//------------------------------// // Two Paths // Story: The Road Left Alone. // by Reggie //------------------------------// “Reggie! Hey Reggie!” Reggie heard the voice behind and turned around. A little white griffon, flew to him from the small forest. His name was Dawn and he was a son of a guard captain in the Yellow Claw clan. “Hey there! What you’re up too?” he said as his friend approached him. “Dad told me not to go in the forest, so... I went there and guess what I found!” white griffon was very happy. He was hiding something behind him and Reggie became very curious. Brown griffon tried to look what was it, but Dawn sneered. “No no, that doesn’t work like this, you should guess!” Dawn said. “It’s a... Stone?” “Nope!” white griffon laughed. “Em... Something really old and cool?” Reggie scratched his head. He had no clues. “Bullseye! It is this!” he showed what he had behind him. It was an amulet with a picture of some griffon warrior, perhaps a hero. “Just a piece of metal, nothing interesting.” Reggie said. “No, you don’t understa...” Two friends heard a voice from Dawn’s father somewhere behind. “Dawn! Dawn! Come back to home, mom is worried!” “Oh dude, I gotta go. See ya later! I hope your dad won’t be mad because of this.” white griffon blasted of the ground. “That’s alright. Take care!” Reggie smiled. ------- Dawn woke up. “Another dream...” he sighed. He scratched his head, trying to remember last day. They met a group of ponies, who said something about a ship to Cervidas and Dawn was going to know more about their way. There was only two of them, both earth ponies dressed in a leather clothes and armed with a simple short swords. The door to his room opened and Lightning Reel flew in. “Ready to go?” he asked, flying under the celling. White griffon looked at him suspiciously. “Why are you so excited?” “Well... I never travelled by ship before and now I can’t wait to try it!” said pegasus. Dawn rolled his eyes and took his equipment. His new metal targe shield was not the kind of shields he got used to, but it still was a good protection, so he has no doubts in buying it the day before. He even started to think about enchanting his scimitar, but there was two problems: First - money, Second - he didn’t knew anyone who could enchant items with different spells. Enchanting in Equestria was used mostly for dresses and other casual stuff that couldn’t help in battle and that was a problem as well. “Give me a second, I need to take something.” he said He finished putting on his armor and they left the inn and went to the docks where they planned to meet other members of their new group. It took them an hour to get in there, because the town wasn’t small at all and the crowds of ponies around blocked the path in some streets. When they approached the first pier, a familiar green pony, who stood on the barrel, turned to them laughing. “Well well well, look who is here! You bloody bastard! What are you doing in Canterbury?” he yelled. “Arh?!” both Lightning and Down looked at him wide eyed. “Hell yes! I heard that two new guys will join our party today, but never expected that it would be you.” Arh jumped from the barrel he was standing on and walked to his friends. “But damn, can you tell me what the buck are you doing here? I thought you settled down in the Ironclaw, didn’t you?” Dawn gave a cold look to him. ‘There is no Ironclaw anymore. That’s why we here and that’s why we need to travel with you. And Arh...” he stopped, trying to find correct words. “Reggie is dead.” said Lightning. ******* “Something is wrong... Oh no. That can’t be happening! Increase the power of the spell! The Dark one is trying to disrupt it! No!...” The cold breeze was blowing around him. Heavy silence left him alone with his senses. He opened his eye and looked around. The darkness was impenetrable. “Wha... Where am I?” He tried to stand up on his legs, but felt the weakness in whole body. The last thing he remembered was a blade from his chest and the voice of Dawn. “What happened?” A dark deep voice came from the blackness. “How pathetic. They’ve told me that you are a savior, that you are the one who can stand against me. I see only a little bug which could be easily smacked by my power. But I wont do that.” loud demonic laughter pierced cold air. “I want to play with you. That’s so boring to live forever, you know. Come on Reggie, why so sad?” “Play?” griffon asked weakly. A monstrous roaring behind made Reggie jump up and turn back. Many black timberwolves were looking right at him. Their wooden teeth sharper than the best daggers he ever saw, they eyes glowing purple. They started to run. Reggie clenched his beak, turned again and raced through the darkness ahead. It seemed like some kind of a horrible fores. He never saw something like it before. The trees were terribly distorted and he had to jump over their long roots as he ran away from the terror which was following his every step. “How do you like this nightmare?” the voice said, laughing. Tree by tree he ran as fast as his body let him, but the timberwolves were always behind. Finally he noticed something dark ahead. It was a stone wall. The dead end. Reggie stopped and looked back. Dozens of beasts rounded him, preparing to end this chase once and for all. “As I thought, nothing special. And you were meant to defeat me? This is so sad.” Reggie knew it was the end. There was no way from this. “This time I wont let them get me so easy!” he thought. Brown griffon stood on his paws and prepared his claws to slash as much creatures as he could. Suddenly he remembered a strange meeting not long ago. The mysterious fire pony, who said something to him about a great dangers. “What was that?...Once born, light lives till the darkness?” he said. "WHAT?!" Strange pulse appeared inside him. It felt like fresh, warm light removed the weakness and pain from him, letting to see everything clearly. Then the feeling of light was replaced by the power that filled his claws and every piece of his body. There was so much power that the ground around glowed with a light. The white fire burst from his eye, something pulled him in the air. “A-a-a-a!!!” he screamed and the bright explosion of pure energy destroyed the illusive world around. Reggie fell down and lost consciousness. ******* “You sure about