Afraid Of My Shadow

by Deyeaz

XII - Signs (Praxis)

Shadow & Craimer: Welp, here's another chapter. And I'm liking the statistics of this fic. 33/3, folks? That's marvelous! Thanks for sticking around with me, despite my constant bullshit. You're the best!

Afraid Of My Shadow

Written by CraimerX and ShadowWeaver

Proofreaded by the onlyoneofmeisyou

XII - Signs (Praxis)

It wasn’t easy rounding up everypony off of both the makeshift train me and Big Macintosh had to lug, and the Friendship Express. I was never good at herding a single sheep, let alone an enormous quantity of ponies. Fortunately for me, Big Mac was still there to facilitate the situation. With the both of us working together, we all got the four hundred ponies of Ponyville, as well as “a few” invites from Canterlot, into the Royal Palace.

Yes, I know what you’re probably thinking: ‘Oh, the magic of teamwork gets the job done; great job, Praxis and Mac; get on with the stor-’

...is that a tin can on the floor?

*OM NOM NOM NOM NOM*

Ah... so it is. Boy, these things are good.

Anyways, what was I saying?

Ah, yes: the events.

As Me and Big Mac successfully herded the ponies inside the castle, a voice calling my name caught my attention. I turned around and went breathless and speechless at the speaker.

Luxurious white dress with frills and ruffles added to the right spots, a white veil turned up upon her royal-blue mane streaked with sky blue, azure lipstick upon her mouth, thin blue eyeshadow upon her crimson eyes, which were void of their usual dark purple sunglasses. Her hooves were clad in sky blue gildings to protect what I assumed was her very articulate and well-performed hooficure.

“Well?” Vinyl Scratch asked of me. I tried speaking, but it was like my tongue had just vacated my mouth and my brain coagulated into goo. I couldn’t get the words out, no matter how hard I tried to get them out. “How do I look?” She pressed on.

“You’re... you’re gorgeous,” I finally stuttered, my heart beating at the most ludicrous of rates. Vinyl blushed hard at the compliment before trotting over and pecking me on the cheek.

Dear God, my face has never gone so red before.

“Thanks, Praxis,” she giggled before giving me a hug and making her way to the castle. “I hope you have fun today!”

“Sure! What could possibly go wro-?” I stopped myself.

Thank heavens I remembered Murphy’s Law: if it can go wrong, it will. Provoking that law by challenging it would not fare well today. Besides, today was supposed to be a celebration.

With a sigh of relief, I resumed my task of getting the invitees inside the Royal Palace. Once the job is completed in about three or four minutes, I donned my tuxedo and accessories, which Jace had the “courtesy” of casting aside on the side of the front car of the makeshift train. Once clothed, I walked towards the Castle. I wiped off the blue lipstick from off my cheek before I went in, to avoid more embarrassment - and perhaps even a scandalous rumour - between me and Vinyl.

I walked amongst the ponyfolk into the Royal Entrance Hall, taking care not to bump into them. The sea of equines was a huge one, almost bowling me over from their strength as I tried to move against the crowd, like the way a cell’s transport protein performs active transport with a substance that’s latched onto it.

...I can’t believe I still remember my biology lessons, even after six years of not being in school.

Anyways.

I finally barreled my way through the herd of nobleponies until I reached the Ballroom, smiling when I made it across. It was like four years ago, during the Grand Galloping Gala, the most prestigious, frivolous, and well-known event of the year. I think another one had passed, since they usually hold the Gala every year and a half at either the dead of September, or the end of spring. The room was heavily sprinkled with creatures of all race, gender, age, and origin.

Each pony in the room had on something white and light blue. Whether it be a white suit jacket, blue suit jacket, white shirt, what have you. Everypony matched, and that was all that mattered. Even the balloons all around the castle were white and light blue. It was a beautiful sight to see, really. The whole room looked like a brilliant ocean in the sunlight, shining so impeccably that you can’t help but stop and stare in shock and awe from how... beautiful it was. The extravagant halls and rooms of the castle being decorated for the same special occasion: The human of Equestria being married.

“Yo! Fluffy!” An all-too familiar voice called through the hustle and bustle of the ponies in the room. I looked to see Jace flying high above the crowd with his magic, the crimson aura cocooning his entire being. He floated over and landed in front of me, with several hundred cheers blaring throughout the ballroom.

Wait... he can fly now?

‘Hello, faggot police? Yeah, OP is on the loose again.’

‘Shut it, Brain. Now’s not the time for criticism.'

