A Lost Soul Returns: The King of Monsters

by Dark Star the Crazed

A New Class of Shade.

A security guard was walking through Canterlot's train depot, where all the trains left from to get on the tracks and travel to different towns and back, when he saw something move in between the boxcars. He walked over and shone his flashlight into the shadows, revealing a raccoon. The guard let out a sigh and smiled. "Just a 'coon... I need to stop reading those horror comics..." The guard turned around and let out a scream before the sounds of flesh being torn and bones snapping filled the night. The guard fell to the ground, well, at least the back half of him did.

"You should have left us alone! Why can't you stupid ponies just leave us alone!?" The creature that had killed the guard looked at the ground and saw there was a pool of blood forming as the blood dripped from the corpse. "Maybe I can make you all stay away..." The creature placed the end of its lion-like tail in the pony's blood and drew a symbol on the boxcar behind the body.

After it had finished drawing the symbol, the creature that had ripped the poor pony apart walked off into the night. Little did it know, a filly had seen the entire thing. The filly crawled out of her hiding place beneath one of the boxcars and went to run home, only to be stopped by the creature she had just seen leave.

"Do you live here little one?" The filly shook her head. "Then go home... And never return..."

Twilight, Fang, Soul, Trixie, Grogar, Lepus, and Tsukiyomi approached the entrance to the train depot and saw Celestia and Luna standing there waiting for them. "I'm glad you could all come and investigate this for us... We figure Fang and Soul, possibly Lepus and Grogar as well, might have an idea as to what did this..." The sisters turned around led the group into the train depot, to where the filly had seen the attack. As soon as they got to the scene, Soul and Tsuki could sense two demons were nearby.

"Demons... Two of them... They are both pureblooded..." Trixie and Twilight looked at the two shade ponies.

"Is there a difference between the demons we've seen so far and pureblooded demons?" Lepus snorted.

"Yeah, you're looking at a halfblooded demon whenever you look at me... In fact 8 of us archdemons are halfblooded. Purebloods can't take the form of a pony like half-bloods can because they have no pony D.N.A.... Well actually... A few can, like my father, he was a pureblood and he could take the form of a pony..."

"And half the time they kill without remorse... They kill because they think it’s fun..." Twilight looked at her husband and saw a pulse go through his neck. She leaned in to bite him, but stopped when she saw the half eaten body of the security guard.

"Oh my..." The group approached slowly, except for Grogar, he ran up to the boxcar and started examining the symbol that the creature had drawn with the guard's blood.

"By the names of all the gods that have ever been in this plain of existence! I think we're dealing with a shade!" The group ran over and looked at the symbol, letting their jaws go slack. It was the same symbol as the one on Soul's shield.

"Celestia... How did the filly describe the thing that killed the security guard again?" The white alicorn blinked and looked at Luna.

The dark blue alicorn sighed. "She said, and I quote, 'It stood on its hind legs like a minotaur and had the tail and head of a lion. Oh, and it was completely black except it had green eyes.' Does that fit the description of any kind of shade you know about?"

Soul shook his head. "No, it's probably a Nise no kage." Celestia and Luna looked at Soul with their eyebrows raised.

"What in the wide world of Equis is a Nise no kage?" Soul just blinked in response.

"Fang didn't tell you?" Soul turned and looked at his childhood friend and frowned. "You didn't tell them?" Fang gave him a sheepish smile.

"I can only offer this up as rebuttal... I had other things on my mind... Like stopping Lepus, teaching Grogar, spending time with my wife, daughter and foals. And then there's the fact that I am a king and have a kingdom to run... I had a lot on my mind. I am so very sorry that I forgot..." Hearing how sincere the black alicorn's voice was, Soul smiled and nodded in understanding.

"That's understandable, I guess." Soul turned back to Celestia and Luna. "Nise no kage, or False Shadows, is the name we have given to the shade like creatures that are being created by Trixie's cousin, Nigrum, and his nightmare, Nero. They are creating them for the sole purpose of killing Trixie."

Celestia blinked. "Nigrum? Nigrum Lulamoon? As in the Nigrum Lulamoon who I personally forbid to set a single hoof in my school after the judges told me he was going to attempt to use black magic during his entrance exam, and was disowned by the Lulamoon family shortly afterwards?" Soul nodded. "Why would he want to kill Trixie, what did she do to him that was worse than what I did?"

"I was the one who informed the judges that he was going to use black magic. After his father and mother disowned him his father found his journal and discovered he and a mare from another noble family, the Florescant Clan, named Snowbell were in love and planned to elope, he went to her house and told her that Nigrum didn't love her anymore and she... She killed herself and their unborn filly." Trixie looked down and sighed.

