Chapters Next
Close
The Beginning - Chapter 14,892 words
The Rebels - Chapter 23,188 words
The Struggle - Chapter 31,860 words

The Beginning - Chapter 1

My head... Where am I? Thats all I can think of, vision still blurry. I can barely make out a pond in front of me, followed by a dark tree line. I'm laying on... Grass? Just a moment ago I was in the city! How did I end up in a clearing in the woods? I rub my head and slide my hand down my face to help reorient my self. Although when I reach my lower face... I'll admit to a stubble but... Is that a beard?! I, albeit wobbly, rush over to the pond, blurring my vision more. I stumble through the clearing to the mudded banks of the pond, my feet slip out from under me. As I lurch forward and land in the shallow banks, the water splashing around me, my vision finally starts to clear. What I see... Whew

I see my self, same big pointed nose, circular head and all that, but... Is that a beard! Damn, I don't look half bad. A good full beard now graces my face, this is not something I expected to wake up to. Then again, I was in the city when I passed out, and I woke up in this random clearing in the woods... I can tell already this day isn't going to go so well for me. I get up from the slimy pond, pants soaking and dripping. "shit..." This was my only pair! As far as I can tell.

I begin to scan my surroundings to see where I am. Maybe I can spot a familiar mountain range or something in the distance? To the left... a spooky forest full of trees. To the right... Same story. I turn around and see... Are those people?! Yeah, two guys, face down in the grass. I step out of the mud surrounding the little pond and rush over the lush grass to the men. I kneel down to the one closest to me, and good God is he buff. Those are some thick arms... Holy shit, yeah the other guy has them too! I shake that thought and get back to work. I reach out to find this strange man's neck, and feel for a pulse. Holy Lord, I'm buff! I wasn't skinny before, but damn. How did this happen? Was I out for some time or something? Go on a gym spree in a hallucinated week? Whatever, I need to check on these guys. This one has a steady pulse, so I flip him over to make breathing a tad easier, just in case. I reach out and under to grip this man's arm and chest, and heave to flip him over. I turn him on his side and gently lay him down to get a good look on this guy's face. I take a rushed peak and... something about that guy seems familiar. I can't let myself wander, so I quickly rush over to the other guy before I get a good look.

This man is in much of the same predicament, lying face down in the green grass. I reach to his neck, find a steady pulse, thankfully, and flip him over much the same with the other guy. This time around, now that I know I can safely view them, I decide to do just that. This man also looks wholeheartedly similar to me... kind of reminds me of a friend of mine named Andrew... Wait, that is Andrew! Before I passed out, we were walking down a street, there was a light, and thats all I can remember. Except, there was Scott to, he was with us. Does that mean... I sit up and rush back to the other man laying down. I start to examine his face, and, I was right, he is similar. This is Scott! Why the hell are Scott, Andrew and me in a clearing in the middle of a forest? This is the only question on my mind, body alterations and what not can wait.

I lift my knee from the ground and stand back up, and walk to the center of the small clearing. I need to get a grasp on the location here, I need to figure out where we are. With this thought in mind, I trek to the tree line and stare at the ominous darkness. A wall of bushes lay in front of me, blocking my path to the rest of the woods, for better or for worse. This entire forest is eery, whenever I stare directly into the woods, I get a chill up my spine. Just a few feet into the woods is all I can gather, but its enough to give nightmares. The stacks of trees, mottled bark making the trunks indescribable from the darkness and shrubbery sorrounding them. These woods just give me a surreal sense of foreboding. However great my fear of the woods are, my sense of not being lost is much greater.

I decide to brave it out, and push the bushes outward, making a path, to which I step through. Past the bushes I get a feel for the land. The decades of decaying leaves and sticks cause my heavy booted foot to shatter twigs and crush undergrowth. The air is thick under the heavy leaves and branches meters above me. The shroud around me is suffocating, almost. The atmosphere continues to get worse the first few feet I go in. I look behind me to spy a glance at the still unmoving, but hopefully healthy bodies of my friends. At least that is a good sense of reassurance. I put my gaze back forward, and start moving. Ahead of me the constant form of ugly and twisted branches sticking out keeps me on edge, and i'm only a few feet in.

