//------------------------------// // A Talent and a Scavenger Hunt. // Story: A Lost Soul Returns: The King of Monsters // by Dark Star the Crazed //------------------------------// Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow. ~ T.S. Eliot. The next day. Soul got out of bed and went outside to get the mail, he noticed that Trixie was still in bed so he stayed silent. He got the mail, the mail included a box that a colt could fit in, and brought it back in, he began to shuffle through it and something caught his eye. A wax seal on a letter that looked like the emblem of the royal shade family. He opened it and looked at the words written on it. "Did you and Trixie like my pet? No? Well how about this one?" Soul raised an eyebrow and the box that had been with the mail burst open. It knocked Soul away and he heard a scream. Looking towards the source he saw a shade like creature. It had a snake’s body, with the head of a rabbit, the arms of a dragon, and the legs of a diamond dog. It was standing in front of Trixie and Hex. "Finally, now I get to taste the blood of a pony again..." The creature tried to grab the blue mare, only to be knocked away by Soul. "My master told me I should be careful when I tried to kill them..." Soul summoned his sword and pointed it at the beast. He moved his head towards the door, an indication for the two blue unicorns to get out of the house, only one listened, and it was, surprisingly, Trixie. "Soul! Don't kill it! We need to know who its master is! I think I know a way to stop it, give me a minute." Soul nodded and watched as the little blue colt ran back up the stairs and into his room. A minute later he ran back down the stairs, wearing a necklace with a teardrop shaped ruby with small gold vines wrapped around it, a Jasper Stone if Soul remembered his time in Coltland right, along with a flute. "Do you think that you can protect me? I think I know a spell that can bind it." Soul nodded and got in front of the little colt. Hex took a deep breath and looked at the strange shade like beast. "By darkest night, I play the song; To hold the beast, in moments long. I call upon the Jasper's light; To bind the beast, with Setterwind might." The red stone began to glow and Hex began to play a small tune on the flute and chains suddenly shot up from the floor and began to wrap around the chimeric creature. The little colt opened his eyes and smiled when he saw the creature could not move. "It worked!" Soul looked at the little colt with shock and amazement in his eyes. "H-how? How? How did you know how to do that!?" Hex just kept smiling. "My grandfather, Vloek Setterwind, taught me..." Soul raised an eyebrow. "He was my mother's father. My mother's maiden name was Setterwind, I'm pretty sure Fang has some books that mention that half of my family's name... That incantation, this stone, and this flute have been passed down through the Setterwind Family for generations. From grandfather to grandson. Though, I think that I'm the first to use it in ten thousand years..." The shade looked at the colt and smiled. "You know... I think your pretty good with that flute, I heard you playing it in the yard last night." Hex blushed, he had always hidden and made sure that his sister had never heard him, he liked to play it, and he was good, but he felt like it was a filly's hobby. He was so caught up in being embarrassed that he didn't even notice the white flash on his flanks. "Hey Hex... Look at your tail." Hex raised an eyebrow and looked towards his hindquarters and gasped. "I got my cutie mark!" The little blue unicorn smiled at the mark. A glowing golden flute over a silver padlock. Cutie Mark Crusaders' Clubhouse. Scootaloo's ears shot up and she looked towards the town. "Scoots? What's the matter?" "I think our only male member just lost his membership..." Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Babs Seed all raised an eyebrow at the orange pegasus. "I think Hex just got his cutie mark..." The door to the clubhouse broke in two and Hex rolled in. "I got my cutie mark!!!" The colt kept rolling until he hit a wall, managing to get his horn stuck in it. "I got my cutie mark!!!" Hex pulled his horn out of the wall and smiled at his friends, only to see Scootaloo sitting in the corner with a depressed look on her face. "Scootaloo? What's wrong? I can tell you're upset just by looking at you, but... It's not jealousy..." "Nothing's wrong..." She just earned a frown from the blue colt. "Ok... I'm scared that since you have your cutie mark you won’t want to hang out with us, with me, anymore." Hex just laughed. "That's ridiculous! Of course I'm still going to hang out with you! You're my friends and I'll never abandon you..." Hex got a small blush on his face. "We'll actually... You're more than just a friend to me Scootaloo..." Scootaloo smiled, and quickly received