//------------------------------//
// First Blood 
// Story: A Matter of Darkness 
// by Uberdeathninja 
//------------------------------//

As the Mane six looked to the sky, what exactly they saw could only have been described as the weirdest, oddest, most out-of-place creature that the six had ever seen in their lives: It looked like a ball, with a stubby tail and a halo, making it seem like a ghost or angel of some kind, but in contrast, the creature had an adorable smile plastered on its face, as well as two cute, beady eyes that seemed to stare in no direction in particular, rather cutely. Pinky and Fluttershy immediately d'awwed as they saw the creature, infatuated by its inherent and supposed cuteness and innocence, but soon stopped and changed their minds when the massive, deceptive creature opened its "mouth" only slightly, causing what appeared to be blood to trickle out of the 'opening', and run down its soft-looking body.

Then, as if finally tiring of its previous form, the thing began to metamorphose, fully spreading its odd wings, revealing first three more appendages, like feathers of some kind, and then it revealed two odd, crystal-like feathers at the end of each previous 'feather'. Then, finally, the beast before the now-confused mares opened its bloody pseudo-mouth fully, to reveal a giant, blood-red eye, with a black pupil in the center; no iris to speak of. As it gazed upon the six heroes, each had a different reaction, none of which were particularly joyous:

Pinkie stood completely still, a look of sheer horror fixed upon her face, Rarity fainted, Rainbow Dash almost vomited, Fluttershy pissed herself, Applejack looked ready to bolt at any second, and Twilight looked in a mix of fear for her life, and curiosity for her inner scientist. Never had she seen a lifeform so... odd... in her life. However, it appeared that her friends did not share her curiosity, so she decided to think further on the matter after they stopped it from destroying the town, and she finally got into an aggressive stance, enticing her friends to do the same despite their initial shock at the creature's sudden change from cute, floating angel, into... that.

Meanwhile, Zero looked at the pitiful creatures below with naught but contempt and amusement, and saw only six of them. Six, and they STILL held off an army of his Dark Matter with as much impunity as a full-blown army! It was Pop Star all over again! Furious, Zero glared at the mortified creatures below him, still shocked by his sudden and macabre transformation, and shot a beam of raw energy from his eye at the six pests, causing them to scatter like the insects they were.

However, The cyan one became quickly irate at Zero, and despite her previously-felt shock and fear, she'd charged Zero head-on, despite having no knowledge of his capabilities! But alas, the attempt was all for naught, for as soon as the mare made contact with Zero's impervious body, she merely bounced harmlessly off him, and fell to the ground unconscious, with Zero no worse off than he had started, much to his amusement.

Twilight watched in mild terror as she witnessed her friend Rainbow Dash get knocked out by hitting the thing head on, but this led to a discovery, good or bad being irrelevant: this meant that the massive, white alien's main body was invulnerable to most forms of attack, if not all, despite it's soft, plushy appearance. However, that naturally meant that it had to have a weak spot somewhere. But try as she might, Twilight looked at the alien all over, but found nothing. Nothing but... A bandage on it's head?

Why would that be there, she pondered? Perhaps it had suffered a previous wound, right there on its head, and used the colossal adhesive bandage to close it up. And if that theory was right, then that one place had to be it's weak spot! Quickly spreading her great, purple wings, Twilight quickly took off over the creature, aimed her horn at the colossal bandage, and opened fire at the giant band-aid placed upon its head.

However, as if by reflex on the alien's part, the bolt was quickly intercepted by an eye-laser, overpowering and annihilating her own attack instantly, and with absolute impunity. Whatever this thing was, Twilight thought, it certainly had mad reflexes, and extreme prejudice and power to boot. However, it also didn't want anyone touching that particular spot, and she quickly developed a brilliant idea from the information she had acquired: If this monster couldn't see, it couldn't block. However, she knew her friends would be unable to assist her here, seeing as the being would easily wipe the floor with them all if they got in the way, so the princess made her decision, and took this course of action into her own hooves, naturally.

And so, carefully aiming her horn, Twilight shot a powerful bolt of magic at the thing's eye, and the alien instantly felt the blast, roaring in pain as massive amounts of blood began to gush forth from the wound, and causing the massive alien to close its eye in a look of sheer agony as her and the remaining other four almost vomited at the horrendous display. Clearly, they were not prepared for that, and payed the ultimate price for their lack of forethought: a one-way ticket to a therapist.

As Zero bled out from his pained eye, his ever-present anger grew to massive, unbearable levels, and as the bleeding finally stopped, he glared with great hatred and intensity at the pony before him, who dared shoot at his eye and cause him so much familiar pain. How dare this little nothing shoot his eye, especially after he had just lost the same way to someone else, Zero thought.

So, in response to the horrible attack on his person, while the leading one was busy trying to keep from emptying her guts, he blindly shot forward with as full speed as he could muster, ramming into the lavender one and sending her into her friends, who then were knocked away from the princess-to-be in a most comical fashion. Then, as he watched the spectacle, Zero silently laughed as the six pests were knocked aside like bowling pins, bobbing up and down in a silent imitation of laughter as the display went on, and the memory remained fresh in his head.

Suddenly, though, Zero stopped, confused and surprised at his reaction to the admittedly comical event, and a confused thought then entered the alien's head, scaring him to no end. Was he... Was he LAUGHING? Indeed, he felt a strange sensation in himself just then, and despite the pleasantness of it, the massive ball of unhappiness didn't like it.

