s gone now, whatever it was. Please, tell me, what did you see?”

“I...” The fuchsia unicorn shook her head, trying to calm herself down. “I couldn’t get a clear look at it, the contact was only for a few seconds, but oh stars above, I thought I was going to die...”

Fluttershy gulped nervously - whatever was frightening enough to unsettle a mare as logical and rational as Twilight must have been truly terrifying. The timid pegasus found herself wishing dearly that she would never even come close to seeing what Twilight had just witnessed.

“It’s all right now, Twilight,” she whispered as comfortingly to her friend, bringing Twilight into a reassuring hug, trying to assure the unicorn that whatever it was that she had seen, she was safe now. “It’s gone now... We don’t have to do this anymore, if you don’t want to.”

“Yeah...” Fluttershy felt Twilight swallow, and the lavender mare stepped back, slowly composing herself. “I... I think we’re done for today, Fluttershy. Maybe I can use somepony else’s signature to home in on it, but... I think I just need to lie down for a minute...”

“Anything you need, Twilight,” Fluttershy intoned almost automatically, moving to support her friend as she began guiding her back to her bedroom upstairs in the library. They had only just reached the bottom of the stairway leading upstairs, however, when Twilight suddenly flinched, abruptly taking in a ragged breath.

She had just been about to start up the stairwell when she had suddenly felt a gigantic force press down in her shoulders. Power was a physical weight that dragged her down; she felt her entire body shudder from the sheer pressure she felt pressing in on her from all sides.

Twilight's brain was working on overdrive as she tried to make sense of what she was feeling. The unsettling part was how the sensation felt like how it usually did whenever she was sensing for other ponies' magical signatures - only that this time, it felt as though it had been multiplied by a million times in intensity.

Stars above, since when had she become so sensitive to sensing magical auras?

The lavender mare struggled to suck in a breath to regain her composure, but no sooner had she straightened when there suddenly came a resounding knock in her door, booming through her entire living room. Fluttershy nearly jumped at the sound, but she quickly settled down and gave the door a relieved look, thankful it had not been anything else.

"Stay here and rest, Twilight," she said softly, guiding her friend over to a nearby sofa and setting her down on it. "I'll go answer the door."

The gentle pegasus started off towards the door, and a winded Twilight weakly stretched a hoof out to her, trying to stop her. "No, Fluttershy, wait! That's-"

It was only when Fluttershy had begun to trot towards the door that Twilight realized where the source of the overwhelming pressure was located - it was right outside her home.

Unable to even do anything but watch, Twilight just sat there, pressed against her sofa in silent dread as Fluttershy set her hoof on her doorknob, slowly swinging it open...

And in stepped the last pony she expected to see.

“Brother?” Twilight’s jaw dropped open in shock as her older brother stepped into her living room in all of his military glory, the white silk haori that denoted his rank draped regally over his frame. Yet despite his bearing, his expression was not even the least bit formal as he regarded his younger sister with a large, wide grin.

“Twily!” The royal guard captain stepped forward, scooping his baby sister up in a crushing bear hug. A hug that she barely even felt, what with the sheer weight of pressure that was her brother’s magical aura pressing in from all around her. “How’s my little sister doing?”

“S-Shining!” Twilight croaked out weakly, “Let up a little - I can’t breathe!”

“What, my little sister can’t even handle her brother’s bear hugs anymore?” Shining Armor chuckled as he let Twilight go, ruffling her mane affectionately... before pausing as he realized that his sister was still wheezing in and out weakly. “Uhh... Twilight, you all right?”

“Not the hug, you nitwit - your power! It’s choking me!” the fuchsia unicorn coughed out irritatedly, and Shining Armor’s eyes widened in startled realization.

“My power?” The royal guard captain raised an eyebrow. “But I’m already suppressing my- … Oh, all right. Fine.”

Taking in a large, deep breath, Shining Armor closed his eyes as though deep in concentration. Slowly, Twilight felt the overwhelming pressure closing in around her slowly begin to dissipate, until she could finally breathe easily again and all she felt was a minor weight seated upon her shoulders.

“All right.” The uniformed stallion in front of her let out a slightly annoyed sigh. “I’ve purposely reined in almost all of my power now, and I’m currently only at one percent. Sheesh, Twilight, even babies can handle more than that! Since when did you get so sensitive to magical auras?”

Twilight opened her mouth to answer, but something inside her stopped her in her tracks - there was just something off about the way Shining Armor had said it. Almost as if... his question had been rhetorical, and that he knew something about what had been happening in Ponyville these past few days. The young scholar didn’t know why she had suddenly become so adept at picking up on these sort of subtle cues, but new, subconscious knowledge flowed through her as she began to recognize and pick up on certain things that she knew she did not have knowledge of before.

It must have been the signature of light within her - it had to be. There was no other explanation.

Quickly bringing her train of thought to a halt before she could get any more lost in it, she focused on her brother in front of her, trying to decide whether or not to come clean with what had been happening here, or to keep the information from him so as not to worry him.

Common sense immediately favored the former choice - there was no way Shining Armor would be here on a social visit while wearing his captain’s haori, and the odds were that he had heard at least some form of information of what was going on in Ponyville. Trying to keep her elder brother in the dark would have been an exercise in futility.

"Ever since we encountered those weird magical signatures and started seeing and feeling strange stuff everywhere," Twilight muttered tiredly as she gave her brother the answer that confirmed what he had heard from Celestia’s briefing report. "That's what you're here for, aren't you? To investigate what's been happening here recently?"

Shining Armor gave his sister a shocked look - either Twilight had suddenly become very good at reading subtle verbal cues, or he really needed to work on his poker face. Well, either way... the captain thought to himself with a sigh as he ran a hoof through his mane. The jig is up. Might as well tell her what's been happening on the Princess' side.

"Yeah, that's what I'm here for." The white-coated stallion nodded in confirmation. "Under orders from Princess Celestia, I'm here to investigate the strange presences that have been lurking around the area... and to defend you and your friends if necessary."

“You’re here under orders from the Princess to help protect us?” Twilight’s shoulders sagged visibly in relief. “Thank the stars, I thought she’d never send help! But... she sent only you?”

“Not just me.” The confident grin on Shining Armor’s face told Twilight that there was more to it than she could tell, but she certainly did not expect to hear what her brother said next. “My entire division will be here within the next couple of days to secure the province.”

“Oh, well then, that’s good to- Wait, what? Your entire division!?” Twilight’s sigh of relief turned into a panicked splutter as her eyes bugged out and her jaw dropped. “Shiny, are you crazy!? You can’t bring an entire division of royal guardsponies into Ponyville all at once, you’re going to start a panic! Princess Celestia is trying to keep this matter quiet!”

“Twily, don’t worry about it!” Her elder brother let out an unexpected laugh. “Our patrols are going to be mostly dispersed throughout the grasslands and the surrounding countryside, and even our barracks are going to be set up beyond the borders of the town. Only our seated officers are going to be in Ponyville itself, watching over the place discreetly - you wouldn’t even know we were here.”

Shining Armor had expected to put his sister at ease, having let her know that day-to-day life in her quaint little country town was going to be undisrupted by the sudden arrival of hundreds of fully armed and armored guardsponies from the Thirteenth Division. Furthermore, seated officers within the royal guard were far from pushovers; any one of them could have easily given some of the most accomplished unicorns from the Mage’s Association of Canterlot a run for their money when it came to spellcasting talent, or the best martial artists of Prussia’s Fighter’s Guild regarding fighting ability. Having a handful of them stationed in Ponyville would more or less guarantee their ability to safeguard the town while keeping their presence covert.

What he didn’t expect was for his younger sister to give him a doubtful look, arching an eyebrow at him as though she was not even reassured in even the slightest. “You’re sure? Because I was able to sense your presence the moment you reached my doorstep, and I was already nearly suffocating in it. What makes you think I’m not going to notice a dozen or so new magical auras suddenly appearing here? And good luck getting them past Pinkie - she knows everypony in Ponyville. The moment somepony new appears here, she will know.”

As Twilight’s little tirade came to an end, Shining Armor gave his sister a strange look and sighed, closing his eyes and running a hoof through his mane again. “Oh, geez... I seriously didn’t think it’d be this hard to convince you.”

The white-coated stallion standing before the two mares opened his eyes again, locking gazes with Twilight. The lavender unicorn couldn’t help but flinch as she saw just how steely his sapphire orbs were. It almost seemed as though they had become resolve itself, what with how determined and serious his expression was. 

“Look, Twilight,” Shining Armor began in an absolutely serious tone. “I’ve already purposely reined in my magical aura until less than one percent of it is leaking out. I didn’t raise a single peep on my way here, and I can tell you for sure that nopony noticed me arriving here since I didn’t use a teleport spell. Not only that, I’m also under my division’s seal while I’m out here - you know that means that my current maximum is only a fifth of my full strength. Trust me, there is no way anypony else even knows I’m here. You might have sensed me, but the rest of the town hasn’t - and if the unicorns of this town couldn’t sense me of all ponies, then the rest of my seated officers are going to be like ghosts to them.”

“Well... I...” Twilight found herself floundering beneath her brother’s weighty, hardened gaze, and the sheer concreteness of his argument. Shining Armor had a point in his counter against her little tirade - there was just no denying the fact that he, a captain of the Royal Guard, knew what he was doing. And if he, the one captain with the most tremendously vast level of magical energy in the entirety of the royal guard, could manage to slip through Ponyville without even raising a single peep, his seated officers were certainly going to be much more stealthy.

Still, there was just one more thing... “Wait, but how did you manage to reach my doorstep so suddenly? If your presence was as overwhelming as I felt it was, I should have felt a more gradual buildup from a distance, since you didn’t use a teleport spell to move so quickly to avoid notice!”

The conspiratorial grin that spread across Shining Armor’s face was almost maddening. “Twily, just because I said I didn’t use a teleport spell doesn’t mean I walked all the way here. Royal Guard officers have different ways of moving about quickly.”

“But... you... I... urrggghh!!!” Twilight let out a frustrated groan as she pressed a hoof to her temple, already feeling the general sensation of a monstrous headache coming on. “Darn you and your military secrets! You know I can’t resist a good mystery! Shiny, I swear to Celestia, sometimes you can just drive me crazy!”

“Ha!” Her elder brother let out a hearty laugh, clapping his sister on the back. “Why else would I be your BBBFF?”

As the two siblings continued their back and forth bantering, Fluttershy stood quietly to the side, politely letting them have their little family reunion together in peace. The gentle pegasus knew just how rarely Twilight got to see her elder brother, and seeing the two siblings reunited after having been apart for almost a year greatly warmed her heart, bringing a smile to her face.

That smile however soon froze, however, as Fluttershy’s mind began to wander slightly from the scene before her, and then realized that something gravely was amiss.

The link that Twilight had opened up from the dark signature inside her... it was still open.

The moment she realized this, all of the shadows around her began to thicken and grow, becoming more oppressive with every passing second. The air around her grew cold and heavy, and the yellow mare suddenly found it very hard to breathe. Irrational terror began to claw at her heart as the edges of her vision began to darken, and Fluttershy swayed dangerously on the spot, her throat letting out a strangled whimper.

Almost immediately, Twilight took notice, bringing her conversation with Shining Armor to an abrupt halt as her gaze snapped in Fluttershy’s direction, her eyes widening in concern. “Fluttershy! Are you all right?”

She barely even heard Twilight calling out to her - fear gripped at every single one of her senses, a shrill, piercing note drilling itself through her brain as her breath froze in her chest. She was suddenly, painfully, agonizingly aware of something inside of her head with her.

“I... I...”

… I see you.

The darkness pressed in around her, and before she blacked out and everything went dark, the last thing she saw was Twilight and Shining Armor galloping towards her...

... and the single vision of a pair of blood-red, crimson eyes staring right into her soul, their pupils surrounded by three strange, revolving marks.





Miles away, in the interior of a humble little cottage that lay at the fringes of the Ponyville border, a snow-white rabbit suddenly jerked his head up from his afternoon snack, abruptly stopping his munching on the carrot that he held in his paws.

Sniffing the air suspiciously, the tiny bunny dropped the half-eaten vegetable and immediately scampered over to a nearby cage, tapping on its outside lightly. Almost instantly, the mouse that resided inside abandoned its running wheel, running up to where Angel Bunny stood over it with a worried expression on his face.

There were a few wild gesticulations with the rabbit’s paws, followed by a mock faint, and his meaning was understood - the mouse nodded, and ran up to the latch on its cage door before unlocking it from the inside. The cage door fell open, and the tiny rodent scampered out, running up the sofa and taking tiny successive leaps up to a nearby hummingbird’s roost.

As the mouse shook the tiny avian awake from its afternoon nap and spread the message, Angel Bunny looked around the cottage, the animals that lived in it alongside him stirring awake as the word slowly spread. The tiny rabbit gave his fellow animal companions a concerned look, and gazed worriedly out of the window, his heart disquieted by the inexplicable sense that something had gone horribly wrong.

He did not know what was making him feel this way... but somewhere out there, his mistress was in trouble.





It was cold.

That much, Spike could say - there was nothing much else that he could notice, focused as he was on the limp form of the alabaster white unicorn that lay on the cot before him, unmoving.

Next to him, Sweetie Belle sat in a hospital chair, her tiny frame shaking with silent sobs. The little filly had laid her hooves on her sister’s own, crying softly, and Spike had placed a hand on Sweetie Belle’s shoulder, trying to console her as best he could.

“D-Do you think she’s gonna be all right, Spike?”

“She’s gonna be fine, Sweetie Belle...” The dragonling swallowed the hard lump that had developed in his throat. “After all... Rainbow Dash pulled through hers, right? Rarity should get through this just fine!”

“Y-Yeah, b-but...” The crying young filly next to him sniffled softly. “What happened to her after she woke up? Twilight wouldn’t t-tell us anything more than that she d-disappeared, a-and I... I... Oh, stars, I just don’t know anymore!”

Breaking down completely, Sweetie Belle collapsed completely against her sister’s cot, shaking Rarity’s hoof uselessly. “Big sis! Please, please wake up! You’re scaring me!”

It broke Spike’s heart to watch such a display, and the young dragon had to hold back a few tears as well as he found himself wondering the same thing that plagued Sweetie Belle’s thoughts: even if Rarity did wake up, would she even be the same pony ever again, if the same thing that happened to Rainbow Dash happened to her as well?

Both of the room’s conscious occupants were so focused upon the unconscious unicorn that neither of them noticed the frost that was slowly but surely building up on the ward’s windows... or that Sweetie Belle’s shadow was leaning slightly towards Rarity, extending a tiny, fine tendril of darkness underneath her bed.

Subtly weaving its way forward, the tendril had laid itself upon Rarity through the shadows beneath her covers... and had slowly begun the process of tapping into her magic circuits and accelerating her assimilation of the South Gale’s power.

