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// A Shadow of Fear, A Glimmer of Hope 
// Story: A Shy Pegasi's Wing 
// by Dark Tempest 
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   After seven minutes of kissing passionately, the two pegasi cuddled each other as they stared together into the moon-lit night. Matrixwing and Fluttershy both then looked into one another's eyes. As Matrixwing began to tell her these next few words, she began to rub her hoof on his cheek affectionately, and the love he felt for her was reflected by the pink lightning in the center of his irises, and as he stared into Fluttershy's, he began to see the beauty behind them. Her eyes were so captivating in the moonlight, a beautiful and perfect shade of Mountain Meadow... As he spoke his mind, he began getting tongue-tied.
"I've never felt for anypony like I am for you, Fluttershy. I-I have this strange feeling in my chest when I think of you, or when I'm near you, like now. It's as if it's hard for me to breathe... I have never felt this feeling before I met you... but I love the feeling... and I lo-" He was cut short by an agonized yell that sounded deep and male. Fluttershy yelped at the noise and grabbed Matrixwing's left foreleg with her foreleg, squeezing it in fear.
Matrixwing nuzzled Fluttershy to reassure her, then he told her to hold tight. Fluttershy did so, and Matrixwing took off as quickly as possible, and got back to the garden in less than eight seconds. Upon arrival, they found a small crowd of ponies who were causing a commotion about... something...
The two pegasi pushed to the center of the crowd, Fluttershy apologizing repeatedly as she pushed her way through them. When they got to the cause of the ponies' shock, they were paralyzed by what they saw. In the center, a guard had been torn to pieces, and as Matrixing checked for a pulse, he saw a bit of an electric blue mane protruding from his helmet. Matrixwing thought he had seen the guard walking around Ponyville a week ago, trotting around with Twilight. Flash Sentry, he thought the guard was called.
Luckily, Flash was still alive, and Matrixwing called for a doctor. Seconds after the guard was taken to the safety of the hospital, a dark force formed itself right in front of Matrixwing. He watched the creature slowly grow to his height from seemingly nowhere, and it looked at him with glowing red eyes.
The lightning in Matrixwing's eyes change to a pale yellow as he felt true fear for the first time. He tried to focus on the shadow staring at him, but every time he looked at a specific spot, it disappeared. It was impossible to detect it's aura, or to look at directly. He knew one thing though: this creature was very evil, possibly even a threat. Little did Matrixwing know how terribly correct his assumption would turn out.
Then, on the last time Matrixwing attempted to focus on the creature, it smiled. It was the kind of terrible, sharp, bloody grin that gives you nightmares for years on end. He felt a stabbing pain enter his brain, as if somepony was probing it with jagged forceps. He began seeing visions of both his past, and his future, but they were different... He saw himself as darkened, evil, with little color saturation in either his hide or mane, the lightning in his eyes an eerie black. He began to collapse to his knees in pain and fear as the creature got further and further into his memories, trying to corrupt his thoughts...
The darkness had slowly been pushing Matrixwing to the brink of insanity with increasingly dark images, but the golden-hide pegasus' will was like platinum, and he held off just long enough for Fluttershy to do a flying buck-kick on the shadow. The shadow dispersed with a dark chuckle and a few words that sounded guttural and demonic:
"You obviously do not know what I am, or I would have driven you insane long before now. But don't worry everypony, I will finish what I started long ago..." Matrixwing began to get angry, his mood-lightning flashing red in his eyes as he spoke in retaliation: "We will always have faith in each other and ourselves! You will not be able to 'finish what you had started,' because as long as I still believe, I will not let you!" But the creature was already gone long before Matrixwing had finished ranting, and he sat down, still arguing with himself slightly. Then Fluttershy walked over to him, and hugged him, with small rivers of tears streaming down her face.
Matrixwing finally calmed down and came to his senses, then he remembered all that he had seen... all the horrors of death and loss... and he held Fluttershy a little tighter. Seconds later, Princesses Celestia and Twilight sprinted into the garden, followed by their personal guard, and she asked Fluttershy about what had happened.
But Fluttershy, who had also felt the effects of the dark creature's visions, still wept quietly into Matrixwing's chest as he held her, a few tears springing into his eyes as well as he tried to calm her down. Derpy, who had seen the entire situation, told the Princesses everything that had happened.
"This is grave news indeed," Princess Celestia turned to Twilight and told her: "the time has come for the seventh element element of harmony to be retrieved... He has already presented himself..." She looked at Matrixwing, who looked back at her with slight confusion in his eyes but Celestia told him: "You are the seventh element of harmony... Hope..."