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// Memories of an Old Colt and the Repaired Journal Entry. 
// Story: A Lost Soul Returns: The King of Monsters 
// by Dark Star the Crazed 
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Fate is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity. ~ Publilius Syrus.






Two days later.


It was a calm day in Ponyville and Soul was relaxing back at his and Trixie's place. He was laying down as he thought back to the sudden revelations he and Fang had learned with Twilight. Thanks to Tsukiyomi, they were aware that his own father, and most of his species, wanted him dead. Muse had found that not only Starswirl had written in the journal, but everyone in the group had written in it. The entry they read when they found the journal was located in the final page of the first half, and after that were the sections belonging to each member of the group. 

Soul's entries were in the last section, but Muse had found that the seal on the shades had made the entries unreadable, and they would remain that way until it weakened enough. Apparently the sections were tied to memories. Until they retrieved a certain memory they wouldn't be able to read the entries. Even Twilight, the most magically inclined of the group, had no clue what tied the journal to the seal. Fang was still busy getting his new student, Grogar, settled in. The ram was surprised to find he was welcomed among pony society, even after he had helped Tirek and Arabus. At the moment the only section readable was Spell Weaver's section. 

The group was shocked to find that Starswirl was married, well that was the case for the mane six and the princesses anyway. The group wondered why it was that with every major threat, a new mystery popped up. First the box holding the Rainbow of Light now the journal. Soul was trying to figure out how to use a repair spell he found in Spell Weaver's section so he could fix the entirety of the entry that had revealed that Soul was an exiled prince. 

Trixie was next to him, still getting used to the fact she was dating a royal, an exiled royal, but a royal none the less. Soul was snapped out of his thoughts when Trixie turned to him. "Oh, Soul I just remembered, how did you come back after Arabus, uh you know... Ate you…"

"Well I only heard this from Hex, as he was there at the time, but I think it would be best to show you. We are going to need Hex to allow me to project that specific memory. We might need to get the others as well, so we can see if we can find out where Muse and Edge appeared at that time, I found it odd those two escaped the seal during that incident..." Soul said with a smile as he finished his spell. In all his years traveling he had learned to really multitask, so he was still talking while he was using his spell.





Once the others, the elements and their coltfriends, were gathered Soul went to find Hex. He found the colt at Sweet Apple Acres, in the Crusader's clubhouse where he was trying to think up plans to help the others get their cutie marks. "Hex come on, we're heading to Fang's place. We are going to try and find out how I came back after Arabus ate me." Hex turned and looked at Soul before nodding. 

"Okay, I'll be right there..." With that the group went to Fang and Twilight's castle. Soul looked around at all the changes that had been made to both Transylmaneia and Ponyville. Because of the Tree of Harmony granting Ana's wish that her mother and Father would still be able to spend time together when ruling. The residents of Ponyville and Transylmaneia had gotten used to the sudden changes quite well, and one of the side effects was that the sudden merge had canceled out the glamor hiding the true forms of the monsters of Fang's kingdom. It was a bit moot when the mayor revealed that Ponyville, and some other sections of Equestria, had been taken by Transylmaneia, and that Celestia herself had agreed to let Fang keep the lands. After about thirty minutes they finally got to the castle where Twilight, Fang, Muse, Edge and the rest of Twilight and Fang's family were waiting, including Twilight's parents and brother and the princesses.

"Okay I'm sure that you’re all wondering how I came back after what Arabus did to me. After Grogar stole my youth so Arabus could eat me." Soul looked at everyone gathered in the room. After everyone nodded Soul smiled at Hex. "Well... I'm still not sure what happened exactly, and Hex was the only witness... So I'm going to use a memory projection spell, that way we can all see what happened, through his eyes, with his permission of course..." Soul glanced at the blue unicorn colt.

"Sure, if you can find out what happened, then maybe I can finally get my mind around what I saw that day... And be able to figure out if I need to check myself into a mental institution or not..." Hex kept his normally apathetic look, but Soul noticed a light interest in his eyes and the shade mentally smirked.