I glance upward towards the sky, or whatever cracks of light seep through the heavy layer of leaves. I try and spy a tall tree to climb up to get a good view point. After a couple of seconds, I spot a trunk slightly taller than the others. This one is full of malformed branches, plenty of vantage points to climb. The trunk lay a few meter ahead of me, so I begin the walk. Every step I take is heavy. I feel like there's a million pairs of eyes watching my every movement. I keep seeing forms in the darkness whenever I look to the sides, and however certain I am of it being branches and vines swaying whenever a light breeze escapes through these woods, I can never be certain. A few more steps into the woods keep me motivated enough as I keep closing in on the trunk.

After a few more steps, I am finally close enough to the trunk to reach it, although there is a slight... Inconvenience. Sorrounding the base of the trunk is... brambles? I would assume that is their closest relative, but these are unnatural. I guess it goes with every thing else in this god forsaken wood. The branches are thick, and the spikes leaking out from them are huge. Not to mention the abnormal rate at which they appear. The spikes are sporadic in the location, having a cluster of large and small spikes, and then have several independent spikes... great. Now I have to get over these.

I back track a few feet and scan the ground around me for thick enough twigs or chunks of bark I can use to my advantage. With the darkness of the forest however, it's hard to see anything at my foot level unless I got close, and that isn't something I want to do... What was that? I swear I saw something move in the tree line ahead of me. Okay, I can do this, I just have to find something to cover the brambles, not hard. I gaze back into the tree line and do a full 360 just to be sure. I get back to looking, taking a few steps here and there to cover more ground. The floor is full of dead and decaying damp leaves, and old bitter twigs and sticks, not close to strong enough to hold me. I look up to see a tree a few feet in front of me and... the bark looking eerily similar to a face snarling at me. This place really gives me the creeps.

However I notice, just above the snarling 'face', the bark seems to give out. Maybe I could ease it out and make a plank? Only one way to find out. I get close to the dark grey bark, and grip the exposed section. I slowly begin to peal it off the trunk, every time I make a noticeable pull, the bark snaps away from the trunk, making large creaking and braking noises. Whatever animals are close are hopefully scared away by the noise, unless they're drawn to prey... No, I cant think like that. Ill just make myself scared. I focus back into pulling the bark off the tree. After what seem like hours of excruciating timidness in my actions to keep the noise to a minimum, I finally have what seems to be the right enough length the carry me across the brambles.

With one final pull, I break the bark off the trunk, and with it a earth shattering crack. At least that's what it sounded like to my ears, too used to the quietness in here, even after the short time i've been in here. Bark in hand, I turn around and make another survey to make sure of... something not watching me. This forest is gonna be the end of me. I make the all to long walk back to the original tree. I size up the brambles once again, morbidly wondering what would happen to me if I were to fall in.

I shake those thoughts away, and smartly decide to get this over with and back to the clearing. I place the long plank of bark onto the mess of disorderly brambles. I put a bit of pressure to make sure of whatever little stability I would have walking on this thing. I give a sharp inhale, and take my first step onto the bark. It starts to break a little under my weight once I put my other foot onto the bark, but I quickly remedy this by moving my foot... to which the new location starts to splinter. I move forward quickly, taking two more steps before reaching the trunk. I wast no time in hoisting myself onto a branch, and bringing my self up and away from the mess of spikes below me.

The branches on this tree are... just nasty. They're hard and soft at the same time, whenever I squeeze them to keep a grip, what I can only hope is water secretes from them. I accept the fate as it is, and extremely disturbed by it, push on to to the top of the tree. After the long arduous journey, I finally get my freedom by breaking through the tree top. Before I do anything, I immediately take a large breath of fresh air, my lungs happy to be free of the forest air. After my breath, I finally gaze outwards to the landscape. I am greeted by a large mountain in the distance, flocks of birds fluttering by, being basked in the sun. The sun is about midday, so I wont be able to mark my position till a bit later. To my immediate left, there is a river reflecting the sun off of it. To the right, however, I notice stacks of smoke billowing up from the edge of the forest. Wait, thats the edge! We're that close, but this forest didn't give any sort of view! Curse these woods, but there's no time for such obscenities, I need to go wake Scott and Andrew before nightfall. If the woods are this bad during midday, I really don't want to see it at the dead of night.