After all, it wouldn’t do at all for her to wake up prematurely before the assimilation was complete, like how that bungler Balthazar had awakened the new North Blitz far too early with his inheritance ritual.

Miles away, a man with crimson eyes swathed in writhing layers of shadow allowed himself a small smile.

Just as planned...





Barely an hour had ticked by, and already the cottage was completely abuzz with activity. Angel Bunny had been directing the activities of his animal compatriots as they scampered and flitted to and fro, preparing various things for any potential emergency. Dozens of dreadful scenarios flickered through the tiny rabbit’s head, accompanied by images of his mistress suddenly bursting in through the door, covered in bleeding cuts, nursing a broken leg, or worse. Forcefully, the pint-sized mammal shook his head, dispelling the images as he refused to acknowledge them.

No, his mistress was going to make it home safely!

In an effort to keep his mind clear of the frightful thoughts, Angel concentrated his efforts on directing a pair of hummingbirds as they flitted about overhead. Having guided them to a wall-mounted cupboard, the rabbit watched as the avians extracted a first aid kit from the shelves when the cottage’s front door suddenly shook from several rapid knocks.

The sheer suddenness of it was too much for the two hummingbirds’ uneasy grips, and Angel Bunny almost had a heart attack when the heavy bag came within inches of landing right on top of him. After shaking his paw irately at the two avians for a moment to convey his displeasure, the bite-sized rabbit bounded over to the door to open it, hoping against hope that whoever was at the door wouldn’t be the bearer of bad news...

Only to have his hopes come crashing right down as he saw the limp form of his unconscious mistress draped over an unknown uniformed stallion’s back.

It was only the presence of a purple mare, one that Angel recalled seeing in his mistress’ company quite often, that kept the pint-sized bunny from outright charging the white-coated stallion and demanding to know what had happened. After all, if one of his mistress’ companions was accompanying this stallion, then perhaps he was all right as well. Still, the mild reassurance was not enough to keep Angel Bunny from narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the new arrival.

“Oh, Angel Bunny!” The purple one let out a little exclamation of shock when she looked down and realized that the tiny rabbit was standing right in front of her. Looking past her irate greeter, the unicorn curiously eyed the flotilla of tiny animals that were flitting all over the house’s interior. “Umm... are you expecting somepony?”

The rabbit facepawed hard enough to leave an imprint on his forehead, his expression the epitome of ‘I am surrounded by idiots’, before furiously pointing at the unconscious Fluttershy and gesturing at the newcomers to quickly get inside the cottage.

The two ponies trotted inside, and, before Angel could even slam the door shut, let alone start demanding answers from either of them, started conversing amongst themselves, totally disregarding the rabbit’s presence.

“Thanks for accompanying me all the way here, Shiny.” The lavender mare he remembered as Twilight gave the stallion a grateful nuzzle. “I think I can take Fluttershy from here.”

“Well, if you say so.” There was a brief shuffling as Fluttershy’s body made the switch from laying on ‘Shiny’’s back to being draped over Twilight’s. Angel watched the whole exchange with no small amount of trepidation - just what was it that had happened out there that had left his mistress in such a condition?

The stallion’s next few words pretty much gave voice to what Angel had been wondering the entire time. “What do you think happened to her anyway?”

“If I had to guess?” The purple one’s expression scrunched up in thought. “I think it might have had something to do with my accidental unlocking of the mana signature implanted inside her. The sudden outpouring of energy probably came as quite a bit of a shock to her system, but I did some checks on her - she’s still safe and stable for the time being. Nonetheless, I think I’m going to stay with her for a while to keep an eye on things.”

“If you say so.” ‘Shiny’ seemed a mite unsure about something, and a moment later he spoke up again. “Listen, Twilight, about these... ‘mana signatures’...”

“Hmm?”

“Are you sure that they’re harmless? Because, the way you’re putting it, it seems like they’re something that we ought to be wary of, since they’re the same magic imprints that our mysterious intruders are leaving behind. Yet you’re looking into them and using them like they’re not even dangerous at all! Are you sure what you’re doing is really safe?”

Twilight’s expression grew pensive, and a brief moment later she let out a tired sigh. “No, Shining Armor. It isn’t safe at all. I know that. But what other choice do we have?”

A purple hoof jabbed out at the window of Fluttershy’s cottage, and the young scholar continued on. “Rainbow Dash is currently missing out past the borders of the Everfree, and these signatures are the only lead we have in tracking her down! I don’t like it any more than you do, Shining - these guys are the same ones that have put both Rainbow Dash and Rarity into comas. But right now, we’ve got nothing else to go on but these signatures to help us find out where Rainbow Dash is or a way to wake Rarity up from her coma without sending the energies inside her out of control. They’re our only hope.”

The grimace on the stallion’s face was so distasteful that Angel could almost feel it from where he stood. Still, Shining Armor’s expression soon steeled itself, and he nodded resolutely. “All right then. If that’s the only recourse you feel you have available, then I’ll leave you to it. I might be better at battle magic than many other ponies, but I know that nopony around here knows more about magical theory than my little Twily here.”

Shining Armor gave Twilight an affectionate ruffle of her mane, a tiny grin cracking his otherwise steely demeanour. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, all right? I’d hate to have to step in myself to pull your flank out of the fire.”

“Yeah, yeah - where would I ever be without you, BBBFF?” Twilight gave a wry smile before pulling her brother into one last hug. “You might want to get a move on, though - Ponyville isn’t gonna defend itself.”

“Yeah... You’ve certainly got that right,” the guard captain quipped as he stepped back. “Still, if you ever run into any trouble... You still remember our secret code spell, right?”

“How could I ever forget?” The lavender mare grinned. “Don’t worry about me, Shiny - if I’m ever in trouble, you’ll be sure to hear from me.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Shining Armor nuzzled his sister briefly. “Stay safe, Twilight.”

The young captain soon departed from the cottage, intent on continuing his reconnaissance of the area to gather more information and put together a plan of defense... and leaving Twilight with an unconscious Fluttershy an an expectant Angel bunny.

"So..." the lavender unicorn began awkwardly, giving the rabbit a hopeful smile. "Where's the guest bedroom again, Angel?"

The rabbit's facepaw said it all. From being ignored the moment they had stepped into the house, to being suddenly turned to like some kind of butler... he was certainly not being given enough treats to have to put up with all this.





The night was a silent, peaceful one. Twilight had uneventfully tucked away the unconscious Fluttershy into her bed hours ago, and had only just retired to her own guest bed. Her final inspection of the pegasus’ ley lines had found nothing amiss, and it wasn’t long before the tired mare allowed her eyes to slide shut.

Outside the cottage, crickets chirped gently, their constant song providing a soft, soothing background to the blanket of the night’s shadows, and in the living room, Fluttershy’s animal companions slumbered peacefully.

So peacefully, that none of them even stirred as a single tendril of darkness snaked its way through the living room, artfully weaving its way around each animal’s roost. Effortlessly slinking through the crowded room, the tendril soon reached the stairs, slithering upwards step by step in complete silence.

Like an intangible wraith, the tendril reached the second floor without raising a peep. Unnoticed, it slowly snaked towards Fluttershy’s bedroom, stopping only for a moment when it neared Twilight’s temporary cot.

Halting its advance, it briefly considering the radiant rays of metaphysical light that issued from the sleeping unicorn’s form. Each beam reached outwards and rotated about as though it were seeking out something... so after a moment, the tendril slithered forward again, its movement cautious as it gingerly slipped its way around each and every one of the seeking rays of light, taking care not to touch even a single one.

Once it had passed Twilight’s bed, the tendril of darkness surged forward with uncanny speed, almost as though it could sense its objective nearing. Snaking its way beneath a doorway and towards Fluttershy’s bed, it latched onto the dangling sheets, slowing climbing its way up until it reached the top in complete silence. The tendril crept forward, sliding soundlessly over Fluttershy’s covers, before stopping mere inches from her. Slowly, it reared itself upwards as though it were a snake, poising to strike...

Almost as if on cue, Fluttershy’s eyes snapped open an instant before the tendril moved, and she awoke just in time to see a single sliver of darkness suddenly lunge forward, latching onto her face and turning her entire world black as it smothered her scream.

There was a brief struggle as the pegasus scrabbled at her face futilely, trying to pry it off... and slowly, gently, her struggles ceased. The room was quiet again after a few seconds, and Twilight continued on sleeping, none the wiser as to what had just transpired right under her nose.





Black.

It was black all around her.

Fluttershy looked around uncomprehendingly, her mind unable to make any sense of the darkness surrounding her despite being able to perceive the rest of her body as clear as day.

There was no light, yet she could see her hoof in front of her as though it were lit in the afternoon sun. She was a lone speck of yellow in the middle of an all-encompassing abyss, the only thing, living or otherwise, in this vast, unrevealing, and empty void.

“W...Where am I?”

As she spoke, her words tinged with fear and worry, she desperately wished to be someplace safe and familiar. Abruptly, the emptiness around her suddenly began to warp and shift, bursts of light and solid forms springing forth from nowhere. The pegasus squeaked in surprise as the world around her spun and melded together, but as shapes began to take form and colors began to brighten, she realized that she was... home? She found herself standing in the middle of her cottage, with her most precious animal friends surrounding her on all sides.

And it seemed that it was more than just her homestead. Through the house’s windows, she could see bits of Ponyville and Cloudsdale manifest out of the oblivion, earthen streets and clouds blending together to create a scenery that was both reassuring and confusing.

Just where was she?

Welcome to your mindscape, little pony.

“AHHH!! W-Who’s there!?” The voice that suddenly echoed through her thoughts was flat. Dead. Unemotional. As it rang out from nowhere and everywhere, fear rose up in the pegasus’ mind, sheer terror staining her thoughts. Instinctively wishing to be someplace safer, Fluttershy was startled even further when all of her animal friends immediately began to gather around her, forming a protective wall as they calmed and reassured her with their presence. Their warmth, so vivid it almost felt real, comforted her, and the pegasus allowed herself to relax in just the tiniest bit.

Please. This world is but a farce.

Abruptly, a wave of cold, sheer malevolence washed over her and her animal friends. As the icy sensation swept over Fluttershy like a thick, freezing blanket, her companions scattered like leaves on the wind, fleeing the assault and leaving the mare all on her own. Suddenly exposed to the elements, the timid pegasus squeaked in fear, quickly drawing her legs closer as she shrank into a crouch, trying to protect herself from the cold.

As she looked forward, a tiny spot of darkness suddenly sprouted to life on her cottage door, a dot of obsidian that stood horribly apart from the brightly colored wood. Though it started small, it wasn’t long before the speck expanded into a full-blown, swirling mass of pure black that seemed to eat away at everything around it. Even as she watched, the... ‘Darkness’...  began to consume and putrefy everything it came into contact with.

Wood faded away to grey and started to rot, entropy eating away at its substance as it disintegrated into ashes that drifted away into the distance. Curtains aged and faded as they broke apart into individual strings before disappearing entirely into the void, falling victim to the all consuming blackness.

Whimpering and cringing, Fluttershy backed away as far from the darkness as she could; all she knew was that she wanted to stay as far away from it as possible, and not come anywhere close to it.

She didn’t know what that thing was, but she was not going to let it touch even a single hair on her body.

Useless. You think such an idyllic world is without darkness, without sin? You think that by not exposing yourself to such things, you can protect yourself from them?

The darkness, its putrefying expansion halting for the briefest moment, seemed to coalesce. As the shadows consolidated and began to form a solid shape, Fluttershy realized with mounting horror that she recognized the silhouette that was beginning to take form before her.

It had the same silhouette as the creature that had attacked Rainbow Dash.

So, you recognize my form... Melchior did poorly to hide his presence from you lot.

“W-Who are you?” Fluttershy let out a terrified squeak as she backed away slowly from the being, which had already solidified into a featureless, black, and bipedal form nearly twice her height. Her hooves slowly took her backwards until one suddenly met empty air - yelping out in fear, the frightened pegasus looked backwards only to realize that the back half of her entire cottage was gone.

In its place was an endless black void that seemed to swallow up everything that even so much as looked into it. Light itself seemed to get sucked into its featureless maw, and Fluttershy let out a scream as she scrambled away from the void.

Who am I? What concern is my identity, when you refuse your own?

Her heart racing in her chest, the terror-struck pegasus turned back to face the faceless apparition, flinching as its harsh, cold voice rang throughout her entire being.

“W-What?” Fluttershy blinked uncomprehendingly, not understanding what the shadow was alluding to. “What are y-you t-talking about?”

You still do not understand why you are here, do you...? The shadow’s words reverberated through her. Why I am here. Think for a moment, child. You can surely feel my power as clearly as the void that presses in around you. You know that I could crush you with nary a thought... And yet I have not. Were I here to kill you, I could have done so easily hours ago, and you would not have felt a thing.

“S-So, then... you’re not here t-to hurt me?” Fluttershy’s voice slowly grew more steady as she began to finally find her own hooves, standing upright.

I am not here to harm you, child. Merely to teach you.

"Teach me?”

Of the folly with which you live by. The lie that you live day by day.

“A... A lie?” Fluttershy shook her head frantically, uncomprehending. “I don’t understand what’s happening here! What did you mean, I refuse my own identity?”

You surround yourself with lies and illusions, accepting only those truths that you want to believe, refusing any that fracture or damage your fantasy. A pointless attempt at self-delusion, dreamed up only by the selfish and the weak. As the shadow spoke, more of the blackness that it exuded extended outwards, consuming more and more of the cottage that had formed around Fluttershy, eating away at the sole piece of familiar scenery that anchored the pegasus to the ‘ground’ and kept her from going insane with fear.

“N-No! Please, stop what you’re doing!” the pegasus screamed as the cottage around her was reduced to nothing but a tiny island of wood that she cowered upon. “This is who I am! I haven’t lied to anypony!”

Naive fool. Ignore it all you want, but the blackness that haunts this world remains. It is beyond the power of your meager wishes, child, to rid an entire realm of its hate and pain.

“I... What?” Fluttershy’s eyes widened in comprehension, and as her understanding solidified, so did her resolve. The tiny island of wood slowly began to expand, fortifying itself against the darkness that sought to consume it. “Are you talking about what I’ve been doing my entire life? My acts of kindness? But...”

Abruptly, two crimson orbs materialized where the shade’s eyes would have been, and Fluttershy flinched as she realized that those orbs were the same ones that she had glimpsed right before she had fallen unconscious in Twilight’s home. Before the frightened pegasus could even react, she felt herself being pulled into those eyes... and everything suddenly came out all at once.

The mocking laughter of bullies. The sighs of her disappointed parents as they looked upon their daughter who had never taken flight. The frustrated yells of her flight school teachers as they desperately tried to get her to take to the air. All of the darkest memories of her childhood she had tried her hardest to lock away and bury in the deepest corners of her mind suddenly came resurging to the forefront with a vengeance, and Fluttershy buckled underneath the mental strain.