'Well, looks like he does have feelings, he is just unable to express them, maybe I should have him meet Pinkie's sister Maud. The two are similar in that respect, actually, maybe that's why Pinkie and Trixie are spending Thursdays together, telling stories about their apathetic siblings as they share have in common.' Soul turned back to the group.

"Okay, the spell that I'm going to use will take a lot of energy from me, so once we are done I'm going to be out of my mind for about two hours. You better make sure that I don't do anything embarrassing while in that state. Last time I did this, I ended up getting banned from the dragon territory for accidentally dethroning the dragon king at the time, and apparently my uncle on my dad's side. He forgave me eventually but, well you get the idea, so you guy's better restrain me if I start acting loopy!" Trixie smirked as she knew a way to restrain her coltfriend, her mind drifted to a more mature line of thought. Soul stiffened and glared at Trixie.

"Mind out of the gutter Trix, I didn't want to feel that line of thought." Soul's sudden negativity towards Trixie made the group confused.

Cadence giggled. "Oh, I see now!" As they turned to look at the Goddess of Love she explained.

"Soul is Trixie’s literal soul mate, no pun intended, at this point of their relationship they can get traits from each other, while also getting the ability to feel and tell what the other is thinking. That is why Trixie gained Soul's ability to see earthbound spirits nopony else can see. She can use Soul's special talent a bit at a weaker level. And Soul might get her aptitude for illusions." Cadence finished with a smile.

"That explains why Soul blushed, he was picking up the thoughts Trixie was having." Soul's eye began to twitch as he turned his head towards Fang, who had a teasing grin on his face.

"I don't ask what you do with Twilight, you don't ask me what I do with Trixie. Bedroom confidentiality!!!" Fang was about to respond that he didn't ask what Soul and Trixie did in the bedroom, but he was cut off when Applejack shoved her hoof into his mouth.

"Hold on partners! We're getting off track, the memory please." Applejack's words got the others back on track.

"Right, here goes!" Soul took a deep breath. He concentrated his magic and it created a link to Hex's own horn as the spell went to work. "Hex, concentrate on that memory and let the spell do its job, okay?"

Hex nodded and sent energy into his horn, the spell created a screen that reminded Twilight of what she had seen just before she ascended and became an alicorn.

The screen had static at first, but it soon cleared to show the colt's memory of when Soul was eaten. After Fang teleported the group away during the smokescreen Trixie ran to Soul's cloak and sobbed for a moment before she got up and looked to Fang. Hex wasn't paying attention as his sister left with Fang, still looking himself over, as he saw the effects that getting your youth stolen had on fillies and colts. He had found himself the size of a fully grown adult and winced, seeing he was aged to the point where he was physically as old as the late Granny Smith. He saw a glow from out of the corner of his eye and turned to see the Tree of Harmony and the elements on it. 

There was a light yellow glow as a seventh Element of Harmony, only transparent, formed just below the element of magic, and to his surprise, it was in the shape of his sister's cutie mark. Around the seven appeared the remaining elements of sin. They each lit up, one by one, and sent out a beam of light in each of their colors, and they spun around before entering the sapphire they all now knew was the Element of Good. It floated up and two black orbs were released before they formed Muse and Edge, but they were unconscious. Hex watched with a raised eyebrow as the two shades were placed in the shadow of the box before the aged colt felt a large surge of magic, possibly from his sister, as he saw shadows flying overhead, and saw his own had returned. 

He watched as the spirit of a half pony, half dragon being manifested over Soul's cloak. She was as black as night a starless night, with a silver mane, and a mostly equine shaped body. Instead of fur she had scales, and her wings were draconic in nature. Her purple eyes held a sadness that Hex couldn't place. Her cutie mark was a Crescent moon with a black version outlined in red, forming a circle. She looked at a mass of shadows that was now floating over the cloak.

"My son, I am so sorry for what you have just experienced, and I wanted you not to end up like this. My son, Tamashii Souto no Nexus, I am so proud of you for what you have endured all these millennia. Your time has not come yet so please come back to those that care for you and that you care for." The spirit just stared at the mass of shadows about the cloak.

It was then that the group watching the memory realized that the spirit was Queen Crescent, Soul's mother. The spirit of the Shade Queen went to the memory Hex.