After a longing gaze at the, quite frankly, beautiful landscape in front of me, I turn my head down and back towards the canopy. I duck back under the thick and floppy leaves of the forest and begin my descent downwards back to the base of the stump. When I finally reach the base, slightly out of breath of the fear of falling and my own unmanly fear of heights, I decide on no further delays to return to the clearing as soon as possible. I step back onto the plank ever so carefully to try not to shatter it, testing my luck at the same time. With one foot eased onto the bark plank, I slowly descend the rest of myself onto it. With both feet firmly planted on the bark, I take a step... then another. So far so good, I haven't died or been impaled yet so thats always a good sign!

A few steps from the edge, then i'm free. The bark is slowly splintering underneath me, and I have no idea how long it will last. I take another step, leaving about two before I can leap for my safety. Suddenly, a large crack in the bark appears under my feet. I wince at the noise before releasing a steady breath to calm down. "Okay, you got this, you got this..."
I say my mantra a few more times before looking back ahead in front of me. Keeping my gaze forwards I take a steady step, hearing the bark crack and splinter more behind me. Another step. I size up the leap, having rather to jump then risk walking more and the bark snapping out from under me. I take a deep breath... and another. I tense up, putting more pressure down to lift me off. With the plank slowly breaking under me, I quicken my pace, and after one long breath, I jump.

I land with a stumble, before falling forward and eating dirt. I shake my head from shock and spit out the leaves in my mouth. I feel violated after finding a worm on a particularly long leaf dangling off my mouth. Realization dawns on my mind when the same suffocating darkness surrounds me once again. Funny how you don't entirely feel it just above the ground. It's almost like a trap... I take a quick look around before I find the way I came, the stark contrast of sunlight breaking the tree line a few meters ahead. I take a couple steps forward, and hear a crack... somewhere in the woods behind me. I spin around to see... nothing. I'm wary, but decide to keep moving and get back to the clearing. If I see Scott and Andrew being eaten alive by the time I get back, ill be pissed.

I quicken my pace, a few steps every couple of seconds. Sparing a glance behind me every couple of steps, although every glance I take results with the same picture of nothing but the spooky woods behind me. Finally reaching the tree line, my heart pumping, I push the bushes aside once again and practically run through the small gap. I take another large breath of fresh air, feeling safer now that i'm out of the woods. I take one final glance behind me, staring into that dark forest of horrors before turning my attention back to the clearing, and my not eaten friends.

I've had enough of this, and I didn't even spend ten minutes in those woods. I plan to wake my friends and head towards those smoke stacks in the distance before nightfall. That's my plan at least. I take another look at this, quite beautiful really, clearing in the woods, then go to wake up Scott. As he is the closest, I will do anything necessary to wake him, so help me i'm not spending any more minutes than necessary in these woods.

I stride over to Scott, and take a knee next to him to attempt to wake him. I try to shake him, shaking more violently every second. With no visible effect on his sleeping form, I get down on my side, and start speaking right next to his ear... "YOU BETTER WAKE UP!"... Aaaand he didn't, of course. With limited ideas, I must resort to drastic measures. I grab scott by the arms, and begin to drag him to the pond. I push him up against the mudded banks, and proceed to grab his collar, and dunk his head in the pond.

I pull him up in a matter of seconds when I see him start to wake. I lift his head out of the water before he starts to kick away from me. I sit up and back away with my hands up for when he comes to. Suddenly, "Who the hell are you?!" Scott asks starting at me. "Wha-, wait never mind. It's me! Your friend who you've known since the first grade?" I stare at him with pleading eyes while he gazes with a confused look. "Wait wait... are you... Cullen? Since when did you have a beard?" He starts to stare at me with recognition, finally. "I have no idea, whatsoever, at all. But look at your arms, I'm not the only one who got altera- "Holy shit why am I so buff?!"

He starts to flex and unflex his arm, staring like a child looking at a candy shop. "Once again Scotty, I have no idea, i'm buff, Andrew's buff to" He looks up when mentioning Andrew. "Wait, Andrews here too?" All I offer in response is a thumb over my shoulder, to which he looks behind me to see his unconscious sprawled form laying in the grass. "Jesus, what happened?" He begins to walk over to Andrew, and begins to check him out. " I have no clue, I woke up here to you two lying right next to me. In fact, we should probably wake him soon, I explored the woods around here for a little, climbed a tree for a view, the forest edge isn't far from here." Suddenly me mentioning the woods gets him to look around. He gazes into the tree line, only to visibly grimace. "You went in there? All alone?" He seems disturbed, going so far as to step away from the edge of the clearing. "Ha, yep. and you should feel how it is inside, and you're going to, because I really don't want to see this place at night." This seems to draw Scott over the edge, "Yep, i'm with you". With the conclusion, we both haul Andrew up, and begin to carry him over to the pond. We proceed to do the same as I did with Scott, to the same results even. Andrew freaked out, questioned us, and marveled at his new mass before I gave him the run down on these woods.