As the memories assaulted her once again with all the trauma that they bore, the pegasus collapsed into a whimpering mess.

Did I not tell you that it was useless? That it is beyond your power? You can’t even bear your own pain, what makes you think that you can bear the pain of others for them?

“I... I just...”

Thought that you could make a difference? What good can a spineless, gutless weakling possibly do when she lacks the strength to even stand up for herself?

“I... No, please, I...” She had collapsed onto her knees by now, her face buried behind her hooves as she let out a choking sob. The combined shock of revisiting all of her worst memories all at once left her a broken wreck, and the darkness closed in from all around her, eager to-

“HEY! LEAVE HER ALONE!” The voice cut through the blackness like a blade of light, and in a burst of chromatic color Fluttershy realized she was suddenly not on her own anymore.

Rainbow Dash stood in front of her, imposing herself between the featureless shadow and the helpless pegasus. The cyan speedster stood tall and proud, her expression unruffled, and she was facing down the shadow without a hint of fear - just as Fluttershy would’ve expected from her fillyhood friend.

“R-Rainbow Dash?” But what is she doing here!? The pegasus’ mind whirled as she tried to make sense of it. Rainbow Dash was supposed to be lost beyond the borders of the Everfree, how was she-!?

“Come on, Fluttershy! This isn’t the time to hold back!” Another familiar voice came out of the darkness. More bursts of color materialized all around her, and she found herself surrounded by her friends, each and every one of them interposing themselves between her shaking form and the looming shadow.

Twilight and Rarity stood before her, their horns glowing and readied with a spell, while Applejack and Pinkie Pie were pawing furiously at the non-existent ground, their breath coming out in snorts as they prepared to charge the interloper.

“C’mon, ya’ll! Let’s git these varmints outta here!”

Ah... The shadow seemed to be completely unsurprised by their sudden appearance. If there was any trace of uncertainty in its featureless frame, Fluttershy could not see it. So you think the memories of your friends gives you strength then?

“Yes... That’s right.” Fluttershy let out a breath as she remembered. Her friends weren’t actually here with her... But what mattered was that her memories of them would always be with her in spirit! “They’re the ones who stood by me throughout everything, who never abandoned me no matter what weaknesses I had! I may not be very strong on my own, but my friends are my power, and they give me strength!”

The butter-yellow pegasus mare slowly rose to her hooves. Strength, drawn from her friends, surged through her body like a tempest, and she joined their stand against the darkness, placing herself at the very forefront.

“There comes a time... when a mare will not run from a fight. That time is when her friends... when her friends and their dreams are laughed at!” 

A surge of raw will shot through her, and Fluttershy hurled it forward with everything she had. This shadow dared to invade her mind, and to mock and destroy everything that she and the bond that she shared with her friends stood for?

She would die before she let such a thing happen!

Her pupils dilated as sheer power surged into them, and with all of the willpower she could muster, she hit the shadow with the full, untempered force of the Stare.

“I may be weak, and little, and helpless, but if there is one thing I will not let you do, YOU. WILL. NOT. HURT. MY. FRIENDS.”

That one single look packed the power of a full-on mental blast. An invisible lance of power surged through the void between them, and hit the shadow square in the centre of its featureless chest. Against all of her expectations the shadow actually reeled, and suddenly things sprang forth from oblivion.

Strains of light and color began to bleed through the limitless oblivion that surrounded them, the vast void giving way to the sudden intrusion. Like Fluttershy’s home and memories had before, titanic buildings and expansive streets sprang forth from the nullity, replacing the nothingness with blessed solidity. But, even as she kept her eyes remained locked on the writhing, featureless form before her, the mare realized that she didn’t recognize this scenery.

The massive towers, comprised of countless blocks of the smoothest stone, were a far cry from any form of Equestrian architecture. Unlike the curving spires and twisting turrets that defined the skylines of Canterlot or Manehatten, these monoliths were hard, rigid structures. They spoke of strength, not beauty, of steadfastness, not peace.

Likewise, the countless cobblestones that now formed the ground, though slightly reminiscent of Baltimare’s grand avenues, sliced across the earth in a single, uniform line. Whereas Ponyville’s streets curved and dipped with the landscape, these roads stood straight and true, an expansive grid that stretched for what looked like miles.

Wherever they were, it clearly wasn’t Equestria.

What... “What did you...” do?

Fluttershy’s attention, diverted by the developing surroundings, suddenly snapped back to the mass of shadows before her. Its once immaculate, stark silhouette roiled like a pond in a thunderstorm, wisps of thin, dark smog pouring from its frame. Limbs formed of swirling blackness lifted up and grasped at a head made of the purest dark, their tiny, dexterous digits clutching at something that didn’t quite exist.

“What...” did you... “do?”

The silhouette’s voice seemed to alternate, drifting towards Fluttershy’s ears one moment, boring into her mind the next. But, regardless of the medium through which she heard its words, there was no way to miss the desperation and panic that had replaced its once emotionless tone. Those brilliant, crimson orbs peered at her through gaps in the figure’s fingers, widening as a mixture of wrath and fear spread through them.

“What did you do?

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

The silhouette’s shriek echoed around the city, painful and agonized. It was inhuman, bestial, and, somehow, familiar to the butter-yellow pegasus. It was the kind of cry that echoed across the Everfree when a lone timber wolf was cornered by a manticore, the type of screech that rang out when a cockatrice stumbled across its next meal. It was the scream of a cornered, desperate, and terrified animal, one who knew that its life was about to end.

Fluttershy blinked, and for a single instant, she could have sworn that she had seen something else. For the briefest of moments, a  long, spindly winged figure seemed to float behind the shadow, its entire body the sickly white of a bleached bone.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the wail ended. The shadowy mass, its wild, frantic movements halted, stood stock still, eyes clenched shut.

As the seconds began to tick by unabated, Fluttershy finally lowered her Stare, gazing at her friends with confusion. All of them, even Twilight, stared back at her with the same disconcerted eyes, unsure of what to say or do.

Uneasily, the mare turned her eyes back to dark figure, wondering what she was supposed to do next. She had... won, right? It certainly seemed that way; her attacker was just standing there, seemingly immobilized by the Stare. If that didn’t count as a victory, then what would?

Searching for a hint or clue, the pegasus took a few nervous steps backwards, keeping her gaze trained on the motionless mass of darkness. When it failed to react to her movement, she took another few paces, the memories of her friends carefully following after her. It was fairly clear that she wouldn’t accomplish anything just by standing around, and anywhere that took her away from that disturbing silhouette had to be better than here.

Convinced that the collection of shadows wouldn’t pounce on her the second she turned her back, Fluttershy began to trot down one of the city’s enormous streets, her small entourage trailing just behind. With no idea where to go or what to do, the mare simply advanced, her eyes flickering over the scenery as she passed by.

Stone surrounded her on all sides, forming buildings both short and tall. Though the structures seemed to lack any functional doorway or other entrance (the few doors she tried to open refused to budge, as unyielding as Angel Bunny when he wanted his snack), they each seemed to have their own personality, little details that kept them from blending into one continuous mass. A few flower pots sat in front of what appeared to be a residence, stalls full of fruits and vegetables marked a merchant's dwelling, a banner that seemed to indicate a guardhouse or barracks of some sort. It felt like she was part of some gigantic dollhouse, so many pretty exteriors with nothing beneath.

“...and then you just need to fill the space with enough mana, while making sure to keep it chilled...”

Without warning, the still silence was fractured by a single voice, echoing around the vast, empty city. A startled ‘eep!’ escaped from Fluttershy’s lips as she reflexively backpedaled, frantically looking for somewhere to hide before the speaker found her. Sadly, it seemed the mare’s luck had run dry; the street she was currently exploring was a plain, barren one, and the last fruit stand had to be almost half a mile back. And judging by the sound of the voice, not to mention the footsteps that accompanied it, the source was only just around the next bend...

Sensing her distress, the projections of Applejack and Pinkie Pie leapt in front of their friend, ready to take on any and all attackers. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash took to the sky, bracing herself to charge the second a foe came into sight, and Twilight and Rarity set their horns alight with pulsing energy. Whatever was coming around that corner, they had better be ready for one hell of a fight.

“Then, once you’ve got enough of a charge built up, you can use it to freeze the moisture in the air, liiiiiiiiike... that!”

“A most interesting display. Now, if you don’t mind, there is someplace else that I need to be... Somewhere quieter.”

...Or they could just continue to talk among themselves and march straight past the quintet of battle-ready ponies. Apparently that was also an option.

Fluttershy’s fear soon gave way to more confusion as the mare quizzically stared at the two figures walking through her friends’ formation.Tall, bipedal, and clothed in bizarre garments, the beings continued to traipse down the street without paying heed to their opposition, actually phasing through an unsure Applejack as though the earth pony wasn’t even there.

“Um... Excuse me,” the timid pegasus began, only to be cut off by one of the strange individuals. 

“Oh, come on René! You haven’t even seen the best part yet!” the first of the newcomers interjected, keeping his ice-blue eyes locked on the swirling, glimmering space between his hands. “Besides, I’m almost done. It just needs a bit longer to build, and then I can...”

Fluttershy knew that she had never seen this creature before in her life. Even ignoring the fact that she hadn’t even known this species existed until a couple of days ago, there was no way that she had ever laid eyes on this particular specimen.

With his sapphire-colored clothes, a brilliant, shining smile, youthful features that were sharp and defined, and a pair of eyes that gleamed with pride and intellect, the pegasus would have remembered seeing someone like him before. But, for some reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she recognized this strange being. It flitted at the back of her mind like a half-forgotten dream, telling her that, somehow, she knew who this was.

“Annnnnnd... There it is!”

With a triumphant cry, the figure thrust his hands and the churning mass of sparkles skyward. A shimmering arrow, seemingly carved from transparent, flawless ice, sprang forth from the glittering specks, rocketing upwards at a stupendous speed much to its creator’s delight. As his bolt arched through the sky, an ecstatic grin stretched across his visage. “I’ve been working on that spell all week, and I finally got it! Magnificent, no?”

The way he said that...

“...where every garment is chic, unique and magnifique!”

And then, like a thunderbolt from on high, the realization struck Fluttershy.

Those clothes, clearly crafted by someone with an eye for detail and practiced skill. That hair, styled to perfection. Skin and features that spoke of immaculate care and maintenance. This... person, whoever he was, could have passed as Rarity’s doppelganger. Ignoring, of course, the difference in species and gender.

“Indeed... and perhaps you have also considered where that arrow might land when it eventually reaches the ground?”

The second interloper, however, Fluttershy couldn’t place. Bored, disinterested eyes the color of coal traced the arc of his companion’s arrow as it lanced through the air and out of sight. A head of long, scruffy hair, the approximate color and consistency of raven feathers. Features as youthful as that as his companion’s, yet harsher and more angular. A cloak as plain and dark as a starless night. A hunched, indifferent posture that seemed to completely disregard the world. It looked like even Pinkie Pie would have a challenge trying to get him to smile.

Whoever this René was, Fluttershy was glad she didn’t know him.

“Hmm... Well, that is a good point, now isn’t it?” the stylish one replied, his excitement slowly being replaced by concern. For a few seconds, the blue-haired being stood in silent contemplation, rubbing his chin as he mused. René, meanwhile, continued his walk, trudging past Fluttershy and clearly not noticing the winged mare as she nervously shied away from him.

“Eh, I’m sure things’ll work out.”

With a carefree shrug, René’s companion quickly caught up, his worried grimace swapped out for another smile. Falling into place next to his reluctant ‘friend’, the handsome one continued their conversation as though he hadn’t just launched a potentially life-ending attack at some poor, unsuspecting soul. “So, that’s what Master Sigfried and I have been working on. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

The black-clothed being gave a noncommittal grunt in response, likely hoping that his companion would take the hint.

He didn’t.

“I don’t suppose that Master Nietzsche’s been giving you any special training?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Aww, come on, René, don’t be like that! I’m pretty sure he would’ve been, what with our monthly evaluation tests coming up!”

“Lucius, so help me, I will-”

“Is it that creepy shadow-walk? I swear, it always gives me the shivers when he just rises up out of somebody else’s shadow like some kind of wraith. And the way he always speaks in that dreadful monotone, like somebody stole away his soul - honestly, there’s no way I could stand having him as a Master! I don’t know how you’re able to handle it!”

The conversation began to fade away, as its participants drew further and further away from Fluttershy. Unsure, the mare took a few half-hearted steps after their retreating backs, only to stumble to a halt. While it was true that these two creatures were the only “living” things she had seen thus far, she wasn’t sure she really wanted to follow them. The Lucius one seemed pleasant enough, but the other...

Turning about, the mare faced her friends. “Um... I don’t suppose any of you girls know what to do?” she implored, hoping that the projections might be able to provide some kind of hint. Who knew, maybe whatever magic had given them form would have also lent them some knowledge.

But even Twilight’s expression was just as stumped as hers, and Fluttershy couldn’t help but sigh. It looked like she would have to figure her own way out of this.

To continue wandering in this potentially limitless cityscape, praying to find some way out, or to follow after the two mysterious strangers? Neither one of the options were particularly appealing to the pegasus, but if she absolutely had to make a choice...

Steeling herself, Fluttershy cautiously cantered down the street, slowly closing the distance between herself and her new guides. Just because she was going to follow them didn’t mean she had to stick close to them, however, and the winged mare made sure to remain a good ways away from René and Lucius. Even if they hadn’t seen her yet, it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t suddenly turn around and attack.

Surprisingly, especially considering their sizable separation, bits and pieces of the conversation drifted back to the mare’s ears. Normally, she deplored eavesdropping, but Fluttershy found herself straining to catch every word, desperately hoping for a clue.

“-unlike some people, I don’t need to feed off of other’s attention. Because, unlike some people, I actually make sure that my incantations are correct, instead of ensuring that the stances don’t mess up my hair. Because, unlike some people-”

“You’re dreadfully boring, don’t have an ounce of style, and scare small children?”

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem that the two conversationalists would be dropping any hints. The black-clad one rounded on Lucius, and his voice was laced with tightly controlled fury, his hands clenched until his knuckles had gone white.

“Why,” René hissed, “do you insist on tormenting me day after day? There is nothing that we have in common. Go bother Aldrick or somebody else - maybe Gaius will be willing to entertain your witless fancies today, but it will certainly not be me. Now, if you'll excuse me...”

Before the blue-clad Lucius could respond, René had turned away with a swish of his cloak, and began stalking down the cobblestone path in a different direction... a direction that Fluttershy belatedly recognized. It was the same street she had started on, the one where the paralyzed shadow stood.

Except it was no longer there.

