//------------------------------//
// Fading of Light 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Fall of Heroes 
// by Light Guardian 
//------------------------------//

“And with you dies the last of your miserable kind,” the figure pronounced before the masses of dark twisted creatures that had presumably once been Zebras. 

The shadowy group remained silent, simply staring at me with their demonic eyes. At that moment all that could be heard was the gentle whisper of the wind and my own ragged breathing. I laid on the ground, wounded almost to the point of death. Around me the corpses of my allies, my friends, laid. Most of them looked how one would usually envision something dead to look: eyes and mouth closed, limbs limp and  buckled under the body, and the head down. One, however, was different. Her eyes and mouth were opened agap and her right hoof extended forward towards me. It was as if this lifeless husk was still calling out for help from the grave. Those pleading open eyes begged for a life to be spared, a life that had already been snuffed out. There was no life left here, only the dead and the shadows. 

I had already refused to join the shadows long ago, so the only option left was to join the dead. The cool sticky crimson flowing steadily out of the gash in my side told me that my time among the living was soon to end. At first the wound had burned like fire, but now all I felt was cold. 

“You thought you could make a difference, change the world. You believed you could bring back the foundations of a long dead nation and redeem your pathetic race. In the end all you've proven is that the grave is the only place for you kind. Love, tolerance, friendship, all these ideals you uphold are what made your kind weak. Order can only be maintained through absolute control, not faith in others. Faith is what destroyed two of the greatest nations this world ever knew. Equestria and the Zebra Nation co-existed having faith that the other nation would never dare do it harm. The shattering of this faith destroyed the world,” the figure said. His voice, like everything else about him, was dark and carried a sense of authority. “In the end both your race and my race, your nation and my nation, failed because of faith. My kind however thrives while your’s is all but extinct. 

“My kind?” I asked in a manner that I had hoped would seem assertive, however the shaky and quiet tone of the  words that left my lips only gave a frail impression to my aggressors. 

The lead figure chuckled in his trademark dark tone before he began to address me again. 

“Your confusion only confirms your inferiority. If you do not know your kind, then you do not know why you fight. This is no longer a war between nations, as the age of nations passed long ago.”

“I know why I fight,” I retorted weakly. 

“Oh, and why is that? Why do you fight? Is it because you believe you can bring back what is lost? Is it because you believed you thought you could make a difference?” 

The figure now was slowly circling my broken body at a steady pace. He hissed his words at me, but it was obvious that he was ensuring they came out at a volume that could be heard by his company. He wanted them to witness this. He wanted them to remember me, they’d most likely be the only ones who would after this. The funny thing was that until the battle with these things a few minutes ago, I had never seen nor heard of this mysterious group. After the battle I still knew so little about these creatures. All I knew was that they had killed my allies, a group that had survived many hardships and overcome many great foes with relative ease. Thinking about my lack of knowledge on these beings made me want to know the answer to one simple question.

“Why?” I asked in my diminishing strength. 

A smile formed on the foul head figures lips, indicating he found some kind of sick satisfaction in my question. 

“Why? Why? Yes, why? Oh poor pony,” the figure mockingly cooed, “you don’t know anything about the war you just lost, do you?”

War, what war? I had fought in many battles against many armies but none of these ever really struck me as being part of a war. Either this figure knew something that I didn’t or he was a sick being that was demented to the point of loving to cause death and confusion; my bet was on some combination of the two. 

“Even in your weary eyes I can see your confusion. You truly don’t know what you were fighting for, what side you chose to represent. I figured as much, few do know what side they are on in this conflict, especially those on the side you serve. Only one ever truly knew his place as my enemy, but he was taken care of long ago. Still for idiots who lack the simple knowledge of what side they are on, your kind has always been very good at impeding our progress. I’m surprised  that it took so long to cut your kind all down until it was only you who remained.”

My breathing was becoming shallow and the cold I had felt moments ago was replaced by total numbness. It wouldn't be long before I met death. Despite my body’s desire to simply shut down and die, my mind burned with anger and questions. There was no way I was dying now, not until I got some answers!

“What kind? What side? What war? Tell me!,” I demanded in a tone that betrayed my pre-mortem state.

The figure was caught off guard by my outburst and raised volume but rather than a look of shock, he seemed intrigued. 

“Oh how ironic it is that your kind has a tendency to show strength in the face of death, when death is not one who honors strength. You seek answers and I see no reason to withhold such from you, seeing as you won't be around to ponder them much longer anyhow.” 

The figure paused and looked up to the black of the night sky before continuing while maintaining his gaze upon the dark void of space.

“Your kind is heroes and you serve the side of light. We are the masters of darkness and we have existed for far longer than even the nation of Equestria. Light and dark have been at war for far too long, we cannot co-exist. One must remain and the other must fade. Darkness cannot fade, only light can. You heroes have only been delaying the inevitable! You may have survived the war, the hatred, the chaos, the eternal night, the return, the war,  the invasion, the shadows, the end, the wastes, and even the disease, but tonight the light fades at long last!”

With that something sharp pierced through my heart. I took one last painful breath and then went limp. I, the last hero, finally had succumbed to death and nothing was left to stop the darkness.