a kiss on the lips, to which she blushed and punched the colt's foreleg. Back at Trixie's house. Soul, and about five other ponies, were staring at the frame that once held the door to Trixie's house. Hex had run through it, so he could get over to the clubhouse as quick as he could. "That... That colt cannot be a pony..." Trixie ran up and looked through the hole where the door used to be. "What happened? Where's Hex?" "Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse... Your little brother just got his cutie mark..." Trixie gasped and disappeared in a flash of light. Soul blinked and shook his head. He looked at the shade like being that was chained to the floor and walked out the door. "I need to go and get some help... If this thing has a 'master' then there are more where he came from..." The shade sank into his own shadow. He came back an hour later with Fang and the coltfriends of the other element bearers. Soul opened the door and went in, followed by the others. Acid, Fluttershy's coltfriend, did not go over to try and get the beast talking. He went into the kitchen, he looked at the letter Soul had opened that morning and saw strange symbols. "Parseltongue..." The Aceto Serpentium sat down and began to read. The others were having a hard time getting the beast to speak. Jekyll was getting frustrated and looked into a mirror, he saw his other half, Hyde, in it. "Maybe... Hey Soul, does Trixie have a basement?" The shade nodded and Jekyll smirked. "Help me take him there... I'll get him talking." Soul raised an eyebrow but nodded and helped Jekyll take the thing into the basement. The green pony shooed the shade out of the basement. A few minutes later he came up the stairs, covered in black blood. "He said his master's name was Nigrum Lulamoon... Now... We need a shovel, as well as a place that nopony will find a body..." Thunder blinked and walked down the stairs, before shooting straight back out. "Dude... What did you do to him? His head is gone for crying out loud!" Everypony went wide eyed and looked at Jekyll. "Me? I didn't do anything, the fact that he is missing his head... That was Hyde..." Jekyll let out an evil laugh. He saw the others looking at him with worry in their eyes. "Sorry... I just feel like I have to do that whenever I say his name..." The stallions shook their heads. Sometimes Jekyll was as random as Pinkie Pie. Soul closed his eyes and put a hoof on his chin. "Nigrum... Trixie mentioned that she had a cousin named Nigrum... He was disowned by his family when he wasn't accepted into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, apparently he used black magic for his entrance exam... Then he... Disappeared... No note, nopony saw him, he was just gone... They all thought he was dead... But then three years later every member of the family got a letter from him... Saying that he would 'have his revenge'... I guess this is his revenge..." "Well... Now we know who sent the shades that have been attacking Trixie and Hex... But we don't know where he is..." Fang sighed. "Without a location we can't find him..." "He's in the Crystal Empire..." Everypony turned and looked at Acid. "He wrote something in Parseltongue on his letter... The city where the stone shines in the light... Can you think of any other city made of shiny stone?" They all shook their heads and Acid smirked. Everypony looked at Soul. "Road trip?" "Road trip." After an hour of waiting, and hiding the body of the creature that Jekyll's dark side had killed, the stallions got on a train bound for the Crystal Empire. After a few minutes Soul turned to Fang. "Hey dude, does the name Setterwind mean anything to you?" "Setterwind?" Soul nodded and the black alicorn smiled. "I haven't heard that name since I asked Hurricane to watch over that box..." Soul raised an eyebrow. "What box?" "The one that contains Badge, a very nasty old one... He looks like a human with the head of a raccoon... Hurricane Setterwind was actually the one to bind him with a magic flute..." Fang turned and raised an eyebrow at the shade. "Why do you ask about that name?" "Oh, no reason." Soul looked out the window and watched as the landscape rolled by. The rest of the ride was silent. And none of them knew that a certain cat had worked his way onto their train carriage. Three hours later the train stopped and the stallions got off the train and heard screams. The ran towards the source of the sound and saw Shining Armor and Cadence trying to fight off a creature with the head of a boar, the body of a wolf, the legs of a tiger, and the wings of an eagle. The boar charged at Armor, hitting him and throwing him into the side of a building. The beast looked at Cadence and charges at her, only to be blocked by Rainbow's coltfriend, Thunder. The stallion grabbed the boar and threw it into the air. "You don't hit mares... Especially