For a second, the mare simply stood there, dumbly staring at the empty patch of street her tormentor had once occupied. Then the realization kicked in.

Fear made her gut clench in terror as she realized that not only was the shadow gone, it was nowhere in sight. Normally she would have considered that thing’s absence a good sign, but the fact that she was in its mental territory just made the fact that she was literally exposed on all sides exceptionally pronounced. It could attack from any direction it wanted at any time it wanted, and she wouldn’t even know it until it was too late.

As Lucius raced after his compatriot, shouting something intelligible, the timid mare found herself backing away, slowly but surely. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as her heart began to pound in her ears, and each breath she took struggled down a suddenly bone-dry throat. Light teal eyes frantically flickered back and forth, scanning the deserted streets, the lifeless buildings, even the quintet of projections that still trailed behind their owner.

The sun was high in the sky, its brilliant rays providing both light and warmth to the empty world below. A world full of countless, innumerable shadows.

Acutely conscious of the shady patches the her friends and herself were casting upon the cobblestoned roads, the frightened pegasus flinched and immediately took to the air. Though she wasn’t particularly knowledgeable when it came to magic, some part of Fluttershy knew that the attack would spring from one of those pools of umbra. As her wings steadily beat through the air to keep her aloft, the mare’s gaze flitted about wildly, attempting to track down her shadowy adversary.

But she didn’t even know where to start looking! All she knew was that he... it... whatever that thing was wasn’t where it had been! Maybe it was in one of those enormous penumbras cast by the towering buildings that surrounded her on all sides. Maybe in one of those dark puddles created by the dozens of stalls that lined the streets. Maybe in that dim, undefined splotch far beneath her, that zig-zagged across the ground as she nervously fluttered back and forth.

There was just too many to keep track of, too many to possibly watch, too many to... to...

Fluttershy’s throat suddenly swelled shut as her pupils shrank to tiny specks. Her wings slammed to her sides like slabs of iron, and it was only thanks to some quick flying on Rainbow Dash’s part that she didn’t tumble to the cobblestones like a wet bag of cement. But the winged mare had no attention to spare for the sky-blue hooves gently lowering her to the ground, nor could she muster the will to shriek the shrill scream that was steadily building in her chest.

Fluttershy had never, ever doubted that Pinkie Pie was an unique, atypical, bizarre, strange, and probably downright crazy pony. And it only made sense that some of the real Pinkie’s eccentricities would have been reflected in the projection that stood before her.

But, even taking Ponyville’s premier party planner’s personal peculiarities into consideration, the terrified pegasus could only think of one way to explain the pair of shadows that stretched out from the pink mare’s hooves.

“Well, well... I was wondering when you’d finally spot me.”

The voice that came out from all around her was completely different. While the first voice had been flat and unemotional, this one was high and thready, wavering with fluctuations that had absolutely nothing to do with fear and sounded more like they had everything to do with instability.

All Fluttershy could manage to do was stand there, speechless, immobile, paralyzed by fear and terror. As she struggled to find the will to move, to run away, the voice once more assaulted her ears and mind, unleashing a spine-tingling cackle of sheer, unadulterated delight. “Ooooooh, what’s this? Waiting for me to make the first move, are we?”

Pinkie Pie’s spare shadow began to ripple, churning like a lake in a thunderstorm.

“Don’t mind if I do!”

Blackness exploded outwards, consuming everything in its path. The cobblestoned streets beneath Pinkie’s hooves vanished as the void abruptly replaced it, and the projection of the pink mare could only let out a brief scream that was cut painfully short as she vanished from sight.

As their fellow fell into oblivion, the rest of the projections immediately distanced themselves from the ever expanding shadow. Instinctively, they formed a barrier between the darkness and Fluttershy, who was watching the display of power in transfixed horror.

This was like nothing it had done or said before... Just what had happened to her mysterious assailant?

“Ha!” She heard the voice shriek contemptuously again, piercing painfully through her ears as though needles had been rammed right through her eardrums. “You really do suck, Descartes! You let this pathetic little horse get the better of you? Unbelievable! Even a baby would’ve been able to do better than that!

“Here,” it continued, its raspy tones shivering with furor, “I’ll show you how it’s really done!”

With a noise not unlike metal shearing against leather, a series of dark, twisting tendrils burst forth from the void. Fluttershy could only watch in transfixed fascination and horror as the lengths zig-zagged through the air like pitch-black hummingbirds. Each and every one of them ended in a jagged, needle-sharp point and moved with a mind all its own, seemingly unaware of their brethren as they drew closer and closer to the paralyzed mare.

Death whistling towards her at a tremendous speed, Fluttershy tried to flap her wings, only to find that the limbs stuck to her sides as though they were glued there. Her hooves, likewise, seemed to have been cemented to the street. A whimper of fear escaped the mare’s throat as her eyes scrunched shut, and she could only stand helpless as her end rushed towards her-

KSSSSSSSH!!!

As the sound of blades smashing against shields rang through the air, Fluttershy allowed a single eye to inch open... Only to gasp in amazement as she beheld the violet, translucent sphere that had suddenly been erected around her and her friends. The tentacles, unable to pierce the gleaming bubble, had bounced off of its rounded surface, ricocheting into the street, nearby buildings, anything and everything except the ponies they had been aiming for.

“Hehehehe, not bad, not bad at all. So I guess those memories aren’t just to keep you company, now are they?”

Turning her head, Fluttershy noticed that the voice was right. A glowing, vermillion aura encased Twilight’s horn, and the unicorn smiled in satisfaction as she maintained the shield.

The tendrils, meanwhile, slowly retreated, leaving deep and ferocious furrows in the street and buildings. Hazy and indistinct, they languidly slipped back to their place of origin as their creator continued to speak.

“Wellllllllllllllllll then. I guess that just means I can’t be going easy on you, now can I?!”

Even as the inky lengths sank back into the shadow, another appendage burst forth. Thicker than the first ones, this limb only extended three feet before it halted, its nebulous form unhurriedly shifting into solidity. As opposed to the incredibly sharp points that had tipped its brethren, the new one apexed in a... a... what was that strange word... in a hand large enough to wrap around a pony’s throat, its fingers clenching as it reached towards the sky above.

The report of cracking stone split the air as the arm, bending at an almost impossible angle, slammed into the ground, its dexterous digits digging furrows into the cobblestones. Despite the rippling, ever-changing nature of the limb, Fluttershy could make out the faintest hints of flexing muscles, straining as though they were trying to lift some unimaginable weight.

Slowly but painfully surely, something else began to emerge from the pool of umbra. A shoulder, another arm, the beginnings of head, all shimmering and shifting, all horribly, horribly wrong. The very air seemed to be charged with some bizarre energy, and, even with Twilight’s barrier spell protecting her, Fluttershy was unable to stop her frame from trembling.

Finally, as the arms continued to strain and pull, a single blood-red orb rose from the murky depths to stare at her... No, not at her.

Into her.

“I seeeeeeee you,” came the voice, its sing-song tone mocking and terrifying all at once.

“N-no...” The whispered plea barely managed to work its way between Fluttershy’s lips. Unable to move, unable to think, and unable to look away, the mare stared back at the isolated orb. “St-stay back...”

Whatever darkness had lain in the first shadow’s gaze, it was nothing compared to the contents of that swirling, hellish sphere. It held no wrath, no gluttony, no sloth, no lust, no pride, no envy, no greed. There was only madness, pure, unsullied, and frenzied insanity in that bloody circle.

“Come on, my little pony. Let’s play.”

“I... I...” the mare stammered as she managed a single step backwards, her survival instincts finally overpowering her fear. Simultaneously, Twilight’s shield began to flicker, though the projection’s horn remained as bright as ever.

A second sphere, just as disturbing as its companion, rose from the murk. “Go on then! I’ll even give you a free shot! Come on! Go, go, go, gogogogogogogogogo!”

“STAY BACK!” Fluttershy shrieked, hooves scrabbling against the ground as she frantically backpedaled. As she moved, the protective sphere finally faded into nonexistence, leaving her retreat unimpeded. At the same time, a brilliant, pulsing beam of light began to pour from the Twilight projection’s horn, lancing through the air like a divine spear. An instant later, it was joined by another beam, this one an icy blue and thrown by Rarity’s horn.

Twisting and melding into a single radiant and destructive stream, the two magical blasts cleared the distance between the projections and the shadow in a flash. With a thunderous peal, akin to the fury of heaven itself, the combined assault tore through the darkness like it was nothing, reducing the shadowy ring to nothingness instantaneously.

The seconds began to tick by as the smoke and dust kicked up by the incredible blast slowly cleared away. No longer staring into those pools of madness, Fluttershy found herself beginning to calm down, her trembling body and shaky breaths finally becoming stable and steady. Though she didn’t dare to approach the smoking crater, the yellow pegasus managed to focus her gaze, peering into the smog and praying that the apparition had finally been vanquished.

And as far as she could tell, vanquished it was. With the exception of a sizeable, still smouldering hole, the spot where the shadow had lurked only moments before was utterly empty. There wasn’t a single hint of movement, no raspy voice, no blood-curdling orbs. Nothing.

Maybe... just maybe that had worked.

“Well. That was fun, now wasn’t it?”

Jerking her head upwards, Fluttershy paled as she beheld the silhouette that stood in the sky, leering down at her from its midair perch. Words caught in her throat and her thoughts ground to a halt as the fear came rushing back, her heartbeat resuming its breakneck tempo. When had it climbed up that high? How could it have gotten up there? It had still been stuck in the ground when the attack had hit it; just how fast was this thing?

In shape and form, it was strikingly similar to the first aggressor, even appearing to be the same height. But even in her current state of mental disarray, Fluttershy could tell that this entity was something different. The haughty way it carried itself, as though it was barely restraining its manic impulses. The blood-red spheres that adorned its visage, each dancing with frightening energies and cruel thoughts. The visible, clearly defined mouth, full of razor-sharp fangs and spread in a frenzied grin. And its voice...

“My turn,” it happily hissed between pearly white teeth as it raised its right arm, pointing its hand directly towards the sky. Except it wasn’t a hand anymore, but a swirling mass of pitch-black tendrils that wormed through the air, twisting and turning into all manner of impossible shapes and patterns. “Hope you’re ready to dance!”

With an unearthly howl, the silhouette swung its “arm” downward, an armada of shadowy lengths hurtling towards the ponies far below. As before, Twilight’s horn sprung to life, summoning a violet sphere around Fluttershy and her friends. And as before, the tentacles failed to pierce the barrier, bouncing off its perfectly rounded surface. However, instead of merely sticking in the walls and ground, this time the tendrils leapt back into action, wrapping themselves around the bubble like countless ropes.

And suddenly the figure itself was hurtling towards the shield and its occupants, cackling like a madman as it closed the distance in a matter of heartbeats. With an earthshaking crack, the shadowy being slammed into the barrier, sending a series of fractures spider-webbing across its once flawless surface. Inside the bubble, the Twilight projection let out a gasp, her knees buckling as though she had been struck by the blow.

Before the unicorn could reinforce her damaged spell, the tendrils reverted back into a lethal swarm of needle-sharp points. The cracks afforded them purchase where once there had been none, and it wasn’t long before the spikes were boring into the shield, sending even more fissures crawling across its surface.

Unable to maintain the spell any longer, Twilight released the shield in an explosion of purple energy, repulsing the tentacles and sending their creator hurtling backwards. However, the silhouette had barely touched the ground before it was charging back into the fray, once more bearing two arms and its mouth splitting with an ecstatic roar. “Yes, yes, yes! Come on, more, I WANT MORE!”

The thing’s speed was truly something to behold. It dashed down the street like a black streak, its already indistinct frame becoming even more blurred as it moved faster than the eye could follow. Suddenly it stood among the ponies, its fist slamming into Applejack’s head and a blade-like arm lashing out in Rainbow Dash’s direction. A startled yelp came from the cyan mare as she darted out of the attack’s range, swooping into the sky, but Applejack had no such luck.

The sheer force of the blow hammered into the orange mare’s head like a piledriver, and the proprietor of Sweet Apple Acres toppled like a sack of bricks, her cranium smashing into the cobblestoned streets below her with bone-crushing force. Seconds later, her entire form dispersed into a fine orange mist, scattering into the winds around them and leaving Fluttershy deprived of two of her guardians.

Screaming in delight, the shadow spun about, its insane gaze sweeping across its remaining opposition. “Two down, three to go,” it growled as it locked eyes with the shell-shocked pegasus, its hand reaching out towards Fluttershy’s throat...

Only to be stopped by a pair of alabaster hooves slamming into its gut like a miniature freight train. With a pained oof!, the silhouette was pushed backwards a few yards, barely managing to remain upright. With a flip of her mane, Rarity turned around, standing between her friend and the mass of darkness, her horn beginning to glow with an icy-blue aura.

“Seriously? You’ve got magic, and you just kick me in the-”

The frenzied shadow was suddenly stopped in its tracks as a gigantic and very familiar-looking boulder several times the size of a pony came crashing down from on high. A few inches to the left, and the silhouette would have been crushed to a boneless pulp beneath the rocky mass.

“Okay, not bad. That actually surprised me.”

Recovering from the blow, the figure once more raised its arm towards to the sky. Balling its fingers into a fist, it slammed its arm into the ground up to the elbow, punching through the stone as if it were paper-machie. “ But this is how you make things interesting!”

For a second, all was still. And then the ground beneath Rarity erupted, dozens of shadowy spikes exploding from the street and lancing through the projection’s body. Unable to even react, the unicorn’s snow white frame swiftly dispersed, scattering like a cloud of snowflakes.

“Three down. Two left.”

Grinning, the shadow wrenched its arm from the cobblestones effortlessly, affixing its blood-red orbs on Fluttershy once again. “Come on, my little pony. I’m wiping out your defenses and you haven’t even done anything yet! Fight back! Hit me! HIT ME!”

Whimpering, the butter-yellow mare could only back away in horror. Even as her enemy began marching towards her she was unable to muster the will to do, well, anything. Her wings remained trapped at her sides, her limbs refused to go anywhere but backwards, and her thoughts were full of nothing but fear. What could she possibly do against something like that?

“Oooooh. Hello there,” the silhouette cooed, halting in its tracks as Twilight staggered in front of it. “Hey, you’re not going to do that shield thing again, are you? Because that’s starting to get kind of boring.”

The projection didn’t bother to answer, gritting her teeth as her horn once more began to glow with power. “Seriously, if you try that trick again, I’m just going to kill you, okay? Because there’s nothing that annoys me more than-”

The shadow found itself interrupted as a burst of energy poured from Twilight’s horn, a violet bolt that screamed through the air and punched a hole in its target’s dark torso. 