"By revealing that to the judges, and by extent, you, Princess Celestia, I caused a stallion to make a mare commit suicide and got Nigrum banned from your school, which in turn made his mother and father to disown him... In short... He want's to kill me, because I killed him, not physically, but socially... Nigrum Lulamoon is dead... He's just Nigrum now... If I had just kept my mouth shut none of that would have ever happened, and there would be two more ponies alive today." Trixie's eyes began to fill with tears.

"I see... Well... He certainly has a reason to be angry with you, but it's not a reason to kill you... There was no way you could have known what would happen. I'll tell the guards to be on the lookout for him..." Trixie nodded and Celestia sighed before turning back to Soul. "So we're not dealing with a shade, right?" Soul opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by Tsukiyomi.

"Wait a second!" The entire group turned and looked at her. "Perhaps it is a shade that is suffering from some sort of mutation. If it was a Nise no kage we wouldn't have been able to detect them, as they are not demons, they are nothing but intelligent golems." Soul blinked.

"A mutation...?" Soul sat down, closed his eyes and put a hoof to his chin. "Well, I guess it's possible... All bipedal shades are evolutions of the Shifts, and evolution is basically just a fancy word for a mutation affecting a group, and said mutation being passed down to their young, and their young's young. And now that you mention it Tsuki... The traces of aura around the body do resemble the aura of a shade, to some extent..."

A roar rang throughout the train depot and the group turned and looked at the source of the sound. It was a solid black, bipedal creature, sort of like Soul when he was in his shade form, only without a face, excluding the glowing yellow eye in the middle of its forehead, armor and a weapon. Around its neck was a mane of black fur, like a lion's, but with hair gathering at eight points, making it look like the head was in the middle of an eight pointed star. A black, lion-like tail flicked out from behind the creature's back. "Why won't you ponies just leave us alone!?" The enraged creature ran at them with such speed that Fang and Soul didn't have time to draw their swords. The best shot past them and they turned to see that it had grabbed Twilight and Trixie.

"Put them down!" The creature growled at them and tightened its grip around the mare's throats. By blocking the flow of oxygen to their brain it was able to disable their ability to use magic. Soul was about to try and fight it, but was stopped by Fang. He looked at the vampony and suddenly heard the alicorn's thoughts.

'Soul, fighting this shade won't do us any good, put your sword away and let me handle this...' Soul slowly nodded and made his sword, the Kagenohikari, disappear. Fang smiled and looked at the shade that was holding Trixie and Twilight. "Ok sir, please calm down... You want to be left alone correct?" The shade continued to growl at him. "If you let them go, I promise you, no one will ever bother you ever again..."

"Promise?" Fang nodded and the shade looked at the two mares it was holding before dropping them. The two mares ran to their significant other and Fang smirked. The next thing the group saw was Fang's horn lighting up, and one of his swords impale the shade through the chest.

"I said that no one would bother you ever again, and you won't bother anyone ever again..." The blade quickly shot skyward, slicing the shade's head in half. "No one harms my family and lives..." The shade began to disappear in wisps of shadow, falling backwards and vanishing completely just before its head hit the ground. The group watched as a silver gemstone that had come out of the shade's chest fell to the ground. It was about half the size of Fang's hoof. "Soul... Do you have any idea what this is?"

The shade shook his head. He had never seen something like that come out of a shade after it had died, well at least not before today anyway. There was a gasp and the next thing the group knew, Grogar had knocked Fang down and taken the jewel from him. The ram was sitting down, holding the gem in his forehooves and staring at it with wonder in his eyes.

"It's been... However many years I was locked in Tartarus since I've seen one of these..." The group looked at the ram and waited for him to explain. "This is that shade's soul... He must have absorbed so much energy from something that it turned his soul into a crystal... Do any of you know how powerful this thing is?" The entire group shook their heads. "Well... I guess that makes sense. I'm the one who is best at soul magic in the group after all."

"Grogar... You said it's powerful... Would you please explain what you mean?" The ram blinked and nodded before going silent for a few seconds, trying to think up what he could compare it to...

"Ok, how much coal does a train need to get from Ponyville to Canterlot?" Twilight blinked and smiled, knowing the answer.

"One ton, why?" The ram blinked.

"Really? I thought it would have taken at least two..." The ram shook his head. "Anyway... This single crystal, could power a train for three full months..." The group let their jaws drop open. "Just think, if we had more of them... Think about the machines we could make... The things we could discover! Heck, I bet if we had enough of them, we could build a ship able to take ponies to the moon!" Luna and Tsuki both frowned and Grogar saw it.

