//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Shadowed Equestria // by ZedarShadow //------------------------------// Everything was swirling and nauseating when my eyes opened. I couldn’t move my body, or, at least, I couldn’t control it. “Sedar?” I spoke; the word’s feeling like mud in my mouth. A groan came from out of nowhere, and then the demon materialized in the air above me. “Ugh…those dimension jumps are really starting to annoy the hell out of me.” He said. That’s when I noticed something odd. “Why are you in wolf form?” I asked, my head still spinning. Sedar looked puzzled as he looked down at his now animalistic body, his ears and snout moving along with its cold eyes. True, he ‘naturally’ looked slightly Lycan anyway, but he didn’t stay in animal form for long. “I have no idea… do you think this is one of those animal dimensions?” he stared back at me. I gave a shrug, well, tried to; my body was still numb, “I have no idea, what do I look like?” His eyes flash in realization to not having noticed before. He went silent, his eyes darting all around, and finally he responded, “I think…that you’re a horse?” I tried to get up, falling quickly. I then tried to grab a hold of the floor, but I couldn't grab anything, "Shit....no fingers." I mumbled as I looked down at the stumpy, round, replacements for my hands. "Really hate it when I don't even have claws." I mumbled. "Can't say the same." Sedar chuckled lightly. Continuing my self-survey, I did indeed notice I looked like a horse, but smaller. I had short gray hairs covering my new legs, both front and behind. I even had a black tail with random white stripes, not too weird with my history. ‘Regal, any idea where we are?’ I thought. No response. ‘Harmony? Deception?’ I asked, gaining no reply. "I'm not sensing them, or the others." Sedar said, reading my mind. "Damn...are the others here?" I asked, "Mirari! Zurc! Steve!" I called out, managing to get onto my four legs. "Don't think they're here." Sedar replied. "Actually...." The thought was already in my head, a slight bonus for having demons exist within me, "I don't remember anything about switching realities either." I spoke, finishing his thought. I didn't like any of this, normally when I'd go into another dimension, I was the one causing it; and even if it wasn't me, I would at least retain my memory of the shift. "The Key!" I exclaimed suddenly, "W-where is it?!" I stumbled around, looking at the floor, and then I fell. The Key was both a cheat sheet and a guide to whichever universe I was in; in some cases it even allowed one to modify dimensions. The trouble that little device of chaos could, and has caused is ridiculous. "Shit!" I exclaimed, "Shit, shit, shit!" "Hey! Cool it!" Sedar said, moving in front of my face, the familiar smoke/shadow-shift affect trailing him. "Just use the shadows to find it." He had a point, using my attributes would be better than having a panic attack. So I stood on all fours, took a calming breath, and just focused on the coolness of the surrounding shadows. …Nothing. I felt my sanity start to slip ever so slightly, one thing that’s happened to me more times than I could ever blink. My powers would become bipolar in unfamiliar dimensions, sometimes causing me to have the abilities of a rookie Elementalist, other times they were completely void in a reality. I tried everything; fire, water, air, earth, mirror, lightning, iron, nature, ice, nothing. I only got a slight effect from the neutral element before starting to feel completely drained. “Well….that’s a bummer.” Sedar sighed, “No allies, memories, elements, Key, or Demons. We’re fucked my friend; defenseless yet again in another strange world.” “Shut it, let’s just try and see if we can morph, otherwise we will be completely defenseless.” He shrugged, only his upper torso was solid now; he was floating in a mist of shadows. “Wait, how can you—” I started to ask. A large sound erupted around us. Having been in enough situations to know that any unknown sound has a 99% chance of being something meant to kill me, I tensed up and tried to take a decent fighting stance. It was only now that I noticed we were in a forest, and quite a colorful yet creepy one at that. The trees were all an over-the-top style with weirdly shaped branches in leaves, the floor seemed to be have been traveled on lightly, and I could hear faint sounds of animals and insects. BAM! Another sound came from a distance, I couldn’t tell from where though. “Do you think it’s the Shades?” Sedar asked, we're back to back…..or as best as we could. I shook my head, “They don’t use explosives and I don’t sense any Aura being used.” “Pfft, I don’t think we can count on your patented creeper-sense, what with everything else going haywire.” I started growling at him when a loud ‘POP!’ accompanied with a flash of colorful light came from our left. “There!” I exclaimed, starting to run towards it before I fell clumsily to the floor. “Nice.” Sedar chuckled as I got back up and continued through the forest, slightly slower this time. Not long after, we entered a clearing, and to my surprise there was a large tree in the center that reminded me of the tree those Cookie making elves live in, albeit with a more twisted, droopy, and tribal theme. “Well that looks promising.” Sedar said, slightly surprised. Another flash and more noise came from the tree-house, its glassless windows lighting up. I thought I heard voices inside it. As I rushed towards the house, Sedar floating lazily near me, the wooden door burst open and a black shape bolted outside; the mask that adorned the door flying off. “Why you! Get back here!” I heard a female voice exclaim, right before a blue shape darted after the first one. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing things, but I swear that a rainbow was trailing the blue shape. “You get ‘em Dash!” came another voice, this one a higher pitch. “Ohh, please do! Please keep that thing away from my hair!” another new voice chimed in. I looked above to see what the black and blue objects were, but I slightly froze once I saw blue wings. On a horse. A blue horse with wings and rainbow colored hair. Actually…..it looked like a pony. “N-no….” I stuttered. “Gimme a break will ya?” the blue, winged, rainbow pony exclaimed back towards the door, “I’m trying to catch it, what do you think I want to do, give it a hug?” “Well… um….a hug could be what it wants.” A different, softer voice said; I’d barely heard it at all. The flying pony grumbled and continued its mad dash for the black object. I couldn’t tell what it was, it was too blurred. But I could definitely tell that it was holding something; there was a slight glimmer here and there when it tried to avoid the blue pony. “We must stop this blurring foe. But where it comes from I do not know!” an accented voice said, appearing in front of the door as a black and white pony…..or…. a zebra? “Quick, Rainbow Dash, lure it over here!” a purple pony yelled, following the zebra out the door. “You got it Twi!” the flying pony responded, spinning around the object in a colorful whirlwind until it made a dash for the purple pony. In an instance, the purple pony’s forehead glowed, and a bright stream of energy shot out and hit the black object. It wasn’t until a fraction of a second later that I realized the damn thing was headed right towards me. After the flash of the impact, I shook the unconscious thing off of me. It was about my size, or at least the blue pony’s size. It looked like a black fox with red teeth, a snake like tail with black fur on the sides, and long, bat-like wings. I didn’t recognize the damn thing, but it felt eerily familiar, not in form but in energy. “Hey Sedar...” I began dizzily. He nodded, “That for sure feels Aurical.” He confirmed my suspicion; this thing must’ve followed, or even pulled, me into this dimension. I was going to ask him another question when he suddenly materialized his hind legs and stood next to me. “Whoa, are you okay?” the flying pony landed next to my uncomfortably laid out body. As I struggled to my feet—hooves I guess, I replied, “Yeah, I’ve been hit a lot harder.” “Good to know.” She eyed us suspiciously, “You’re not from around here, are you? Most of the local ponies tend stay out of the Everfree forest.” Her gaze lingered on Sedar, her body taking what looked like a defensive stance. He just glared back. “Well, not exactly.” I said, though it sounded more like a question. She looked like she was going to do something, but the two that were outside appeared; I also noted that there were more figures leaving the cottage. “That creature caused quite some trouble.” The zebra sighed, “I am glad it did not turn my home into rubble!” “Yeah Zecora,” the purple pony was standing right next to her, It was only now that I noted the horn on its head and the wings on its back, “But what is it and where did it come from?” “I don’t care,” the blue pony cut in, “But that thing tried to take your crown, so It’s probably up to no good.” She steadily moved past Sedar and towards the creature’s mouth and pulled out a golden tiara with a purple gemstone in it, something I hadn’t noticed before, “Here” She tossed it to her. A light-purple light enveloped the tiara in midair, the creatures slobber dripping off of it, “Thanks,” she replied hesitantly, it was only now that she noticed us. As the other figures joined us, one of them spoke, "Did you catch it?" It came from a white pony with a horn and shiny purple hair. "Yes." Replied the purple pony, "Though it sort of crashed into him." She nudged her muzzle in my direction. "Oh thank goodness! I just had my hair done today and—” she looked at me now, “You poor darling, your hair!" the white one exclaimed, "I couldn't imagine having to deal with a face-to-face collision with that!" She pointed to the creature. As she did, a yellow figure with pink hair popped its head from behind, and once seeing the sleeping beast, it fainted. “Uh oh!” a pink pony bounced into my view, “Fluttershy fainted!” she giggled, “I can’t blame her though, that sure was exciting.” I was just stunned at what I was seeing, there was no way that this could actually be happening. True, I’ve been into other dimensions that had connections to pop culture, but the odds of ending up here? I was slightly gawking when I realized that something was happening. “It moved!” the rainbow one shouted. And in an instant, the fox-thing bolted towards the unicorn with the crown. Somehow finding some of my strength, I dashed in front of her and talked the thing as hard as I could, getting knocked down yet again in the process. Much to everyone’s surprise, mine especially, the creature burst into a black mist after running into me. I heard Sedar growl once he saw once happened, and he had good reason to. “What was that?” the unicorn exclaimed, looking down at me cautiously. I couldn’t help but feel all of the others start staring at me. “Nothing good.” Sedar answered, the others changing their gaze from me to him, “Angel, I think it’s best we leave.” As he walked towards me, the blue Pegasus zipped in front of his path, “Oh, I don’t think so! I’m not letting some weird wolf near my friends and this new pony after what just happened.” Sedar leaned in close to her and growled, his sharp teeth showing; the Pegasus didn’t look like she was going to back down. “Rainbow Dash!” the purple unicorn yelled as she helped me up, “If this stallion just about risked his life for me, we can be assured that he and his friend can be trusted, especially if they know something about why that thing tried to steal my Element of Harmony.” The Pegasus groaned and stepped away from Sedar, who now had a cocky smile on. As Sedar made his way next to me, the unicorn turned to me, the other ponies surrounding her, except the zebra that was helping the yellow one onto its fe—hooves. Her big eyes looked right into mine as she spoke in her soft voice, “I know you don’t know us, but if you have any idea what this thing was, the information would be really helpful.” I sighed. Believe it or not, I did know who they were. And, now, I didn’t know what to do. If I told them, there could be consequences to this reality, but if I didn’t…. “I can’t tell you right now.” I said, “But…” Sedar read my thoughts and mentally told me, ‘Don’t. We’re already tampering things as is.’ I shrugged off his worry, ‘Well you noticed it too, that thing doesn’t belong here, like us, so if we don’t do something, a lot worse could come by.’ I felt him ready himself to argue but I quickly said, “I think I should talk to Princess Celestia.” That made her give me a quizzical look, and she was silent for a minute, “I’ll have to see if it’s possible, but… it’s a start.” “Okay.” I sighed. I knew that whatever happened from this point on was going to get complicated, but what could I do? With my history, I only hoped that this universe held true to what I know about it. ‘As long as my bad luck doesn’t follow me here, we’d be fine.’ I thought, ‘Because it sure as hell won’t be good for anyone if my issues mixed with My Little Pony.’