“Hey! That kind of hurt,” the figure complained, the hole in its chest already beginning to repair itself. Huffing irritably, it continued its advance. Only for another two blasts to arc through it, ripping holes in its left shoulder and abdomen. And then three more, blasting off an arm, obliterating part of its head, and ripping through one its knees.

“Will. You. STOP THAT,” the figure roared, its remaining arm dissolving into a swarm of tendrils that lanced towards Twilight. However, the mare stood her ground, screaming with effort as she launched a barrage of magical missiles at her opponent. The fusillade tore the approaching lengths to shreds and continued to charge forward, slamming through the silhouette’s form without pause or mercy. 

Fluttershy watched in awe as Twilight’s assault sundered the entity into bits and pieces. And then crushed those bits and pieces into even smaller shreds. Maybe... just maybe...

No, not maybe! Definitely! If anypony could stop that thing, it’d be Twilight Sparkle, the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria!

“Twilight!” Fluttershy called out, finally finding her voice. “Do it!”

Unable to reply verbally to her ward, the projection instead responded by pushing herself even further, bolts flying from her horn with an ever increasing frequency. In a matter of moments, the entirety of the shade’s body had been completely eradicated from existence.

It was finally gone for good.

A relieved smile spreading across her face, Fluttershy cantered over to the panting unicorn. “Twilight! That was amazing; I can’t believe you were able to do something like that.”

The exhausted projection offered her charge a slight grin as she shakily tried to rise to her hooves. “Oh no,” the pegasus intoned, gently guiding the unicorn back to the ground, “you need to rest now, okay? Don’t you worry, everything’s going to be just fine.”

“Really? What makes you say that?”

No...

Fluttershy froze in place, her breath caught in her throat, as something slowly walked up behind her. Something tall, bipedal, and whose very presence seemed to leech the strength from her body. The Twilight projection, her eyes spreading wide in fear, struggled to push herself up from the ground. She had only made it halfway, however, when a pitch-black foot swung out and slammed into her chest, sending the unicorn bouncing off the cobblestone streets. 

“I gotta say,” the shadow spoke up, its voice once more teeming with amusement, “I’m actually pretty impressed. Nice bit of magic on your part; you almost managed to get me that time.” 

Twilight could do nothing but lay there, totally incapacitated, as the silhouette extended one of its hands. “Almost, but not quite.” A single finger of its hand lazily pointed out at her, a small sphere of dark energy beginning to form at its tip.

“Cero... Oscuras.”

The midnight colored blast, tinged by an outline of green, was strong enough to tear a massive furrow down the length of the street, reducing nearly a quarter-mile of stone to dust. Twilight’s projection never stood chance; not even specks of it remained.

“Oh, but that probably would have worked. If I only existed in this world, there’s no way I could have survived that.” The figure chuckled as it slowly turned around, its ever-present grin spread so frighteningly wide it nearly split its face in half.

“Luckily for the both of us,” it continued as it leisurely approached the paralyzed pegasus, “I’m already innnnnn... here.”

The shade crouched down, and suddenly a needle sharp claw was roughly tapping against Fluttershy’s forehead. The pegasus was suddenly, painfully aware of a warm liquid starting to trail down her nose, and a slight tinge of red began to seep into her left eye.

“Oh, but you have no idea how sweet this freedom is!” The shadow stepped away from her momentarily as it spun around in place, cackling madly with its arms outspread. Yet even as it stepped away, Fluttershy found herself still frozen to the spot, unable to move out of sheer terror and transfixed horror. “He’s never let me run loose in forever, and now I finally can do whatever the fuck I want! Starting...”

The shade’s malevolent gaze snapped back to her, and suddenly Fluttershy felt indelibly, irreversibly stained, as though she had been marked for death, or worse, by whatever sadistic malice that passed for the creature’s mind. “...With you.”

“OH, LIKE HAY I’LL LET YOU!” A familiar voice yelled out, and suddenly a sky-blue blur smashed right into the shadow, slamming it chin-first into the stone streets beneath it. Rainbow Dash gave it a hard buck to the cranium for good measure, slamming both hooves into the back of its head for good measure, driving it further into the ground by a few good inches. “Nopony hurts Fluttershy and gets away with it!”

It was exactly how the real Rainbow Dash would have done it. The speedster had already been Fluttershy’s closest friend and staunchest defender ever since they had first met in foalhood. Even here, in Fluttershy’s memories, the cyan pegasus still carried out what she saw as her sacred duty with the utmost gusto.

But the shadow simply plucked its head from the ground as though it had received nothing more than a couple of love taps. Cracking its neck ominously, its gaze turned to Rainbow Dash with unnerving, frightening slowness. “... Bitch, you just signed your own death warrant.”

“Bring it, punk!” the famiscile of Rainbow Dash howled with characteristic defiance, and rushed forward in a cyan blur, her foreleg already swinging in a preparation to deliver a knockout punch.

It never even came close to hitting. In an almost imperceptible blur, the shadow’s arm shot forward. With a half-strangled cry, the cyan mare jerked to a stop, gaping at the pitch-black appendage that had been thrust through her chest and out the other side. Blood didn’t flow, but Fluttershy could see that Rainbow Dash was already losing coherence, her body slowly dissolving into a light blue haze that scattered to the wind.

“And that’s number five. Now, where was I?” The shade turned its bloodthirsty gaze upon the yellow mare, and as she felt its eyes roam hungrily over her body, Fluttershy came to the stark realization that she was alone right now. “Ah, yes. The freedom. Last time I ever got to come out like this, it was... Oh, I don’t know, decades ago? And right now, I’m dying to let loose the tension that’s been building up over those years...”

The shadow stalked over to where Fluttershy stood frozen, a predatory gleam in the slasher grin that spread across its featureless face. The terror-struck pegasus took a single step back, her entire body shaking with paralyzing fear. “No! S-stay back...!”

“Or what? You’ll actually do something to stop me? HA! Perish the thought, you spineless sack of meat.” The shadow continued its merciless advance. “You’re nothing without your friends!”

The shade took another step forward, and abruptly the scenery changed again - the moment its foot had touched the stone, everything simply vanished. The cobblestoned streets and magnificent stone walls of the keep disappeared from sight, replaced with a dark, murky environment that closed in all around her. Though it felt like the inside of a cave, it didn’t take Fluttershy long to realize that it was actually the interior of a chamber.

And what a chamber it was.

It had to have been at least the size of a small courtyard. The interior was barely lit by a dim, ambient purplish light, the color of a sickening bruise. Shadows danced wildly in the chamber’s corners, almost seeming sentient with the way they reached out to grab at anything that passed by.

Though a set of high walkways ran around its walls, the chamber’s centre abruptly dipped down, stretching lower and lower until it was nothing more than a yawning pit. If somepony were to jump or fall from the catwalks, there was only a single layer of metal grating, nothing more, to keep them from being swallowed up by the pit’s impenetrable darkness.

Extending above the pit, a narrow walkway, wide enough for maybe two ponies, ran from the chamber’s entrance to its far end. Thin metal railings decorated the sides of the walkway, but there was little else to protect anypony from the terrifying fall.

And atop that walkway stood a lone figure, clad in a flowing black cloak, its cowl raised and concealing his face. His footsteps rang out as he strode forward, his stance radiating determination and purpose.

“Oh...” the shadow beside her purred almost anticipatorily. “First time I ever got my freedom, eh? Now this is a scene I don’t mind reliving...”

Fluttershy barely heard it speak - she was too focused on the scene playing out before her, as the cloaked man made his way across the catwalk... and towards the grand altar that took up the entire back quarter of the massive chamber.

“Nietzsche!” the figure roared, and Fluttershy recognized the iron-hard, rasping voice of none other than René himself. “Nietzsche, show yourself! I have questions for you!”

“What is it now, René?” a cultured, regal voice answered in a bored tone, echoing throughout the entire chamber. As hard as Fluttershy listened, she could not for the life of her determine where it was coming from - it was as though the voice came from all of the shadows around them simultaneously, as though the very room itself was speaking back to René. “Did I not tell you I was not to be disturbed during my meditations?”

“Is it true what they’re saying? That you’re throwing your lot in with Master Zarathustra?”

The question had been put forth boldly, and without reservation - evidently, it had been unexpected, and the shadows of the room actually paused, as though considering an answer.

“Truth is subjective, boy,”  the chamber’s ominous voice soon rumbled in reply. “You know how amorphous that little thing can be under the right viewpoints and circumstances...”

“Don’t try to play these mind games with me anymore, master!” the cloaked man shouted, his arm thrusting out in a gesture of indignation. “You were always teaching me how our intentions had to be hidden like the shadows themselves - silent and invisible. To never reveal ourselves to the enemy, both within and without! But this... this...!”

The man’s voice rose to an enraged crescendo, and abruptly he reached into his cloak, before hurling something onto the ground before him - it didn’t take long for Fluttershy to see that they were two strips of cloth. One of them was a deep azure, emblazoned with a stylized lightning bolt against a hammer, and the other was pure white, a stylized icy crystal embroidered onto its surface.

And they were both drenched with bloodstains.

“I found these in the quarters of the other masters. Their bodies were nowhere to be found... And I found traces of your magic in the bloodstains that covered their entire rooms!”  René’s voice was thick with grief and emotion as he continued to shout at the darkened chamber, but not once did he flinch or start at the darkness that writhed all around him. “Master Nietzsche... what have you done?”

“Exactly what I had planned to do. Which included your very arrival into this chamber...” The chamber paused again, a brief gust of wind echoing throughout the entire room as though it was sighing. “I will make no secret of it. I have indeed allied myself with Zarathustra and his ilk. Theirs is a regime that would bring power and glory to our homeland - a new world order!”

“Blasphemy!” René breathed out in horror, his features hardening in angered realization. “You would destroy everything that our Order has sought to protect for a thousand years? Everything that your master and those who came before him fought for!?”

“Yes, and I would do it a million times over if it meant the furthered safety and well-being of our lands!” the chamber thundered in response. “You have no idea what it is like, René. To hold the power of life and death in your very hands... The power to create life… And the power to end it. With the aid of Zarathustra’s new patrons, our abilities now exceed anything that our old masters would have been capable of! We shall be the new lords and masters of this world, to lead it into a new Golden Age!”

“ENOUGH!!!” The cloaked René let out an anguished roar as he harshly pulled back the cowl that covered his head, and Fluttershy let out a shocked gasp as she saw what had happened to his face.

A wicked scar ran down the centre of his face, streaking in between his eyes and running diagonally across the bridge of his nose. His eyes, black as lumps of coal, blazed from within with an ebony fire borne of rage, and his features had turned tough and weathered as though he had spent several years enduring all manner of hardships.

It looked as though the youth she had glimpsed in the first memory had aged ten years, his innocence having withered away, long since replaced by cruel, bitter cynicism.

“I always believed that we used the power we were bestowed to protect the world...” René choked out, his hands clenched into fists that shook and trembled. “You were the one who taught me that... And now, you turn your back on your own teachings? Was everything that you told me my entire life a lie!?”

“As I have said before, my boy... the truth is amorphous.”

The young man made a choking sound of frustration, his expression twisted in a pained grimace. “And you honestly believe that Master Zarathustra and his patrons have benevolent intentions for this world? They would sooner have it burn than let it continue to exist! How long have we resisted them already?”

“Long enough for them to see a potential asset in us,” the room answered. “And if there lies a chance for us to negotiate our way towards a bloodless resolution, I say by all means, let us take it!”

“There is no bloodless resolution wherever the Legion is involved,” René spat bitterly. e cast a hardened, resigned gaze at the shadows around him, as though realizing that he had reached a point of no return. “You’ve made a serious mistake.”

“Not as serious as yours, I’m afraid...” The darkness in the chamber rippled in a sudden wave, and Fluttershy was suddenly made acutely aware of the fact that René was very alone in the chamber.

Alone, and facing the darkness that surrounded him on all sides by himself.

Abruptly, the rippling stopped. The pegasus’ nerves, already stretched far beyond what could safely be called ‘high-tension’, received a sudden jolt that frayed them even further as she noticed that there was suddenly another man standing behind René - a man who had not been standing there a moment ago.

He was clad in a black cloak much like René’s, covering everything but his head, but that was where the similarity between them ended. While René was lean, built of whipcord and sinew, this man stood taller than the younger male by half a head and had a much broader, more imposing figure, casting an intimidating silhouette against the dim illumination of the chamber.

But most unnerving of all was his face - his skin was deathly pale, the pallor of a dead corpse. His head was devoid of hair, a bald pate of a sickly white, and his eyes burned from within with a sadistic, crimson glow. The entirety of his mouth and nose was covered by a strange, metallic mask that extended all the way down to his neck, its steel grills covering his mouth in a manner strangely reminiscent of a fish’s gills.

Aware of the man now standing behind him, René turned around slowly, regarding the new arrival with a cold gaze, his coal-black eyes smouldering with anger.

“... Master Nietzsche...”

Something in the younger man’s voice touched Fluttershy’s heart, and a pang of empathetic pain hit her right in the chest as she came to a realization - this memory was something that Descartes had buried deep down inside him, something so dark and so private that literally nopony else, not even his friends, knew of the events that had transpired here.

Whatever he was about to do, this entire confrontation couldn’t have possibly been easy for the embittered young man.

He was about to come to blows with a man who had all but raised him since he was but a child... and a man who had also betrayed everything he had taught René to believe in from the very beginning of his days.

Stars only knew how much anguish he had to be in right now, the gentle pegasus realized as she saw that René’s hands were still clenched into fists, this time so tightly that his nails were digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood.

“Let’s not stand on ceremony here...” the masked man spoke as he discarded his cloak and tossed it aside, revealing a body that was monstrously muscled beneath the vest that covered his upper body. Slowly, he spread his arms wide, as though goading René on to make the first move. “... René Descartes.”

No further words were needed. Mirroring his master’s movement, Descartes threw his cloak aside as well, revealing the similarly dark and sleeveless tunic that he was clad in, the contours of his lean, tightly defined muscles standing in stark contrast to the smooth, flowing black of his clothing. Fingerless gloves of a similar material adorned his hands, and the young man smoothly dropped into a fighting stance.

There was a sudden, sharp intake of breath, and then...

 Fluttershy couldn’t even see who moved first. The two men exploded into bursts of movement, crashing into one another in a flurry of blows, and it was all she could do to follow the battle.

René struck out - a long, sinewy tendril of shadow whipped outwards from his right hand as he turned aside intercepting blows from his mentor. As he darted forward, past Nietzsche’s guard, the sinewy tendril abruptly solidified into a blade of pure black. There was no hesitation in René’s movements, and he swung his weapon in a vicious slash.

The blow slammed right into Nietzsche’s gut, but amazingly, it didn’t penetrate at all. A wall of solid black blocked the blade’s path, a shield erected at lightning speed. René didn’t even pause.