"Ok, maybe we should avoid putting ponies on the moon, sorry I was so excited that I um... Forgot about what happened to you two a thousand years ago... But with enough we could probably get to another planet besides Equis, maybe even another dimension! Maybe we could open a permanent portal to the human world!" Fang, Soul and Twilight went wide eyed. "The possibilities are endless! Think of the things I could create with this!" Fang slapped Grogar on the back of the head and snatched the jewel away. The ram began to rub the back of his head and glared at his mentor. "What was that for!? Think of what I would be able to do with that!"

"I am! That's why I'm going to take this and hide it in a place only I know about. I might, might, let you have it to experiment with, after you stop doing insane things! Like creating Crux!" Celestia and Luna blinked.

"Who's Crux?" Grogar grinned and his horns lit up, a bolt of lightning shot from the clear sky and struck where he stood, blinding the group. When they could see again, Grogar was gone. "What just happened?"

"Grogar teleported. I don't know why a bolt of lightning strikes where he is when he teleports, and quite frankly I don't want to know. I have learned not to question how transmuting pony magic into ram magic affects him..." A boom of thunder sounded and Grogar appeared out of nowhere, there wasn't even a flash of magic. Grogar smiled when Crux ran up his back and sat on his head.

Luna went slack jawed. "That thing... Is adorable!!!" The Lunar Princess let out a small 'squee'. "Where did you find that?"

"What is it anyway?" Grogar grinned at Celestia and decided to explain it to her the same way he had explained it to Fang.

"I didn't find him Luna. I made him... As for what he is... Dragon mice. I can make dragon mice!" Celestia just stared at the ram for a few seconds before looking at her big brother.

"Fang... Are you still sure that taking Grogar in as a student was a good idea? I am starting to have serious doubts about his mental health..." Fang just shrugged. "Big brother, he made dragon mice. Dragon mice." Before Fang could respond, a roar rang throughout the air and the group turned to see what had let loose such a sound of rage.

Standing on top of one of the box cars was a creature that looked exactly like the one Fang had killed, only it was twice the size of the one they had seen before. "YOU HURT MY BROTHER!!!" It jumped to the ground and began to charge at the group. The entire group began to throw balls of pure magical energy at the creature, but all it seemed to do was slow it down a bit. It was at this moment that Fang realized something.

'This is that shade's soul... He must have absorbed so much energy from something that it turned his soul into a crystal...' As Grogar's words played in his head he began to realize what had happened to the two strange shades that they had encountered today. He quickly teleported the group out of the shade's path and onto a box car.

"Don't use magic on him! It will only make him stronger!" The group looked at Fang for an explanation. "Grogar said something earlier and I just realized that he had given us the answer to the question, 'What happened to these Shades?'. They absorbed so much energy from a Barrow Wight that they have become part Barrow Wight. As such I believe that they might have gained part of the appearance, behavior and abilities of a Barrow Wight." Celestia and Luna looked at each other before looking at their big brother.

"What's a Barrow Wight?" Fang blinked and sighed, knowing exactly why they had never encountered one before. His little sister suffered from severe claustrophobia.

"The best way I can describe it is a small, bipedal, goblin-like creature with the face of a rat, and the mane and tail of a lion. They are subterranean demons that never attack ponies out right, but will destroy things in places where many ponies gather in broad daylight, like a park or a market. However, they will only do this when their home is disturbed. There, now that I've explained we have to go and destroy this shade, the size of it probably means that he absorbed more energy than the other one, perhaps he absorbed two entire Barrow Wights... That means he is probably going to be twice as hard to kill." They all heard a loud roar and turned to see that the shade had found them again. Fang looked at Soul. "I'll distract him, you end this." Soul nodded and sank into his shadow. Fang jumped off the boxcar and teleported the rest of the group out of the train yard.

Soul watched as Fang made the scene where he had killed the smaller shade play over and over again in front of the large shade's eyes. Soul summoned his blade and slowly crept towards the large shade as it began to shake with fury. It began to jump up and down and Soul timed his jump and the swing of his sword so that he would split the shade in two, diagonally. The shade began to disappear in wisps of shadow, soon disappearing as a gem dropped from its body, just like the other shade they had killed. The two friends looked at each other and nodded before they began walking to the exit of the train depot. “Fang, we’re going to need a name for this new class of shades…”

“Why don’t we just call them what they are, Mutations.” Soul thought for a second before nodding in agreement. That name would fit this new class perfectly.

Four forms, a pegasus, a gryphon, an earth pony and a creature that seemed to be made of parts of ponies and a minotaur, stood upon a hill overlooking the city known as Ponyville. “Perhaps we can make a life here… Even still, we should trust no one, should we?” The pegasus looked at her companions and saw them all shaking their heads. “Well then… We shall finish our trek at dawn…”