it?” Arh asked. “No body... Hm, that’s really strange.” “The fire covered the ground. Who knows where he was.” said Dawn and noticed few earth ponies coming their way. “Howdy guys!” one of the ponies waved to them. It was a purple earth pony with a cutiemark of a sail. “I see everyone is ready? By the way, this is Dawn” he nodded to white griffon.”And this is Lightning Reel” Another earth pony shaked pegasus hoof. “We are taking off soon, let us show you our ship!” The ship was not big nor small. It’s sails fluttered on the wind. “The best in the entire Southern Ocean. The Hurricane! ” “The Hurricane? Seasharp, it’s a ship, how could it be called like that?” Lightning wondered. “We will show you...” Seasharp grinned. When they were just about to get on board, grey pegasus crashed down in front of them. She stood up and shook her head. “Dangit! I’m late again, ain’t I? That’s unfair! Ya guys r always wanna get off to fast!” she said, smiling. “Cloudcrash, for Celestia’s sake, not again.” Seasharp facehoofed. “Cloudcrash? Hm... Hello there!” Lighting said. “Heya! Ya wondering ‘bout my cutiemark, right? This baby describes my awesomeness, yea!” she pointed at her flank. A black cloud with many cracks on it looked interesting with the colour of her fur. “But ‘nuff talking, Imma tired of that town. Where do we go now?” “Cervidas.” Seasharp answered. After an hour of preparations everyone was ready. Purple earthpony stood on the main deck. He looked ahead of the ship and yelled “Alright guys! Time to take off! Pull it up!” The ship rose above the water and started to move up. “What the hell?!” Dawn gripped the sailyard. “Ha-ha-ha! I knew you will be surprised.” Seasharp laughed. “My sweet baby can fly and that’s why this is the best ship in these places!” “But... How?! I see no pegasus pulling it, nothing what could do this!” Lighting blasted off the deck and flew around the ship. “Magicks.” wide smile crossed Seasharp’s face. The ship was flying high above the Islands of Galloprey, heading to the Fawntaine. Both Lightning and Dawn have never left the Equestrian lands. Dawn saw a debris in the ocean to the left. It looked like a enormous bridge from one continent to another. Huge columns still stood from the ground, many of them broken and crashed. Lightning landed right next to the grey pegasus. “What is it?” he asked Cloudcrash. “Oh, it’s the Ruins of Eternity’s Bridge. Smthn like an ancient pony creation. Dunno what happened, but I guess it was badass!” she said. Dawn walked up to Lightning. “How are you?” white griffon said. “I’m alright. Do you think he’s alive?” pegasus asked. “I don’t know. I want to believe that, but from what I’ve seen... No one can survive this.” was the reply. “And your wing?” “It’s good. Still hurts a little, but when we’ll reach the Cervidas I hope I will be able to fly again.” Dawn said. Suddenly a heavy wind turned the ship around. “... the hell...this damn fu... piece of useless wood...” Seasharp was yelling as he tried to take back the control of the ship. Everyone held on the deck, holding everything that could help them not to fall down. Seasharp released the steering wheel, saying something nice about unicorns who made this “piece of uncontrollable crap” and was blown away from the deck. He was falling down very quick, but the only pegasus from his crew, Cloudcrash, was trying to pull the ship ahead. Lightning jumped off and dashed to the falling earth pony. Wind changed the direction of his fall, but he pushed harder, moving himself towards Seasharp. The water below got closer. Blue pegasus spread his wings and caught the pony right before his death. “Holy sh.. Oh, am I still alive?” Seasharp said, recovering from the shock. “Eh...” Heavily breathing, Lightning looked up. “We gotta hurry! The ship is about to crash!” Meanwhile Arh ran down on the second deck. The main operator’s room was ahead, but everything was shaking so hard that he couldn’t make a few steps without falling. “It’s some kind of a sorcery!” he heard a voice of Dawn from above. “Do you have any kind of magic shields on this ship? If we won’t stop it now, it will be our last mistake!” “Of course! I know what to do, damn you!” Arh yelled and continued moving. He opened the door. The ship turned again, smacking him against the distant wall. Green pony stood up and pushed the button on the dashboard. A loud noise from magic generators filled the room and the shaking stopped. Cloudcrash entered the operator’s room and gave a cuff on the nape to Arh. “Ya should’ve been sittin’ here, monitoring EVERYTHING! Where were ya?” she asked with a rough tone in her voice, but a little grin appeared on her face. “I was asleep. Yes! Satisfied?” Arh said, realising that she was kidding him. Lightning landed on the main deck, releasing Seasharp and turned around, checking if somepony was missing. Everypony seemed to be alright, so he walked down to Arh. “Couldn’t you use this thing earlier?” he asked. “He was to-o-o busy doin’ very important things down there.” Cloudcrash laughed. “Screw you! I didn’t know that we could get in some kind of a magical storm up here. And we are very slow, when this shield is activated. Also we have never encountered such troubles before. What was that?.” Arh replied. “I guess you got to blame us for that.” said Dawn, who came into the room after Lightning Reel. “Oh guys, now I see that the thing you are getting me in is more serious than I thought”. ******** The headache was unbearable. Although he felt himself different. The usual ache in his wing was gone and he could hear everything around clearly. Reggie shook his head and looked up. High mountains above were a giant volcanoes and the lava flow from the mouth of them. The burned ground around him smelt like thousands of dragons breathed fire on it. He turned back noticing a movement. “Talking about dragons...” A huge six feet dragon stood up in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I... Better to ask how i got here, because the answer is I Don’t Know.” Reggie answered, thinking about the way he can escape a fight with this creature. “My name is Helleon and I’m going to find this out.” the Dragon said and grabbed the brown griffon. “You will meet my master and for your own safety - be polite.” “Your master?” Reggie thought, as the dragon blasted off. “This. Is. Bad.”