"Little one be sure to watch over both my son and your sister, they will face many more trials before they can defeat my husband. I want you to make sure that they can handle the danger they will face in the future. And I want you to help them in any way they can. To do that I will give you a gift that hasn't been seen in Equestria since the life time of your ancestor, Spirit, an ability that my son will eventually get. You shall be the first spirit guardian in millennia. The abilities you gain from this will allow you to channel spirits and, if your connection to them is strong enough, temporally fuse with them. When my son gets this ability, please help each other to master it, as it is important in the coming war with my husband's kingdom. After all, I can't have the descendent of Starswirl’s cousin Spirit not help those who need it in the coming hard times." Queen Crescent smiled at the colt before a purple eyed witch shade and Starswirl, both of which were transparent, as they were only spirits, appeared.

"Crescent, our time in this plane is up, I sent Muse and Edge to the boarder of Canterlot, I just hope they will be able to find my journal..." Starswirl's ghost looked at the shade queen.

"If your last entry is damaged, I placed a repair spell in one of my sections. Just in case, dear." Spell Weaver hugged her husband.

"I knew you would be able to have a backup my dear." Starswirl laughed before the three turned to the Element of Good. "Ah, so that's what happened... Soul had this thing for so long that his soul made a copy of it inside the element itself, not bad for my godson." Starswirl turned to his wife.

"I will just release it so he can reform, it is a testament that he wielded it so well he was completely en-tuned to it." Spell Weaver, tapped the element, releasing a will-o-wisp before Crescent pushed it into the mass of shadows, then the three ghosts vanished. The mass turned into particles that converged, reforming Soul in pony form as the wind kicked his cloak back onto his body. The remaining shadows went back to the element, reforming his old sword, the one he wielded before the Kagenohikari reappeared and sheathed itself on his back. 

With that the screen and the spell ended, and Soul collapsed, dizzy, and definitely loopy. Applejack quickly used her lasso to restrain Soul as everyone blinked at what they saw.

"Wait, Starswirl's entry said that Queen Crescent was a wyvern shade, not a pony/dragon shade..." Twilight blinked in confusion. 

"More like a Kirin shade, remember that Crescent has a pony father and a shade mother." Fang pulled the journal from Soul's saddlebags. He blinked, seeing that the entry Starswirl wrote was repaired.

He quickly read it and blinked as he read the last line. "Dark Chaos War? Guess we're going to need to find The Doctor again, maybe he can shed some light on it, along with Ditzy" Fang held a confused look. He handed it to Luna to read, and she read the entry out loud.

"The shades were created before the time of Discord by a dark dragon who was the king of a nation that had never been known to the world before. His name was Nox Void and he had knowledge of magic so dark it was almost a violation of reality. His kingdom was called Nexus. The first shades, known as Shifts, were created to act as the soldiers of the kingdom. Over time however the sunlight started to kill them off. Void was worried for the shades as they were what made up his kingdom's population.

It did not help that his nation was located in what would later become known as The Southern Badlands. With the fact the shades were made of the physical darkness, which is why the sunlight proved deadly to them, the dragon, to find a way to keep his subjects alive, delved even further and deeper into his black magic. But as the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

With the more knowledge he gained of dark magic he started to lose more and more of his sanity until he was completely insane. But he had done it. He had altered the remaining shades to imitate living creatures, turning them from constructs into the life forms known as Homunculus.

Eventually his insanity and the unwavering loyalty of his creations had finally created a massive threat to the balance of the world, of light and darkness. The world's magic had responded in the form of discord who at the time saw that with Nox Void around wouldn't be able to spread his image on the world. And thus began what was known as The War of Darkness and Chaos. The war itself took seven millenniums, and with black magic corrupting Void more and more each day he had changed into a shade himself.

I personally witnessed the final battle when pony kind started to become sentient. By this point void had created his own versions of Discord's creations in the form of shades. The counterparts of the Timberwolves were the Hell Hounds. They were the exact opposite of the wooden constructs as the hounds were made of the darkest of fires. To counter them Discord himself had asked me if I and some of my kind wanted to learn magic. This was the start of the Unicorn race. That was when I decided to call myself Starswirl.