ones that are mothers!" The beast spread its wings and began to charge at the pegasus from the air. Just as it was about to strike him, Thunder shot into the air. This caused the beast to not hit anything and as a result, crash into the ground. The pegasus shot down, grabbed one of the beast's wings, and ripped it off, he did the same to the other one. He then grabbed the beast and flew up into the air, to the point where he couldn't be seen by anypony. There was a whistling sound and the group watched as the shade like creature fell out of the sky. When it hit the ground it looked at the group and began to turn into dust. "It's funny how a city, made of steel and iron grey. Can loathe the trees that bring them the air that they need every day." With that it exploded and Soul saw something strange, a spirit rose from the remains of the creature and smiled at him before fading away. "Does anypony have any idea what that thing meant by that?" There was a cough and everypony looked at North. "Manehatten, we need to go to Manehatten. That phrase, it's the slogan of an environmental group that is based in Manehatten... The city recently proposed that they tear up Central Park and build a shopping mall... I'm guessing that this Nigrum Lulamoon guy is a member of the group." Fang sighed. "He's toying with us... But the question is, why..." Everypony in the group shrugged and ran off towards the train station. Leaving a confused Cadence and Shining Armor staring at where the best used to be. "What the buck just happened!?" After four more hours on the train the group of seven arrived in Manehatten. They quickly ran to the place where they expected the pony they were hunting would be waiting, Central Park. There they saw ponies with signs saying thing like 'Murderers!' or 'Save the trees!'. They saw the Manehatten police force holding them away from the park as ponies with axes walk up to the trees. "Killing things that can't fight back?" The group looked in the direction of the voice and saw a grey unicorn stallion walk up to what looked like the police chief. "I tried to warn you... But you just wouldn't arrest the corrupt CEO, even with the evidence of how he has been avoiding income tax... Well, nopony crosses Nigrum Lulamoon..." Soul's eyes flashed red and he began to move through the crowd. "Hey you! Lulamoon!" Soul saw the pony motion with a hoof and a dagger flew through the air, striking a tree and turning it into a bipedal shade like beast that began attacking the ponies that had axes. Soul turned and looked at the beast, only to see his friends were already heading that way, so he gave chase to the Lulamoon. He followed the pony until they came to a dead end in an alleyway. "You're trapped Lulamoon. Now get over here so I can take you to the police. You have tried to harm Trixie and Hex twice already... I won't let you try again..." "Trapped? Ha, you would think so, wouldn't you Tamashii..." Soul raised an eyebrow, how did this pony know his name, and worse yet, why did he sense a shade nearby? "Well... I suppose you're wondering why you sense a shade aren't you? Well here's the answer..." The unicorn turned around and Soul gasped. He had glowing red eyes. "I'm not Nigrum, I'm his Nightmare... My name, is Nero... You and Fang didn't seal all of us away Tamashii... You missed quite a few Specters... And now? Most of us have bonded with a pony and become Nightmares... You want Nigrum? Well... You'll have to wait to get him..." Soul ran at the shade, but was to slow. The shade sank into the ground and disappeared. Soul just stood there for a second before realizing something. He had just failed to prevent something that could possibly hurt Trixie. With a loud sigh and a angry heart he left the ally and began to go and gather his friends. Little did he know that a grey unicorn was watching him from a hotel across the street. "So that is the exiled prince of the shades? Hmmm.... Nero... Prepare the amulets... We are going on a hunt for souls tonight..." The unicorn looked down at the old journals on his desk. One descried the process of how to make shades, and the other described how to take the souls of living ponies. He turned and looked at the shade that was behind him. "We are one step closer to getting our revenge on my cousin..." He turned and threw a dart at the wall, striking a picture of Trixie. "You should have never told the judges that I used black magic... With the research notes of the shade king and the research notes of our ancestor... I have created the perfect golems... And now... You will know what the loss of the pony you love feels like..." The grey unicorn looked at a framed picture on his desk. It depicted him and a white earth pony mare dancing. "I will bring you back Snow..." Between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow. This is the way the world ends. ~ T.S. Eliot.