Zach had always seen Pinkie Pie's parties in the cartoon, but experiencing it was a completely different thing. It was safe to say that this was one of the biggest and most fun parties he has ever been to. Also thanks to Pinkie, Zach had already met most of the towns residence, this included the remaining Elements. They all got along well, except for Twilight, who kept giving Zach glances every now and then. He knew she was on to him, but he tried to ignore the best he could, but he couldn't help but give a few nervous glances towards her.
Right now, Zach was having a conversation with Rainbow Dash, one of Zach's favorite characters from the show. Of course the first question was how fast he was, which Zach had responded with saying he was not that fast, not wanting to say that he was a terrible flyer, for obvious reasons. However, unbeknownst to him, he was being watched, and not by Twilight. Near the entrance, a pure black pony kept his eye on Zach. He had red outlining his ears, hair and pupils, he seemed to be studying Zach. After a short while, the pony left the party, making his way to the Everfree Forest.
-------------------------------------
The black pony made his way through the shrubbery of the forest. Once he thought he was far enough, he shed his disguise. He was now a bipedaled creature, its legs ended in a hoof like structure, it had claws that were outlined by red, with a white line in the middle. It had a single eye and a mouth lined with sharp teeth. It looked around, making sure no one was looking before it quickly vanished into the ground, a shadow of were it had disappeared was the only sign that it was once there. The shadow then moved quickly along the ground, passing by any obstacles that would have been in its path.
After about a minute of traveling, it had reached its destination, reemerging from the ground. In front of it was a dark cave, guarded by two other of these bipeds. As the first biped made its way in, it decided to punch the biped on the left in the stomach, causing him to keel over and clutch its stomach. The third biped on the right, snickered at the other bipeds pain, however, the pained biped caught it laughing. It walked over to it, and with a powerful kick, sent it into a nearby tree, getting it stuck in the tree and uprooting it. It was now its turn to laugh at its misfortune.
The biped made its way through the cave, which was not actually a cave, it was an underground castle, housing many other of these bipedal creatures. As the one biped made its way through the castle, it saw others standing guard, fighting one another, or just doing sweet FA. As its walk came to end, it was soon faced with large doors, it pushed open the doors, revealing a large room on the other side. In it were more bipeds, and at the edge of the room was a considerably taller biped, with a pair of horns sprouting from its head. The one biped made its way to the center of the room.
It was shortly joined by another biped, but not to report anything, it simply got closer to the first biped, and slapped it in the back of the head. It snickered, but quickly moved out of the way when the first biped went to punch, it then proceeded to blow a raspberry at it. That was enough to set it off, the first biped tackled the second biped, as they proceeded to brawl each other. The bigger biped was done with his own business, as he turned around, he saw the two fighting each other. He sighed while face palming, he made his way to the two fighting, picked them both up by their necks and slammed their heads together, ending the fight.
"I can't turn around for a second without turning back to a fight between you umbralings. Do you always have to pick fights with each other?" The taller umbraling said in a raspy voice. The other umbraling started to respond to the emperor, talking in a low growl. "I still don't get why you have to challenge each other to fight, or even inflict injury on one another. *sigh* Nevermind, who is here to report?" The first umbraling raised its claw into the air, as if in school answering a question. The emperor umbraling shooed the second one away. "Okay, this better be good." The umbraling then told him what it had witnessed as a sly smile appeared on the emperor's face.
"Ah, so he has come just like it said." He said as he turned away smiling, but the umbraling said something that took away that smile. "An... an alicorn!?" He yelled, turning back around and getting in the umbraling's face. "Out of all the things he could have become, he becomes an alicorn!?" The umbraling said something else, scared for its life. "What do you mean "It's not so bad"!? We are dealing with an alicorn!" The umbraling then finished what it wanted to say, which instantly changed the emeror's mood. "Oh... he may be an alicorn, but he does not have the potential of one. He can hardly fly, and he can not use powerful spells." The emperor turned back around, chuckling. He then turned back to the umbraling.
"Let's take advantage of Zach's predicament."