Abruptly reversing the strike, he thrust the blade downward at his master’s leg, simultaneously swinging his other arm upwards in a savage backhand that slammed into Nietzsche’s chin, sending the masked head snapping backwards. Nietzsche’s body rolled with the blows, being rocked backwards a single step with each hit that landed... and René’s left hand suddenly came up, his fist clenched around a shaft of darkness honed into the blade of a razor-sharp dagger.

Nietzsche reacted before Fluttershy realized the larger man had even moved. His hand shot up in a blur of motion, catching René’s fist far before the dagger could have touched his throat. Unbelievably, he held the knife there with utter ease; no matter how much force René put behind the blow, his hand was simply stuck in place.

“The peace of our lands has cost you your strength, my apprentice - victory has defeated you!”

The pegasus didn’t even see it coming. Nietzsche’s form blurred again, and before she knew it René was staggering backwards, a series of heavy blows sending him stumbling. The elder master had slammed his head into René’s own cranium in a furious headbutt, dazing the youth and leaving him completely open to the strikes that followed.

Nietzsche returned the backhand he had been hit with not more than a few seconds ago, sending Descartes reeling. Pressing the assault relentlessly, the master placed his hands together, uttering several dark phrases with his fingers cupped. A sphere of dark energy, tinged with a sickly purple, flared to life between his palms.

“Messatsu Gou Hadou!!!”

Nietzsche thrust his palms forward, and a staggeringly huge beam of dark purple, sizzling energy blasted forward, threatening to engulf René. Desperately, the young man raised both of his arms, crossing them in front of his face, and a triangular curtain of blackness manifested itself in front of him, blocking the path of the beam.

It might as well have not been there. The beam smashed through the barrier as though it had been made of glass, effortlessly shattering it and slamming into Descartes, its power barely diminished. The attack sent the youth flying backwards, and he sprawled out on his back, a pained gasp escaping his lips.

He recovered almost instantly - desperately thrusting a hand out at his master, René uttered a harsh, grating word that scraped painfully across Fluttershy’s eardrums like nails dragging across a board, and a wild burst of dark magic surged out from him.

Shadows sprang to life all around Nietzsche, twisting and turning into the silhouettes of wild, bloodthirsty beasts. Yet the fallen master did not react to the phantasmal shades. Even as they snapped and hissed at him, he remained stock still... until he suddenly spun around, his hand flashing out like a thunderbolt. His iron grip latched onto the single barbed tendril that had been steadily inching towards him, mere seconds away from spearing through his spine.

“Ah, I’ve taught you well, my apprentice. Theatricality and deception.” Nietzsche let out an appreciative nod, evidently impressed despite how close he had come to being dealt a crippling blow. “Powerful agents to the uninitiated... But we are initiated, aren’t we, René? Members of the Order of Koaxia!”

The master swiftly strode forward, his footsteps clanging against the walkway as he fearlessly strode through the fading illusions.  Reaching down, he wrapped his fist around Descartes’ neck, hauling the hapless young man up by his throat as he lifted him into the air. The difference in height between the two men became painfully clear - lifted up to his master’s eye level, René dangled helplessly half a foot above the floor, faintly struggling as Nietzsche stared right into his eyes, his gaze full of accusation and condemnation. “And now, you betray us!”

Nietzsche’s grip had to be crushing - René was visibly gasping for air as his face began to turn purple. Yet he still found the strength to muster a reply, barely able to speak through the chokehold his master had him trapped in.

“I betray... the fallen master that you serve!” the young man choked out, his voice nothing more than a hoarse rasp. Still the fire in his eyes did not go out; if anything, it blazed only brighter. “The master who betrayed our entire world! Everything that our ancestors fought for! Who’s the traitor now!?”

Something flashed across Nietzsche’s eyes, and they slowly clouded over in incomprehensible rage. Ruthlessly, the masked man slammed his fist into Descartes’ gut in a vicious uppercut again and again, nearly folding the young man in half with the force of his blows. The fallen master tossed aside his apprentice, and René sprawled helplessly against the railing, mere inches from falling into the abyss, groaning in pain as he clutched at his wounds.

“We are the Order of Koaxia, my apprentice, and I am here to help fulfill our Order’s glorious destiny!” Nietzsche’s grand tone of pronouncement, with his arms spread out, was at complete odds with the sheer viciousness of which he was assaulting the younger man, and René staggered to his feet, panting heavily with a pained expression.

There was absolutely no chance that the young apprentice could possibly stand against his master, that much Fluttershy could see... and yet, he never faltered, never stopped going forward.

This wasn’t a fight of student against mentor - this was a fight between everything he had been raised and taught to believe in and the dark, new direction that Nietzsche and the other fallen masters would take the Order in.

René was willing to die before he surrendered that fight to Nietzsche.

But there was only so much he could have done. As Fluttershy watched, René attempted to assault his mentor once again, rushing at him in a desperate tackle. The young man’s black eyes had taken on a dangerously reddish tint, and he charged his master to the ground, viciously raining blow after blow on his pinned opponent... but it was a futile gesture.

The very shadows around them sprang to life, wrapping immobilizing tendrils around René’s wrists. There was no mercy in Nietzsche’s movements as grabbed his apprentice by the collar and brought him down hard, slamming his head against Descartes’ in another ferocious headbutt. As the apprentice reeled backwards, the fallen master lashed out with another kick, and Descartes was thrown clear of Nietzsche by several feet, landing painfully on his back.

“Ah, I see that you are finally beginning to embrace the Satsui no Hadou - you are no longer holding anything back.” The Machiavellian approval and respect in Nietzsche’s voice was something Fluttershy was sure René was disgusted to hear.

The young apprentice was struggling to regain his feet, but apparently his injuries had taken their toll. He could manage nothing more than to prop himself up shakily on one knee, heavily leaning on to one side, while Nietzsche got up and dusted himself off, barely even fazed by the assault René had rained upon him not more than a few seconds ago. “Admirable, my apprentice... but mistaken. You are not yet ready to use it.”

The larger man took one step forward, and then Descartes made a sudden, subtle gesture with one of his hands. Abruptly, the chamber all around them was plunged into complete darkness, and Fluttershy let out a startled squeak as whatever little ambient light there was was instantly snuffed out. All around her, there was nothing that she could see, save for the telltale glint of Nietzsche’s metallic mask.

“Ohhh...” The elder master’s voice floated lazily through the darkness that blanketed the chamber, his tone contemplative. “You think darkness is your ally. True enough... but you forget one thing, my apprentice.”

The metallic glint of his mask began to move, the fallen master having began slowly stalking up and down the narrow walkway he stood upon. “You merely adopted the dark, Descartes. I was born in it. Moulded by it. I didn’t see the light until I was already a man, and by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING!”

Abruptly, Nietzsche whirled around, his body surging forward as something black shot out from the dark... and passed right through his entire being as though he was not even there at all.

There was a sudden pained gasp as Fluttershy heard the sound of something being grabbed onto. The darkness blanketing the chamber diminished, dim lights coming back to life, and the pegasus saw that Nietzsche had flawlessly grabbed onto Descartes’ throat, as though he had known exactly where the apprentice had been standing the entire time. The younger man’s eyes were wide with shock as Nietzsche drew him into another locking of stares, and the fallen master utterly crushed his pupil beneath the weight of his gaze.

“The shadows betray you because they belong to me!”

The darkness blanketing the chamber fell upon them again, until nothing could be seen, and Nietzsche’s voice rang out again with a horrible finality - a declaration of an end unlike any other.

“Isshun Sengeki - Shun Goku Satsu!!!”

From inside the darkness, movement erupted, but Fluttershy could not sense anything aside from the sound of several blows landing in rapid, terrifyingly swift succession, each accompanied by a single flash of purple light. There was a scream of pure agony from René, and the darkness abruptly dropped in a flash of power.

Everything stopped. Nietzsche stood over the fallen body of his apprentice, his back facing towards where Fluttershy watched from. Upon the back of his vest and in the air behind him, a blazing crimson symbol that she could not recognize burned with hellish intensity...

“This... is Messatsu.”

… and then the symbols both faded, and the world resumed moving. Nietzsche looked down at Descartes’ still-breathing body, and his eyes widened in mild surprise.

“Ah, so you managed a soul evacuation to survive the Instant Hell Murder?” The dark master let out a small chuckle, and he reached down with a hand to grab his apprentice by the throat again. “Impressive... but ultimately futile.”

Effortlessly, Nietzsche picked up and tossed his apprentice aside, where he landed with a painful thud at the steps leading up to the grand altar at the end of the chamber.

“It seems that merely beating you is not enough - very well then. I will show you where I have made my home, René, while preparing to bring justice to this world!” He declared, his voice resounding through the entire chamber as he strode towards the altar, casually stepping over Descartes’ fallen body before turning to face his apprentice. “And then... I will break you.”

The master of darkness thrust out an arm, his mouth moving to form syllables, and then an incomprehensible noise just hammered into her.

If the incantation Descartes had recited for his earlier spell had scraped painfully across Fluttershy’s eardrums, Nietzsche’s words were the equivalent of plunging full-on knives right into her ears. Agony exploded through her head as a horrible, twisting wave of dark power washed over her, and it was all she could do to even stay upright and not collapse on the spot.

Looking up and past the masked man, the pegasus saw that a huge oval of nothing had ripped itself open on the obsidian stones of the altar. The hole, nearly twice the size of a carriage, wasn’t so much a portal as it was an absence of reality itself.

As Fluttershy watched it tear itself wider open still, hideous creatures, not unlike the ones the Princesses had shown her, began to emerge from the portal, hauling themselves into the world with reckless abandon, baying for blood and destruction.

The demons spilled out from the portal like some hideous parody of ants pouring out of an anthill, yet they all gave Descartes and his master a wide berth, leaving the two of them undisturbed by the tide of destruction flowing out of the chamber from around them. Horrified, Fluttershy looked on as René struggled to haul himself back onto his feet to face his master again, barely managing a stand several seconds later.

Nietzsche turned around as Descartes straightened himself, and he let out a small sound as though he was being reminded of something he had just forgotten.

“Ah yes, I was wondering what would break first.” The delight in the fallen master’s voice was undeniable as he took in René’s tortured, pained expression, and the young man finally snapped as he let out an earsplitting howl of rage before hurling himself forward at Nietzsche another time, his fists swinging wildly.

It was a doomed effort from the very start. René’s movements were too sloppy, too desperate, and Nietzsche had barely even been fazed by his apprentice’s very best. The elder man contemptuously parried aside the younger’s blows, and dealt a cobra-quick strike to Descartes’ core before he could react, sending the younger man to his knees.

“Your spirit...”

Nietzsche picked up Descartes, lifting him up above his head, and Fluttershy let out a gasp as she realized with mounting horror what the fallen master was about to do.

“Or your body!”

Nietzsche brought his apprentice’s back down upon his upraised knee with enough force to elicit a sickening crack!, and Descartes’ scream of agony tore at Fluttershy’s heart like a psychic wound. The wounded youth’s body toppled to the floor, his entire lower half limp, his eyes closed, and his breathing short and sharp with pain.

“You should be proud, you know,” Nietzsche said, staring down at his fallen apprentice. “To have gotten this far fighting against me. You even survived the Shun Goku Satsu, emptying your soul against it to avoid the worst of the damage. That alone is extremely commendable. But you are merely a learner, while I am the master. There is a limit to what you can achieve, and you have reached that limit.”

The master of darkness, victor of the fight, stepped over Descartes’ fallen body, dismissing him as nothing more than a broken piece of trash, and the demons closed in on him. “Your battle ends here, René Descartes.”

A wave of desperation washed over Fluttershy. The pegasus scrambled her thoughts to find something that she could do - anything that could stop Nietzsche... and then she stopped in her tracks as she realized that Descartes’ gaze was flickering about frantically, his upper body struggling to move after his departing master, an arm reaching out uselessly after him.

It must have been René’s emotions she had just felt. Even now, a voice began to ring throughout her head, and she could hear the young man’s thoughts as clear as day.

I... can’t move my body! The young apprentice was thinking desperately, struggling to make his body move, to pursue, to do something, anything that would help him overcome the paralyzing numbness that permeated his entire lower half. Move, damnit!

Why am I here...!? Everything that my friends and I have fought for... It’s all for nothing if I lose now!

The demons closed in around him, Nietzsche strode further away, and Descartes’ eyes suddenly fell upon the portal... and came to a terrible realization.

If he was to stop his master, he would have to cross a line that he could never step back over.

But he had little other choice - if he could help save the world and his friends by doing it... so be it.

If his acceptance of the darkness would turn him into a monster... so be it.

If his turning into a monster would give him the strength he needed to make sure his friends had a fighting chance against the forces they were up against... then so be it.

Let the price he paid be worth the salvation he earned for them.

I... have to win...!

As the darkness closed in from all around him, the apprentice reached out towards the portal that was overflowing with dark, infernal ambient energy, and he drew all of it into himself, infusing every fiber of his being with its twisted, blazing power.

I... NEED TO WIN!!!

Cheh.

A black, sinewy, spiked chain, composed entirely out of shadows, suddenly wrapped itself around Nietzsche’s ankle. Startled, the fallen master stopped in his tracks, staring down at the appendage that had halted his departure.

His eyes traced the chain back to its source... and they widened in shock as they beheld the impossible sight of the apprentice crouched on the floor, with one knee down on the catwalk. The chain ended in Descartes’ right hand, and it was clutched in an impossibly firm and steady grip. 

All around him, the demons had suddenly halted, now slowly backing away from René’s crouched form... and the baleful aura of palpable menace that radiated from him. The young apprentice’s head was bowed, his dark bangs hanging over his eyes and concealing them from view. Meanwhile, a strange white substance was beginning to manifest on the left of his forehead, slowly building itself up bit by tiny bit.

Descartes opened his mouth, and the voice that issued from his lips sounded nothing like his.

“I told you before...” The voice of the mad shade that currently stood behind Fluttershy, watching the scene playing out in front of them with unabated excitement, came from René’s mouth, distorted and echoing in a strange manner so unnerving it sent shivers running down the pegasus’ spine. “It’s a little hard for me to keep on living if you go and get yourself killed on me.”

“No... this is impossible!” Fluttershy could hear the shocked horror in Nietzsche’s voice as he turned fully to face his apprentice again, and the fallen master was visibly on his guard, his crimson eyes narrowed. “Who... what are you?”

“... You’re asking me who I am?” Descartes’ lips spread into a terribly wide, malicious smile, and Fluttershy felt a mounting sense of dread building in her chest as she wondered just what the young apprentice had done to himself. “HA! Buddy, I...”

And then Descartes lifted his eyes to meet his master’s, and Fluttershy flinched back as she saw the horrors that they had become. His scleras had gone completely black, his irises blazing a bloodthirsty scarlet, and René’s characteristic scowl had been replaced with an impossibly wide, deranged grin that promised horrible, horrible agony. “... AIN’T GOT A NAME!!!”