“C’mon, man! You gotta be there for the toast!” Jace grabbed my arm and started levitating us over the ponies towards the Main Room, where I believe the celebration was beginning.

It felt weird to be ensnared by magic. For instance, this unexplainable sort of chill just starts running through your body. You don’t feel as massive and heavy as you did before you were affected by the greedy, grabbing hands of telekinesis.

“Sorry,” I quickly apologized. “I haven’t been invited to a wedding, so I don’t know what goes on.”

“Really?” I nodded. “That must’ve been a bit awful.”

“Eh, wasn’t too bad,” I countered. “The last wedding my family went to? The groom didn’t know there was, shockingly, a stripper in the cake; so he started cutting it with this really expensive sabre he received from Libya as a gift, and... well, you know the rest.”

“Good God,” Jace said, with a hint of shock in his undertone. Seconds after, he started laughing so hard that he almost dropped the two of us. “Well, it’s a good thing Berry Punch isn’t around for cakes, I’ll tell you that much.” He wiped a tear of mirth from his right eye, yet I was still confused by the statement.

“I thought she was the town drunk, not the town whore,” I deadpanned.

“You never know, she could be both... All those fics about her being the town slut are...” He shivered a little. “Disturbing... So... Graphic.”

“Change the subject. Change the subject now!” I demanded desperately as the two of us finally arrived at the Main Room. The many ponies that sat inside stomped and cheered in earnest and joy when we entered. “Hello, everypony!” I cried at them all. “How’re you all doing today!”

‘Please don’t throw panties, please don’t throw panties, please don’t throw panties.’

In the middle of my hopeful wishing, I felt an elbow in my side and Jace glaring at me. “This is my wedding, not a damn concert...” He whispered to me.

“I know that, but still: when you least expect it, it will-”

*FUMPF!*

“...always happen,” I finished in disgust as a pair of pink lacy undergarments slapped my face. I removed the pink article of skimpy clothing and threw it over my shoulder. “Case in point.”

“Those were mine!” A bubbly voice I recognized screeched happily, like she had just built an exact scale model of the Eiffel Tower (Is it Hooffel Tower in this world?) or something of the sort. The ponies backed away from the speaker, revealing her to be-

“Pinkie Pie?!” Me and Jace yelled in incredulous unison.

“Yyyepper pepper!” She said as she bounced merrily over to the two of us. She picked up her lacy underwear and re-equipped it in a flash.

Dude... not cool.

“That’s vulgar, girl,” Jace commented; "and at my wedding nonetheless." He pinched the bridge of his nose when Pinkie Pie only giggled at his response. He sighed before going back to a proper pose. "Right! Well, I want to thank you all for coming to me and Vinyl's wedding! Enjoy the refreshments, and the toast will be after the ceremony, which will start in..." He pulled back his sleeve to look at his watch. "...Ten minutes! If you’d like, you can go into the throne room now to seat yourselves." He smiled and turned for the door, walking through the waves of ponies.

And so, the crowd dispersed again. With a swivel or two of my ears, I picked up the sound of chatting amongst one another, be it salutations, gossip, or bets on which flier will win in the next Wonderbolts Derby. Having very sensitive hearing was both grand and terrible, mainly because loud music temporarily impaired my hearing afterwards. But on the positive side, I could practically hear a butterfly’s wing flapping from... what, a mile or two away?

So instead of being a total creep and eavesdropping on everyone in proximity (which was literally everyone), I figured I should do what the others are doing: mingle.

I walked around and struck conversations with others. There were just so many! Ponies, Diamond Dogs, griffins, zebras; it was all a fantastic, magnificent collision of all things sapient and conscious going on in this building.

I used to hate being in gargantuan parties like this one, but now... I dunno, they don’t seem that bad anymore.

The whole time, I just socialized with the folks of Equestria. We talked about simple stuff: the economy, the weather, the ceremony, how splitting two very narrow Hoofgos (after asking them what in the blueberry fuckwaffles that is, I learned that it’s like a ponified version of Legos) is harder than splitting an atom.

...

Okay, so maybe we didn’t discuss that last part, but hey, as long as I have a way of keeping you here, I gotta do what I gotta do.

I walked to the window of the room, and looked outside to check the time. Judging by the sun’s very slight change of position in the sky, along with the shadow I casted upon the floor, my ten minutes were almost up.

Looking around for any place where I can start the toast, I witnessed, out of the corner of my eye, a pedestal bearing a speaker’s podium smack-dab at the front of the room. I would’ve walked over to the podium had it not been for the crowd of ponies blocking my path from the back corner of this room to the front.

