//------------------------------// // Ready or not, Here comes Zero! // Story: A Matter of Darkness // by Uberdeathninja //------------------------------// Later, that morning Celestia watched the skies fervently for any sign of the dark sphere she saw last night, scanning vigilantly for anything like it. When she told Luna, her sister agreed to help find this evil, as she had felt it as well last night. As she and Luna watched the sky, Twilight and her friends agreed to watch over Ponyville for anything suspicious, in case it should try to deceive them somehow. However, they need not have worried about that so much, for Celestia soon saw what they were facing: Up in the sky, descended from the heavens above themselves, a great, black sphere had appeared, and was now rocketing toward the ground at incredible speed, almost too fast to track, though no disturbance in the air appeared around it, as if the sphere itself was non-material. Celestia and Luna watched the object closely for a minute, but as it neared the surface of the planet, the giant, black object suddenly stopped close to the ground, but still so far away, and then opened a great, big, blood-red eye. The eye, which looked like it was literally made of blood and disturbed the sisters slightly, then began to twitch and move, seeming to search for something with great intensity. As the thing moved its pupil from side to side quickly, overlooking the land below itself, it finally locked its vigilant gaze right onto Celestia and Luna with deathly precision, despite the fact that it was thousands of miles away, and couldn't possibly have seen the two from where it was. Even so, it merely stared at the sisters unblinkingly, unnerving them to no end. Then, finally, it closed the bloody eye, and exploded. Literally, the thing exploded into trillions upon trillions of little black specks, leaving only a white... something, at the epicenter, simply left to hover there in mid-air. Before Celestia or Luna could get a better look at the white remains of the invader, however, a black object originally from the original colossal sphere crashed into the balcony they stood on, and as the sisters regained their composure, the odd figure slowly rose from the dust and rubble it threw upwards, revealing a cape and pauldrons, set on an oblong body with a spiky head and single, orange eye, which was covered with an armored visor. Before Celestia or Luna could question the strange being, however, the creature, without any means of doing so, pulled a sword from its back and flourished it with the skill and speed of a well-trained swordsman, despite a lack of appendages with which to do this. The sisters were stunned briefly by the sudden, skillful display, but they quickly disposed of their curiosity and took an offensive stance, just as the creature leaped at them with astonishing speed, striking with a flurry of blows the sisters had to strain to dodge, even barely. Neither sister could comprehend how the thing they faced was doing this, and they never managed to get a hit on it either, as it either dodged, parried, or deflected every attack they threw at it. At last, though, Celestia finally got a hit on it as she cast a magic bolt at the oblong creature's blindside, causing it to stagger, and her sister then bucked the thing in its abdomen, sending it flying into a wall. The odd, knight-like creature appeared stunned for a moment, giving the two royal sisters time to breathe, but their victory was short-lived as the creature got up without even wincing and continued it's assault on the two, this time with doubled fury and determination, its eyes blazing with internal fire and an obvious desire to kill. Whatever this thing was, they had just pissed it off, big time. Suddenly, as Celestia was busy dodging sword blows, a letter appeared in front of her face. And just as well, for the creature had just then turned its murderous attention to her poor sister, who was now straining to not get impaled by the strange, dark warrior. Seeing little time left to waste on the reading of the intrusive parchment, Celestia then quickly opened and read the short-but-important letter from her student-turned princess, Twilight Sparkle, with great haste: "Dear Princess Celestia: HELP!!!!! Sincerely, your endangered but faithful former student, Twilight Sparkle." Seeing that the letter was quite short, Celestia took this fact as a matter of great import. Using the time her sister was buying her, she quickly wrote up a letter to Twilight in turn, sent it, and then blasted the creature that was assaulting her sister with a beam of solar energy as it tried to decapitate Luna. At first, though, the attack seemed to only faze the creature, as it returned to its original stance not a moment later, but as Celestia watched the creature get up, she then realized that the beam attack must have really hurt it, because it really made