Void countered us with humanoid shades called Mages and discord countered by creating the soon to be known Pegasi, and Griffon races. Void again countered with his own flying force which he called Wyverns. Discord yet again countered with Hydras and Void countered with shape-shifting beings called Mimics that eventually evolved into what was soon to be called Nightmares. They were basically the pony versions of shades.

Soon the Hell Hounds started to mutate gaining three heads and thus were renamed Cerberus named after Discord's own pet dog that had three heads. Soon the Shifts started to wear armor, wield a sword and a shield, and soon came to be known as Guardians. Then came their assassins known as the Shinobi. Discord countered this with the Cockatrices and Chimeras which spurred Void into fusing some of the Shades into hybrids and his own version of Chimeras.

I quickly saw that this went from a war to a contest of who could create the most races. But in the final battle a third party came. An earth pony had started to develop what was later known as vampirism becoming the first vampony. He was named Sangue and was nicknamed Ripper due to his brutal technique in battle where he would use his immense strength to rip his opponent's apart limb from limb. Then new monsters and demons began to appear. Some of the demon tribes started to become our allies in this time and as a result the Shade species as a whole developed the ability to see demonic auras and the battle ended when Discord absorbed some of Void's insanity.

The chaos caused by this caused massive earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and hurricanes. This sadly forced Sangue's young son Crimson Fang to take control in the death of his father after an earthquake caused an avalanche to fall on him, killing him instantly. Fang soon became known as The King of Monsters and was later nicknamed the King of Fear, due to his habit of scaring criminals, who were deemed to be too dangerous to allow to continue living by his kingdoms courts, to death.

The young king then spent the remainder of the war trying to figure out a way to seal away both Void and Nexus as a whole. Discord vanished soon after Sangue's death, and Void seemed to be sane again. The Shades started to develop genders by this point and Void soon married a shade wyvern named Crescent Eclipse. They soon had a son named Tamashii Souto, later nicknamed Soul, who became Fang's childhood friend as, despite the king's age of forty two, he was still in the body of a colt. Apparently due to the fact he was a natural born vampony he would age slowly and never grow old. Both started to grow at the same time. Despite having at least three decades apart in ages the two quickly became the best of friend’s nay brothers in all but blood according to Fang's mother, Scarlet Sky. Then tragedy struck both as both Crescent and Scarlet started to fall ill.

I later learned that Discord had reappeared and had started to absorb natural magic, replacing it with his chaotic magic and as a result began warping reality. Void started to become insane once again and young Tamashii saw his kind go from the kind beings they were into evil, feral, yet very intelligent, beasts in every sense of the word. His mother had revealed to me, in secret, that she was the daughter of a pony and Guardian Shade. And thus was slightly immune to the insanity.

Sadly Discord had absorbed too much magic from the Shade queen and Fang's mother. They died soon after, as the natural magic in their bodies was tied to their life force. Crescent disintegrated into particles as a result of the magic that was keeping her in this existence was taken and Scarlet, well her case was different.

Her magic had created two odd ponies that had the traits of all three tribes, unicorn, earth ponies, and pegasi. I knew that Scarlet was a unicorn, and that her husband was a threshal so I knew Fang was at least similar beings such as these two. But this was the last straw for Void. The white filly formed from the light half of Eclipse's magic and the blue one from her darker half were targeted by Void as his view was that their creation was what had killed his own wife.

Fang was horrified at this and decided to protect his new sisters to the best of his ability. By this point Tamashii had become a full guardian shade and was helping his friend defend his family. I decided to help out as well because I still was young enough to help out. Fang had set out with an odd crystal seed he found in his castle's vault, which contained various magical artifacts, and planted the seed before gathering the six arch demons that Discord had made his generals and called up seven more. One was unable to create a body of his own and so possessed a young kitten that had been walking in the area. He told Fang that his name was Cheshire and was soon taken in as Fang's own pet cat.