-------------------------------------
Meanwhile, back at Sugarcube Corner, the party was beginning to die down, surprisingly quickly. Zach quested the ponies had somewhere to be, that or they just didn't feel like partying anymore. He was tired too, a party such as Pinkie's can quickly tire one out. Right now, he was just sitting on a cushion, drinking some punch. He was doing surprisingly well, the only pony suspicious of him was Twilight, but that was to be expected. Other than that though, he was just seen as another pony... a pony with wings and a horn, but they didn't seem to care about that. He closed his eyes as he smiled to himself, taking the cup and taking another drink.
However, his drink was interrupted as he heard a swooshing sound in front of him. Opening his eyes, he slowly lowered the cup, and looking at him in the face, was an umbraling. It stared at him for a moment before flashing a devious smile.
"What the fu-!" Zach was unable to finish his sentence as the umbraling delivered a punch to his side, sending him out through the wall. The remaining ponies looked towards the source of the commotion, and upon seeing the umbraling, started to panic. They all rushed out for the exit, pushing and shoving other out of the way. But that did little for them, as they saw more umbralings outside. They all began to run off in all directions, trying to get away from them. The only ones that hadn't run were the Elements, and a few other ponies, one of them being the DJ.
The umbraling, turned towards them, letting out a roar. Applejack was the first to move, taking out her lasso (from who knows where) and wrapping it around the creature. But the umbraling simply bit down on it and started eating it, pulling it out of Applejack's grasp. Once it was done, it let out a belch, with some rope shreds flying out of its mouth. But it soon received a magical blast from Twilight, knocking it off its feet. It roared in frustration because of their interference. Meanwhile, Zach was picking himself up from the wreckage of a wall.
"Ow..." Was all he said as he was fully up. "Of course it can't be an easy, peaceful time, no, why would that happen? It's illogical." He said to himself in a sarcastic tone. Looking up, he yelped in surprise as another umbraling closed in on him, a punch ready. Luckily, Zach was fast enough to dodge the attack, but not fast enough to dodge the second attack, which sent him flying towards the front of Sugercube corner. "Okay, then..." He said as he picked himself up, "enough of this crap." He saw another umbraling running towards him, he quickly jumped out of the way, proceeding with a counter attack, nailing it in the jaw.
'There's that tingling again...' Zach thought to himself, but had little time to dwell on it as more umbralings attacked. Zach got ready to defend himself, but a bright blue beam disrupted him. The surprised alicorn fell backwards, as the beam faded, he looked towards the source of the beam.
"AWWW, YEAH!" Vinyl Scratch yelled at the top of her lungs, leaning against her bass cannon.
'The-the bass cannon is real...? So the fan animations are accurate too? Wait... oh, please not Lyra and her hand fetish shit.' Zach thought to himself, hoping that not all fan animations were accurate to the real Ponyville. "Thanks V-er DJ!" He said, catching himself, he was only told of her title, not her name. Vinyl simply nodded her head as she aimed her bass cannon at other umbralings. Zach suddenly heard a crash come from Sugercube Corner, looking at it, he the the umbraling that had attacked him fly out of the building, being pushed by a rainbow trail. The biped's flight was soon canceled as Rainbow stopped pushing it, it landed in front of Zach, who, with a smile, kicked it into some other umbralings.
The tingling grew more intense on the hit, but Zach hardly noticed, as he was more focused on not getting mauled. Two more umbralings had approached him, he went to punch one, but it had dodged the attack and now it clamped onto Zach's arm. He let out a small yell of pain as he started to hit the head of the umbraling, hoping to get it off. He was only able to hit it twice before the other umbraling delivered a hard punch to his stomach, forcing air out. The other umbraling bit down on his arm, causing Zach to yelp out in pain again. In a last ditch effort, he did the only thing that came to mind, to headbutt the umbraling biting him. He hit it in the eye, causing it to let go in pain.
"Ow... No one wins with a headbutt." Zach said to himself, putting a hoof to his head. The other umbraling had made its next move, scratching him in the cheek. "Just fuck off!" He said through gritted teeth, which seemed to have triggered something in his magic, as a magical laser shot out from his horn, sending the umbraling back. Zach was just shocked, which then turned to happiness, he let out a small chuckle. But a growl brought back to the situation at hand, he turned back to the umbraling that he had headbutted. The umbraling leaped towards him, but Zach had shot another laser at it, sending it back.
The umbraling picked itself up, roaring out to its buddies, as many of them gathered around it.