And yet, despite that, he also didn't want to stop feeling this strange new emotion that caused him to laugh. So, he silently laughed again when his adversaries began stumbling dizzily about, after picking themselves up. However, to Zero's dismay, the yellow one then managed to quickly recover, and shot up inches from his eye, her face filled to bursting with anger, surprising Zero.

Fluttershy had enough of this thing. Whoever, or WHATever, it was, it wasn't about to hurt her friends and laugh about it in front of them. Inhaling to her lungs' maximum capacity, she let loose the angriest speech she'd ever given to the abomination, garnering its full attention in but a moment, and loosing her fury in her words at the giant alien:

"How DARE you! You think you can just come to OUR planet, and hurt OUR friends, and then think you can just laugh about it?! Well, sir, I have no Idea who or WHAT you are, but you don't get to do that here, not on OUR peaceful world! you got that, punk?" Fluttershy screamed at the white ball, inciting a surprised look from it for a good while after she had finished, leaving her panting for breath, but satisfied.

Maybe she'd succeeded where others had likely failed, and gotten to it, she thought to herself. However, the thought was quickly abolished from her head when the creature's expression turned from one of surprise to boredom, and it proceeded to stare disinterestedly at her, frustrating the small, yellow pegasus further.

Zero stared blankly as the angry little yellow thing proceeded to yell at him, a bored expression on his face. He was surprised by the noise at first, but he soon found that he couldn't understand a word the little yellow creature was saying, and whatever she was, she really annoyed him. So in response, Zero turned away from the yelling creature before him, almost smacking her with one of his wings in the process, and proceeded to ignore her, much to the little thing's dismay and anger.

"Hey! don't turn away when I'm talking to you!" Fluttershy yelled, having failed several times in trying to make the moody alien pay attention to her, kicking and ramming several spots on it, until at last, she managed to dive-bombed his band-aid, causing immediate reaction from Zero:

Holding its head with his odd wings in what she could only guess was excruciating pain, It began to excrete more blood from its eye, making everyone even more squeamish, and Fluttershy hesitated wondering if the creature she just hurt was alright, as nothing she knew of just up and cried blood unless there was something really, really wrong with it.

But as she pondered her admittedly questionable actions Zero suddenly turned about, an expression of anger on his face, and Fluttershy got shot by an exploding ball of light from the creature's eye as it almost instantly turned on her for her hesitation, sending her spiraling to the ground in a trail of smoke.

Meanwhile, Zero, not quite finished with the yellow nuisance, then flew into the ground at full speed, crushing poor Fluttershy into a crater made by the force of his own body. Then, he arose, keeping his eye on her as he did, and proceeded to charge a gargantuan eye-beam to finish the pest once and for all, finally sick of being merciful to these ungrateful creatures, whatever they where.

"Hey, Twi, what's that thing doin'?!" demanded Applejack, pointing at the alien, who was charging up some kind of finishing blow with which to finally rid itself of Fluttershy, a look of indescribable rage apparent on its face, or what little of a face it had, anyway. 

"I don't know, but I'm stopping it!" Twilight shouted finally, determination filling her being, and she shot a magic bolt from her horn into the alien's eye, causing a massive explosion due to the interruption of its attack, and the remaining five averted there heads, in an attempt to keep the ensuing dust from getting in their eyes.

When the obscuring dust wave had finally settled, the alien was revealed, simply hovering there, its eye spinning around in a cartoonish fashion, and bleeding profuse amounts of blood. Clearly, it was dazed, and now was the time to attack! Twilight then took a commanding stance, her resolve firm, then gave the order.

"Alright, girls, get the elements ready!" She shouted. Luckily, everyone was ready, and had their elements with them, just for this occasion. However, as luck would have it, the Dark Matter Zero controlled were watching the fight the whole entire time, and had been waiting for just this opportunity, and once it presented itself, the monsters struck, putting their devilish plans into action post-haste.

Just when the Mane Six got the elements ready and got themselves into formation, a Dark Matter Knight suddenly rammed into Twilight, knocking the element away from her as she prepared to finish Zero. And then, as she tried to reach for it, the assailing Dark Matter snatched Twilight's element off the ground with unseen hands, interrupting the process, and causing the other five mares to hit the ground hard, and glance about in confusion. Then as the six realized just what had happened, the Dark Matter Knight holding the Element of Magic flew off toward the boss alien, who by now had recovered, and cast an amused glare down at them. And then, before they could react, five more Knights knocked the remaining heroines down, and then absconded with the remaining five elements, much to their dismay.

"NO!" Cried Twilight as the Dark Matter Knights took off with the elements, leaving the Mane six, and Equestria, ultimately defenseless, left to the mercy of Zero and his army of darkness.

And so, with one last, bellowing chortle, Zero spread his wings, and prepared to blast the Mane Six with a powerful eye-beam, and finish the only opposition to his power once and for all, no loose ends left untied. Finally, Zero mused in his head, after years and years of sadness, pain, and ultimately defeat, he had won! This simple race would crumble before his might, and they could no longer stop him, not without their precious elements. Finally, this world was his, without a soul to stop him, And he thus loosed a beam of pure hatred at the Mane Six, felling the pests that had briefly plagued him so much for good... Or so he had hoped.

Twilight fell to her knees as the alien's attack finally ended, and the others fell suit. With no means to defend themselves, the Mane Six simply laid there, too weak to move, but still conscious enough to realize what had just happened. Ultimately beaten, and with the elements in the enemy's possession, Twilight simply collapsed with the rest of her friends, and the last thing she saw was Zero and his Dark Matter minions flying off into the distance, before she slipped into unconsciousness.