The thing that was not Descartes lashed out before Fluttershy realized he had even moved, and there was a flash of jet. Nietzsche suddenly let out a startled grunt of pain, stumbling backwards as a massive slash wound opened itself up diagonally across his chest, his blood spraying across the floor.

As the possessed apprentice threw his head back, letting out a hair-raising, high-pitched cackle, Fluttershy was abruptly reminded of her current predicament as the shade behind her let out the exact same laugh, setting every single hair on her body ramrod straight as she felt a series of claws rake their way slowly across her back.

The pegasus froze, her entire body trembling in fear. The very last of the memory that she glimpsed was the possessed Descartes laying into the demonic horde that surrounded him, and his master, with a maddened bloodlust, tendrils of darkness whipping everywhere and leaving anything that attempted to attack him in pieces.

The last of the massacre finally winked away as oblivion reasserted itself around the mare and her captor, and Fluttershy found herself briefly wondering just which she would have preferred - to have been forced to watch that horrendous display in its entirety, or to be right here, right now, alone in the darkness with the shade that would kill her without even a moment’s notice.

"Ohhh, you would not believe how satisfying it was to finally be out of his head!” the shade laughed madly. “That bloodbath was certainly one to remember. Why, I even managed to nearly tear out that useless master’s beating heart from his body before the weakling-”

Fluttershy had heard enough. Biting back a whimper of fear, the pegasus gulped and threw herself forward, diving out from under the thing’s claws before whirling herself around to face the insane shadow - she was not going to let it out of her sight again.

“What? Getting a little too morbid for you? I got news for you, girly - that’s barely even the start of what I’m capable of!” the shadow cackled, and advanced forward a step. Fluttershy mirrored its movements, sliding backwards in response - she wasn’t going to let it get even a single inch closer to her.

“You... you monster.” The gentle pegasus, lover of all things living, let out a horrified, disgusted whisper as she met the crazed being’s stare unflinchingly. “You’re taking over his mind, his body, and using it to commit atrocities that you think are fun? How... how dare you!”

“How dare I?” The shadow let out a contemptuous snort as it took another step closer. “Bitch, the moment he let me in, his body was mine. He lacked the instinct to control me, so I became the king instead of the horse! This vessel is rightfully MINE!”

“NO. IT. ISN’T!!!” Fluttershy found her voice raising itself into a forceful yell, and strength carried her words through, each word slamming into the shadow and stopping it in its tracks. “You’re nothing more than a barbaric killer - a murderer! I saw René for who he really is, and he is nothing like you, you... demon! His body will never be yours, and neither will his mind or his soul!”

Unexpectedly, the dark figure suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh, please, don’t try to feed me that drivel, princess! I’m no demon - I’m just as much a part of Descartes as he is a part of me, no matter how he tries to reject that fact!”

Raising a hand, it pointed a clawed finger at Fluttershy, its tone mocking. “But who cares? I don’t have to explain to you anything, because as soon as I’m finished with you, you’re going to-”

- disappear.

The shadow froze. The rictus grin decorating the shade’s face abruptly vanished as that familiar, monotone voice rang through the darkness again, its words laced with outrage. Without warning, the silhouette’s left hand suddenly shot up to its face, clutching at something as though attempting to rip it off.

“W-Wait! Damn you- let go of me!” Fluttershy could only watch with wide eyes as the shadow before her suddenly convulsed and stumbled backwards, almost as if... as if it was going through some sort of internal conflict?

I don’t need you here - stop interfering! Descartes’ voice reverberated throughout her entire being with absolute authority, confirming her suspicions about the shade’s struggles - the man was attempting to take back control of himself.

“You’re the one who’s interfering!” the shadow howled as it writhed and struggled, the arm that still tugged at its face the only part that it could not control. “Don’t you get it!? I was about to kill her! You could win this if you’d just LEAVE IT TO ME!!!”

I don’t need to explain anything that I do to a murderer like you - now GET OUT!!!

The shadow was beginning to flail its other arm around uselessly, thrashing about in visible agony as whatever consciousness inhabited its body was forcibly ripped out, and its voice began to grow even higher with desperation and rage. “Damnit! DAMNIT! CURSE YOU! YOU FOOL!!!”

There was the a sudden, sickening series of cracks as Fluttershy felt something fracture, and the shadow let out an ear-splitting shriek of pain as its back arched backwards.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!” Her blood curdled as the sheer weight of its scream pierced through her ears, and there was the sound of bone shattering. The shadow’s arm ripped itself off from its face as it shrieked hideously, and, just for an instant, Fluttershy could see tiny fragments of white falling away from the shadow’s countenance.

As the last of the hideous shriek finally faded into the distance, she noticed that the silhouette’s rictus grin had completely faded. Its crimson eyes were closed, its entire frame shook and heaved with several exhausted pants, and its back was hunched with fatigue. The pegasus stood there, stock still, for several seconds, giving René’s frame a concerned look as he continued to shake in place, and she decided to take a chance.

If she could perhaps understand him better... maybe they could work out towards some sort of peaceful resolution to this entire situation.

Taking in a deep breath, Fluttershy took a step forward, her head lowered in concern. “Umm... are... are you all right, René?”

The shadow suddenly flinched, and it quickly backed away from her, its stance suddenly defensive. No... don’t call me that.

Fluttershy cocked her head at him quizzically, not understanding. “What? Why not? I mean, it’s your name, isn’t it?”

René died a long time ago. The shadow answered, his voice tinged with sorrow and regret. My name is Descartes - nothing more.

Before Fluttershy could muster a reply, Descartes’ silhouette straightened, and he inclined his head slightly towards her in a small bow. Apologies for that interruption. I had not intended for the Darkness to get in the way. Now, why don’t we continue from where we left off?

Fluttershy’s mind whirled, trying to piece together what she was seeing here. From what she had seen so far, the young man from the memories might have been a bit callous, but he was still fair and just; a far cry from the bloodthirsty murderer she had first pictured him as.

He had fought to defend what he believed in - to protect the weak and the innocent, and hadn’t even really tried to hurt her since coming into her head. He had only tried to scare her into learning some things, bringing up old and painful memories and manipulating her emotional state. But even that could be forgiven, especially when she considered what the homicidal persona he had just forcibly repressed might have done to her.

In a way... he had saved her life. That alone was already more than enough to warrant a second chance in her mind... but that didn’t mean they had to begin from where they left off.

“Actually... no,” the gentle pegasus said with a surprising amount of iron in her voice, and she firmly planted a hoof upon the nonexistent ground. “I want you to tell me, René - what are you here for? Why are you in my head trying to scare me like this?”

Those unnerving crimson eyes opened again, staring right into her soul as they narrowed into reddened slits. … I’m sorry, did I hear you correctly? Do you not realize the gravity of your situation? I believe that I hold the advantage here, and you do not even have the power to-

The figure suddenly paused, and his gaze turned curious as he realized that there was a distinct lack of frightened cowering on Fluttershy’s part. …Why? Why do you behave so? Do you not fear me?

“I can’t.” She shook her head emphatically, returning René’s gaze without hesitation. “Not after what I’ve seen. You know which memories of yours leaked out, René. I’ve seen who you are.  And you’re nothing like that horrible, dreadful monster that lurks inside you.”

Nonsense. One cannot touch the darkness without becoming a part of it. He who fights monsters should take care, lest he become a monster - for when you gaze into the abyss...

Descartes’ shadow cast an arm out to the side, and a flurrying display of whipping, dark tendrils erupted from behind him. The abyss gazes back into you. I did not take enough care with the darkness ... so I became a monster. And it is as a monster that I shall die.

The tendrils shot forward, darting towards the defenseless pegasus. Seeing her apparent death streaking towards her, the pegasus couldn’t help but flinch, but, taking in a deep breath, she decided to take a gamble.

If she was right, and what she had seen was indeed the truth... then absolutely no harm would come to her.

And if she was wrong... well, she wouldn’t be alive to regret her decision very long.

Fluttershy closed her eyes, and stood her ground, not even budging an inch.

There was a gust of wind against her face, and then... nothing. When she cracked her eyes open a second later, she saw the barbed tips of the tendrils had stopped mere inches from her heart and throat, quivering in obvious distress.

No... No, no, NO! the shadow howled, and with an anguished cry, he drew the tendrils back, returning them to the darkness. Why!? Why do you not resist!? How can you possibly be so... Do you not fear death!? 

“No... I don’t think you would do such a thing, René.” Fluttershy said with unshaken certainty, her voice gentle but firm. “You’re not a killer. Please, whatever it is you’re trying to do here... it doesn’t have to be this way. We can talk this out.”

You... René’s silhouette paused dead in its tracks, and his head shook from side to side in a vague motion, letting out something that sounded like a sigh. This... was not in the plan.

Fluttershy had to stifle a tiny giggle at the wry joke he had just unintentionally cracked, but the pegasus still smiled nonetheless. “I don’t suppose it was, was it? But it doesn’t matter at this point, hmm?”

The gentle animal lover took several steps forward, and did something completely unexpected.

She placed a hoof on the shadow’s arm, and met Descartes’ crimson gaze unhesitatingly. “René, you can talk to me. I can tell from your memories that you... you’re hurt. So very badly. Please... let me ease your pain. I can help you.”

It was true - Fluttershy had spoken those words sincerely from the bottom of her heart. She hated nothing more than to see somepony in pain and suffering, and from what she had seen in Descartes’ memories, the young man had suffered pain as few others could have possibly suffered. He had been betrayed by a teacher he practically considered his father, and had his very mind and soul fractured into two sides that constantly vied for tenuous control of his body. His emotions were already, for all intents and purposes, dead, and it tore at her to see someone in such anguish.

It didn’t matter that he was of a completely different species foreign even to Equestria - deep down, he was still a pony (person?) just like her, and he didn’t deserve to suffer needlessly like this any more than anyone else did.

But the shadow suddenly flinched away from her touch, turning away and taking several steps back. You are making a grave mistake, pegasus. Opening your heart to the darkness like this - you will find only pain and torment awaiting you. What gives you the impression that you have the strength to bear such a burden?

The pegasus could see where this was going. Descartes was trying to steer the conversation back to its earlier tangent - the tangent where he was undermining her beliefs and reminding her of her shortcomings.

She wasn’t going to let it go back there.

“Because it’s what I do,” Fluttershy emphasized. “Sometimes, all we need is to be shown a little kindness, and it makes all the difference.”

And how sure are you that what you saw was really who I am? Uncertainty crept into his voice, and it was obvious that he was trying to tenuously hold on to leverage that was rapidly slipping away. What makes you think that you know me well enough to attempt such a course? 

“You could say I have a knack for such a thing.” The animal lover smiled as she tilted her head in the direction of her cutie mark. “René, stop trying to turn this around. I know what you’re trying to do - and it’s not going to work, because you’re not like that. All those things you said earlier... you didn’t really mean them, did you?”

Descartes’ shadow looked utterly taken aback, and he blinked several times. … How did you see through it so easily?

“Like I said, I have a knack for telling how others are feeling - and what they’re really saying.” Fluttershy answered. “It’s how I’m always able to communicate so well with my animal friends. Though maybe, not so much when it comes to other ponies...”

She pawed at the ground as she bashfully admitted that particular shortcoming of hers, and she heard a tiny snort of wry laughter from the shadow. Apparently so... that fact, at least, is clear as day.

Fluttershy let out a small giggle, answering laughter with laughter, and she looked up upon Descartes’ silhouette without any fear. “René... You can drop the shadow now. There’s nothing you have to hide from me. I want to see who you really are - I mean, if that’s okay with you...”

… I do not think so. The shadow took another step back, its stance wary. The crimson slits, though not as horrifying as they had once seemed, gazed at her, distrust and doubt flickering across them. Whatever lighthearted words you use to disguise the situation, you cannot change what my presence here means. There are only two ways this night can end, and my plans have already gone plenty awry as it is.

“But René,” the pegasus pressed, “I just want to talk to you, face to face, to see who you really are under the shadows you insist on keeping around yourself. Is that really too much to ask?”

A pointless, if flattering, gesture. The shade closed its eyes, shaking its head slightly as it continued to speak. Have you forgotten where we are, little one? This is not reality; these are not our real bodies. Even if I were to disperse the dark, you would still be seeing nothing more than an incomplete representation of my mortal shell. And even if it was my body, what do you think you would learn? How tall I am? The color of my eyes? Useless, unimportant details.

A short laugh, harsh and derisive. It makes no difference what I look like, not here, not anywhere.

“You have... black eyes.” The red orbs sprang open, staring with a mixture of surprise and disbelief at the butter-yellow pegasus. “And I’d say that you were about...” Fluttershy trailed off for a bit, rubbing her chin with a forehoof as she pondered. “Five and a half, no, six feet tall?”

...A decent memory, I suppose, but like I said such trite details hardly-

“But I don’t want to know what you look like,” Fluttershy’s voice cut through the shadow’s before it could finish its thought. “I want to see how you carry yourself. I want to see the... scars, the places you’ve been hurt. I want to see the way your face changes when you talk, the way you move your hands and feet.”

There was more than a little bit of strength in the mare’s eyes as she met the silhouette’s bemused gaze. “Anypony can say anything they want when they’re hidden behind a curtain. It’s much harder to be untruthful when they’re talking face to face.”

For a moment, the shade only stood there, its crimson orbs staring into the pegasus’ insistent teal ones. Then, with a slight bow of its head, barely more than a couple centimeters, the shadow closed its eyes. Well said.

Fluttershy’s lips began to curve upwards. But not quite well enough. The blood-red eyes jolted open once again as the shadow’s voice rang out. Your observation is quite correct; it would be foolish for me to reveal myself. Even if you are not the Bearer of Honesty, I have no doubt that you would be able to see through any deception or trickery I might try to snare you in. 

“B-but I already know that you wouldn’t-”

Simply by remaining in this ill-defined form, I maintain several advantages over you, the silhouette continued as though the mare had not tried to interject. Abandoning these advantages would be pointless, earning me nothing. Retaining them, on the other hand, allows me some unique choices in the next few minutes, choices that could very well decide my success or failure.

Fluttershy tried to interrupt once more, her tone starting to become frustrated. “But there’s no reason that you’d-”

As it stands, you have no way of forcing me to comply with you, nor do I have any reason to do so. So no, do not expect me to obey you simply because you ‘want to see who I really am.’ Doing so would be-

“YOU!”

The shout tore through the shade’s words like they were nothing. Forceful, determined, and unrelenting, Fluttershy’s cry seemed to fill the air around her, charging the immediate area with some bizarre energy. Simultaneously, her eyelids spread wide open, her pupils vibrating ever so slightly as she unleashed her most fearsome weapon.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s polite to talk to somepony else face to face?! How would you like it if somepony refused to say anything to your face?! Do you think it would really very nice?! Well?! Do you?!”