'Oh boy.' Zach thought to himself, he counted a total of fifteen, things were not looking good for him. He slowly backed up, as the umbralings closed the gap between them. He eyed each, wondering which would make the first move, eventually. When it was close enough, one leaped towards him, landing in front of him. Zach wasted no time kicking it back, as soon as he leg made contact with the umbraling, something happened. The tingling went away in his horn, as now it was covered in magic moving in a wave motioned. "What the...?" Zach silently said to himself, looking up at his horn, suddenly, his body was engulfed in his own red magic, which had spread out from his horn.
"Huh!?" Zach suddenly felt himself lose control over his body, as the magic took control instead. "Woah, hey!" He said as his body lowered to the ground, then suddenly jumping up into the air, his wings pushing him further up. All the umbralings looked up, confused, some scratching their heads like monkeys to signify their confusion. Zach was just as confused as them, as his jump neared the peak, his back was facing the ground. He looked around in confusion and worry, only looking with his eyes, as he could not move his head. As he started to fall back down to earth, his wings give him one finally push towards the ground. His body was now in a dive bombing position.
"Oh, this can't be good." He said worried. As he neared the ground, his head moved downwards, his horn now aimed at the ground. Magic came out from it, covering his body, just like when a meteor starts burning when entering the atmosphere. Some of the umbralings started to back up slowly, but a good number of them still stood there stupidly. Zach tightly shut his eyes, as he quickly neared the ground. Once he made contact with the ground, a huge, magical explosion took place, sending all the umbralings in the area flying, even killing most of them. As for Zach himself, he was perfectly fine, pushing himself up from the explosions epicenter. He looked around himself, seeing the umbralings spread out from the explosion, he allowed a small smile to creep up on his face.
'That... was awesome... but I'm getting this weird reminder of Infamous: Second Son.' Zach thought to himself. Twilight and the others had come out of Sugercube corner, just in time to witness Zach perform his attack, and all of them were shock he could do something like that. 'So that's what that tingling is, it's the buildup of that attack. So, chaining together my attacks will give me that charged magic, which will then allow me to do that! Oh man, are you idiots screwed.' Zach smiled as he ran for the nearest umbraling, as it was picking itself up from the explosion, Zach kneed it in the jaw, and thanks to the explosion, it was enough damage to kill it.
Zach already felt the charge building up again in his horn again. To his right, an umbraling was closing the distance between, when it got close enough, it clawed at Zach, catching him off guard. Zach gritted his teeth in pain, he turned towards the umbraling, shooting it with three magical lasers. He then moved in closer, he turned around and bucked it away. Two more approached him, one of which tried to bite him, but Zach was ahead of it. He grabbed it in his magic, and used it as a weapon against the other umbraling, smacking it around. Though he was not building up charge by doing so, it was fun.
Soon both umbralings were looking beat up, the one on the ground trying to get back up from the meat club of an umbraling. Zach threw the umbraling in his magic next to the one on the ground, and blasted both of them with another laser. Looking back up, he could see Vinyl being overwhelmed by the umbralings, even with Rainbow Dash's and Applejack's help. Thinking fast, he ran towards the crowd, ramming up into an oblivious umbraling, which, in doing so, fully charged his magic.
'Seems like I control when I use it now.' Zach commented on the fact that he still had control over himself. Zach ran into the middle of the crowd, and started his charged attack. As he lifted off into the air, some of the umbralings saw this and fled into the forest. As he reached the turning point in his attack, Zach had a sly smile on his face as he started to descend back to earth.
"Incoming!" Zach said, getting everyone's attention. Applejack, Rainbow and Vinyl quickly moved away from the targeted area. Some umbralings tried to do the same, but it was to late. Zach slammed into the ground, utterly destroying and killing the remaining umbralings. The three mares covered there eyes (save for Vinyl, who now had a look of awe on her face) from the bright red magical explosion. Zach got back on his hooves, looking around for any other surviving umbralings, but spotted none. "Oh, how I'm loving this already." He silently said to himself with a smile on his face.
-------------------------------------
"He has grown more powerful!?" The umbraling emperor asked in disbelief. The umbralings that had fled the battle nervously shook their heads. The emperor let out a heavy sigh, turning away from them. "It was a simple mistake." He said after a moment. "We simply underestimated him, but that won't happen again. Especially with what he will be facing next."