This was just criminal: Why does it have to be, like, thirty meters away?!

With a sigh and a cocked-back right arm, I launched my arm at the podium, my hand whizzing above the heads of the ponies. Once my hand latched onto the podium like the Clawshot from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, I leaned back and grinned. “Gomu gomu no....” I leaned back a bit farther, the audience gasping in shock and awe at the sudden length of my arm.

‘It’s show time!’

“ROKETTO!” I leaped forward, covering the distance between me and the podium I was grabbing. I zipped over the heads of the ponies and landed right next to the podium, hanging onto it still in case I had overdone my leap.

‘Yeeeaaah... One Piece...’

I got behind the podium and cleared my throat. A butler pony tried offering me a glass of Chardonneigh, yet I declined the offer. I never drank to begin with. I clapped my hands twice at a powerful level to obtain the attention of everyone in the room, and it seemed to work. The ponies, Dogs, griffins, and zebras all turned to face me.

“Hello, everyone. I’d like to make a toast to my friend, Jason Romero.” Sounds of applause rang out at his name. “He’s been one of my best friends ever since we met four years back. Loyal, kind, honest, generous, and hilarious: he’s practically the very embodiment of the Elements of Harmony. Without him, I probably wouldn’t even be here.” I took another breath to fill up my lungs. “This also goes out to my friend Vinyl Scratch.” More applause once more. “She’s been sweet, incredible, and a very swell pony to be around...” I gulped. “Sorry, I’m not really good with words, guys.”

“Say something wise!” A griffin shouted from the group.

“Yeah! Be wise already!” A voice - one that I recognized as Rainbow Dash - agreed.

“Alright.... Beauty and love will forever be in the eyes of the beholder. The flames of these two’s love will burn on until the end of time, always flaring brightly for all to see, expanding and swallowing all that try to stop it. So may these two forever be blessed by their marriage, and the happiness they use to fuel their fire of love and life.”

More applause blared from the group, loud enough to temporarily deafen my hearing.

“So cheers to the two lovebirds! May they be blessed with love, happiness and... all that jazz!”

“CHEERS!” The whole crowd launched up any available drinks into the air as a way of celebration. Soon, they chugged down their Chardonneigh. I closed my eyes and sighed in content at the joy poisoning the air.

When I opened them, I almost fell backwards.

I didn’t see a crowd of ponyfolk. There was no sunshine. There was... no life. Instead, a blood-red moon shone against a black sky, tainting the area with crimson. The ponyfolk were nothing but rotting corpses littering the ground. The walls and floor were painted red with gore. Judging by the black smoke that swirled around the room, something was burning inside the castle, and the rancid smell of roasted flesh told me it was more bodies.

...what? What’s happening?

This is familiar.. this is the second time I underwent something like this.

I gasped in shock and shut my eyes tight, shaking my head back and forth to empty my brain of the images that bombarded my eyes. “No, no, no, no, no!” I shouted.

I felt something grab my shoulders from behind and shake me. I turned around and yelled in fright. The something was this... bizarre monster. He wasn’t like the old banished god Insanity, but he gave me disgusting chills like Insanity did. Red glowing pupils on a black background, bones tarnished and dirtied with age and dirt and debris, teeth so sharp and grotesque that even looking at them hurts me.

“PrAxIs?” the thing asked in a guttural, deep voice. “ArE yOu OkAy? SnAp OuT oF iT!”

*SLAP!*

The bony monstrosity slapped me across the face. I shut my eyes briefly at the stinging pain, but reopened them a moment later. I gasped again.

The monster was gone; in its place, however, was Jace, a worried look in his eyes. “Bro, are you alright?”

I looked around, to make sure that this wasn’t a dream. Nope; ponyfolk were alive and well, the red moon and pitch-black skies were replaced by Celestia’s lovely sun and blue skies. No fires, no deaths, nothing.

...well, except for most of the wedding guests staring at me in both concern and curiosity.

“Yeah, I think I’m fine,” I said at last.

“You think?” Trixie, who I didn’t notice was there, sounded skeptical. “Praxis, you’re not fine! I mean, your eyes! They just went... black! Both of them! Moreover, you started flipping out in public, and screaming at nothing! We’re worried about you, Praxis. What’s going on?”

I sighed. “I’ll tell you guys at a later date.”

“No, you’re telling us now.” Jace said as he dragged me offstage. Where, I have no idea.

“Ba-a-ah!” I bleated in fear. I then clapped my hand to my mouth in embarrassment. Trixie giggled at my mortification, but for only two seconds, since the situation was rather severe.