"Well then lets wast no time!"Andrew seems as eager as me to get out of these woods. Scott and I eagerly concur with his sentiments, and begin to walk to the edge of the clearing. "Just so we all are aware... I have no idea what is in these woods, other than it's probably big, scary, and willing to eat us for their afternoon meal." This only seems to boost the fear of Scott and Andrew as they gaze into the woods. "To be honest, I expect no less" I hear Scott mumble. With little delay, I take a step forward and clear the path for them to follow into the woods. As they shuffle through the opened bushes, I give a longing look at the clearing for a final time before following Scott and Andrew back into this hell hole. The first few meters in, and I can already see Scott and Andrew visibly upset from the atmosphere, suffering the same as me. Scott more so, he seems to be a little more distressed.

As we walk forwards to safety for a few minutes, there is nothing but the eery silence in the woods. Soon enough there is a crack heard somewhere not far off, the sound bouncing off the trunks, making an echo effect. We all freeze when the sound reaches us and begin to look around. "It's probably just some local wildlife, lets keep going" I warn while having my eyes peeled. I can feel my heart pumping like a drum. We begin to start trekking again, this time with a slightly faster pace.

As we walk, suddenly theres a rustle in the bushes. We all begin to give that bush a death stare, waiting for something... Anythi- "What the fuck is that!" Me and Scott turn as Andrew warns us in a hushed tone. We see what he's looking at... Andrew is right, what the hell... There is a pair of sickly yellow eyes glowing in the darkness sorrounding us. I hear another rustle in the same bush as before, and when I turn i'm met with another pair of eyes. The pair almost seem to be gazing into my soul... I can feel the hunger radiating off of them. I notice another glow in my peripheral to only spot another pair of eyes. Then another close to that one. "Whatever these things are, There trying to surround us!" Scott says in a panicking tone

I turn back around to see a couple of pairs moving to surround us, closing in on the small trail we've been following. "Fuck this!" I hear Scott say, and when I turn I see him start to run down the trail, Andrew looks back to me to quickly follow suit. 'Might as well!' I exclaim in my mind, and follow Scott and Andrew. Suddenly, when Scott runs past the pairs of eyes, a large creature jumps out and towards Scott. It's moving to fast to get a clear view of the creature, other than it's a quadruped, and has a large maw full of, what I can assume to be, teeth. From my angle at the end of the group I can see the creature barely miss Scott, followed by a ripping sounds. I wince, but look to see the creature rubbing itself with a piece of cloth in it's maw when I run by it.

I follow Andrew as we sprint through the woods, foregoing the small trail we had, to instead smash through bushes and dodge trees to run away. I can barely see Andrew as branches and leaves constantly obscure my vision when I run. I don't know how far off the creatures are, but I can tell they're gaining, however effective the shrubbery is at keeping them at bay. My lungs start to burn as I begin to run out of breath, haggard gasps is all I can muster at this point. We've been running for minutes, from what I can gather, and the ominous thundering footsteps of the herd of creatures hot on our tails.

As we run the air starts to get hazy, kind of smoky, not really helping our breathing problem. Either way, we continue to push onward, hoping for some miracle to come and save us. A minute or two later, it seems we got our wish. As the air kept getting hard to breath in, it became clear to me, and likely Andrew and Scott as well, that this really was smoke. We soon found the discovery to said smoke as it became unbearable. I burst through a particularly thick set of shrubbery, only to find Scott and Andrew pausing in front of a wall of fire. "what the hell is this!" I scream as I look around trying to find a way over the wall of flames. "Over here!" I see Scott waving me and Andrew over to a still relatively unburnt fallen tree making a sort of bridge over the flames.

