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Prologue: Conclusion?171 words
Chapter 1: Hope (Rewritten)1,402 words

Chapter 1: Hope (Rewritten)

She opened her eyes.

A forest, lush and green, filled her field of vision. It should have made her happy, glad that it was no longer a world of black darkness. For even the dark night sky above the canopy was brighter than what she had faced.

But it didn't.

It only brought the deepest sorrow into her heart. The brighter colours, the fresh air, were just reminders of what she had done, the world she had given up on. The people she had chosen to abandon.

Seeing the face of the one she loved, flashing in her eyes, she scrambled forward to embrace him, only to pass through his ghostly image and fall into the dirt.

"Something wrong?"

She turned her head, finding the man of her life missing, and her mother standing in his place.

"I..." She croaked, voice thick with her emotions.

"I left them..." Her own voice was the trigger to her crying.

"You have to be strong," said the voice in front of her. "This is a whole new world that needs your help."

"Easy for YOU to say!" She was starting to anger.

"Now, my daughter liste-"

"NO! NO! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVED HIM?! LOVED THEM?! AND THEN I GAVE UP ON THEM! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THAT HURTS?! DO YOU?!"

The ghostly figure looked surprised at her daughter's outburst, but was silenced by the face of hurt her daughter bore.

"You... You have no idea...how m-much...it h-hurts..." She broke down, much of her energy spent, sobbing quietly on the grass beneath her.

The ghostly apparition moved forward, and sat down next to the distressed child. She reached her hand out to stroke her hair, before sadly recalling that she couldn't. The glowing figure settled for sitting next to her daughter, arms around her knees as she looked up into the night sky, barely visible through the trees.

"Actually, I do know how it feels."

That garnered a reaction from the heartbroken lady, as she looked up to her mother in surprise.

"It is true, my dear daughter. I was once performing the same job as you, traveling from world to world in hopes of finding a way against..." Both mother and daughter winced.

"That thing. But I was young once, and the wonders of love had captured my heart," she sighed sadly, recalling the events that transpired afterwards.

However, a rustling of the leaves broke her concentration. A strong wind was picking up, and dark shadows of leaves fluttered in wake of the strong gusts.

Looking up, both females saw the thundering, rolling clouds in the sky, as well as the flashes of blue lightning.

"Wha- Already?!"

"There's no time to lose! Remember what you've learnt my child, and ready those of this world," the glowing lady reminded as she stepped towards the clouds.

The youthful daughter of the pair quickly scrambled onto her feet, only for her to fall over. What?!

She looked down at her arms. Instead of arms and fingers, were the forelegs and hooves of a small horse. Looking between her forelegs, she saw the same transformation her legs had undergone, even spying the tail between them. She was a horse.

She was a horse.

"You became a werewolf in one of your earlier attempts, my daughter. Quickly get used to it and get out of here. Our enemy has learnt efficiency," the spectral woman gritted her teeth at the swirling vortex in the sky.

Any urge to express her confusion was overshadowed by the urgency of the situation.

Thus, with as much grace as a bird learning how to fly, she stumbled out of the clearing, running from the storm clouds above as fast as she could.

-------------------------------------------

The spectral mother did the opposite, walking towards the storm, a fiery determination in her eyes. She might have had little power over things physical, but she had noticed that power as soon as she awoke on this world.

This world had magic.

By this statement alone, there was a chance. A chance, to stop the darkness in its tracks. A chance, to find a solution. A chance, to find a way to fight back.

And she would buy as much time as possible for this chance.

Finding her way to the eye of the oncoming storm, she lied down on the soft grass beneath her, and stared upwards.

The vortex was crackling now, arcs of lightning no longer only jumping within the clouds, but also striking the forest beneath them.

The glowing woman closed her eyes.

A pinpoint of black started to push itself from the vortex. It quickly disappeared, erased from existence by the mere atmosphere of the world. But many more followed, a mass of darkness bulging into the untainted world.

The glowing woman breathed out slowly. She raised her arms, dainty, fragile fingers twisting into a deceptively simple shape in front of her.

The darkness was truly within the world now, tendrils of black trailing towards the canopy. They twisted and arced towards the woman in the clearing below them, as if they recognized her spectral form.

An orange crystal, large and foreboding, started to push itself out of the vortex. It glowed with a sickly light, arcs of orange lightning clashing with the blue ones around it.

The darkness was careful, using much of its mass to protect its precious cargo.

But that didn't matter.

Just as a tendril of darkness approached within a meter of her face, she opened her eyes. They were blazing, shining with a furious quality. Her palms curled and flexed, fingers quickly moving to seemingly impossible shapes. Her hands moved quickly, carrying out this flurry of actions.

Within the span of a second, she was done. A symbol etched from her fingers was reflected as a giant rune on the clouds above. For a moment, nothing moved.

Then the lady brought her fingers together.

The shadows realized their folly too late. The giant rune in the sky copied her fingers' movements, closing the portal, and slicing the large orange crystal neatly into halves.

The half that remained on this world quickly fell towards the ground, tendrils of darkness not of sufficient mass nor density to slow it descent.

It fell, quickly rushing towards the ground beneath. Shadows rushed to its underneath, hoping to at least cushion its impact.

But it was for nothing.

Just as the crystal filled her vision, the lady on the ground below pointed an outstretched finger at the mass of orange.

The crystal's descent stopped. It's lowermost pointed pointed edge rested on the tip of her finger, a sharp glow glaring from where either point met.

The sharp glow then spread throughout the orange crystal above, seeping into the shapes of a hundred cracks.

These cracks stopped spreading, coming to a standstill. They then pulsed once, blue light shining from every single crack.

The crystal exploded.

It shattered, into a hundred little pieces, scattering themselves across the clearing. Every shard seemed to dim, still casting an orange light, but one that was much duller.

The tendrils of darkness began to dissolve, what little form they had, quickly covering the glow of as many shards as they could cover.

The lady slowly stood up, wincing at a pain in her ethereal body. Her right arm was gone. Wisps of light diffusing through her severed shoulder. She quickly used her other arm to seal the wound as best as she could. That expenditure of power had taken more out of her than she had expected.

But she had to keep going. Spotting a barely visible shard, made opaque by the darkness surrounding it, she slowly stumbled over, before slamming a glowing leg into the shard, dissipating it into nothing but dust.

She keeled over, leg seemingly shorter and more translucent than before.

Stumbling over to another shard, black in the black night, she stomped on it as well, crushing it.

She fell onto the ground now, legs unable to support her weight. Clawing her way to another shard with her remaining hand, she was unable to reach it before her vision disappeared.

Author's Note:

Hey...

I'm back! With a fresh rewrite of my entire story, starting with this, and following up with the next chapter. And every chapter after, I guess.

I hope that this rewrite has allowed some significant improvements, how different it may seem.

Whatever be the case, I hope you had fun reading this. Feedback will be appreciated, and honest critics get a cookie of cuteness.

Also, please check out this guy: https://www.fimfiction.net/user/UnicodingUnicorn
He's a great writer (In my eyes anyway) and has some pretty cool short stories.

(Also, he's my friend. Be nice)

Thanks for reading, and I will see you guys next time!

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