Soon, the three of us end up underneath the staircase of the Ballroom, where Twilight and Princess Celestia stood to greet the attendees of the Gala back at the season one finale. Jace started looking at me with a bit of frustration. “Now. Tell. Me.”

I gulped before beginning to tell the two what I saw. It took about a minute or two of explanation, especially since this is the second time something horrifying of this magnitude had happened to me.

“...Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen again and we can get on with the wedding.”

“Y-yeah,” I stuttered. “I hope so.”

“So what’s going on?” Trixie asked.

“We are dealing with some high level magic...” Jace started pacing back and forth at a slow speed. “Future magic, is what you saw. From something that wants to do that to this world.”

“I know. Even worse, something happened in the Everfree Forest this morning. I went into the Forest to get us some food for breakfast, and I saw another manticore. But this one was different. Its eyes were all black. After I killed it, I came back to the house, and Trixie told me that Riku had gone off into the Everfree to look for me. When I found him, he was pinned up a tree by a pack of timberwolves. Their eyes were also black. I almost lost my life on both occasions.”

“How did you survive?” Jace inquired as he stopped his pacing.

I dug my hand underneath my tuxedo and removed my flute, the silver swirl-engraved surface gleaming in the light.. “This thing isn’t just for plant life. I can use my bioharmonic magic on animals as well.”

“Well, whatever it was, the black eyes mean something.” He sighed and looked to the ceiling, crossing his arms. “Black eyes... Black eyes... Where have I heard of this before?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.” I answer honestly.

“Nor I,” Trixie concurred. I scanned Jace’s face for any emotions that he’s exposing. Usually, he’s just this endless swirling whirlpool of emotions, and while I was good at reading emotions like children’s books, his emotions were rather annoying and difficult to decipher and make sense of.

Now, however, the reading of his emotions were more facilitated for some unknown reason. I detected worry about me and my earlier behavior, anger about what was going on in Equestria, fear that someone could get hurt.

“Of course you wouldn’t, because you haven’t studied in the Tower like I had to...” He left the underside of the Ballroom’s staircase and walked out of the room we were in, back into the Main Room.

“See you in the hall, Praxis,” Trixie said, before briefly hugging me and turning tail towards the room. “Hope you get better,”

I smiled, the smell of the azure mare’s mane smelling like... fragrant oils, like what one would get from fruits, lingering on my nostrils. It wasn’t strong enough to make me wrinkle my nose in slight disgust, nor was it too faint that it left immediately. It was... inebriating. I liked it. So very much, actually.

...

Er, moving on.

I also moved to leave the room, ready to rejoin the group and recommence the party.

I was about to, at least... before I saw something out of the corner of my eye in the shadows of the staircase. It was odd. It was a figure of a human... but with four arms, wicked claws at the end of each finger, a strong build, three horns on its head, and a tall figure. It reminded me of what Slenderman’s black cousin would look like. Its yellow eyes glared at me before it just... vanished. Melted into the shadows, hopefully to never return.

It also said something to me. Normal people - or ponies - wouldn’t be able to hear what it said, and would pass it off as just indiscernible nonsense. I, however, did hear it. And I can tell you this... that what it said wasn’t nonsense.

“SoOn...”

I shuddered again. Not because that meme is so overused that “cliche” doesn’t begin to cover it, but by its voice - it was high, clear, and cold. Who was it?

What did it mean “soon”?

What would happen soon?

...Does this have to do with the weird future magic I’m suffering?

And if so... is death knocking on our door?

~End of Chapter XII~

Comments

[Fireeaters]

Moar!

[the other sans]

I detected worry about me and my earlier behavior, anger about what was going on in Equestria, fear that someone could

1. Unfinished sentence

[Deyeaz]

1630239
I detected worry about me and my earlier behavior, anger about what was going on in Equestria, fear that someone could get hurt.
Fixed it, mate. :3

1629592
And fret not! You will have more!

[ketcham9001]

looneypalace.com/img01/soon-meme03.jpg

[Deyeaz]

1630425

[TheEnemyCube]

Aaaah, One Piece. My friend showed me One Piece recently, and I'm just recently starting an anime obsession. On a side note, I will sometimes get obsessions that last about an hour or a day, to put in order a series of obsessions: Mercury, spiders, video games in general, the most random shit you have ever seen. Yeah. In order. So yeah, One piece is just one of two animes I'm gonna watch fully. One Piece, and Bleach. Time to delve back into the depths of anime!