it mad. The thing, upon recovering, shook with frustration, its already hateful glare becoming deeper and more sinister, and it then charged the Princess of the Sun, striking impossibly fast, and with impossible rage, leaving her with only moments to speak to her sister as the angry, oval-shaped creature tried to mince her. "Go, Luna! Go help Twilight! I'll hold this thing off!" Shouted Celestia as she dodged blow after vicious blow from the armored creature. Luna was about to protest, but a stressed look from her sister quickly convinced her otherwise, and the princess of the night then spread her wings and took off to head off for Ponyville. The dark, armored creature, obviously fed up with Celestia, tried to intercept Luna, but Celestia cut it off, inciting a shocked expression from the formerly-angry warrior. Now, it was her turn to play powerhouse, and with a twisted smile on her face and a crackof her neck, the princess of the sun hapilly began, much to the knight's dismay. Meanwhile, Zero looked on as the battle between his single Dark Matter Knight and the supposed rulers of this world dragged on seemingly forever, boring him to bloody tears. But soon, excitement finally occurred in the midst of the inconsistent invasion when, suddenly, the dark blue princess sped off from the fight, leaving the tall, white one to beat up his poor knight, who was clearly losing, having lost the element of surprise. That simply wouldn't do for Zero, so he decided to follow the blue princess, and see where she was off to in such a hurry, if only to stop whatever plan was in motion. And after a moment of thought, Zero decided it would be better than doing nothing, so he shot off after the princess, in hopes of shooting her down before she reached her destination. Unfortunately, the princess saw the massive ball of anger tilt her way and give chase, and obviously terrified by his appearance, she had sped up in an effort to lose him, to what little avail that would accomplish. This mildly annoyed Zero, however, so he put his full effort into getting ahead of her, which wasn't very hard, as she wasn't very fast, and just as he was right in front of her, he stopped, causing the alicorn to solidly smack right into his impervious body, and fall to the ground, unconscious. The sight of one princess going down filled him a little more with hope, and he turned about, and continued toward a small hamlet that his Dark Matter were currently laying siege to in only partial force. Maybe here, perhaps, he would find a better challenge to his obvious superiority... or maybe not. Nonetheless, Zero would no doubt find out soon enough. Meanwhile, in Ponyville: "Keep moving! We've got them on the run!" Twilight shouted to her friends as she loosed another bolt of magic at the creatures that were attacking her town, destroying everything in sight. Twilight and her friends were currently fending off wave after wave of black, gold-petaled, spherical creatures that were actively destroying everything they saw, and causing panic wherever they went, and she was positive that they were likely the evil Celestia spoke of. In her mind, these monstrosities, whatever they were, had to be infinitely worse than both the changelings and the parasprites combined; at least those two started out harmless. These things, however, came from the sky en masse early that morning, and immediately began wrecking everything in they could get their nonexistent hands on as soon as they landed, and then started searching for more stuff to break after they'd destroyed everything in the immediate area. Worse yet, they were almost impossible to get rid of, and the swordsmen were the worst, as they could just parry or deflect everything the girls threw at them. Still, they were beating the creatures back somehow, and Celestia had thankfully wrote that help was on the way. Maybe this wouldn't be a catastrophe after all? Oh, how wrong she was. Just as Twilight finished her thought, the creatures stopped, stared at the sky, and began to back away slowly, though the gesture seemed to be more out of respect than fear. Still, thinking that their reinforcements had arrived, the six looked at where the Dark Matter were looking, only to be greeted by the weirdest thing they had ever laid their eyes on since Discord himself... ...In the sky, hovering over them, was a giant, white sphere, with a little stubby tail, a large, golden halo, and two tiny, white wings floating by its sides, and the dark matter all proceeded to back away from it, almost in reverence, despite how harmless it first appeared. "What in the..?" Twilight could only say as she stared at the object, which bore an open smile and two black, beady eyes. Little did they know however, that this would be their greatest enemy yet; the destroyer of happiness, and eliminator of dreams... Zero Two had come at last... and this world was certainly not prepared.