Had his mind and mental fortitude not been under such an incredible pressure, Descartes would have marveled at the situation. After all, how many denizens of the Multiverse can claim to have been lectured by a pastel-colored pony for their poor manners?

As it was, however, he could feel his shadow was currently withering beneath the weight and power of her gaze, and he let out a wry smirk, finally deciding to relent.

… The measure of an individual can be difficult to discern from actions alone. Descartes spoke after a moment. Take you, for instance - I can see that you normally detest conflict, yet you display astounding strength of character when pushed to your limits or when you feel strongly about the matter. When you saw my memories, you saw something in me that made you think that I was worth trying to understand - made you willing to push for things you would never normally try for.

The shadow’s eyes met hers again, and Fluttershy saw just the subtlest twinkle of approval in them.

...I became curious to see how far you were willing to go to find me.

The darkness that covered his face and his form boiled away, tendrils of blackness unravelling themselves from his body. Soon, he stood before her, unconcealed and exposed for the first time since their meeting.

“Well... here I am.”

The kind-hearted, gentle mare’s gaze took in his appearance, and could not help but let out a quiet, horrified gasp.

Descartes’ past had not been kind to him. In the wake of whatever his world had brought him after his confrontation with his master, his countenance had grown even more worn and weathered. Pronounced lines marred the troughs beneath his eyes, and another vicious scar had been added to the one that already ran across his nose, this one running horizontally across his forehead like a savage mark.

A familiar black cloak concealed the rest of his body from view, and though he could not have been any older than a man in his prime, he looked as though he was twenty years older.

His hair, black as a raven’s feathers, had grown even longer. His bangs hung low enough to conceal his eyes, framing his visage with a curtain of ebony, while the rest of his hair had been tied into a low ponytail that reached his upper back. However, the it was his eyes that left the greatest impression upon Fluttershy.

His gaze... with those crimson orbs, it was just so intense.

“So... you manipulated me into pushing you that way?” she ventured hesitantly, the strength of her Stare fading away as her voice grew confused. “But... why would you do that? And how did you know I was going to push you so hard?”

The scarred man smirked. “I didn’t. At least, not until your gaze met with mine again, and I saw your true strength as our minds met. That was why I did it. You are... much more powerful than you realize.”

“Oh... Umm... Thank you, I suppose?” The pegasus let out a bashful smile, averting her eyes. “It’s... It’s the first time that somepony’s ever actually called me strong. I’ve always lived my life believing that I was weak and helpless.”

Descartes let out a harsh bark of mirthless laughter. “Believe me... You would not have been chosen to be an heir to our legacy along with your friends if you were, as you say, ‘weak and helpless’. That is the reason I am here - to determine your worthiness.”

“I was... chosen?” Fluttershy’s eyes widened in surprise, and she began to shake her head. “Ohh, no no no no! I couldn’t possibly- I mean, there has to be somepony else more suitable, I mean, I’m just little old me, I really couldn’t-”

A scarred, weathered hand suddenly came up, stopping her speech in her tracks. “That is exactly what I mean. Did I not say that you are stronger than you think you are? You give yourself far too little credit... Your strength might be all that will help hold the coming darkness at bay.”

Descartes’ words hit Fluttershy like a proverbial train, and her eyes widened as she realized what the black-clad human had been speaking of.

The meeting with Celestia, the revealing of Equestria’s true, bloodied history, what they had learned of the monsters that lurked beyond their world... Everything flashed through her mind in an instant, and she understood why Descartes was here.

“... You’re not referring to the darkness inside you,” the pegasus breathed out in realization. “You’re referring to the demons of the Nether.”

Unexpectedly, Descartes closed his eyes, turning away from her to face the blank wall of oblivion to the side. He let out a small, pained sigh before replying. “... So you’ve heard of them.

“To have knowledge of the demons would mean that your world has had experience with exploration into the Nether.” His voice was low, frustrated. “A dangerous notion. The Legion could have attempted to place its roots into your world... No world has ever survived an incursion from the legions of Chaos itself.”

“They told my friends and me it was impossible to stop Discord too.”

Descartes let out a wry smirk, giving the pegasus a knowing look. “A fair point. Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Changeling Queen... You and your friends have already made careers out of performing great and incredible feats.”

His eyes returned to contemplating the empty abyss before him, closing them for a moment before opening again. When Fluttershy walked around to take a clearer look at his face, she realize just how heavy his expression had grown.

“... This was to be my last battle.” Descartes’ gaze, which had been staring off into the distance, turned slightly in her direction.

“… I’m dying. All of my comrades are.”

“What!?” The pegasus let out a shocked gasp. “I didn’t know you were- Is there that anything we can do?”

“Giving me this opportunity is enough,” Descartes said with a curt nod, not meeting Fluttershy’s eyes.

“Low survival odds don’t concern me,” the man continued before Fluttershy could even get a word in edgewise. “The destruction of your world, and countless others, at the hands of the Legion does. The universe is a dark place...”

His eyes fell down to his hand as he raised it up, and his crimson gaze changed as his eyes slowly faded to a dull onyx. “I’m trying to make it brighter before I die.”

Descartes smirked, and he let out a bitter chuckle. “Ironic, isn’t it? That the very Avatar of Darkness itself would be fighting to make the universe a brighter place.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.” Fluttershy’s voice came soothingly as she placed a comforting hoof on his arm. “I think you’re doing a very noble thing... And you’re not one of the bad guys. I know that now. Just because your powers are of the night doesn’t mean that you’re evil.”

“If I’m not, then explain my inner demon.” René laughed bitterly. “He came about because I gave him the power and strength needed for him to gain sentience, rather than just serve as a subconscious manifestation of my instincts. And because of that, any time I lose control, even for a second, he comes out and begins to threaten everything around me. He is a fundamental part of who I am... so if he is evil, then what am I?”

The man’s eyes closed, and the gentle-hearted pegasus could see just how pained his expression was. “The first time he took control of my body... It wasn’t only the demons and my master that he killed. He rampaged out of my master’s sanctum and tore through the town to where my comrades were fighting against the other fallen masters. In order to get there, he...”

Descartes let out a breath - a shaky breath, Fluttershy realized with a shock - and he continued. “Many innocents died that day, thanks to him. I wasn’t strong enough to keep his power under control. I have to atone for that.”

“But... how are you going to do that?” Fluttershy shook her head, uncomprehending. “You said that you were... dying...”

“Indeed...” René murmured. “My comrades and I are not long for this world. The ways we were forced to inherit our mantles from our masters... The inheritance rituals were botched. Improper. Some were passed to us with their final, dying breaths. Others had to be forcibly taken from their maddened, corrupted hands. We received the entirety of their powers at once, and our bodies could not handle the sheer amount of energy without something giving way. Our magic circuits now constantly burn with their power... and given enough time, our bodies will burn out from the inside, the legacy of the Order dying out with us.”

The man’s onyx gaze suddenly turned to her, boring into her eyes with unbearable intensity. “Which is why we needed to seek out heirs. Individuals worthy of passing the mantle on to with the proper procedures, so that they would be able to handle the power they inherited without their bodies burning out. We roamed the Nether for several years in a race against time, on the run from the Legion as our world burned, and we visited several worlds in search of worthy successors. None showed as much promise as yours did.”

“So... you want us to take up the fight against the demons in your place?” Fluttershy said uncertainly. René’s only answer was a firm nod.

That was when Fluttershy realized something was different inside her.

She felt no fear.

Descartes had come from a world that had been all but destroyed by the demons. He and his friends were on the run from a force that could lay waste to entire planes, and they were desperately searching for a way to continue their fight against the Legion. She and her friends had been chosen as the heirs to their legacy, to continue the fight against the Legion... and Fluttershy felt no fear.

She knew she had to do.

She could never fully understand how Descartes must have felt in his current situation. Cornered, on the run, out of choices and out of time... Fluttershy could only empathize with how desperate René must have been. To be in such a predicament... the pegasus wished that she could somehow alleviate his pain.

So she did the only thing she knew how to.

She stepped up to Descartes and laid her hoof upon his hand. “Then I accept. If it means easing your pain, and helping you and your friends fight back against the demons, then I would gladly accept your power in your place.”

The man’s eyes widened, and he stared at Fluttershy as though she had gone stark raving mad. “You... You really do mean that, don’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Fluttershy cocked her head at him quizzically. “Why would I bother saying such a thing if I didn’t mean it?”

Descartes blinked, and then a tiny grin broke out across his face as he shook his head. “I do not know whether to think you are insanely brilliant, or incredibly ignorant. To let the darkness into yourself just like that... You are certainly unlike anyone else I have ever met.”

“Yeah, I get that sometimes.” The pegasus giggled. “I was already an oddity for a pony, much less a pegasus... I’m used to it.”

“Do you realize what you are about to do?” Descartes’ voice grew grave. “You are about to take in a source of power that could drive you insane if you don’t know how to control it. Your instincts will run wild, and your deepest, darkest aspects will be brought fully out into the light.” 

“I can handle it.” Fluttershy found herself speaking with a surprising amount of conviction. “As long as it means easing another’s pain, I would gladly take on any burden. That’s what kindness is all about - giving selflessly to help others.”

Descartes stared at her, his eyes narrowing as though he was trying to understand something. A few seconds later, they widened in sudden comprehension, and a few half-hearted chuckles escaped their owner’s lips. “I see... So perhaps I had been mistaken all this time...”

The man held up one of his hands as blackness began to envelope it - pale skin shifted into an abyss of pure darkness as wisps of dark purple energy began to rise from the limb. Taking a deep breath, Descartes straightened his hand into a stiff-fingered shovel, sharpening its tip.

“I have struggled for years to control my demon, to wrest it under control through discipline and force of will,” Descartes remarked as he absently inspected the blade. “It is one thing to be able to stare down others, but when the enemy is yourself... Perhaps you will be able to succeed where I failed.

“Once you take up this power, you can never go back.” His gaze met hers with absolute seriousness as he held up his wickedly sharp limb. “You will eventually have to face horrors unlike anything you have seen in your world, and you will be one of the only few who will be able to stop them. Are you certain you wish to take up this power?”

“Without a doubt.” Fluttershy nodded resolutely. “If there was anything that I could do to help, I couldn’t not do it.”

“Very well then...” Power welled up from around Descartes as an invisible wind began to blow about the area, and Fluttershy found herself shivering from non-existent cold. “Fluttershy Loveheart, chosen inheritor of the mantle of the East Abyss... I, René Descartes of the Order of Koaxia, hereby pronounce you as my heir!”

He raised his hand into the air, and a wave of power exploded from him, its sheer pressure nearly forcing Fluttershy to her knees. A voice issued unbidden from the man’s lips, and the pegasus realized that she could not recognize it.

“Ensnare... Mateus, the Corrupt.”

And then she saw it again.

The long, spindly, white figure that she had glimpsed when she first hit Descartes with the Stare. It hung over René’s frame, floating behind him like a ghastly silhouette and raising the blackened, winding staff that it held in its right hand in a posture that mirrored Descartes’.

The sheer amount of power she felt pressing down on her could no longer be withstood - Fluttershy collapsed to her knees as Descartes took several steps closer. She began trembling out of pure instinct, trying to bite back whimpers that threatened to break free.

No, she had chosen to do this. She wasn’t going to back out now!

The pegasus mare looked up into Descartes’ onyx eyes as he stepped in front of her, his blade raised high, and she saw everything reflected in them - his ideals and beliefs, his crushed hopes and dreams, the bitter cynicism that he held onto as a defence, everything that made Descartes who he was. Everything was revealed in that single moment where the two souls met, and Fluttershy swore to herself that she would never forget this moment for as long as she lived.

This was where Descartes would entrust his memory, his legacy, his entire existence, to her... she was not going to let him down.

“I will have to apologize for what comes next, Fluttershy...” René murmured softly, and she could have sworn that she could hear anguish in his voice as he gently placed a hand under her chin, his eyes meeting hers with a gaze filled with sorrow and regret. “This... will probably hurt a lot.”

Then the blade came down, and Fluttershy felt a thin lance of biting, icy cold pierce through her very heart. Agony exploded through every fibre of her being as her very soul screamed out in pain...

And everything went black.





As the sun rose that morning, the veil of darkness that had fallen over the forest-side cottage finally lifted, dissipating into the air like smoke on the wind. The promising rays of dawn brought with them the light of a new day, and the animal residents of the cottage slowly woke, lazily brushing off the aftereffects of a good night’s rest and stretching sleeping, stiff muscles.

Sifting through the curtained blinds of Fluttershy’s windows, the dawn’s rays reached the pegasus as the sun rose, slowly bringing her into the light... and revealing her blank, staring eyes, a flicker of crimson flitting through their teal layers.





Miles away, in a clearing somewhere in the Everfree, a man with raven hair, wearing a cloak of the blackest night, lay on his back. The sun’s beams glared down harshly upon his scarred countenance... and yet his eyes continued staring blankly at the sky, his onyx irises empty and lifeless.

Yet, despite his apparent death, he lay in a gentle repose, a relieved, satisfied smile proudly displayed upon his face. His expression was one of peace, belonging to one who had, after an entire life of strife and conflict, had gone on to his final, well-earned rest.

The body lay there for several minutes, undisturbed by plants or wildlife. Soon, footsteps rustled through the grass as a pair figures approached the prone corpse. As they drew close to him, one of the figures knelt and passed a hand over his face, closing his eyes.

“Rest in peace, friend...” A red coat momentarily obscured Descartes’ face as the newcomer made a gesture. A flash of light sprang to life, and a burst of heat blossomed forth. “Creator knows you’ve done enough for us to last for several lifetimes...”

The figure turned and stepped back, his handiwork crackling behind him. Within seconds Descartes’ body had been consumed in a funeral pyre, a flaming sword floating over the corpse before being extinguished and dismissed. Turning to face his companion, the first man gave the second a hard look.

“You know what you have to do. You were always so impatient to get a move on - well, now’s your chance.”

“Yeah...” the second muttered half-heartedly. “... You know... it kinda sucked to see him go.”

“... We don’t have much choice in this matter, do we?” The first’s voice grew hard. “You know your mission - now get to it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get ya,” the second muttered irritatedly. “Don’t get your undies in a bunch, geez. And don’t worry about those incursions either - I’ve got it covered.”

There was an abrupt swish of movement, and the figure disappeared in a swirl of brown and forest-green. The first man followed his departure with his eyes, and let out a tired sigh.

“It’s all coming together...” he muttered to himself. “So then, Gaius, why do I feel like this is but the calm before the storm?”

While his eyes were closed, his other senses were still sharpened and on the lookout. Pensively, he considered the several dozen dark, malevolent, and foreign presences that he felt lurking about the forest... presences that were absolutely nothing like Descartes’.