//------------------------------// // The Darkness That Waits... // Story: Friendship is Magic: The Gathering // by St Jimmy //------------------------------//         “Hang on,” Began Rainbow, after firmly placing her hoof between her eyes. “What in Equestria is a Hedron?”         Jace sighed, angrily. “It’s a metallic object designed by an ancient race of beings,” He turned away from the Hedron and locked his newly darkened expression on Rainbow. “A race that had a habit of devouring entire worlds,”         Rainbow wore a look of shock. “So then-,”         “It means that the Eldrazi are coming to Equestria,” Jace began pacing. “I thought that maybe, since Zendikar had 100,000 years to prepare, we’d have a lot more time. Apparently not,”         “Hang on, Jace,” Interjected Elspeth. “This time we know what it means, so this time we can-,”         “Do what?!” Shouted Jace. “Beat them? We had an army and seven other planeswalkers at our backs last time, and we didn’t even slow them down! Do you actually expect to beat them with a handful of stones and only two planeswalkers?”         “But the others are on their way,”         “That isn’t enough!” Jace was screaming so loud that Rainbow thought he was going to lose his voice. “We’d need at least 12 planeswalkers, four for each of the tribal leaders! Any less and they’ll be destroyed!”         “Jace,” Said Dash, calmly placing her hoof on Jace’s shoulder, causing him to jump. “We have time to prepare, don’t we? We shouldn’t waste it arguing. We have to at least try,” Jace’s eyes flickered, as though he had just remembered something.         “Right,” He turned to Elspeth. “Sorry, I kinda flew off the handle there,” He turned back to Rainbow, and smiled. “Let’s get ready for war,” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------         Rainbow Dash walked slowly towards the shade in front of her. She was so hot right now thanks to Celestia’s sunbeams. Jace had kept everypony willing to be involved in this thing (which wasn’t many) working constantly. Meanwhile, Elspeth had been drawing up strategies in Twilight’s library, and Twilight had gone to visit Celestia and Luna to ask for their help. Despite the fact that Rainbow had no gift for strategy, she desperately wished she had Elspeth’s job. At least then she’d be out of these tortuous sunbeams. She sat down on the rock to her right, only to quickly discover that it wasn’t actually a rock.         “Hey!” The “rock” struggled and pushed Dash off.         “Oh, I’m sorry!” She turned around and got a good look at the pony, and blushed when she realized that it was Jace. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”         “Hey, you didn’t hurt me. I was just surprised,” Jace brushed dust off of his shoulders, and smiled.         Dash blushed, and rubbed the back of her head with her right hoof, as her blush spread across her cheeks.         Jace cocked his head. “Are you okay?” Rainbow nodded, but Jace wasn’t buying it. He raised an eyebrow, and pressed his hoof to her forehead. “No, you’re not,” His right hoof glowed blue, and a swirling ball of blue energy rose from the ground, a moment later, a small chunk of dirt rose up from the same piece of ground, and glowed bright red. The magic disappeared from the blue ball, and it fell into the now cooling glass. “Drink this,” He handed the home-made glass of water to Dash, who, despite initial confusion, drank it.         Her eye’s widened. “Whoa!” She licked her lips. “I never knew water could taste so good!”         Jace smiled. “Only if it’s imbued with the proper magic,” He winked.         Even though Rainbow was no longer overheating, she quickly found herself feeling flustered. “Well, uh, I guess I’d better get back to work!” She said, hurriedly and avoiding eye contact. “Thank you for the glass of water!” She flew off at close to the speed of a Sonic Rainboom.         When she was out of earshot, she sighed to herself. “I am such a mess,” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------         “Hm…,” Elspeth leaned her head on her right hoof, and tapped the table with her left. “If I factor in Sorin…plus have Jace take the left wing…then put Koth at point. We might just be able to make it work,” She wrote down the new thoughts with the pencil in her mouth. “But Jace is right, we will need something else…,” Elspeth’s thoughts settled on Rainbow Dash for a moment. “Hang on, didn’t Jace say that she was Tamiyo’s daughter? Does that mean that she could have…,” Her voice trailed off.         “No, that’d be ridiculous, it’s a one in a million chance. Plus we don’t even know if ponies have that capacity,” She assured herself. She leaned back in her chair. “But still. What if…?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------         Jace looked around the library, hoping to spot a book to prove his theory, but there didn’t even seem to be any history of mana, much less planeswalkers.         “Come on! There’s gotta be something,” He slammed his head into the bookshelf, causing a large book to fall on his head.         He rubbed the now-swelling spot on his head, and looked down at the book. “The Age of Discord and the Rise of the Equestrian Diarchy?” He picked up the book, and opened to the table of contents. “Who the hell is Discord?”         “The God of Chaos,” Replied Twilight, dissmisively. “He’s a Draconoquus,”         “A what?!”         “A mish-mosh of several different creatures. Part ram, part snake, part-,”         “I know what a Draconoquus is, I’m just surprised that there is one! Not to mention hopeful!”         “Hopeful?”         “Draconoqi can see and manipulate rifts in space! It means that if we can get him to work with us, he very well could make for a perfect early warning system,”         Twilight looked startled. “Wait, you want to-,” Twilight cleared her throat. “‘Work’ with the God of Chaos?”         Jace beamed. “Absolutely!”         Twilight cleared her throat. “Well. Even so, it isn’t under my power to decide where he is and isn’t. Of course, you could always ask Fluttershy if she knows where he is,”         “Wonderful!” Jace moved towards the door. “Um, where does Fluttershy live?”         Twilight sighed and shook her head, attempting to hide her amusement. “Just outside of town, east side, near the Everfree,”         “Thank you!” And with that, Jace galloped off towards Fluttershy’s cottage. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------         “My lord, they have found it,” Said a deep, gravelly voice.         “So be it, the puny creatures are helpless to halt our invasion,” Replied a deep, echoing voice.         “Of course, my lord Emrakul,” Returned the first voice. “But my lord-,”         “Yes, Teyurax?” Asked Emrakul, slightly annoyed.         “They do have some of the most powerful planeswalkers in the multiverse, not to mention the young pegasus-,”         “It matters not, so long as the Mind Sculptor fails to see her true power, we have nothing to fear,”