With Tamashii by his side Fang called up all the magic that he and his friend could. And with this massive amount of power he placed a seal upon Void and the Kingdom of Nexus using the power of the arch demons as the locks. The seal took its toll on the shades by forcing Nexus to become part of Tenebris, which was a parallel dimension of our own, Lux. While Tenebris was aware of us before Nexus had become a part of it they were never able to interact. I know of this land for I was told of its existence by a fourth, grey, alicorn with a mane of blue flame who called himself Hades, The Creator of Demons.

The seal secretly had a fourteenth lock. Parts of Soul and Fang's souls. Due to this Fang lost his memory of the war and what he did while his arch demons scattered to keep the seal in place, except Cheshire, of course, who liked his position as a king's pet cat. I heard that Void had cast out Tamashii from Nexus for his betrayal to the shades. I knew that Tamashii would not survive long in direct sunlight and was relieved when he received a shadow cloak as a gift from Fang.

The last time I talked to the young exile he told me he was going to travel the world and train for the day that The Kingdom of Nexus and his father reappeared. I handed him a few years supply of Eclipse Capsules, small crystals that were made of solid light and dark magic. I made these in honor of Eclipse, whom I had created them for, to extend her resistance to sunlight, they would allow her to stay in contact with the sun for two more hours than a normal shade could. I told him that they were his life blood should he ever lose the shadow cloak that Fang had given him. Then to my astonishment the young knight transformed into a stallion like the Nightmares only he looked like a normal unicorn pony.

He had explained that it was his grandfather's pony DNA that granted him this power. And that was the last I saw of him. In a letter I received during my time training Celestia and Luna, the two fillies created from Scarlet's magic he had lost his own memory from a delayed effect of the seal. From what I gathered my theory is that he can regain those memories when the seal is weakened enough for shades to cross over to our world.

Fang had forgotten he even had two sisters and I raised them as my own. It wasn't until near a thousand years on my death bed did I discover what had become of the seed Fang planted. It had become a crystal tree called the Tree of Harmony. When the day of my death began to approach I told Celestia and Luna where to find the Tree of Harmony and when they left to confront Discord I wrote this last entry in my private journal that I have hidden in my old home, Golden Oaks Library.

I charmed this journal of my life to only reappear when the Mare of Dawn and Dusk and the King of Monsters are wed and return to the threshold of my old home. I leave the two ponies, the shade prince, and all of their friends with this warning.

The time has come for wrongs to be righted and for a new era to begin. When the seal is broken the shadow dragon shall arise and begin to cover the world in darkness. Find my old friend Time Turner, he will explain and help you on your journey. ~ Starswirl the Bearded. Age 2400." Luna finished and looked at the group, who were sitting there wide eyed.

"Eclipse? Oh, must have been Crescent's last name, that explains a bit..." Discord looked down, feeling guilty as he started to remember that day. Fang saw this and sighed.

"I forgive you Discord it was the insanity that you took from Nox that caused this. But right now we might want to snap Soul out of it..." Fang motioned to Soul who was sitting still and quickly turning his head, looking in different directions like he had an attention span of three milliseconds. Trixie cleared her throat and walked up to Soul before she straight out kissed him, when she pulled back she turned and walked to Twilight, she smirked and conjured a counter.

"Three, two, and one..." Trixie glanced back as the timer hit zero, Soul shook his head and blinked before looking at his restraints.

"Thank you Applejack, and Trix you are one minx, I can tell you that as a fact. Now... What did I miss?" Luna showed him the full entry.

"Oh... Wow." Was all Soul could manage to say.

"So we were not sealed in Nexus, but in the Element of Good?" Muse looked at the place that once held the element on Soul's Nexium blade.

Soul just shrugged. "It looks like it..." After about an hour the group dispersed and everyone headed home. Soul and Hex were confused as to what the abilities they had were, Crescent had not explained how to do it in detail...

That night the box that rested in Hex's room, the one engraved with the name Badge began to shake and glow. The seal placed on that old one had weakened enough for him to get out, with the help of a pony.

Pinkie and Jekyll decided they would spend the night together at the latter's house. Once they got there and fell asleep, two clouds of black smoke with glowing red eyes appeared and attacked them.





Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster they call destiny. ~ John Hobbes