Seeing this, I rush over and join Scott, as he begins to climb up the fallen tree. Andrew helps him up, and Scott brings Andrew up, while I keep a watch on the tree line. "Come on Cullen!" I turn to see Andrew reaching his arm down to pull me up. I go over to him and reach out to him, grasping his arm. As I'm being hoisted up, I hear a crackling noise behind me. I take a quick glance over my shoulder to see the creatures have broken through the tree line, and are heading for us. I still cant make them out, the smoke blurring my vision, but I decide not to bother, instead to focus on getting away from them.

As I finally make it on top of the log, I look back at the pack of, what appear to be, wolves pacing at the base of the trunk. They were that close to getting me? Wow, a couple more seconds, and I wouldn't have any legs to be standing. I turn my attention back to getting away from them, and begin to walk across the log. The flames licking at my feet, the heat biting at my skin, this feeling couldn't be any more tedious as I try to keep balance on the log. Finally, I follow Andrews lead, and jump off the end of the log. I land with a stumble, but recover well this time, and pump my legs up and down to get used to the hot embers and ashes underneath my booted feet.

I regain my breath and regroup with Scott and Andrew, knowing those creatures wont cross the fire. I look up to see Scott looking forward, with a grim look. "What's up Scott?" I ask, and soon turn to look at what has his attention so thoroughly and... my God. What could've done this? "Hey guys! What're you looking at... Jesus..." Andrew walks up next to us, just as scared and dumbfounded as us. In front of all of us lies a slightly charred field on the edge, likely where the fire started from a couple of careless torchbearers, and in front of that is... is a group of bodies. Easily tens of bodies, all wearing mismatched and patched clothes, some of them even seem to have armor made from gold, or something close to it. Strange enough, all of these men and woman... Dare I say children, are all covered in fur, and have a snout protruding from their faces.

I don't know what these creatures are, or how they died, but... they have our sympathy. "Wha... What happened?" Andrew asks, shakily, not able to take his gaze away from the slaughter. " I have no clue..." Scott shudders at the sight. I remain silent, not able to speak. I just sit down and close my eyes, accepting the darkness. "Come on, we should get going soon..." I hear Andrew mutter. "Where?"..."I...I don't know...

"With all do respect General," The dark Unicorn says with a sneer, "I believe the best course of action is to catch them off guard by making them think they are winning a fight with a small force, while we bring a larger force around to entrap them and slaughter them!" The Unicorn ends his suggestion with a fist raised in the air. "I concur, I believe we could easily decimate there forces if we follow a strategy similar to that" Another Pony says, this time marking itself as a pegasus. The Unicorn graces his face with a smug smile as he leans onto the map laid onto the circular table, several locations marked by small red flags. Said table is sorrounded by similar Ponies of similar rank, all bickering over different strategies to confront the Rebellions.

"As amazing as that plan sounds General, I believe we should take a different course of action." A posh voice says. The owner of the voice steps out of a shadowed corner he hid himself in, making him out to be a Griffin. He has a long, sharp beak graced by a crack. His feathers are dark grey, all except around his deep yellow eyes, where black rings lay. "And what may that be, may I ask, General Grintail?" The Unicorn says in a sly remark. "Simple. We find who is helping the Rebellions, and take them. We will force the rebels to come out of hiding as we take away there source of soldiers, food, supplies, support, everything they hold dear." This short speech leaves the Unicorn stumped, unable to think of a way to defend his tactic. The other officers in the room fall quiet, thinking the plan over.

"I Believe I have had quite enough bickering for the day gentlestallions" A voice calls out from a dark stone throne, shrouded in shadow. Soon, a pair of ominous green eyes, secreting a purple mist are revealed. "As usual, General Grintail has provided a sound course of action, and a lesson to be wrought." The voice, dark and empowering, says as the eyes switch to the troublesome Unicorn General. All the ponies in order bow before making there leave out of the heavy doors. "Yes, lord Sombra" The Ponies all chant as they leave, leaving nothing in the room but a dark King, on his dark throne...

Author's Note:

And so another story begins...

This is an introduction to my planned "sombraverse HIE" type of fic. Please tell me what you think down below! I would love to hear any constructive criticism, as I only want to improve my story!

I'm happy to be back to writing, with a new story, new ideas, new drive, and more time to spare! I promise I'll be much more consistent with updates, and wont keep you all waiting as long as my previous fic. See you all next chapter!